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On June second, for five consecutive years, the ends of the earth had yielded up Phelan Harrihan; by a miracle of grace he had arrived in Nashville, decently appareled, ready to respond to his toast, to bask for his brief hour in the full glare of the calcium, then to depart again into oblivion.
If a shadow of doubt remained as to his identity, a score of prominent gentlemen in the city would be able to identify him. He named them, and added that he was totally unable to hazard a guess as to what form their resentment of his treatment would assume. The authorities looked grave. Could Mr. Harrihan remember just what articles he had left behind? Mr. Harrihan could.
Phelan Harrihan, as, with a soul wholly in tune with the finite, he half sat and half reclined on a baggage-truck at Lebanon Junction. He wag relieving the tedium of his waiting moments by entertaining a critical if not fastidious audience of three.
Harrihan resembled his dog, or whether his dog resembled him. That there was a marked similarity admitted of no discussion. If Corp's nose had been encouraged and his lower jaw suppressed, if his intensely emotional nature had been under better control, and his sentimentality tempered with humor, the analogy would have been more complete. In taste, they were one.
The old gentleman, fortunately, was spared all disappointment in regard to his irresponsible protégé, for he died before the catastrophe, leaving Phelan Harrihan a legacy of fifteen dollars a month and the memory of a kind, but misguided, old man who was not quite right in his head.
But his step lacked its usual buoyancy, and he forgot to whistle, Mr. Harrihan was undergoing the novel experience of being worried. Of course he would get to Nashville, if the train went, he could go, but the prospect of arriving without decent clothes and with no money to pay for a lodging, did not in the least appeal to him.
We are going to turf it twelve miles down to the watering tank, and sit out a couple of dances till the midnight freight comes along. If a side door Pullman ain't convenient, I'll have to go on the bumpers, then what'll become of you, Mr. Corporal Harrihan?" The coming ordeal cast no shadow over Corporal.
Well, here's one for me, and one for Corp, and keep the change, kid. Ain't that the train coming?" "It's the up train," said the station-master, rising reluctantly; "it meets yours here. I've got to be hustling." Phelan, left without an audience, strolled up and down the platform, closely followed by Corporal Harrihan.
He thought with regret of his well-laid plans: an early arrival, a Turkish bath, the purchase of a new outfit, instalment at a good hotel, then presentation at the fraternity headquarters of Mr. Phelan Harrihan, Gentleman for a Night.
The train began to move, and the conductor seized the woman's arms from behind and forced her forward. A moment more and she would be pushed off the lowest step. She turned beseeching eyes on the little group of spectators, and as she did so Phelan Harrihan sprang forward and with his hand on the railing, ran along with the slow-moving train.
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