Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 32, Number 107, 5 May 1907 — Page 7

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. By Saiirai Js2pfluflini2 Oayfleso

Copyright, 1907, by Thomas It. McK.ee. N ITS niche In the tiny hallway, the telephone bell began to ring violently. It broke the dark silence of the place, and brought Miller, who was smoking in the dusk, out of his reverie with an angry

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start. He rose, half felt his way across the room toward the hall, and the light leaped out suddenly as he reached the electric button at the door. The hall, like every apartment in Miller's snug quarters, was furnished with, every convenience, not excepting the inevitable telephone, whose bell was at the moment punishing Itself with a deafening clatter. Miller took down the receiver and gazed meditatively at the wall paper. "Hello," he said. "Is this Madison? Yes." "Is this Mr. William Lindlay Miller?" "It is," said Miller, anl his eyes lost their meditative stare. The voice was a woman's, and it was unusually sweet, with a soft magnetic quality that provoked an Instant interest- At her next words Miller stiffened with surprise. "It's really Billy! Billy Miller! Isn't it funny how easy I ! to get you on the wire. Until now you've always seemed so far away so absolutely unattainable." Miller frowned. "Who Is this?" he demanded sharply. The voice rippled a little! "Of course you'd ask that, but I can't tBll you because I'm no one you ever eaw or even beard of. If we do unconventional things, we must be careful. Call me "Nobody Nobody of Nowhere." There was a silence. Miller said nothing, because he was trying to think of something noncommittal and could not. Then "What are you doing?" said the voice, guardedly. "Looking up the number of the Bloomlngdale Insane Asylum.' "Nonsense!" There was another ripple of laugh, ter. Is any one there with you?" . "Only a dog,1 .but he's very intelligent. Would you care to speak to him?" "I'D CALL. UP EVERY NUMBER IN THE BOOK IF IT WOULD DO ANY GOOD. "No; I'm coming around. I shall be there in a few moments. Good-by." There was an unmistakable click. Miller grasped the telephone excitedly. "What!" he shouted: "Here, Central, dont cut me off. I want that party again. Be quick. You can't! Blame it, you oh!" Miller slammed the receiver Into the rack. He sat down on a chair, and a brindled terrier came and sat In front of him, and thumped a stubby tall on the rug. "Here's -a mess, said Miller, with, a wry smile. "Fritz, a lady is coming to see us an anonymous and uninvited lady. But she had a pretty voice." He went back into the smoking-room, where he straightened the magazines on the table and stacked the couch cushions in stiff man-fashion. At eleven o'clock he threw all the cushions at the innocent Fritz, and cast himself upon the couch in disgust. The evening had been uneventful, and he couli only conclude tKat some one had been trying to maka a stupid and pointless joke. It was some comfort to remember that they had obtained very littlo satisfaction over the wire. On tt third day after, which was a Sunday, Lofcarl. Miller's Japanese, woke him from his morning dors with a summons to the telephone. Miller went

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in bis bathrobe, yawning. "Hello," he said, crossly "Good morning, Billy." Billy jumped. "Of course you won't recognize me." T believe I've heard your voice once before." "Oh, that is nice of you to remember. One's minrf is often cloudy on Sunday morning, too. What dc you think?" "I believe you're a woman, so I'd best not tell you what I think," said Billy. "I suppose all this is some kind of a joke on me." Then the voice suddenly became so troubled, so earnest and so eloquent that Billy leaned, with a

quickened pulse, nearer the instrument. "Oh, please don't think that," It pleaded. "If there 13 any joke about this, it is all on me and it's a very miserable joke at best. I can't tell you what It is, and please don't try to guess. Did you wait for me the other night?" "I was home all the evening," said Billy, cautiously. "And who came?" "Nobody." "Nobody?" "Nobody at alL" There was a pause. '1 said I was nobody," reminded the voice, gently. Billy hung up with a slam and went back to bed. He tried to sleep, but could not. "I said I was nobody," repeated the voice, insistently. "Stuff!", growled Billy, and turned on his o'ther side. This was the beginning of Billy Miller's courtship a siege laid to his heart by an intangible, bodiless voice that said the most amazing things, and then clicked off into silence. It rang up every two or three days, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening, and very often in Billy's absence, as Lokari could have testified. At first Billy was annoyed, later he became resigned and then interested, so that at last he found himself listening eagerly for the telephone bell, and he cursed certain male friends who called him up and aroused vain expectations. He had relinquished the joke theory. It did not seem probable that any one would persist in a joke for six weeks, when there was no satisfaction to be gained. The owner of the voice told him thatjshe had wanted to know him and could find no other way. Billy began to believe her, but he was not a vain man, and wondered. He knew that these things happened to matinee idols and popular concert pianists, but he had never been anything more noted than the captain of a college football team four years before. There was no reason why a woman should seek him out with such a blatantly flattering statement. He felt the force of the flattery, though he succumbed less to that than to the personality in that soft feminine voice. At the end of three months Billy was in love. It was maddening to make love to an Inanimate instrument of wood and metal, and he rebelled fiercely. During some thirty odd telephonic interviews he had discovered nothing concerning the unknown but that she had cared enough for him to make him care ten times as much for her. At this stage in the affair he began to realize, in a measure, his utter helplessness. . The girl held every trump and the key to the whole situation, which was her own identity. She guarded that with the utmost care, and Billy did not succeed In gaining the smallest clue. Sometimes he wrestled wordily with "Central," and found that her call had come from one of the hotels on the avenue or a pay station on the upper West Side, but this knowledge did not help him at all. He felt that his position was ludicrous. She knew how he looked, knew where he lived, knew everything about him. He knew her voice-and that was all. He grew nervous and restless. He often flushed and started when a woman touched him in a crowd or when he met the eyes of some girl passing along the street. "I saw you to-day," she told him once as he stood glaring helplessly into the receiver. "You came out of your club and drove south in a cab. It was about four o'clock." "Just about that," said Billy, with a miseraDle laugh. "WTiere were you?" "Crosing the avenue half a block above." "Will you be there to-morrow at the same hour?" She gave the negative he expected: "You know I can't." "I know you won't," he said bitterly. Their Interviews had of late lost the more impersonal tone that had existed in the beginnln gr "There" had been a time when the theaters, current events and even the weather had furnished a topic for conversation. Billy put such subjects aside now with angry impatience. He argued hotly for his rights, and at tlme3 there was something that sounded like tears in the voice at the other end of the wire. Then the affair came to a crisis suddenly one day in early winter, almost a year after that first night when Billy had waited in vain for his unknown guest. She had laughingly reproached him for not recognized her in passing. "It was on Broadway," she said. "The girl was very pretty." "What girl?" "The girl with whom you were walking."

"My cousin," said Billy, bluntly. "She was too pretty for a cousin. I hated her." The voice lost its softness and rang a little hard. "I hate her, too at times. I hate everybody these lays because they're everywhere and you're nowhere." "Of course; because I'm nobody Nobody of Nowhere." "Will you ever be Somebody of Somewhere?" "No, never." "Do you mean that?" he asked earnestly. "Every letter of it, so please don't argue." "I cant," he said, hopelessly. "You're too unreasonable and illogical. "I'm not trying to be logical. I'm following my own instincts. I'll try to explain those, but you won't understand, because you're a man. Five years ago, when you were in college, I saw you for the first time. Some one told me your name and and things about you. After that I saw you a number of times, in different places. I wanted to know you, but I couldn't think of any way until one night this wicked old telephone tempted me. I was afraid at first and I thought and thought, and considered just what chance there was of my ever meeting you in the natural course of events. I decided that there was about one chance in a hundred, so I rang up your phone number and forfeited that chance. But ringing you up was an admission and I can't deny what it implied. Oh, Billy, can't you understand? I've made advances which only a man can make with any decency, and considering everything, I shall never.

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A SLENDER FIGURE CAME DOWN THE STAIRCASE.

never meet you face to face and say: "This is I." "You will," said Billy suddenly. "You'll meet me tomorrow at Dawson's Art Galleries." "Not to-morrow or ever." "I have something to tell you." "You must tell me everything over the wire. I can't meet you." "Very well. Are you listening?" "Yes." "Then It's just this: "YouH heve to consider me some in this affair. Perhaps you never anticipated the present situation. You saw me; and you cared enough for what you saw to make advances which, as you say, no girl should make. Well, I've only heard you; but I care enough ,now to be. ready, as soon as you will let me, to make the most serious advances a man can make. Do you understand?"' "1 I don't knew." "Then IH put it plainer. I've seen hundreds of girls, but I never wished to marry them. It's only since I've talked to you that I've cared to think what marriage might mean. I don't know who you are,

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wnere you are or what you are, but I'm staking everything on what I believe you to be. Now will you meet me to-morrow?" "I can't said the voice, faintly. "To-morrow," repeated Billy. "I can't I can't." "You must," he cried, striking the phone passionately. "Dear Billy, no, no, no, no." There was something that sounded like a sob and then silence. Billy dashed the receiver at the instrument in helpless rage. "Curse the foul fiend that ever invented this thing." he choked. "I'll break it to pieces. I'll have it taken out. I I here, get out of there," and he turned suddenly and kicked the howling Fritx Into the bedroom. Billy's nerves, were, for the moment, beyond his control. He pulled himself together with an effort, put on his coat and hat, and went out into the streetBut at every step he felt that those unknown eyes might be following him, and once, when a girl looked at him overlong, he turned and half spoke. The following afternoon he went to Dawson's Gal leries. Why he went he could not have told, except that he was moved as the drowning man Is moved to grasp at a straw. There he saw a girl In a big black hat, whose glance was softly impersonal. Billy looked. at her and wondered. There was another woman who returned boldly his bright, questioning gaze a tall, lean person with prominent

mmmsm "i-tJ eyes, and Billy shuddered as he turned away. "She can't be like that," he protested, inwardly. "It isn't possible, and he thrilled suddenly at the memory of the voice with the sob in it. "Dear Billy, no, no, no." I'd stake my life on that voice," he thought, and looked again at the girl in the black hat. Suddenly he threw back his head and walked across to where she stool, before a large painting. He leaned forward and 1-o-:ed keenly into her face. "So you came, after all," he said. The girl retreated in genuine surprise. There was nothing in her clear brown eyes but startled displeasure. "You're mistaken, I think," she said, and tcrned her shoulder upon liim. Billy muttered an apology as he walked away. Ke left the gallery with feet c!?rks. "It wasn't her vo'ce," he tuid tin-seif, "and I'll never try that aga:n." Late that night be left his club, where he had inei and spent the evening at cards. The mission clock

in his hall struck twelve as he closed his own door and hung his coat and hat upon the rack. , His ey fell upon the telephone book lying on a table under the instrument, and the sight of it brought back all his trouble with a rush. . He took It up, ruffling thin closely lettered pages with an unhappy frown. "I'd call up every number In the book. If It would do any good." he said, thoughtfully, and was about to put It down again when the bell began to vibrate close to his ear. He reached quickly for the receiver. He thought it too late to be she. bat her voice came over the wire, clear and eager, and his face softened visibly. "Billy!" "Hello; I didn't suppose It could be yoa so late. "I know It must be midnight, but I I wanted to speak to you." "I wish you'd want to do something more than, speak. I went to Dawson's this afternoon. Were you there?" "No." T believe you're the cruelest girl In the world." "Oh, no; I never meant to be cruel. I've ben thinking things over ever since our talk last even, ing." "Are you going to meet me?" 'No; I rang vp to say good-by. "What?" "Good-by, with a capital G, Billy for always." "Without my ever knowing anything more about you?" "I can't help It. I'm sorry, aorry, that T ever called you up. I never thought that you'd take roe seriously like this. But after what you said last night, we cant go on." "But you can't end It now after a whole year ofof " "Of what? Of nothing at all. You don't care for a mere voice. You'll soon forget all of It." . "I won't," he cried savagely. "It Isn't your voice I love. I know your whole personality. I can tell when you're sad or happy, or sick or well. You care, too. You said so. But if you ring off for always now I'll believe forever that you did this for a vile joke or a vulgar bet." "You can't think that.' she said gently, "when you remember some of the thtngs I have said." "Then I'll forget tbem." "Very well; I suppose that is best. Be a man and say 'good-by, Billy." "No." "Good-by." "Ill find you If I have to dig up every paving ston in this blasted town." "Good-by." "I tell you I won't say 'good-by'." v There was no answer. He leaned tensely again the telephone listening. "Dear," he cried, suddenly. Only the whirring of the wires sounded in Ills ears He stood erect and hung up the receiver, with a white face. In the small dark smoking room he began to pace the rug with nervous steps. He could not believe that she had rung off for the last time, yet he felt a chill fear that she had really done so. He flung himself upon the couch by the . window, and looked down upon the countless rooftops below, and the thousands of lights twinkling far up and down the river. . Billy Miller was courted no more over the te! phone. The clear girlish voice that bad beeri a friend to him for so long departed as mysteriously as it had come. Three weeks passed, and to Billy esch week was an eternity in which his soul hungered for the vibrations of a small bell. Socially, he was much In demand. He went to the theaters, to dinners, to receptions, and everywhere his bright dark eyes searched a sea of strange faces, and he returned home dissatisfied and perplexed. On an afternoon In January he stood in the lobby of one of the big hotels, where he had come to meet a friend. He leaned against a pillar, looldng idly up the wide marble staircase. It was late in the afternoon, and the place was thronged with richly dressed men and women continually passing from parlors to tea-room, and from the tea-room to the entrance doors. A slender figure came down the staircase, and raused at the bottom the figure of a graceful, wellgowned girl, whose eyes, shining luminous through her heavy white veil, rested upon Billy. He saw her hesitate a moment, then, with fluttering gesture toward her veil, she crossed the lobby, passing so close that she touched his hand. Billy's Angers closed ' over something. He opened them and discovered a square of white pasteboard, engraved in letters that flashed a woman's name upon his consciousness. It was not a name that he had ever known, but ho felt that every drop of blood in his body rushed to hii head at sight of the single word written across in pencil "Nobody." He made a rush for the revolving doors through which she had gone. The attendant reeled aside as he flung himself against the brass bar and it yielded, precipitating him down the steps. An electric hansom stood against the curb. A girl, who had just entered it, leaned forward with a slight Inclination of her head. He stepped in beside her, the doors closed, and the cab started forward in the crush of moving vehicles. . For a moment Billy sat motionless, while the lights along the avenue blurred red before bis eyes. H?s heart beat fast and he heard, ttie girl beside him catch her breath with a nervous sob. , He twisted abrcrtlr, causbt both her hands In one of his and, icanip? forward, raised her velL The electric light fell frtll en hr wide, pleading eyes and trembling lips. With a low. sat'sf ed laugh he leaned nearer. "Thank God. you can't ring off," he said.

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