Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les, F. Scott Fitzgerald
RAGS MARTIN-JONES AND THE PR-NCE OF W-LES
The Majestic came gliding into New York harbor on an April morning. She sniffed at the tugboats and turtle-gaited ferries, winked at a gaudy young yacht, and ordered a cattle-boat out of her way with a snarling whistle of steam. Then she parked at her private dock with all the fuss of a stout lady sitting down, and announced complacently that she had just come from Cherbourg and Southampton with a cargo of the very best people in the world.
The very best people in the world stood on the deck and waved idiotically to their poor relations who were waiting on the dock for gloves from Paris. Before long a great toboggan had connected the Majestic with the North American continent, and the ship began to disgorge these very best people in the world—who turned out to be Gloria Swanson, two buyers from Lord & Taylor, the financial minister from Graustark with a proposal for funding the debt, and an African king who had been trying to land somewhere all winter and was feeling violently seasick.
The photographers worked passionately as the stream of passengers flowed on to the dock. There was a burst of cheering at the appearance of a pair of stretchers laden with two Middle-Westerners who had drunk themselves delirious on the last night out.
The deck gradually emptied, but when the last bottle of Benedictine had reached shore the photographers still remained at their posts. And the officer in charge of debarkation still stood at the foot of the gangway, glancing first at his watch and then at the deck as if some important part of the cargo was still on board. At last from the watchers on the pier there arose a long-drawn «Ah-h-h!» as a final entourage began to stream down from deck B.
First came two French maids, carrying small, purple dogs, and followed by a squad of porters, blind and invisible under innumerable bunches and bouquets of fresh flowers. Another maid followed, leading a sad-eyed orphan child of a French flavor, and close upon its heels walked the second officer pulling along three neurasthenic wolfhounds, much to their reluctance and his own.
A pause. Then the captain, Sir Howard George Witchcraft, appeared at the rail, with something that might have been a pile of gorgeous silver-fox fur standing by his side.
Rags Martin-Jones, after five years in the capitals of Europe, was returning to her native land!
Rags Martin-Jones was not a dog. She was half a girl and half a flower, and as she shook hands with Captain Sir Howard George Witchcraft she smiled as if some one had told her the newest, freshest joke in the world. All the people who had not already left the pier felt that smile trembling on the April air and turned around to see.
She came slowly down the gangway. Her hat, an expensive, inscrutable experiment, was crushed under her arm, so that her scant boy’s hair, convict’s hair, tried unsuccessfully to toss and flop a little in the harbor wind. Her face was like seven o’clock on a wedding morning save where she had slipped a preposterous monocle into an eye of clear childish blue. At every few steps her long lashes would tilt out the monocle, and she would laugh, a bored, happy laugh, and replace the supercilious spectacle in the other eye.
Tap! Her one hundred and five pounds reached the pier and it seemed to sway and bend from the shock of her beauty. A few porters fainted. A large, sentimental shark which had followed the ship across made a despairing leap to see her once more, and then dove, broken-hearted, back into the deep sea. Rags Martin-Jones had come home.
There was no member of her family there to meet her, for the simple reason that she was the only member of her family left alive. In 1913 her parents had gone down on the Titanic together rather than be separated in this world, and so the Martin-Jones fortune of seventy-five millions had been inherited by a very little girl on her tenth birthday. It was what the consumer always refers to as a «shame.»
Rags Martin-Jones (everybody had forgotten her real name long ago) was now photographed from all sides. The monocle persistently fell out, and she kept laughing and yawning and replacing it, so no very clear picture of her was taken—except by the motion-picture camera. All the photographs, however, included a flustered, handsome young man, with an almost ferocious love-light burning in his eyes, who had met her on the dock. His name was John M. Chestnut, he had already written the story of his success for the American Magazine, and he had been hopelessly in love with Rags ever since the time when she, like the tides, had come under the influence of the summer moon.
When Rags became really aware of his presence they were walking down the pier, and she looked at him blankly as though she had never seen him before in this world.
«Rags,» he began, «Rags——»
«John M. Chestnut?» she inquired, inspecting him with great interest.
«Of course!» he exclaimed angrily. «Are you trying to pretend you don’t know me? That you didn’t write me to meet you here?»
She laughed. A chauffeur appeared at her elbow, and she twisted out of her coat, revealing a dress made in great splashy checks of sea-blue and gray. She shook herself like a wet bird.
«I’ve got a lot of junk to declare,» she remarked absently.
«So have I,» said Chestnut anxiously, «and the first thing I want to declare is that I’ve loved you, Rags, every minute since you’ve been away.»
She stopped him with a groan.
«Please! There were some young Americans on the boat. The subject has become a bore.»
«My God!» cried Chestnut, «do you mean to say that you class my love with what was said to you on a boat?»
His voice had risen, and several people in the vicinity turned to hear.
«Sh!» she warned him, «I’m not giving a circus. If you want me to even see you while I’m here, you’ll have to be less violent.»
But John M. Chestnut seemed unable to control his voice.
«Do you mean to say»—it trembled to a carrying pitch—»that you’ve forgotten what you said on this very pier five years ago last Thursday?»
Half the passengers from the ship were now watching the scene on the dock, and another little eddy drifted out of the customs-house to see.
«John»—her displeasure was increasing—»if you raise your voice again I’ll arrange it so you’ll have plenty of chance to cool off. I’m going to the Ritz. Come and see me there this afternoon.»
«But, Rags!» he protested hoarsely. «Listen to me. Five years ago——»
Then the watchers on the dock were treated to a curious sight. A beautiful lady in a checkered dress of sea-blue and gray took a brisk step forward so that her hands came into contact with an excited young man by her side. The young man retreating instinctively reached back with his foot, but, finding nothing, relapsed gently off the thirty-foot dock and plopped, after a not ungraceful revolution, into the Hudson River.
A shout of alarm went up, and there was a rush to the edge just as his head appeared above water. He was swimming easily, and, perceiving this, the young lady who had apparently been the cause of the accident leaned over the pier and made a megaphone of her hands.
«I’ll be in at half past four,» she cried.
And with a cheerful wave of her hand, which the engulfed gentleman was unable to return, she adjusted her monocle, threw one haughty glance at the gathered crowd, and walked leisurely from the scene.
II
The five dogs, the three maids, and the French orphan were installed in the largest suite at the Ritz, and Rags tumbled lazily into a steaming bath, fragrant with herbs, where she dozed for the greater part of an hour. At the end of that time she received business calls from a masseuse, a manicure, and finally a Parisian hair-dresser, who restored her hair-cut to criminal’s length. When John M. Chestnut arrived at four he found half a dozen lawyers and bankers, the administrators of the Martin-Jones trust fund, waiting in the hall. They had been there since half past one, and were now in a state of considerable agitation.
After one of the maids had subjected him to a severe scrutiny, possibly to be sure that he was thoroughly dry, John was conducted immediately into the presence of m’selle. M’selle was in her bedroom reclining on the chaise-longue among two dozen silk pillows that had accompanied her from the other side. John came into the room somewhat stiffly and greeted her with a formal bow.
«You look better,» she said, raising herself from her pillows and staring at him appraisingly. «It gave you a color.»
He thanked her coldly for the compliment.
«You ought to go in every morning.» And then she added irrelevantly: «I’m going back to Paris to-morrow.»
John Chestnut gasped.
«I wrote you that I didn’t intend to stay more than a week anyhow,» she added.
«But, Rags——»
«Why should I? There isn’t an amusing man in New York.»
«But listen, Rags, won’t you give me a chance? Won’t you stay for, say, ten days and get to know me a little?»
«Know you!» Her tone implied that he was already a far too open book. «I want a man who’s capable of a gallant gesture.»
«Do you mean you want me to express myself entirely in pantomime?»
Rags uttered a disgusted sigh.
«I mean you haven’t any imagination,» she explained patiently. «No
