As the taxicab drew up at the curb, Tish clutched
my arm and Aggie uttered a muffled cry and promptly
sneezed. Seated on the doorstep, celluloid collar
shining, the brown pasteboard suitcase at his feet,
was Tufik. He sat calmly smoking a cigarette,
his eyes upturned in placid and Oriental contemplation
of the heavens.
“Drive on!” said Tish desperately.
“If he sees us we are lost!”
“Drive where?” demanded Charlie.
Tufik’s gaze had dropped gradually—another
moment and his brown eyes would rest on us. But
just then a diversion occurred. A window overhead
opened with a slam and a stream of hot water descended.
It had been carefully aimed—as if with
long practice. Tufik was apparently not surprised.
He side-stepped it with a boredom as of many repetitions,
and, picking up his suitcase, stood at a safe distance
looking up. First, in his gentle voice he addressed
the window in Arabic; then from a safer distance in
English.
“You ugly old she-wolf!” he said softly.
“When my three old women come back I eat you,
skin and bones,—and they shall say nothing!
They love me—Tufik! I am their child.
Aye! And my child—which comes—will
be their grandchild!”
He kissed his fingers to the upper window which closed
with a slam. Tufik stooped, picked up his suitcase,
and saw the taxi for the first time. Even in
the twilight we saw his face change, his brown eyes
brighten, his teeth show in his boyish smile.
The taxicab driver had stalled his engine and was
cranking it.
“Sh!” I said desperately, and we all cowered
back into the shadows.
Tufik approached, uncertainty changing to certainty.
The engine was started now. Oh, for a second
of time! He was at the window now, peering into
the darkness.
“Miss Tish!” he said breathlessly.
No one answered. We hardly breathed. And
then suddenly Aggie sneezed! “Miss Pilk!”
he shouted in delight. “My mothers!
My so dear friends—”
The machine jerked, started, moved slowly off.
He ran beside it, a hand on the door. Tish bent
forward to speak, but Charlie Sands put his hand over
her mouth.
And so we left him, standing in the street undecided,
staring after us wistfully, uncertainly—the
suitcase, full of Cluny-lace centerpieces, crocheted
lace, silk kimonos, and embroidered bedspreads, in
his hand.
That night we hid in a hotel and the next day we started
for Europe. We heard nothing from Tufik; but
on the anniversary of Mr. Wiggins’s death, while
we were in Berlin, Aggie received a small package forwarded
from home. It was a small lace doily, and pinned
to it was a card. It read:—
For the sadness, Miss Pilk!
Tufik.
Aggie cried over it.
