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Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Strictly Business</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: O. Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April, 2000 [eBook #2141]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 4, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteers and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRICTLY BUSINESS ***</div> + +<h1>Strictly Business</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by O. Henry</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. STRICTLY BUSINESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. THE GOLD THAT GLITTERED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. BABES IN THE JUNGLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. THE DAY RESURGENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. THE FIFTH WHEEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. THE POET AND THE PEASANT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. THE ROBE OF PEACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. THE GIRL AND THE GRAFT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. THE CALL OF THE TAME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. THE THING'S THE PLAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. A RAMBLE IN APHASIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. A MUNICIPAL REPORT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. A BIRD OF BAGDAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. THE GIRL AND THE HABIT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. PROOF OF THE PUDDING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. PAST ONE AT ROONEY’S</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI. THE VENTURERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII. THE DUEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII. “WHAT YOU WANT”</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I<br /> +STRICTLY BUSINESS</h2> + +<p> +I suppose you know all about the stage and stage people. You’ve been +touched with and by actors, and you read the newspaper criticisms and the jokes +in the weeklies about the Rialto and the chorus girls and the long-haired +tragedians. And I suppose that a condensed list of your ideas about the +mysterious stageland would boil down to something like this: +</p> + +<p> +Leading ladies have five husbands, paste diamonds, and figures no better than +your own (madam) if they weren’t padded. Chorus girls are inseparable +from peroxide, Panhards and Pittsburg. All shows walk back to New York on tan +oxford and railroad ties. Irreproachable actresses reserve the comic-landlady +part for their mothers on Broadway and their step-aunts on the road. Kyrle +Bellew’s real name is Boyle O’Kelley. The ravings of John +McCullough in the phonograph were stolen from the first sale of the Ellen Terry +memoirs. Joe Weber is funnier than E. H. Sothern; but Henry Miller is getting +older than he was. +</p> + +<p> +All theatrical people on leaving the theatre at night drink champagne and eat +lobsters until noon the next day. After all, the moving pictures have got the +whole bunch pounded to a pulp. +</p> + +<p> +Now, few of us know the real life of the stage people. If we did, the +profession might be more overcrowded than it is. We look askance at the players +with an eye full of patronizing superiority—and we go home and practise +all sorts of elocution and gestures in front of our looking glasses. +</p> + +<p> +Latterly there has been much talk of the actor people in a new light. It seems +to have been divulged that instead of being motoring bacchanalians and +diamond-hungry <i>loreleis</i> they are businesslike folk, students and +ascetics with childer and homes and libraries, owning real estate, and +conducting their private affairs in as orderly and unsensational a manner as +any of us good citizens who are bound to the chariot wheels of the gas, rent, +coal, ice, and wardmen. +</p> + +<p> +Whether the old or the new report of the sock-and-buskiners be the true one is +a surmise that has no place here. I offer you merely this little story of two +strollers; and for proof of its truth I can show you only the dark patch above +the cast-iron of the stage-entrance door of Keetor’s old vaudeville +theatre made there by the petulant push of gloved hands too impatient to finger +the clumsy thumb-latch—and where I last saw Cherry whisking through like +a swallow into her nest, on time to the minute, as usual, to dress for her act. +</p> + +<p> +The vaudeville team of Hart & Cherry was an inspiration. Bob Hart had been +roaming through the Eastern and Western circuits for four years with a mixed-up +act comprising a monologue, three lightning changes with songs, a couple of +imitations of celebrated imitators, and a buck-and-wing dance that had drawn a +glance of approval from the bass-viol player in more than one house—than +which no performer ever received more satisfactory evidence of good work. +</p> + +<p> +The greatest treat an actor can have is to witness the pitiful performance with +which all other actors desecrate the stage. In order to give himself this +pleasure he will often forsake the sunniest Broadway corner between +Thirty-fourth and Forty-fourth to attend a matinée offering by his less +gifted brothers. Once during the lifetime of a minstrel joke one comes to scoff +and remains to go through with that most difficult exercise of Thespian +muscles—the audible contact of the palm of one hand against the palm of +the other. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon Bob Hart presented his solvent, serious, well-known vaudevillian +face at the box-office window of a rival attraction and got his d. h. coupon +for an orchestra seat. +</p> + +<p> +A, B, C, and D glowed successively on the announcement spaces and passed into +oblivion, each plunging Mr. Hart deeper into gloom. Others of the audience +shrieked, squirmed, whistled, and applauded; but Bob Hart, “All the +Mustard and a Whole Show in Himself,” sat with his face as long and his +hands as far apart as a boy holding a hank of yarn for his grandmother to wind +into a ball. +</p> + +<p> +But when H came on, “The Mustard” suddenly sat up straight. H was +the happy alphabetical prognosticator of Winona Cherry, in Character Songs and +Impersonations. There were scarcely more than two bites to Cherry; but she +delivered the merchandise tied with a pink cord and charged to the old +man’s account. She first showed you a deliciously dewy and ginghamy +country girl with a basket of property daisies who informed you ingenuously +that there were other things to be learned at the old log school-house besides +cipherin’ and nouns, especially “When the Teach-er Kept Me +in.” Vanishing, with a quick flirt of gingham apron-strings, she +reappeared in considerably less than a “trice” as a fluffy +“Parisienne”—so near does Art bring the old red mill to the +Moulin Rouge. And then— +</p> + +<p> +But you know the rest. And so did Bob Hart; but he saw somebody else. He +thought he saw that Cherry was the only professional on the short order stage +that he had seen who seemed exactly to fit the part of “Helen +Grimes” in the sketch he had written and kept tucked away in the tray of +his trunk. Of course Bob Hart, as well as every other normal actor, grocer, +newspaper man, professor, curb broker, and farmer, has a play tucked away +somewhere. They tuck ’em in trays of trunks, trunks of trees, desks, +haymows, pigeonholes, inside pockets, safe-deposit vaults, handboxes, and coal +cellars, waiting for Mr. Frohman to call. They belong among the fifty-seven +different kinds. +</p> + +<p> +But Bob Hart’s sketch was not destined to end in a pickle jar. He called +it “Mice Will Play.” He had kept it quiet and hidden away ever +since he wrote it, waiting to find a partner who fitted his conception of +“Helen Grimes.” And here was “Helen” herself, with all +the innocent abandon, the youth, the sprightliness, and the flawless stage art +that his critical taste demanded. +</p> + +<p> +After the act was over Hart found the manager in the box office, and got +Cherry’s address. At five the next afternoon he called at the musty old +house in the West Forties and sent up his professional card. +</p> + +<p> +By daylight, in a secular shirtwaist and plain <i>voile</i> skirt, with her +hair curbed and her Sister of Charity eyes, Winona Cherry might have been +playing the part of Prudence Wise, the deacon’s daughter, in the great +(unwritten) New England drama not yet entitled anything. +</p> + +<p> +“I know your act, Mr. Hart,” she said after she had looked over his +card carefully. “What did you wish to see me about?” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw you work last night,” said Hart. “I’ve written a +sketch that I’ve been saving up. It’s for two; and I think you can +do the other part. I thought I’d see you about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come in the parlor,” said Miss Cherry. “I’ve been +wishing for something of the sort. I think I’d like to act instead of +doing turns.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob Hart drew his cherished “Mice Will Play” from his pocket, and +read it to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Read it again, please,” said Miss Cherry. +</p> + +<p> +And then she pointed out to him clearly how it could be improved by introducing +a messenger instead of a telephone call, and cutting the dialogue just before +the climax while they were struggling with the pistol, and by completely +changing the lines and business of Helen Grimes at the point where her jealousy +overcomes her. Hart yielded to all her strictures without argument. She had at +once put her finger on the sketch’s weaker points. That was her +woman’s intuition that he had lacked. At the end of their talk Hart was +willing to stake the judgment, experience, and savings of his four years of +vaudeville that “Mice Will Play” would blossom into a perennial +flower in the garden of the circuits. Miss Cherry was slower to decide. After +many puckerings of her smooth young brow and tappings on her small, white teeth +with the end of a lead pencil she gave out her dictum. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hart,” said she, “I believe your sketch is going to win +out. That Grimes part fits me like a shrinkable flannel after its first trip to +a handless hand laundry. I can make it stand out like the colonel of the +Forty-fourth Regiment at a Little Mothers’ Bazaar. And I’ve seen +you work. I know what you can do with the other part. But business is business. +How much do you get a week for the stunt you do now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two hundred,” answered Hart. +</p> + +<p> +“I get one hundred for mine,” said Cherry. “That’s +about the natural discount for a woman. But I live on it and put a few +simoleons every week under the loose brick in the old kitchen hearth. The stage +is all right. I love it; but there’s something else I love +better—that’s a little country home, some day, with Plymouth Rock +chickens and six ducks wandering around the yard. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, let me tell you, Mr. Hart, I am STRICTLY BUSINESS. If you want me +to play the opposite part in your sketch, I’ll do it. And I believe we +can make it go. And there’s something else I want to say: There’s +no nonsense in my make-up; I’m <i>on the level</i>, and I’m on the +stage for what it pays me, just as other girls work in stores and offices. +I’m going to save my money to keep me when I’m past doing my +stunts. No Old Ladies’ Home or Retreat for Imprudent Actresses for me. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want to make this a business partnership, Mr. Hart, with all +nonsense cut out of it, I’m in on it. I know something about vaudeville +teams in general; but this would have to be one in particular. I want you to +know that I’m on the stage for what I can cart away from it every pay-day +in a little manila envelope with nicotine stains on it, where the cashier has +licked the flap. It’s kind of a hobby of mine to want to cravenette +myself for plenty of rainy days in the future. I want you to know just how I +am. I don’t know what an all-night restaurant looks like; I drink only +weak tea; I never spoke to a man at a stage entrance in my life, and I’ve +got money in five savings banks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Cherry,” said Bob Hart in his smooth, serious tones, +“you’re in on your own terms. I’ve got ‘strictly +business’ pasted in my hat and stenciled on my make-up box. When I dream +of nights I always see a five-room bungalow on the north shore of Long Island, +with a Jap cooking clam broth and duckling in the kitchen, and me with the +title deeds to the place in my pongee coat pocket, swinging in a hammock on the +side porch, reading Stanley’s ‘Explorations into Africa.’ And +nobody else around. You never was interested in Africa, was you, Miss +Cherry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not any,” said Cherry. “What I’m going to do with my +money is to bank it. You can get four per cent. on deposits. Even at the salary +I’ve been earning, I’ve figured out that in ten years I’d +have an income of about $50 a month just from the interest alone. Well, I might +invest some of the principal in a little business—say, trimming hats or a +beauty parlor, and make more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Hart, “You’ve got the proper idea all +right, all right, anyhow. There are mighty few actors that amount to anything +at all who couldn’t fix themselves for the wet days to come if +they’d save their money instead of blowing it. I’m glad +you’ve got the correct business idea of it, Miss Cherry. I think the same +way; and I believe this sketch will more than double what both of us earn now +when we get it shaped up.” +</p> + +<p> +The subsequent history of “Mice Will Play” is the history of all +successful writings for the stage. Hart & Cherry cut it, pieced it, +remodeled it, performed surgical operations on the dialogue and business, +changed the lines, restored ’em, added more, cut ’em out, renamed +it, gave it back the old name, rewrote it, substituted a dagger for the pistol, +restored the pistol—put the sketch through all the known processes of +condensation and improvement. +</p> + +<p> +They rehearsed it by the old-fashioned boardinghouse clock in the rarely used +parlor until its warning click at five minutes to the hour would occur every +time exactly half a second before the click of the unloaded revolver that Helen +Grimes used in rehearsing the thrilling climax of the sketch. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, that was a thriller and a piece of excellent work. In the act a real +32-caliber revolver was used loaded with a real cartridge. Helen Grimes, who is +a Western girl of decidedly Buffalo Billish skill and daring, is tempestuously +in love with Frank Desmond, the private secretary and confidential prospective +son-in-law of her father, “Arapahoe” Grimes, quarter-million-dollar +cattle king, owning a ranch that, judging by the scenery, is in either the Bad +Lands or Amagansett, L. I. Desmond (in private life Mr. Bob Hart) wears puttees +and Meadow Brook Hunt riding trousers, and gives his address as New York, +leaving you to wonder why he comes to the Bad Lands or Amagansett (as the case +may be) and at the same time to conjecture mildly why a cattleman should want +puttees about his ranch with a secretary in ’em. +</p> + +<p> +Well, anyhow, you know as well as I do that we all like that kind of play, +whether we admit it or not—something along in between “Bluebeard, +Jr.,” and “Cymbeline” played in the Russian. +</p> + +<p> +There were only two parts and a half in “Mice Will Play.” Hart and +Cherry were the two, of course; and the half was a minor part always played by +a stage hand, who merely came in once in a Tuxedo coat and a panic to announce +that the house was surrounded by Indians, and to turn down the gas fire in the +grate by the manager’s orders. +</p> + +<p> +There was another girl in the sketch—a Fifth Avenue society +swelless—who was visiting the ranch and who had sirened Jack Valentine +when he was a wealthy club-man on lower Third Avenue before he lost his money. +This girl appeared on the stage only in the photographic state—Jack had +her Sarony stuck up on the mantel of the Amagan—of the Bad Lands droring +room. Helen was jealous, of course. +</p> + +<p> +And now for the thriller. Old “Arapahoe” Grimes dies of angina +pectoris one night—so Helen informs us in a stage-ferryboat whisper over +the footlights—while only his secretary was present. And that same day he +was known to have had $647,000 in cash in his (ranch) library just received for +the sale of a drove of beeves in the East (that accounts for the price we pay +for steak!). The cash disappears at the same time. Jack Valentine was the only +person with the ranchman when he made his (alleged) croak. +</p> + +<p> +“Gawd knows I love him; but if he has done this deed—” you +sabe, don’t you? And then there are some mean things said about the Fifth +Avenue Girl—who doesn’t come on the stage—and can we blame +her, with the vaudeville trust holding down prices until one actually must be +buttoned in the back by a call boy, maids cost so much? +</p> + +<p> +But, wait. Here’s the climax. Helen Grimes, chaparralish as she can be, +is goaded beyond imprudence. She convinces herself that Jack Valentine is not +only a falsetto, but a financier. To lose at one fell swoop $647,000 and a +lover in riding trousers with angles in the sides like the variations on the +chart of a typhoid-fever patient is enough to make any perfect lady mad. So, +then! +</p> + +<p> +They stand in the (ranch) library, which is furnished with mounted elk heads +(didn’t the Elks have a fish fry in Amagensett once?), and the +dénouement begins. I know of no more interesting time in the run of a +play unless it be when the prologue ends. +</p> + +<p> +Helen thinks Jack has taken the money. Who else was there to take it? The +box-office manager was at the front on his job; the orchestra hadn’t left +their seats; and no man could get past “Old Jimmy,” the stage +door-man, unless he could show a Skye terrier or an automobile as a guarantee +of eligibility. +</p> + +<p> +Goaded beyond imprudence (as before said), Helen says to Jack Valentine: +“Robber and thief—and worse yet, stealer of trusting hearts, this +should be your fate!” +</p> + +<p> +With that out she whips, of course, the trusty 32-caliber. +</p> + +<p> +“But I will be merciful,” goes on Helen. “You shall +live—that will be your punishment. I will show you how easily I could +have sent you to the death that you deserve. There is <i>her</i> picture on the +mantel. I will send through her more beautiful face the bullet that should have +pierced your craven heart.” +</p> + +<p> +And she does it. And there’s no fake blank cartridges or assistants +pulling strings. Helen fires. The bullet—the actual bullet—goes +through the face of the photograph—and then strikes the hidden spring of +the sliding panel in the wall—and lo! the panel slides, and there is the +missing $647,000 in convincing stacks of currency and bags of gold. It’s +great. You know how it is. Cherry practised for two months at a target on the +roof of her boarding house. It took good shooting. In the sketch she had to hit +a brass disk only three inches in diameter, covered by wall paper in the panel; +and she had to stand in exactly the same spot every night, and the photo had to +be in exactly the same spot, and she had to shoot steady and true every time. +</p> + +<p> +Of course old “Arapahoe” had tucked the funds away there in the +secret place; and, of course, Jack hadn’t taken anything except his +salary (which really might have come under the head of “obtaining money +under”; but that is neither here nor there); and, of course, the New York +girl was really engaged to a concrete house contractor in the Bronx; and, +necessarily, Jack and Helen ended in a half-Nelson—and there you are. +</p> + +<p> +After Hart and Cherry had gotten “Mice Will Play” flawless, they +had a try-out at a vaudeville house that accommodates. The sketch was a house +wrecker. It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates a theatre +from the roof down. The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats, being dressed +for it, swam in tears. +</p> + +<p> +After the show the booking agents signed blank checks and pressed fountain pens +upon Hart and Cherry. Five hundred dollars a week was what it panned out. +</p> + +<p> +That night at 11:30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good night at her +boarding-house door. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hart,” said she thoughtfully, “come inside just a few +minutes. We’ve got our chance now to make good and make money. What we +want to do is to cut expenses every cent we can, and save all we can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right,” said Bob. “It’s business with me. You’ve +got your scheme for banking yours; and I dream every night of that bungalow +with the Jap cook and nobody around to raise trouble. Anything to enlarge the +net receipts will engage my attention.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come inside just a few minutes,” repeated Cherry, deeply +thoughtful. “I’ve got a proposition to make to you that will reduce +our expenses a lot and help you work out your own future and help me work out +mine—and all on business principles.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Mice Will Play” had a tremendously successful run in New York for +ten weeks—rather neat for a vaudeville sketch—and then it started +on the circuits. Without following it, it may be said that it was a solid +drawing card for two years without a sign of abated popularity. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor’s New York houses, said of Hart +& Cherry: +</p> + +<p> +“As square and high-toned a little team as ever came over the circuit. +It’s a pleasure to read their names on the booking list. Quiet, hard +workers, no Johnny and Mabel nonsense, on the job to the minute, straight home +after their act, and each of ’em as gentlemanlike as a lady. I +don’t expect to handle any attractions that give me less trouble or more +respect for the profession.” +</p> + +<p> +And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of the story: +</p> + +<p> +At the end of its second season “Mice Will Play” came back to New +York for another run at the roof gardens and summer theatres. There was never +any trouble in booking it at the top-notch price. Bob Hart had his bungalow +nearly paid for, and Cherry had so many savings-deposit bank books that she had +begun to buy sectional bookcases on the instalment plan to hold them. +</p> + +<p> +I tell you these things to assure you, even if you can’t believe it, that +many, very many of the stage people are workers with abiding +ambitions—just the same as the man who wants to be president, or the +grocery clerk who wants a home in Flatbush, or a lady who is anxious to flop +out of the Count-pan into the Prince-fire. And I hope I may be allowed to say, +without chipping into the contribution basket, that they often move in a +mysterious way their wonders to perform. +</p> + +<p> +But, listen. +</p> + +<p> +At the first performance of “Mice Will Play” in New York at the +Westphalia (no hams alluded to) Theatre, Winona Cherry was nervous. When she +fired at the photograph of the Eastern beauty on the mantel, the bullet, +instead of penetrating the photo and then striking the disk, went into the +lower left side of Bob Hart’s neck. Not expecting to get it there, Hart +collapsed neatly, while Cherry fainted in a most artistic manner. +</p> + +<p> +The audience, surmising that they viewed a comedy instead of a tragedy in which +the principals were married or reconciled, applauded with great enjoyment. The +Cool Head, who always graces such occasions, rang the curtain down, and two +platoons of scene shifters respectively and more or less respectfully removed +Hart & Cherry from the stage. The next turn went on, and all went as merry +as an alimony bell. +</p> + +<p> +The stage hands found a young doctor at the stage entrance who was waiting for +a patient with a decoction of Am. B’ty roses. The doctor examined Hart +carefully and laughed heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“No headlines for you, Old Sport,” was his diagnosis. “If it +had been two inches to the left it would have undermined the carotid artery as +far as the Red Front Drug Store in Flatbush and Back Again. As it is, you just +get the property man to bind it up with a flounce torn from any one of the +girls’ Valenciennes and go home and get it dressed by the parlor-floor +practitioner on your block, and you’ll be all right. Excuse me; +I’ve got a serious case outside to look after.” +</p> + +<p> +After that, Bob Hart looked up and felt better. And then to where he lay came +Vincente, the Tramp Juggler, great in his line. Vincente, a solemn man from +Brattleboro, Vt., named Sam Griggs at home, sent toys and maple sugar home to +two small daughters from every town he played. Vincente had moved on the same +circuits with Hart & Cherry, and was their peripatetic friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Bob,” said Vincente in his serious way, “I’m glad +it’s no worse. The little lady is wild about you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” asked Hart. +</p> + +<p> +“Cherry,” said the juggler. “We didn’t know how bad you +were hurt; and we kept her away. It’s taking the manager and three girls +to hold her.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was an accident, of course,” said Hart. “Cherry’s +all right. She wasn’t feeling in good trim or she couldn’t have +done it. There’s no hard feelings. She’s strictly business. The +doctor says I’ll be on the job again in three days. Don’t let her +worry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Man,” said Sam Griggs severely, puckering his old, smooth, lined +face, “are you a chess automaton or a human pincushion? Cherry’s +crying her heart out for you—calling ‘Bob, Bob,’ every +second, with them holding her hands and keeping her from coming to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with her?” asked Hart, with wide-open +eyes. “The sketch’ll go on again in three days. I’m not hurt +bad, the doctor says. She won’t lose out half a week’s salary. I +know it was an accident. What’s the matter with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be blind, or a sort of a fool,” said Vincente. +“The girl loves you and is almost mad about your hurt. What’s the +matter with <i>you</i>? Is she nothing to you? I wish you could hear her call +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Loves me?” asked Bob Hart, rising from the stack of scenery on +which he lay. “Cherry loves me? Why, it’s impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you could see her and hear her,” said Griggs. +</p> + +<p> +“But, man,” said Bob Hart, sitting up, “it’s +impossible. It’s impossible, I tell you. I never dreamed of such a +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“No human being,” said the Tramp Juggler, “could mistake it. +She’s wild for love of you. How have you been so blind?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my God,” said Bob Hart, rising to his feet, “it’s +<i>too late</i>. It’s too late, I tell you, Sam; <i>it’s too +late</i>. It can’t be. You must be wrong. It’s <i>impossible</i>. +There’s some mistake. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s crying for you,” said the Tramp Juggler. “For +love of you she’s fighting three, and calling your name so loud they +don’t dare to raise the curtain. Wake up, man.” +</p> + +<p> +“For love of me?” said Bob Hart with staring eyes. +“Don’t I tell you it’s too late? It’s too late, man. +Why, <i>Cherry and I have been married two years!</i>” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II<br /> +THE GOLD THAT GLITTERED</h2> + +<p> +A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and +then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. Therefore let us have +the moral first and be done with it. All is not gold that glitters, but it is a +wise child that keeps the stopper in his bottle of testing acid. +</p> + +<p> +Where Broadway skirts the corner of the square presided over by George the +Veracious is the Little Rialto. Here stand the actors of that quarter, and this +is their shibboleth: “‘Nit,’ says I to Frohman, ‘you +can’t touch me for a kopeck less than two-fifty per,’ and out I +walks.” +</p> + +<p> +Westward and southward from the Thespian glare are one or two streets where a +Spanish-American colony has huddled for a little tropical warmth in the nipping +North. The centre of life in this precinct is “El Refugio,” a +café and restaurant that caters to the volatile exiles from the South. +Up from Chili, Bolivia, Colombia, the rolling republics of Central America and +the ireful islands of the Western Indies flit the cloaked and sombreroed +señores, who are scattered like burning lava by the political eruptions +of their several countries. Hither they come to lay counterplots, to bide their +time, to solicit funds, to enlist filibusterers, to smuggle out arms and +ammunitions, to play the game at long taw. In El Refugio, they find the +atmosphere in which they thrive. +</p> + +<p> +In the restaurant of El Refugio are served compounds delightful to the palate +of the man from Capricorn or Cancer. Altruism must halt the story thus long. +On, diner, weary of the culinary subterfuges of the Gallic chef, hie thee to El +Refugio! There only will you find a fish—bluefish, shad or pompano from +the Gulf—baked after the Spanish method. Tomatoes give it color, +individuality and soul; chili colorado bestows upon it zest, originality and +fervor; unknown herbs furnish piquancy and mystery, and—but its crowning +glory deserves a new sentence. Around it, above it, beneath it, in its +vicinity—but never in it—hovers an ethereal aura, an effluvium so +rarefied and delicate that only the Society for Psychical Research could note +its origin. Do not say that garlic is in the fish at El Refugio. It is not +otherwise than as if the spirit of Garlic, flitting past, has wafted one kiss +that lingers in the parsley-crowned dish as haunting as those kisses in life, +“by hopeless fancy feigned on lips that are for others.” And then, +when Conchito, the waiter, brings you a plate of brown frijoles and a carafe of +wine that has never stood still between Oporto and El Refugio—ah, Dios! +</p> + +<p> +One day a Hamburg-American liner deposited upon Pier No. 55 Gen. Perrico +Ximenes Villablanca Falcon, a passenger from Cartagena. The General was between +a claybank and a bay in complexion, had a 42-inch waist and stood 5 feet 4 with +his Du Barry heels. He had the mustache of a shooting-gallery proprietor, he +wore the full dress of a Texas congressman and had the important aspect of an +uninstructed delegate. +</p> + +<p> +Gen. Falcon had enough English under his hat to enable him to inquire his way +to the street in which El Refugio stood. When he reached that neighborhood he +saw a sign before a respectable red-brick house that read, “Hotel +Español.” In the window was a card in Spanish, “Aqui se +habla Español.” The General entered, sure of a congenial port. +</p> + +<p> +In the cozy office was Mrs. O’Brien, the proprietress. She had +blond—oh, unimpeachably blond hair. For the rest she was amiability, and +ran largely to inches around. Gen. Falcon brushed the floor with his +broad-brimmed hat, and emitted a quantity of Spanish, the syllables sounding +like firecrackers gently popping their way down the string of a bunch. +</p> + +<p> +“Spanish or Dago?” asked Mrs. O’Brien, pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a Colombian, madam,” said the General, proudly. “I +speak the Spanish. The advisement in your window say the Spanish he is spoken +here. How is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’ve been speaking it, ain’t you?” said the +madam. “I’m sure I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +At the Hotel Español General Falcon engaged rooms and established +himself. At dusk he sauntered out upon the streets to view the wonders of this +roaring city of the North. As he walked he thought of the wonderful golden hair +of Mme. O’Brien. “It is here,” said the General to himself, +no doubt in his own language, “that one shall find the most beautiful +señoras in the world. I have not in my Colombia viewed among our +beauties one so fair. But no! It is not for the General Falcon to think of +beauty. It is my country that claims my devotion.” +</p> + +<p> +At the corner of Broadway and the Little Rialto the General became involved. +The street cars bewildered him, and the fender of one upset him against a +pushcart laden with oranges. A cab driver missed him an inch with a hub, and +poured barbarous execrations upon his head. He scrambled to the sidewalk and +skipped again in terror when the whistle of a peanut-roaster puffed a hot +scream in his ear. “Válgame Dios! What devil’s city is +this?” +</p> + +<p> +As the General fluttered out of the streamers of passers like a wounded snipe +he was marked simultaneously as game by two hunters. One was +“Bully” McGuire, whose system of sport required the use of a strong +arm and the misuse of an eight-inch piece of lead pipe. The other Nimrod of the +asphalt was “Spider” Kelley, a sportsman with more refined methods. +</p> + +<p> +In pouncing upon their self-evident prey, Mr. Kelley was a shade the quicker. +His elbow fended accurately the onslaught of Mr. McGuire. +</p> + +<p> +“G’wan!” he commanded harshly. “I saw it first.” +McGuire slunk away, awed by superior intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” said Mr. Kelley, to the General, “but you got +balled up in the shuffle, didn’t you? Let me assist you.” He picked +up the General’s hat and brushed the dust from it. +</p> + +<p> +The ways of Mr. Kelley could not but succeed. The General, bewildered and +dismayed by the resounding streets, welcomed his deliverer as a caballero with +a most disinterested heart. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a desire,” said the General, “to return to the hotel +of O’Brien, in which I am stop. Caramba! señor, there is a +loudness and rapidness of going and coming in the city of this Nueva +York.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kelley’s politeness would not suffer the distinguished Colombian to +brave the dangers of the return unaccompanied. At the door of the Hotel +Español they paused. A little lower down on the opposite side of the +street shone the modest illuminated sign of El Refugio. Mr. Kelley, to whom few +streets were unfamiliar, knew the place exteriorly as a “Dago +joint.” All foreigners Mr. Kelley classed under the two heads of +“Dagoes” and Frenchmen. He proposed to the General that they repair +thither and substantiate their acquaintance with a liquid foundation. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later found General Falcon and Mr. Kelley seated at a table in the +conspirator’s corner of El Refugio. Bottles and glasses were between +them. For the tenth time the General confided the secret of his mission to the +Estados Unidos. He was here, he declared, to purchase arms—2,000 stands +of Winchester rifles—for the Colombian revolutionists. He had drafts in +his pocket drawn by the Cartagena Bank on its New York correspondent for +$25,000. At other tables other revolutionists were shouting their political +secrets to their fellow-plotters; but none was as loud as the General. He +pounded the table; he hallooed for some wine; he roared to his friend that his +errand was a secret one, and not to be hinted at to a living soul. Mr. Kelley +himself was stirred to sympathetic enthusiasm. He grasped the General’s +hand across the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Monseer,” he said, earnestly, “I don’t know where this +country of yours is, but I’m for it. I guess it must be a branch of the +United States, though, for the poetry guys and the schoolmarms call us +Columbia, too, sometimes. It’s a lucky thing for you that you butted into +me to-night. I’m the only man in New York that can get this gun deal +through for you. The Secretary of War of the United States is me best friend. +He’s in the city now, and I’ll see him for you to-morrow. In the +meantime, monseer, you keep them drafts tight in your inside pocket. I’ll +call for you to-morrow, and take you to see him. Say! that ain’t the +District of Columbia you’re talking about, is it?” concluded Mr. +Kelley, with a sudden qualm. “You can’t capture that with no 2,000 +guns—it’s been tried with more.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no!” exclaimed the General. “It is the Republic of +Colombia—it is a g-r-reat republic on the top side of America of the +South. Yes. Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Mr. Kelley, reassured. “Now suppose we trek +along home and go by-by. I’ll write to the Secretary to-night and make a +date with him. It’s a ticklish job to get guns out of New York. McClusky +himself can’t do it.” +</p> + +<p> +They parted at the door of the Hotel Español. The General rolled his +eyes at the moon and sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a great country, your Nueva York,” he said. “Truly the +cars in the streets devastate one, and the engine that cooks the nuts terribly +makes a squeak in the ear. But, ah, Señor Kelley—the +señoras with hair of much goldness, and admirable fatness—they are +magnificas! Muy magnificas!” +</p> + +<p> +Kelley went to the nearest telephone booth and called up McCrary’s +café, far up on Broadway. He asked for Jimmy Dunn. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that Jimmy Dunn?” asked Kelley. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” came the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a liar,” sang back Kelley, joyfully. +“You’re the Secretary of War. Wait there till I come up. I’ve +got the finest thing down here in the way of a fish you ever baited for. +It’s a Colorado-maduro, with a gold band around it and free coupons +enough to buy a red hall lamp and a statuette of Psyche rubbering in the brook. +I’ll be up on the next car.” +</p> + +<p> +Jimmy Dunn was an A. M. of Crookdom. He was an artist in the confidence line. +He never saw a bludgeon in his life; and he scorned knockout drops. In fact, he +would have set nothing before an intended victim but the purest of drinks, if +it had been possible to procure such a thing in New York. It was the ambition +of “Spider” Kelley to elevate himself into Jimmy’s class. +</p> + +<p> +These two gentlemen held a conference that night at McCrary’s. Kelley +explained. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s as easy as a gumshoe. He’s from the Island of Colombia, +where there’s a strike, or a feud, or something going on, and +they’ve sent him up here to buy 2,000 Winchesters to arbitrate the thing +with. He showed me two drafts for $10,000 each, and one for $5,000 on a bank +here. ’S truth, Jimmy, I felt real mad with him because he didn’t +have it in thousand-dollar bills, and hand it to me on a silver waiter. Now, +we’ve got to wait till he goes to the bank and gets the money for +us.” +</p> + +<p> +They talked it over for two hours, and then Dunn said; “Bring him to No. +–––– Broadway, at four o’clock to-morrow +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +In due time Kelley called at the Hotel Español for the General. He found +the wily warrior engaged in delectable conversation with Mrs. O’Brien. +</p> + +<p> +“The Secretary of War is waitin’ for us,” said Kelley. +</p> + +<p> +The General tore himself away with an effort. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, señor,” he said, with a sigh, “duty makes a call. +But, señor, the señoras of your Estados Unidos—how +beauties! For exemplification, take you la Madame O’Brien—que +magnifica! She is one goddess—one Juno—what you call one ox-eyed +Juno.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Mr. Kelley was a wit; and better men have been shriveled by the fire of +their own imagination. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure!” he said with a grin; “but you mean a peroxide Juno, +don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. O’Brien heard, and lifted an auriferous head. Her businesslike eye +rested for an instant upon the disappearing form of Mr. Kelley. Except in +street cars one should never be unnecessarily rude to a lady. +</p> + +<p> +When the gallant Colombian and his escort arrived at the Broadway address, they +were held in an anteroom for half an hour, and then admitted into a +well-equipped office where a distinguished looking man, with a smooth face, +wrote at a desk. General Falcon was presented to the Secretary of War of the +United States, and his mission made known by his old friend, Mr. Kelley. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—Colombia!” said the Secretary, significantly, when he was +made to understand; “I’m afraid there will be a little difficulty +in that case. The President and I differ in our sympathies there. He prefers +the established government, while I—” the secretary gave the +General a mysterious but encouraging smile. “You, of course, know, +General Falcon, that since the Tammany war, an act of Congress has been passed +requiring all manufactured arms and ammunition exported from this country to +pass through the War Department. Now, if I can do anything for you I will be +glad to do so to oblige my old friend, Mr. Kelley. But it must be in absolute +secrecy, as the President, as I have said, does not regard favorably the +efforts of your revolutionary party in Colombia. I will have my orderly bring a +list of the available arms now in the warehouse.” +</p> + +<p> +The Secretary struck a bell, and an orderly with the letters A. D. T. on his +cap stepped promptly into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring me Schedule B of the small arms inventory,” said the +Secretary. +</p> + +<p> +The orderly quickly returned with a printed paper. The Secretary studied it +closely. +</p> + +<p> +“I find,” he said, “that in Warehouse 9, of Government +stores, there is shipment of 2,000 stands of Winchester rifles that were +ordered by the Sultan of Morocco, who forgot to send the cash with his order. +Our rule is that legal-tender money must be paid down at the time of purchase. +My dear Kelley, your friend, General Falcon, shall have this lot of arms, if he +desires it, at the manufacturer’s price. And you will forgive me, I am +sure, if I curtail our interview. I am expecting the Japanese Minister and +Charles Murphy every moment!” +</p> + +<p> +As one result of this interview, the General was deeply grateful to his +esteemed friend, Mr. Kelley. As another, the nimble Secretary of War was +extremely busy during the next two days buying empty rifle cases and filling +them with bricks, which were then stored in a warehouse rented for that +purpose. As still another, when the General returned to the Hotel +Español, Mrs. O’Brien went up to him, plucked a thread from his +lapel, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, señor, I don’t want to ‘butt in,’ but what +does that monkey-faced, cat-eyed, rubber-necked tin horn tough want with +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sangre de mi vida!” exclaimed the General. “Impossible it is +that you speak of my good friend, Señor Kelley.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come into the summer garden,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “I +want to have a talk with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Let us suppose that an hour has elapsed. +</p> + +<p> +“And you say,” said the General, “that for the sum of $18,000 +can be purchased the furnishment of the house and the lease of one year with +this garden so lovely—so resembling unto the patios of my cara +Colombia?” +</p> + +<p> +“And dirt cheap at that,” sighed the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Dios!” breathed General Falcon. “What to me is war and +politics? This spot is one paradise. My country it have other brave heroes to +continue the fighting. What to me should be glory and the shooting of mans? Ah! +no. It is here I have found one angel. Let us buy the Hotel Español and +you shall be mine, and the money shall not be waste on guns.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. O’Brien rested her blond pompadour against the shoulder of the +Colombian patriot. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, señor,” she sighed, happily, “ain’t you +terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +Two days later was the time appointed for the delivery of the arms to the +General. The boxes of supposed rifles were stacked in the rented warehouse, and +the Secretary of War sat upon them, waiting for his friend Kelley to fetch the +victim. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kelley hurried, at the hour, to the Hotel Español. He found the +General behind the desk adding up accounts. +</p> + +<p> +“I have decide,” said the General, “to buy not guns. I have +to-day buy the insides of this hotel, and there shall be marrying of the +General Perrico Ximenes Villablanca Falcon with la Madame O’Brien.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kelley almost strangled. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you old bald-headed bottle of shoe polish,” he spluttered, +“you’re a swindler—that’s what you are! You’ve +bought a boarding house with money belonging to your infernal country, wherever +it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said the General, footing up a column, “that is what +you call politics. War and revolution they are not nice. Yes. It is not best +that one shall always follow Minerva. No. It is of quite desirable to keep +hotels and be with that Juno—that ox-eyed Juno. Ah! what hair of the gold +it is that she have!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kelley choked again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Senor Kelley!” said the General, feelingly and finally, +“is it that you have never eaten of the corned beef hash that Madame +O’Brien she make?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III<br /> +BABES IN THE JUNGLE</h2> + +<p> +Montague Silver, the finest street man and art grafter in the West, says to me +once in Little Rock: “If you ever lose your mind, Billy, and get too old +to do honest swindling among grown men, go to New York. In the West a sucker is +born every minute; but in New York they appear in chunks of roe—you +can’t count ’em!” +</p> + +<p> +Two years afterward I found that I couldn’t remember the names of the +Russian admirals, and I noticed some gray hairs over my left ear; so I knew the +time had arrived for me to take Silver’s advice. +</p> + +<p> +I struck New York about noon one day, and took a walk up Broadway. And I run +against Silver himself, all encompassed up in a spacious kind of haberdashery, +leaning against a hotel and rubbing the half-moons on his nails with a silk +handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“Paresis or superannuated?” I asks him. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Billy,” says Silver; “I’m glad to see you. Yes, +it seemed to me that the West was accumulating a little too much wiseness. +I’ve been saving New York for dessert. I know it’s a low-down trick +to take things from these people. They only know this and that and pass to and +fro and think ever and anon. I’d hate for my mother to know I was +skinning these weak-minded ones. She raised me better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a crush already in the waiting rooms of the old doctor that +does skin grafting?” I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no,” says Silver; “you needn’t back Epidermis to +win to-day. I’ve only been here a month. But I’m ready to begin; +and the members of Willie Manhattan’s Sunday School class, each of whom +has volunteered to contribute a portion of cuticle toward this rehabilitation, +may as well send their photos to the <i>Evening Daily</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been studying the town,” says Silver, “and +reading the papers every day, and I know it as well as the cat in the City Hall +knows an O’Sullivan. People here lie down on the floor and scream and +kick when you are the least bit slow about taking money from them. Come up in +my room and I’ll tell you. We’ll work the town together, Billy, for +the sake of old times.” +</p> + +<p> +Silver takes me up in a hotel. He has a quantity of irrelevant objects lying +about. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s more ways of getting money from these metropolitan +hayseeds,” says Silver, “than there is of cooking rice in +Charleston, S. C. They’ll bite at anything. The brains of most of +’em commute. The wiser they are in intelligence the less perception of +cognizance they have. Why, didn’t a man the other day sell J. P. Morgan +an oil portrait of Rockefeller, Jr., for Andrea del Sarto’s celebrated +painting of the young Saint John! +</p> + +<p> +“You see that bundle of printed stuff in the corner, Billy? That’s +gold mining stock. I started out one day to sell that, but I quit it in two +hours. Why? Got arrested for blocking the street. People fought to buy it. I +sold the policeman a block of it on the way to the station-house, and then I +took it off the market. I don’t want people to give me their money. I +want some little consideration connected with the transaction to keep my pride +from being hurt. I want ’em to guess the missing letter in Chic—go, +or draw to a pair of nines before they pay me a cent of money. +</p> + +<p> +“Now there’s another little scheme that worked so easy I had to +quit it. You see that bottle of blue ink on the table? I tattooed an anchor on +the back of my hand and went to a bank and told ’em I was Admiral +Dewey’s nephew. They offered to cash my draft on him for a thousand, but +I didn’t know my uncle’s first name. It shows, though, what an easy +town it is. As for burglars, they won’t go in a house now unless +there’s a hot supper ready and a few college students to wait on +’em. They’re slugging citizens all over the upper part of the city +and I guess, taking the town from end to end, it’s a plain case of +assault and Battery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monty,” says I, when Silver had slacked, up, “you may have +Manhattan correctly discriminated in your perorative, but I doubt it. +I’ve only been in town two hours, but it don’t dawn upon me that +it’s ours with a cherry in it. There ain’t enough rus in urbe about +it to suit me. I’d be a good deal much better satisfied if the citizens +had a straw or more in their hair, and run more to velveteen vests and buckeye +watch charms. They don’t look easy to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got it, Billy,” says Silver. “All emigrants +have it. New York’s bigger than Little Rock or Europe, and it frightens a +foreigner. You’ll be all right. I tell you I feel like slapping the +people here because they don’t send me all their money in laundry +baskets, with germicide sprinkled over it. I hate to go down on the street to +get it. Who wears the diamonds in this town? Why, Winnie, the +Wiretapper’s wife, and Bella, the Buncosteerer’s bride. New Yorkers +can be worked easier than a blue rose on a tidy. The only thing that bothers me +is I know I’ll break the cigars in my vest pocket when I get my clothes +all full of twenties.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you are right, Monty,” says I; “but I wish all the +same I had been satisfied with a small business in Little Rock. The crop of +farmers is never so short out there but what you can get a few of ’em to +sign a petition for a new post office that you can discount for $200 at the +county bank. The people here appear to possess instincts of self-preservation +and illiberality. I fear me that we are not cultured enough to tackle this +game.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t worry,” says Silver. “I’ve got this +Jayville-near-Tarrytown correctly estimated as sure as North River is the +Hudson and East River ain’t a river. Why, there are people living in four +blocks of Broadway who never saw any kind of a building except a skyscraper in +their lives! A good, live hustling Western man ought to get conspicuous enough +here inside of three months to incur either Jerome’s clemency or +Lawson’s displeasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyperbole aside,” says I, “do you know of any immediate +system of buncoing the community out of a dollar or two except by applying to +the Salvation Army or having a fit on Miss Helen Gould’s +doorsteps?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dozens of ’em,” says Silver. “How much capital have +you got, Billy?” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand,” I told him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got $1,200,” says he. “We’ll pool and do a +big piece of business. There’s so many ways we can make a million that I +don’t know how to begin.” +</p> + +<p> +The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous and +stirred with a kind of silent joy. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re to meet J. P. Morgan this afternoon,” says he. +“A man I know in the hotel wants to introduce us. He’s a friend of +his. He says he likes to meet people from the West.” +</p> + +<p> +“That sounds nice and plausible,” says I. “I’d like to +know Mr. Morgan.” +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t hurt us a bit,” says Silver, “to get +acquainted with a few finance kings. I kind of like the social way New York has +with strangers.” +</p> + +<p> +The man Silver knew was named Klein. At three o’clock Klein brought his +Wall Street friend to see us in Silver’s room. “Mr. Morgan” +looked some like his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his +left foot, and he walked with a cane. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Silver and Mr. Pescud,” says Klein. “It sounds +superfluous,” says he, “to mention the name of the greatest +financial—” +</p> + +<p> +“Cut it out, Klein,” says Mr. Morgan. “I’m glad to know +you gents; I take great interest in the West. Klein tells me you’re from +Little Rock. I think I’ve a railroad or two out there somewhere. If +either of you guys would like to deal a hand or two of stud poker +I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Pierpont,” cuts in Klein, “you forget!” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, gents!” says Morgan; “since I’ve had the +gout so bad I sometimes play a social game of cards at my house. Neither of you +never knew One-eyed Peters, did you, while you was around Little Rock? He lived +in Seattle, New Mexico.” +</p> + +<p> +Before we could answer, Mr. Morgan hammers on the floor with his cane and +begins to walk up and down, swearing in a loud tone of voice. +</p> + +<p> +“They have been pounding your stocks to-day on the Street, +Pierpont?” asks Klein, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Stocks! No!” roars Mr. Morgan. “It’s that picture I +sent an agent to Europe to buy. I just thought about it. He cabled me to-day +that it ain’t to be found in all Italy. I’d pay $50,000 to-morrow +for that picture—yes, $75,000. I give the agent a la carte in purchasing +it. I cannot understand why the art galleries will allow a De Vinchy +to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Morgan,” says Klein; “I thought you owned all of +the De Vinchy paintings.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the picture like, Mr. Morgan?” asks Silver. “It must +be as big as the side of the Flatiron Building.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid your art education is on the bum, Mr. Silver,” +says Morgan. “The picture is 27 inches by 42; and it is called +‘Love’s Idle Hour.’ It represents a number of cloak models +doing the two-step on the bank of a purple river. The cablegram said it might +have been brought to this country. My collection will never be complete without +that picture. Well, so long, gents; us financiers must keep early hours.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Morgan and Klein went away together in a cab. Me and Silver talked about +how simple and unsuspecting great people was; and Silver said what a shame it +would be to try to rob a man like Mr. Morgan; and I said I thought it would be +rather imprudent, myself. Klein proposes a stroll after dinner; and me and him +and Silver walks down toward Seventh Avenue to see the sights. Klein sees a +pair of cuff links that instigate his admiration in a pawnshop window, and we +all go in while he buys ’em. +</p> + +<p> +After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone, Silver jumps at me and waves +his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see it?” says he. “Did you see it, Billy?” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that picture that Morgan wants. It’s hanging in that +pawnshop, behind the desk. I didn’t say anything because Klein was there. +It’s the article sure as you live. The girls are as natural as paint can +make them, all measuring 36 and 25 and 42 skirts, if they had any skirts, and +they’re doing a buck-and-wing on the bank of a river with the blues. What +did Mr. Morgan say he’d give for it? Oh, don’t make me tell you. +They can’t know what it is in that pawnshop.” +</p> + +<p> +When the pawnshop opened the next morning me and Silver was standing there as +anxious as if we wanted to soak our Sunday suit to buy a drink. We sauntered +inside, and began to look at watch-chains. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a violent specimen of a chromo you’ve got up +there,” remarked Silver, casual, to the pawnbroker. “But I kind of +enthuse over the girl with the shoulder-blades and red bunting. Would an offer +of $2.25 for it cause you to knock over any fragile articles of your stock in +hurrying it off the nail?” +</p> + +<p> +The pawnbroker smiles and goes on showing us plate watch-chains. +</p> + +<p> +“That picture,” says he, “was pledged a year ago by an +Italian gentleman. I loaned him $500 on it. It is called ‘Love’s +Idle Hour,’ and it is by Leonardo de Vinchy. Two days ago the legal time +expired, and it became an unredeemed pledge. Here is a style of chain that is +worn a great deal now.” +</p> + +<p> +At the end of half an hour me and Silver paid the pawnbroker $2,000 and walked +out with the picture. Silver got into a cab with it and started for +Morgan’s office. I goes to the hotel and waits for him. In two hours +Silver comes back. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see Mr. Morgan?” I asks. “How much did he pay you +for it?” +</p> + +<p> +Silver sits down and fools with a tassel on the table cover. +</p> + +<p> +“I never exactly saw Mr. Morgan,” he says, “because Mr. +Morgan’s been in Europe for a month. But what’s worrying me, Billy, +is this: The department stores have all got that same picture on sale, framed, +for $3.48. And they charge $3.50 for the frame alone—that’s what I +can’t understand.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV<br /> +THE DAY RESURGENT</h2> + +<p> +I can see the artist bite the end of his pencil and frown when it comes to +drawing his Easter picture; for his legitimate pictorial conceptions of figures +pertinent to the festival are but four in number. +</p> + +<p> +First comes Easter, pagan goddess of spring. Here his fancy may have free play. +A beautiful maiden with decorative hair and the proper number of toes will fill +the bill. Miss Clarice St. Vavasour, the well-known model, will pose for it in +the “Lethergogallagher,” or whatever it was that Trilby called it. +</p> + +<p> +Second—the melancholy lady with upturned eyes in a framework of lilies. +This is magazine-covery, but reliable. +</p> + +<p> +Third—Miss Manhattan in the Fifth Avenue Easter Sunday parade. +</p> + +<p> +Fourth—Maggie Murphy with a new red feather in her old straw hat, happy +and self-conscious, in the Grand Street turnout. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the rabbits do not count. Nor the Easter eggs, since the higher +criticism has hard-boiled them. +</p> + +<p> +The limited field of its pictorial possibilities proves that Easter, of all our +festival days, is the most vague and shifting in our conception. It belongs to +all religions, although the pagans invented it. Going back still further to the +first spring, we can see Eve choosing with pride a new green leaf from the tree +<i>ficus carica</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Now, the object of this critical and learned preamble is to set forth the +theorem that Easter is neither a date, a season, a festival, a holiday nor an +occasion. What it is you shall find out if you follow in the footsteps of Danny +McCree. +</p> + +<p> +Easter Sunday dawned as it should, bright and early, in its place on the +calendar between Saturday and Monday. At 5.24 the sun rose, and at 10.30 Danny +followed its example. He went into the kitchen and washed his face at the sink. +His mother was frying bacon. She looked at his hard, smooth, knowing +countenance as he juggled with the round cake of soap, and thought of his +father when she first saw him stopping a hot grounder between second and third +twenty-two years before on a vacant lot in Harlem, where the La Paloma +apartment house now stands. In the front room of the flat Danny’s father +sat by an open window smoking his pipe, with his dishevelled gray hair tossed +about by the breeze. He still clung to his pipe, although his sight had been +taken from him two years before by a precocious blast of giant powder that went +off without permission. Very few blind men care for smoking, for the reason +that they cannot see the smoke. Now, could you enjoy having the news read to +you from an evening newspaper unless you could see the colors of the headlines? +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis Easter Day,” said Mrs. McCree. +</p> + +<p> +“Scramble mine,” said Danny. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast he dressed himself in the Sabbath morning costume of the Canal +Street importing house dray chauffeur—frock coat, striped trousers, +patent leathers, gilded trace chain across front of vest, and wing collar, +rolled-brim derby and butterfly bow from Schonstein’s (between Fourteenth +Street and Tony’s fruit stand) Saturday night sale. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be goin’ out this day, of course, Danny,” said +old man McCree, a little wistfully. “’Tis a kind of holiday, they +say. Well, it’s fine spring weather. I can feel it in the air.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I not be going out?” demanded Danny in his grumpiest +chest tones. “Should I stay in? Am I as good as a horse? One day of rest +my team has a week. Who earns the money for the rent and the breakfast +you’ve just eat, I’d like to know? Answer me that!” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, lad,” said the old man. “I’m not +complainin’. While me two eyes was good there was nothin’ better to +my mind than a Sunday out. There’s a smell of turf and burnin’ +brush comin’ in the windy. I have me tobaccy. A good fine day and rist to +ye, lad. Times I wish your mother had larned to read, so I might hear the rest +about the hippopotamus—but let that be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what is this foolishness he talks of hippopotamuses?” asked +Danny of his mother, as he passed through the kitchen. “Have you been +taking him to the Zoo? And for what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not,” said Mrs. McCree. “He sets by the windy all +day. ’Tis little recreation a blind man among the poor gets at all. +I’m thinkin’ they wander in their minds at times. One day he talks +of grease without stoppin’ for the most of an hour. I looks to see if +there’s lard burnin’ in the fryin’ pan. There is not. He says +I do not understand. ’Tis weary days, Sundays, and holidays and all, for +a blind man, Danny. There was no better nor stronger than him when he had his +two eyes. ’Tis a fine day, son. Injoy yeself ag’inst the morning. +There will be cold supper at six.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you heard any talk of a hippopotamus?” asked Danny of Mike, +the janitor, as he went out the door downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not,” said Mike, pulling his shirtsleeves higher. +“But ’tis the only subject in the animal, natural and illegal lists +of outrages that I’ve not been complained to about these two days. See +the landlord. Or else move out if ye like. Have ye hippopotamuses in the lease? +No, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the old man who spoke of it,” said Danny. “Likely +there’s nothing in it.” +</p> + +<p> +Danny walked up the street to the Avenue and then struck northward into the +heart of the district where Easter—modern Easter, in new, bright +raiment—leads the pascal march. Out of towering brown churches came the +blithe music of anthems from the choirs. The broad sidewalks were moving +parterres of living flowers—so it seemed when your eye looked upon the +Easter girl. +</p> + +<p> +Gentlemen, frock-coated, silk-hatted, gardeniaed, sustained the background of +the tradition. Children carried lilies in their hands. The windows of the +brownstone mansions were packed with the most opulent creations of Flora, the +sister of the Lady of the Lilies. +</p> + +<p> +Around a corner, white-gloved, pink-gilled and tightly buttoned, walked +Corrigan, the cop, shield to the curb. Danny knew him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Corrigan,” he asked, “is Easter? I know it comes the +first time you’re full after the moon rises on the seventeenth of +March—but why? Is it a proper and religious ceremony, or does the +Governor appoint it out of politics?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis an annual celebration,” said Corrigan, with the +judicial air of the Third Deputy Police Commissioner, “peculiar to New +York. It extends up to Harlem. Sometimes they has the reserves out at One +Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. In my opinion ’tis not political.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Danny. “And say—did you ever hear a man +complain of hippopotamuses? When not specially in drink, I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing larger than sea turtles,” said Corrigan, reflecting, +“and there was wood alcohol in that.” +</p> + +<p> +Danny wandered. The double, heavy incumbency of enjoying simultaneously a +Sunday and a festival day was his. +</p> + +<p> +The sorrows of the hand-toiler fit him easily. They are worn so often that they +hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-made garments. That is why +well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in the griefs of the common people +their most striking models. But when the Philistine would disport himself, the +grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set +his jaw hard at Easter, and took his pleasure sadly. +</p> + +<p> +The family entrance of Dugan’s café was feasible; so Danny yielded +to the vernal season as far as a glass of bock. Seated in a dark, linoleumed, +humid back room, his heart and mind still groped after the mysterious meaning +of the springtime jubilee. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Tim,” he said to the waiter, “why do they have +Easter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Skiddoo!” said Tim, closing a sophisticated eye. “Is that a +new one? All right. Tony Pastor’s for you last night, I guess. I give it +up. What’s the answer—two apples or a yard and a half?” +</p> + +<p> +From Dugan’s Danny turned back eastward. The April sun seemed to stir in +him a vague feeling that he could not construe. He made a wrong diagnosis and +decided that it was Katy Conlon. +</p> + +<p> +A block from her house on Avenue A he met her going to church. They pumped +hands on the corner. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! but you look dumpish and dressed up,” said Katy. +“What’s wrong? Come away with me to church and be cheerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s doing at church?” asked Danny. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s Easter Sunday. Silly! I waited till after eleven +expectin’ you might come around to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does this Easter stand for, Katy,” asked Danny gloomily. +“Nobody seems to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody as blind as you,” said Katy with spirit. “You +haven’t even looked at my new hat. And skirt. Why, it’s when all +the girls put on new spring clothes. Silly! Are you coming to church with +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said Danny. “If this Easter is pulled off there, +they ought to be able to give some excuse for it. Not that the hat ain’t +a beauty. The green roses are great.” +</p> + +<p> +At church the preacher did some expounding with no pounding. He spoke rapidly, +for he was in a hurry to get home to his early Sabbath dinner; but he knew his +business. There was one word that controlled his theme—resurrection. Not +a new creation; but a new life arising out of the old. The congregation had +heard it often before. But there was a wonderful hat, a combination of sweet +peas and lavender, in the sixth pew from the pulpit. It attracted much +attention. +</p> + +<p> +After church Danny lingered on a corner while Katy waited, with pique in her +sky-blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you coming along to the house?” she asked. “But +don’t mind me. I’ll get there all right. You seem to be +studyin’ a lot about something. All right. Will I see you at any time +specially, Mr. McCree?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be around Wednesday night as usual,” said Danny, +turning and crossing the street. +</p> + +<p> +Katy walked away with the green roses dangling indignantly. Danny stopped two +blocks away. He stood still with his hands in his pockets, at the curb on the +corner. His face was that of a graven image. Deep in his soul something stirred +so small, so fine, so keen and leavening that his hard fibres did not recognize +it. It was something more tender than the April day, more subtle than the call +of the senses, purer and deeper-rooted than the love of woman—for had he +not turned away from green roses and eyes that had kept him chained for a year? +And Danny did not know what it was. The preacher, who was in a hurry to go to +his dinner, had told him, but Danny had had no libretto with which to follow +the drowsy intonation. But the preacher spoke the truth. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Danny slapped his leg and gave forth a hoarse yell of delight. +</p> + +<p> +“Hippopotamus!” he shouted to an elevated road pillar. “Well, +how is that for a bum guess? Why, blast my skylights! I know what he was +driving at now. +</p> + +<p> +“Hippopotamus! Wouldn’t that send you to the Bronx! It’s been +a year since he heard it; and he didn’t miss it so very far. We quit at +469 B. C., and this comes next. Well, a wooden man wouldn’t have guessed +what he was trying to get out of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Danny caught a crosstown car and went up to the rear flat that his labor +supported. +</p> + +<p> +Old man McCree was still sitting by the window. His extinct pipe lay on the +sill. +</p> + +<p> +“Will that be you, lad?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Danny flared into the rage of a strong man who is surprised at the outset of +committing a good deed. +</p> + +<p> +“Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?” +he snapped, viciously. “Have I no right to come in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye’re a faithful lad,” said old man McCree, with a sigh. +“Is it evening yet?” +</p> + +<p> +Danny reached up on a shelf and took down a thick book labeled in gilt letters, +“The History of Greece.” Dust was on it half an inch thick. He laid +it on the table and found a place in it marked by a strip of paper. And then he +gave a short roar at the top of his voice, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Was it the hippopotamus you wanted to be read to about then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did I hear ye open the book?” said old man McCree. “Many and +weary be the months since my lad has read it to me. I dinno; but I took a great +likings to them Greeks. Ye left off at a place. ’Tis a fine day outside, +lad. Be out and take rest from your work. I have gotten used to me chair by the +windy and me pipe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pel-Peloponnesus was the place where we left off, and not +hippopotamus,” said Danny. “The war began there. It kept something +doing for thirty years. The headlines says that a guy named Philip of Macedon, +in 338 B. C., got to be boss of Greece by getting the decision at the battle of +Cher-Cheronoea. I’ll read it.” +</p> + +<p> +With his hand to his ear, rapt in the Peloponnesian War, old man McCree sat for +an hour, listening. +</p> + +<p> +Then he got up and felt his way to the door of the kitchen. Mrs. McCree was +slicing cold meat. She looked up. Tears were running from old man +McCree’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear our lad readin’ to me?” he said. “There is +none finer in the land. My two eyes have come back to me again.” +</p> + +<p> +After supper he said to Danny: “’Tis a happy day, this Easter. And +now ye will be off to see Katy in the evening. Well enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?” +said Danny, angrily. “Have I no right to stay in it? After supper there +is yet to come the reading of the battle of Corinth, 146 B. C., when the +kingdom, as they say, became an in-integral portion of the Roman Empire. Am I +nothing in this house?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V<br /> +THE FIFTH WHEEL</h2> + +<p> +The ranks of the Bed Line moved closer together; for it was cold. They were +alluvial deposit of the stream of life lodged in the delta of Fifth Avenue and +Broadway. The Bed Liners stamped their freezing feet, looked at the empty +benches in Madison Square whence Jack Frost had evicted them, and muttered to +one another in a confusion of tongues. The Flatiron Building, with its impious, +cloud-piercing architecture looming mistily above them on the opposite delta, +might well have stood for the tower of Babel, whence these polyglot idlers had +been called by the winged walking delegate of the Lord. +</p> + +<p> +Standing on a pine box a head higher than his flock of goats, the Preacher +exhorted whatever transient and shifting audience the north wind doled out to +him. It was a slave market. Fifteen cents bought you a man. You deeded him to +Morpheus; and the recording angel gave you credit. +</p> + +<p> +The preacher was incredibly earnest and unwearied. He had looked over the list +of things one may do for one’s fellow man, and had assumed for himself +the task of putting to bed all who might apply at his soap box on the nights of +Wednesday and Sunday. That left but five nights for other philanthropists to +handle; and had they done their part as well, this wicked city might have +become a vast Arcadian dormitory where all might snooze and snore the happy +hours away, letting problem plays and the rent man and business go to the +deuce. +</p> + +<p> +The hour of eight was but a little while past; sightseers in a small, dark mass +of pay ore were gathered in the shadow of General Worth’s monument. Now +and then, shyly, ostentatiously, carelessly, or with conscientious exactness +one would step forward and bestow upon the Preacher small bills or silver. Then +a lieutenant of Scandinavian coloring and enthusiasm would march away to a +lodging house with a squad of the redeemed. All the while the Preacher exhorted +the crowd in terms beautifully devoid of eloquence—splendid with the +deadly, accusative monotony of truth. Before the picture of the Bed Liners +fades you must hear one phrase of the Preacher’s—the one that +formed his theme that night. It is worthy of being stenciled on all the white +ribbons in the world. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“No man ever learned to be a drunkard on five-cent whisky.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Think of it, tippler. It covers the ground from the sprouting rye to the +Potter’s Field. +</p> + +<p> +A clean-profiled, erect young man in the rear rank of the bedless emulated the +terrapin, drawing his head far down into the shell of his coat collar. It was a +well-cut tweed coat; and the trousers still showed signs of having flattened +themselves beneath the compelling goose. But, conscientiously, I must warn the +milliner’s apprentice who reads this, expecting a Reginald Montressor in +straits, to peruse no further. The young man was no other than Thomas McQuade, +ex-coachman, discharged for drunkenness one month before, and now reduced to +the grimy ranks of the one-night bed seekers. +</p> + +<p> +If you live in smaller New York you must know the Van Smuythe family carriage, +drawn by the two 1,500-pound, 100 to 1-shot bays. The carriage is shaped like a +bath-tub. In each end of it reclines an old lady Van Smuythe holding a black +sunshade the size of a New Year’s Eve feather tickler. Before his +downfall Thomas McQuade drove the Van Smuythe bays and was himself driven by +Annie, the Van Smuythe lady’s maid. But it is one of the saddest things +about romance that a tight shoe or an empty commissary or an aching tooth will +make a temporary heretic of any Cupid-worshiper. And Thomas’s physical +troubles were not few. Therefore, his soul was less vexed with thoughts of his +lost lady’s maid than it was by the fancied presence of certain +non-existent things that his racked nerves almost convinced him were flying, +dancing, crawling, and wriggling on the asphalt and in the air above and around +the dismal campus of the Bed Line army. Nearly four weeks of straight whisky +and a diet limited to crackers, bologna, and pickles often guarantees a +psycho-zoological sequel. Thus desperate, freezing, angry, beset by phantoms as +he was, he felt the need of human sympathy and intercourse. +</p> + +<p> +The Bed Liner standing at his right was a young man of about his own age, +shabby but neat. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the diagnosis of your case, Freddy?” asked Thomas, +with the freemasonic familiarity of the damned—“Booze? That’s +mine. You don’t look like a panhandler. Neither am I. A month ago I was +pushing the lines over the backs of the finest team of Percheron buffaloes that +ever made their mile down Fifth Avenue in 2.85. And look at me now! Say; how do +you come to be at this bed bargain-counter rummage sale.” +</p> + +<p> +The other young man seemed to welcome the advances of the airy ex-coachman. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said he, “mine isn’t exactly a case of drink. +Unless we allow that Cupid is a bartender. I married unwisely, according to the +opinion of my unforgiving relatives. I’ve been out of work for a year +because I don’t know how to work; and I’ve been sick in Bellevue +and other hospitals for months. My wife and kid had to go back to her mother. I +was turned out of the hospital yesterday. And I haven’t a cent. +That’s my tale of woe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tough luck,” said Thomas. “A man alone can pull through all +right. But I hate to see the women and kids get the worst of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Just then there hummed up Fifth Avenue a motor car so splendid, so red, so +smoothly running, so craftily demolishing the speed regulations that it drew +the attention even of the listless Bed Liners. Suspended and pinioned on its +left side was an extra tire. +</p> + +<p> +When opposite the unfortunate company the fastenings of this tire became +loosed. It fell to the asphalt, bounded and rolled rapidly in the wake of the +flying car. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas McQuade, scenting an opportunity, darted from his place among the +Preacher’s goats. In thirty seconds he had caught the rolling tire, swung +it over his shoulder, and was trotting smartly after the car. On both sides of +the avenue people were shouting, whistling, and waving canes at the red car, +pointing to the enterprising Thomas coming up with the lost tire. +</p> + +<p> +One dollar, Thomas had estimated, was the smallest guerdon that so grand an +automobilist could offer for the service he had rendered, and save his pride. +</p> + +<p> +Two blocks away the car had stopped. There was a little, brown, muffled +chauffeur driving, and an imposing gentleman wearing a magnificent sealskin +coat and a silk hat on a rear seat. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas proffered the captured tire with his best ex-coachman manner and a look +in the brighter of his reddened eyes that was meant to be suggestive to the +extent of a silver coin or two and receptive up to higher denominations. +</p> + +<p> +But the look was not so construed. The sealskinned gentleman received the tire, +placed it inside the car, gazed intently at the ex-coachman, and muttered to +himself inscrutable words. +</p> + +<p> +“Strange—strange!” said he. “Once or twice even I, +myself, have fancied that the Chaldean Chiroscope has availed. Could it be +possible?” +</p> + +<p> +Then he addressed less mysterious words to the waiting and hopeful Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, I thank you for your kind rescue of my tire. And I would ask you, +if I may, a question. Do you know the family of Van Smuythes living in +Washington Square North?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oughtn’t I to?” replied Thomas. “I lived there. Wish I +did yet.” +</p> + +<p> +The sealskinned gentleman opened a door of the car. +</p> + +<p> +“Step in please,” he said. “You have been expected.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas McQuade obeyed with surprise but without hesitation. A seat in a motor +car seemed better than standing room in the Bed Line. But after the lap-robe +had been tucked about him and the auto had sped on its course, the peculiarity +of the invitation lingered in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe the guy hasn’t got any change,” was his diagnosis. +“Lots of these swell rounders don’t lug about any ready money. +Guess he’ll dump me out when he gets to some joint where he can get cash +on his mug. Anyhow, it’s a cinch that I’ve got that open-air bed +convention beat to a finish.” +</p> + +<p> +Submerged in his greatcoat, the mysterious automobilist seemed, himself, to +marvel at the surprises of life. “Wonderful! amazing! strange!” he +repeated to himself constantly. +</p> + +<p> +When the car had well entered the crosstown Seventies it swung eastward a half +block and stopped before a row of high-stooped, brownstone-front houses. +</p> + +<p> +“Be kind enough to enter my house with me,” said the sealskinned +gentleman when they had alighted. “He’s going to dig up, +sure,” reflected Thomas, following him inside. +</p> + +<p> +There was a dim light in the hall. His host conducted him through a door to the +left, closing it after him and leaving them in absolute darkness. Suddenly a +luminous globe, strangely decorated, shone faintly in the centre of an immense +room that seemed to Thomas more splendidly appointed than any he had ever seen +on the stage or read of in fairy tales. +</p> + +<p> +The walls were hidden by gorgeous red hangings embroidered with fantastic gold +figures. At the rear end of the room were draped portières of dull gold +spangled with silver crescents and stars. The furniture was of the costliest +and rarest styles. The ex-coachman’s feet sank into rugs as fleecy and +deep as snowdrifts. There were three or four oddly shaped stands or tables +covered with black velvet drapery. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas McQuade took in the splendors of this palatial apartment with one eye. +With the other he looked for his imposing conductor—to find that he had +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“B’gee!” muttered Thomas, “this listens like a spook +shop. Shouldn’t wonder if it ain’t one of these Moravian +Nights’ adventures that you read about. Wonder what became of the furry +guy.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly a stuffed owl that stood on an ebony perch near the illuminated globe +slowly raised his wings and emitted from his eyes a brilliant electric glow. +</p> + +<p> +With a fright-born imprecation, Thomas seized a bronze statuette of Hebe from a +cabinet near by and hurled it with all his might at the terrifying and +impossible fowl. The owl and his perch went over with a crash. With the sound +there was a click, and the room was flooded with light from a dozen frosted +globes along the walls and ceiling. The gold portières parted and +closed, and the mysterious automobilist entered the room. He was tall and wore +evening dress of perfect cut and accurate taste. A Vandyke beard of glossy, +golden brown, rather long and wavy hair, smoothly parted, and large, magnetic, +orientally occult eyes gave him a most impressive and striking appearance. If +you can conceive a Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah’s throne-room advancing +to greet a visiting Emperor, you will gather something of the majesty of his +manner. But Thomas McQuade was too near his <i>d t’s</i> to be mindful of +his <i>p’s</i> and <i>q’s</i>. When he viewed this silken, +polished, and somewhat terrifying host he thought vaguely of dentists. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, doc,” said he resentfully, “that’s a hot bird you +keep on tap. I hope I didn’t break anything. But I’ve nearly got +the williwalloos, and when he threw them 32-candle-power lamps of his on me, I +took a snap-shot at him with that little brass Flatiron Girl that stood on the +sideboard.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is merely a mechanical toy,” said the gentleman with a wave +of his hand. “May I ask you to be seated while I explain why I brought +you to my house. Perhaps you would not understand nor be in sympathy with the +psychological prompting that caused me to do so. So I will come to the point at +once by venturing to refer to your admission that you know the Van Smuythe +family, of Washington Square North.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any silver missing?” asked Thomas tartly. “Any joolry +displaced? Of course I know ’em. Any of the old ladies’ sunshades +disappeared? Well, I know ’em. And then what?” +</p> + +<p> +The Grand Duke rubbed his white hands together softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful!” he murmured. “Wonderful! Shall I come to believe +in the Chaldean Chiroscope myself? Let me assure you,” he continued, +“that there is nothing for you to fear. Instead, I think I can promise +you that very good fortune awaits you. We will see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do they want me back?” asked Thomas, with something of his old +professional pride in his voice. “I’ll promise to cut out the booze +and do the right thing if they’ll try me again. But how did you get wise, +doc? B’gee, it’s the swellest employment agency I was ever in, with +its flashlight owls and so forth.” +</p> + +<p> +With an indulgent smile the gracious host begged to be excused for two minutes. +He went out to the sidewalk and gave an order to the chauffeur, who still +waited with the car. Returning to the mysterious apartment, he sat by his guest +and began to entertain him so well by his witty and genial converse that the +poor Bed Liner almost forgot the cold streets from which he had been so +recently and so singularly rescued. A servant brought some tender cold fowl and +tea biscuits and a glass of miraculous wine; and Thomas felt the glamour of +Arabia envelop him. Thus half an hour sped quickly; and then the honk of the +returned motor car at the door suddenly drew the Grand Duke to his feet, with +another soft petition for a brief absence. +</p> + +<p> +Two women, well muffled against the cold, were admitted at the front door and +suavely conducted by the master of the house down the hall through another door +to the left and into a smaller room, which was screened and segregated from the +larger front room by heavy, double portières. Here the furnishings were +even more elegant and exquisitely tasteful than in the other. On a gold-inlaid +rosewood table were scattered sheets of white paper and a queer, triangular +instrument or toy, apparently of gold, standing on little wheels. +</p> + +<p> +The taller woman threw back her black veil and loosened her cloak. She was +fifty, with a wrinkled and sad face. The other, young and plump, took a chair a +little distance away and to the rear as a servant or an attendant might have +done. +</p> + +<p> +“You sent for me, Professor Cherubusco,” said the elder woman, +wearily. “I hope you have something more definite than usual to say. +I’ve about lost the little faith I had in your art. I would not have +responded to your call this evening if my sister had not insisted upon +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madam,” said the professor, with his princeliest smile, “the +true Art cannot fail. To find the true psychic and potential branch sometimes +requires time. We have not succeeded, I admit, with the cards, the crystal, the +stars, the magic formulæ of Zarazin, nor the Oracle of Po. But we have at +last discovered the true psychic route. The Chaldean Chiroscope has been +successful in our search.” +</p> + +<p> +The professor’s voice had a ring that seemed to proclaim his belief in +his own words. The elderly lady looked at him with a little more interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there was no sense in those words that it wrote with my hands on +it,” she said. “What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“The words were these,” said Professor Cherubusco, rising to his +full magnificent height: “<i>‘By the fifth wheel of the chariot he +shall come.’</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen many chariots,” said the lady, “but I +never saw one with five wheels.” +</p> + +<p> +“Progress,” said the professor—“progress in science and +mechanics has accomplished it—though, to be exact, we may speak of it +only as an extra tire. Progress in occult art has advanced in proportion. +Madam, I repeat that the Chaldean Chiroscope has succeeded. I can not only +answer the question that you have propounded, but I can produce before your +eyes the proof thereof.” +</p> + +<p> +And now the lady was disturbed both in her disbelief and in her poise. +</p> + +<p> +“O professor!” she cried anxiously—“When?—where? +Has he been found? Do not keep me in suspense.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg you will excuse me for a very few minutes,” said Professor +Cherubusco, “and I think I can demonstrate to you the efficacy of the +true Art.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas was contentedly munching the last crumbs of the bread and fowl when the +enchanter appeared suddenly at his side. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you willing to return to your old home if you are assured of a +welcome and restoration to favor?” he asked, with his courteous, royal +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I look bughouse?” answered Thomas. “Enough of the +footback life for me. But will they have me again? The old lady is as fixed in +her ways as a nut on a new axle.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear young man,” said the other, “she has been searching +for you everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great!” said Thomas. “I’m on the job. That team of +dropsical dromedaries they call horses is a handicap for a first-class coachman +like myself; but I’ll take the job back, sure, doc. They’re good +people to be with.” +</p> + +<p> +And now a change came o’er the suave countenance of the Caliph of Bagdad. +He looked keenly and suspiciously at the ex-coachman. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask what your name is?” he said shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been looking for me,” said Thomas, “and +don’t know my name? You’re a funny kind of sleuth. You must be one +of the Central Office gumshoers. I’m Thomas McQuade, of course; and +I’ve been chauffeur of the Van Smuythe elephant team for a year. They +fired me a month ago for—well, doc, you saw what I did to your old owl. I +went broke on booze, and when I saw the tire drop off your whiz wagon I was +standing in that squad of hoboes at the Worth monument waiting for a free bed. +Now, what’s the prize for the best answer to all this?” +</p> + +<p> +To his intense surprise Thomas felt himself lifted by the collar and dragged, +without a word of explanation, to the front door. This was opened, and he was +kicked forcibly down the steps with one heavy, disillusionizing, humiliating +impact of the stupendous Arabian’s shoe. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the ex-coachman had recovered his feet and his wits he hastened as +fast as he could eastward toward Broadway. +</p> + +<p> +“Crazy guy,” was his estimate of the mysterious automobilist. +“Just wanted to have some fun kiddin’, I guess. He might have dug +up a dollar, anyhow. Now I’ve got to hurry up and get back to that gang +of bum bed hunters before they all get preached to sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +When Thomas reached the end of his two-mile walk he found the ranks of the +homeless reduced to a squad of perhaps eight or ten. He took the proper place +of a newcomer at the left end of the rear rank. In a file in front of him was +the young man who had spoken to him of hospitals and something of a wife and +child. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry to see you back again,” said the young man, turning to speak +to him. “I hoped you had struck something better than this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” said Thomas. “Oh, I just took a run around the block to +keep warm! I see the public ain’t lending to the Lord very fast +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“In this kind of weather,” said the young man, “charity +avails itself of the proverb, and both begins and ends at home.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Preacher and his vehement lieutenant struck up a last hymn of petition +to Providence and man. Those of the Bed Liners whose windpipes still registered +above 32 degrees hopelessly and tunelessly joined in. +</p> + +<p> +In the middle of the second verse Thomas saw a sturdy girl with wind-tossed +drapery battling against the breeze and coming straight toward him from the +opposite sidewalk. “Annie!” he yelled, and ran toward her. +</p> + +<p> +“You fool, you fool!” she cried, weeping and laughing, and hanging +upon his neck, “why did you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Stuff,” explained Thomas briefly. “You know. But +subsequently nit. Not a drop.” He led her to the curb. “How did you +happen to see me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I came to find you,” said Annie, holding tight to his sleeve. +“Oh, you big fool! Professor Cherubusco told us that we might find you +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Professor Ch–––– Don’t know the guy. What +saloon does he work in?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a clairvoyant, Thomas; the greatest in the world. He found +you with the Chaldean telescope, he said.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a liar,” said Thomas. “I never had it. He never +saw me have anybody’s telescope.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he said you came in a chariot with five wheels or something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Annie,” said Thoms solicitously, “you’re giving me the +wheels now. If I had a chariot I’d have gone to bed in it long ago. And +without any singing and preaching for a nightcap, either.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen, you big fool. The Missis says she’ll take you back. I +begged her to. But you must behave. And you can go up to the house to-night; +and your old room over the stable is ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great!” said Thomas earnestly. “You are It, Annie. But when +did these stunts happen?” +</p> + +<p> +“To-night at Professor Cherubusco’s. He sent his automobile for the +Missis, and she took me along. I’ve been there with her before.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the professor’s line?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a clearvoyant and a witch. The Missis consults him. He knows +everything. But he hasn’t done the Missis any good yet, though +she’s paid him hundreds of dollars. But he told us that the stars told +him we could find you here.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the old lady want this cherry-buster to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a family secret,” said Annie. “And now +you’ve asked enough questions. Come on home, you big fool.” +</p> + +<p> +They had moved but a little way up the street when Thomas stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Got any dough with you, Annie?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Annie looked at him sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know what that look means,” said Thomas. “You’re +wrong. Not another drop. But there’s a guy that was standing next to me +in the bed line over there that’s in bad shape. He’s the right +kind, and he’s got wives or kids or something, and he’s on the sick +list. No booze. If you could dig up half a dollar for him so he could get a +decent bed I’d like it.” +</p> + +<p> +Annie’s fingers began to wiggle in her purse. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, I’ve got money,” said she. “Lots of it. Twelve +dollars.” And then she added, with woman’s ineradicable suspicion +of vicarious benevolence: “Bring him here and let me see him +first.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas went on his mission. The wan Bed Liner came readily enough. As the two +drew near, Annie looked up from her purse and screamed: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Walter— Oh—Mr. Walter! +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Annie?” said the young man meekly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Walter!—and the Missis hunting high and low for +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Does mother want to see me?” he asked, with a flush coming out on +his pale cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s been hunting for you high and low. Sure, she wants to see +you. She wants you to come home. She’s tried police and morgues and +lawyers and advertising and detectives and rewards and everything. And then she +took up clearvoyants. You’ll go right home, won’t you, Mr. +Walter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gladly, if she wants me,” said the young man. “Three years +is a long time. I suppose I’ll have to walk up, though, unless the street +cars are giving free rides. I used to walk and beat that old plug team of bays +we used to drive to the carriage. Have they got them yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“They have,” said Thomas, feelingly. “And they’ll have +’em ten years from now. The life of the royal elephantibus truckhorseibus +is one hundred and forty-nine years. I’m the coachman. Just got my +reappointment five minutes ago. Let’s all ride up in a surface +car—that is—er—if Annie will pay the fares.” +</p> + +<p> +On the Broadway car Annie handed each one of the prodigals a nickel to pay the +conductor. +</p> + +<p> +“Seems to me you are mighty reckless the way you throw large sums of +money around,” said Thomas sarcastically. +</p> + +<p> +“In that purse,” said Annie decidedly, “is exactly $11.85. I +shall take every cent of it to-morrow and give it to professor Cherubusco, the +greatest man in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Thomas, “I guess he must be a pretty fly guy to +pipe off things the way he does. I’m glad his spooks told him where you +could find me. If you’ll give me his address, some day I’ll go up +there, myself, and shake his hand.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently Thomas moved tentatively in his seat, and thoughtfully felt an +abrasion or two on his knees and his elbows. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Annie,” said he confidentially, maybe it’s one of the +last dreams of booze, but I’ve a kind of a recollection of riding in an +automobile with a swell guy that took me to a house full of eagles and arc +lights. He fed me on biscuits and hot air, and then kicked me down the front +steps. If it was the <i>d t’s</i>, why am I so sore?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, you fool,” said Annie. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could find that funny guy’s house,” said Thomas, in +conclusion, “I’d go up there some day and punch his nose for +him.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI<br /> +THE POET AND THE PEASANT</h2> + +<p> +The other day a poet friend of mine, who has lived in close communion with +nature all his life, wrote a poem and took it to an editor. +</p> + +<p> +It was a living pastoral, full of the genuine breath of the fields, the song of +birds, and the pleasant chatter of trickling streams. +</p> + +<p> +When the poet called again to see about it, with hopes of a beefsteak dinner in +his heart, it was handed back to him with the comment: +</p> + +<p> +“Too artificial.” +</p> + +<p> +Several of us met over spaghetti and Dutchess County chianti, and swallowed +indignation with slippery forkfuls. +</p> + +<p> +And there we dug a pit for the editor. With us was Conant, a well-arrived +writer of fiction—a man who had trod on asphalt all his life, and who had +never looked upon bucolic scenes except with sensations of disgust from the +windows of express trains. +</p> + +<p> +Conant wrote a poem and called it “The Doe and the Brook.” It was a +fine specimen of the kind of work you would expect from a poet who had strayed +with Amaryllis only as far as the florist’s windows, and whose sole +ornithological discussion had been carried on with a waiter. Conant signed this +poem, and we sent it to the same editor. +</p> + +<p> +But this has very little to do with the story. +</p> + +<p> +Just as the editor was reading the first line of the poem, on the next morning, +a being stumbled off the West Shore ferryboat, and loped slowly up Forty-second +Street. +</p> + +<p> +The invader was a young man with light blue eyes, a hanging lip and hair the +exact color of the little orphan’s (afterward discovered to be the +earl’s daughter) in one of Mr. Blaney’s plays. His trousers were +corduroy, his coat short-sleeved, with buttons in the middle of his back. One +bootleg was outside the corduroys. You looked expectantly, though in vain, at +his straw hat for ear holes, its shape inaugurating the suspicion that it had +been ravaged from a former equine possessor. In his hand was a +valise—description of it is an impossible task; a Boston man would not +have carried his lunch and law books to his office in it. And above one ear, in +his hair, was a wisp of hay—the rustic’s letter of credit, his +badge of innocence, the last clinging touch of the Garden of Eden lingering to +shame the gold-brick men. +</p> + +<p> +Knowingly, smilingly, the city crowds passed him by. They saw the raw stranger +stand in the gutter and stretch his neck at the tall buildings. At this they +ceased to smile, and even to look at him. It had been done so often. A few +glanced at the antique valise to see what Coney “attraction” or +brand of chewing gum he might be thus dinning into his memory. But for the most +part he was ignored. Even the newsboys looked bored when he scampered like a +circus clown out of the way of cabs and street cars. +</p> + +<p> +At Eighth Avenue stood “Bunco Harry,” with his dyed mustache and +shiny, good-natured eyes. Harry was too good an artist not to be pained at the +sight of an actor overdoing his part. He edged up to the countryman, who had +stopped to open his mouth at a jewelry store window, and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Too thick, pal,” he said, critically—“too thick by a +couple of inches. I don’t know what your lay is; but you’ve got the +properties too thick. That hay, now—why, they don’t even allow that +on Proctor’s circuit any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you, mister,” said the green one. +“I’m not lookin’ for any circus. I’ve just run down +from Ulster County to look at the town, bein’ that the hayin’s over +with. Gosh! but it’s a whopper. I thought Poughkeepsie was some punkins; +but this here town is five times as big.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said “Bunco Harry,” raising his eyebrows, +“I didn’t mean to butt in. You don’t have to tell. I thought +you ought to tone down a little, so I tried to put you wise. Wish you success +at your graft, whatever it is. Come and have a drink, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t mind having a glass of lager beer,” acknowledged +the other. +</p> + +<p> +They went to a café frequented by men with smooth faces and shifty eyes, +and sat at their drinks. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad I come across you, mister,” said Haylocks. +“How’d you like to play a game or two of seven-up? I’ve got +the keerds.” +</p> + +<p> +He fished them out of Noah’s valise—a rare, inimitable deck, greasy +with bacon suppers and grimy with the soil of cornfields. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunco Harry” laughed loud and briefly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not for me, sport,” he said, firmly. “I don’t go +against that make-up of yours for a cent. But I still say you’ve overdone +it. The Reubs haven’t dressed like that since ’79. I doubt if you +could work Brooklyn for a key-winding watch with that layout.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you needn’t think I ain’t got the money,” boasted +Haylocks. He drew forth a tightly rolled mass of bills as large as a teacup, +and laid it on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Got that for my share of grandmother’s farm,” he announced. +“There’s $950 in that roll. Thought I’d come to the city and +look around for a likely business to go into.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bunco Harry” took up the roll of money and looked at it with +almost respect in his smiling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen worse,” he said, critically. “But +you’ll never do it in them clothes. You want to get light tan shoes and a +black suit and a straw hat with a colored band, and talk a good deal about +Pittsburg and freight differentials, and drink sherry for breakfast in order to +work off phony stuff like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s his line?” asked two or three shifty-eyed men of +“Bunco Harry” after Haylocks had gathered up his impugned money and +departed. +</p> + +<p> +“The queer, I guess,” said Harry. “Or else he’s one of +Jerome’s men. Or some guy with a new graft. He’s too much hayseed. +Maybe that his—I wonder now—oh, no, it couldn’t have been +real money.” +</p> + +<p> +Haylocks wandered on. Thirst probably assailed him again, for he dived into a +dark groggery on a side street and bought beer. At first sight of him their +eyes brightened; but when his insistent and exaggerated rusticity became +apparent their expressions changed to wary suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +Haylocks swung his valise across the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep that a while for me, mister,” he said, chewing at the end of +a virulent claybank cigar. “I’ll be back after I knock around a +spell. And keep your eye on it, for there’s $950 inside of it, though +maybe you wouldn’t think so to look at me.” +</p> + +<p> +Somewhere outside a phonograph struck up a band piece, and Haylocks was off for +it, his coat-tail buttons flopping in the middle of his back. +</p> + +<p> +“Divvy, Mike,” said the men hanging upon the bar, winking openly at +one another. +</p> + +<p> +“Honest, now,” said the bartender, kicking the valise to one side. +“You don’t think I’d fall to that, do you? Anybody can see he +ain’t no jay. One of McAdoo’s come-on squad, I guess. He’s a +shine if he made himself up. There ain’t no parts of the country now +where they dress like that since they run rural free delivery to Providence, +Rhode Island. If he’s got nine-fifty in that valise it’s a +ninety-eight cent Waterbury that’s stopped at ten minutes to ten.” +</p> + +<p> +When Haylocks had exhausted the resources of Mr. Edison to amuse he returned +for his valise. And then down Broadway he gallivanted, culling the sights with +his eager blue eyes. But still and evermore Broadway rejected him with curt +glances and sardonic smiles. He was the oldest of the “gags” that +the city must endure. He was so flagrantly impossible, so ultra rustic, so +exaggerated beyond the most freakish products of the barnyard, the hayfield and +the vaudeville stage, that he excited only weariness and suspicion. And the +wisp of hay in his hair was so genuine, so fresh and redolent of the meadows, +so clamorously rural that even a shell-game man would have put up his peas and +folded his table at the sight of it. +</p> + +<p> +Haylocks seated himself upon a flight of stone steps and once more exhumed his +roll of yellow-backs from the valise. The outer one, a twenty, he shucked off +and beckoned to a newsboy. +</p> + +<p> +“Son,” said he, “run somewhere and get this changed for me. +I’m mighty nigh out of chicken feed. I guess you’ll get a nickel if +you’ll hurry up.” +</p> + +<p> +A hurt look appeared through the dirt on the newsy’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, watchert’ink! G’wan and get yer funny bill changed +yerself. Dey ain’t no farm clothes yer got on. G’wan wit yer stage +money.” +</p> + +<p> +On a corner lounged a keen-eyed steerer for a gambling-house. He saw Haylocks, +and his expression suddenly grew cold and virtuous. +</p> + +<p> +“Mister,” said the rural one. “I’ve heard of places in +this here town where a fellow could have a good game of old sledge or peg a +card at keno. I got $950 in this valise, and I come down from old Ulster to see +the sights. Know where a fellow could get action on about $9 or $10? I’m +goin’ to have some sport, and then maybe I’ll buy out a business of +some kind.” +</p> + +<p> +The steerer looked pained, and investigated a white speck on his left +forefinger nail. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheese it, old man,” he murmured, reproachfully. “The +Central Office must be bughouse to send you out looking like such a gillie. You +couldn’t get within two blocks of a sidewalk crap game in them Tony +Pastor props. The recent Mr. Scotty from Death Valley has got you beat a +crosstown block in the way of Elizabethan scenery and mechanical accessories. +Let it be skiddoo for yours. Nay, I know of no gilded halls where one may bet a +patrol wagon on the ace.” +</p> + +<p> +Rebuffed once again by the great city that is so swift to detect +artificialities, Haylocks sat upon the curb and presented his thoughts to hold +a conference. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my clothes,” said he; “durned if it ain’t. +They think I’m a hayseed and won’t have nothin’ to do with +me. Nobody never made fun of this hat in Ulster County. I guess if you want +folks to notice you in New York you must dress up like they do.” +</p> + +<p> +So Haylocks went shopping in the bazaars where men spake through their noses +and rubbed their hands and ran the tape line ecstatically over the bulge in his +inside pocket where reposed a red nubbin of corn with an even number of rows. +And messengers bearing parcels and boxes streamed to his hotel on Broadway +within the lights of Long Acre. +</p> + +<p> +At 9 o’clock in the evening one descended to the sidewalk whom Ulster +County would have foresworn. Bright tan were his shoes; his hat the latest +block. His light gray trousers were deeply creased; a gay blue silk +handkerchief flapped from the breast pocket of his elegant English walking +coat. His collar might have graced a laundry window; his blond hair was trimmed +close; the wisp of hay was gone. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant he stood, resplendent, with the leisurely air of a boulevardier +concocting in his mind the route for his evening pleasures. And then he turned +down the gay, bright street with the easy and graceful tread of a millionaire. +</p> + +<p> +But in the instant that he had paused the wisest and keenest eyes in the city +had enveloped him in their field of vision. A stout man with gray eyes picked +two of his friends with a lift of his eyebrows from the row of loungers in +front of the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +“The juiciest jay I’ve seen in six months,” said the man with +gray eyes. “Come along.” +</p> + +<p> +It was half-past eleven when a man galloped into the West Forty-seventh Street +Police Station with the story of his wrongs. +</p> + +<p> +“Nine hundred and fifty dollars,” he gasped, “all my share of +grandmother’s farm.” +</p> + +<p> +The desk sergeant wrung from him the name Jabez Bulltongue, of Locust Valley +farm, Ulster County, and then began to take descriptions of the strong-arm +gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +When Conant went to see the editor about the fate of his poem, he was received +over the head of the office boy into the inner office that is decorated with +the statuettes by Rodin and J. G. Brown. +</p> + +<p> +“When I read the first line of ‘The Doe and the +Brook,’” said the editor, “I knew it to be the work of one +whose life has been heart to heart with Nature. The finished art of the line +did not blind me to that fact. To use a somewhat homely comparison, it was as +if a wild, free child of the woods and fields were to don the garb of fashion +and walk down Broadway. Beneath the apparel the man would show.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Conant. “I suppose the check will be round on +Thursday, as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +The morals of this story have somehow gotten mixed. You can take your choice of +“Stay on the Farm” or “Don’t Write Poetry.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII<br /> +THE ROBE OF PEACE</h2> + +<p> +Mysteries follow one another so closely in a great city that the reading public +and the friends of Johnny Bellchambers have ceased to marvel at his sudden and +unexplained disappearance nearly a year ago. This particular mystery has now +been cleared up, but the solution is so strange and incredible to the mind of +the average man that only a select few who were in close touch with +Bellchambers will give it full credence. +</p> + +<p> +Johnny Bellchambers, as is well known, belonged to the intrinsically inner +circle of the <i>élite</i>. Without any of the ostentation of the +fashionable ones who endeavor to attract notice by eccentric display of wealth +and show he still was <i>au fait</i> in everything that gave deserved lustre to +his high position in the ranks of society. +</p> + +<p> +Especially did he shine in the matter of dress. In this he was the despair of +imitators. Always correct, exquisitely groomed, and possessed of an unlimited +wardrobe, he was conceded to be the best-dressed man in New York, and, +therefore, in America. There was not a tailor in Gotham who would not have +deemed it a precious boon to have been granted the privilege of making +Bellchambers’ clothes without a cent of pay. As he wore them, they would +have been a priceless advertisement. Trousers were his especial passion. Here +nothing but perfection would he notice. He would have worn a patch as quickly +as he would have overlooked a wrinkle. He kept a man in his apartments always +busy pressing his ample supply. His friends said that three hours was the limit +of time that he would wear these garments without exchanging. +</p> + +<p> +Bellchambers disappeared very suddenly. For three days his absence brought no +alarm to his friends, and then they began to operate the usual methods of +inquiry. All of them failed. He had left absolutely no trace behind. Then the +search for a motive was instituted, but none was found. He had no enemies, he +had no debts, there was no woman. There were several thousand dollars in his +bank to his credit. He had never showed any tendency toward mental +eccentricity; in fact, he was of a particularly calm and well-balanced +temperament. Every means of tracing the vanished man was made use of, but +without avail. It was one of those cases—more numerous in late +years—where men seem to have gone out like the flame of a candle, leaving +not even a trail of smoke as a witness. +</p> + +<p> +In May, Tom Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam, two of Bellchambers’ old friends, +went for a little run on the other side. While pottering around in Italy and +Switzerland, they happened, one day, to hear of a monastery in the Swiss Alps +that promised something outside of the ordinary tourist-beguiling attractions. +The monastery was almost inaccessible to the average sightseer, being on an +extremely rugged and precipitous spur of the mountains. The attractions it +possessed but did not advertise were, first, an exclusive and divine cordial +made by the monks that was said to far surpass benedictine and chartreuse. Next +a huge brass bell so purely and accurately cast that it had not ceased sounding +since it was first rung three hundred years ago. Finally, it was asserted that +no Englishman had ever set foot within its walls. Eyres and Gilliam decided +that these three reports called for investigation. +</p> + +<p> +It took them two days with the aid of two guides to reach the monastery of St. +Gondrau. It stood upon a frozen, wind-swept crag with the snow piled about it +in treacherous, drifting masses. They were hospitably received by the brothers +whose duty it was to entertain the infrequent guest. They drank of the precious +cordial, finding it rarely potent and reviving. They listened to the great, +ever-echoing bell, and learned that they were pioneer travelers, in those gray +stone walls, over the Englishman whose restless feet have trodden nearly every +corner of the earth. +</p> + +<p> +At three o’clock on the afternoon they arrived, the two young Gothamites +stood with good Brother Cristofer in the great, cold hallway of the monastery +to watch the monks march past on their way to the refectory. They came slowly, +pacing by twos, with their heads bowed, treading noiselessly with sandaled feet +upon the rough stone flags. As the procession slowly filed past, Eyres suddenly +gripped Gilliam by the arm. “Look,” he whispered, eagerly, +“at the one just opposite you now—the one on this side, with his +hand at his waist—if that isn’t Johnny Bellchambers then I never +saw him!” +</p> + +<p> +Gilliam saw and recognized the lost glass of fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“What the deuce,” said he, wonderingly, “is old Bell doing +here? Tommy, it surely can’t be he! Never heard of Bell having a turn for +the religious. Fact is, I’ve heard him say things when a four-in-hand +didn’t seem to tie up just right that would bring him up for +court-martial before any church.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Bell, without a doubt,” said Eyres, firmly, “or +I’m pretty badly in need of an oculist. But think of Johnny Bellchambers, +the Royal High Chancellor of swell togs and the Mahatma of pink teas, up here +in cold storage doing penance in a snuff-colored bathrobe! I can’t get it +straight in my mind. Let’s ask the jolly old boy that’s doing the +honors.” +</p> + +<p> +Brother Cristofer was appealed to for information. By that time the monks had +passed into the refectory. He could not tell to which one they referred. +Bellchambers? Ah, the brothers of St. Gondrau abandoned their worldly names +when they took the vows. Did the gentlemen wish to speak with one of the +brothers? If they would come to the refectory and indicate the one they wished +to see, the reverend abbot in authority would, doubtless, permit it. +</p> + +<p> +Eyres and Gilliam went into the dining hall and pointed out to Brother +Cristofer the man they had seen. Yes, it was Johnny Bellchambers. They saw his +face plainly now, as he sat among the dingy brothers, never looking up, eating +broth from a coarse, brown bowl. +</p> + +<p> +Permission to speak to one of the brothers was granted to the two travelers by +the abbot, and they waited in a reception room for him to come. When he did +come, treading softly in his sandals, both Eyres and Gilliam looked at him in +perplexity and astonishment. It was Johnny Bellchambers, but he had a different +look. Upon his smooth-shaven face was an expression of ineffable peace, of +rapturous attainment, of perfect and complete happiness. His form was proudly +erect, his eyes shone with a serene and gracious light. He was as neat and +well-groomed as in the old New York days, but how differently was he clad! Now +he seemed clothed in but a single garment—a long robe of rough brown +cloth, gathered by a cord at the waist, and falling in straight, loose folds +nearly to his feet. He shook hands with his visitors with his old ease and +grace of manner. If there was any embarrassment in that meeting it was not +manifested by Johnny Bellchambers. The room had no seats; they stood to +converse. +</p> + +<p> +“Glad to see you, old man,” said Eyres, somewhat awkwardly. +“Wasn’t expecting to find you up here. Not a bad idea though, after +all. Society’s an awful sham. Must be a relief to shake the giddy whirl +and retire to—er—contemplation and—er—prayer and hymns, +and those things. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, cut that, Tommy,” said Bellchambers, cheerfully. +“Don’t be afraid that I’ll pass around the plate. I go +through these thing-um-bobs with the rest of these old boys because they are +the rules. I’m Brother Ambrose here, you know. I’m given just ten +minutes to talk to you fellows. That’s rather a new design in waistcoats +you have on, isn’t it, Gilliam? Are they wearing those things on Broadway +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the same old Johnny,” said Gilliam, joyfully. +“What the devil—I mean why— Oh, confound it! what did you do +it for, old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Peel the bathrobe,” pleaded Eyres, almost tearfully, “and go +back with us. The old crowd’ll go wild to see you. This isn’t in +your line, Bell. I know half a dozen girls that wore the willow on the quiet +when you shook us in that unaccountable way. Hand in your resignation, or get a +dispensation, or whatever you have to do to get a release from this ice +factory. You’ll get catarrh here, Johnny—and— My God! you +haven’t any socks on!” +</p> + +<p> +Bellchambers looked down at his sandaled feet and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“You fellows don’t understand,” he said, soothingly. +“It’s nice of you to want me to go back, but the old life will +never know me again. I have reached here the goal of all my ambitions. I am +entirely happy and contented. Here I shall remain for the remainder of my days. +You see this robe that I wear?” Bellchambers caressingly touched the +straight-hanging garment: “At last I have found something that will not +bag at the knees. I have attained—” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment the deep boom of the great brass bell reverberated through the +monastery. It must have been a summons to immediate devotions, for Brother +Ambrose bowed his head, turned and left the chamber without another word. A +slight wave of his hand as he passed through the stone doorway seemed to say a +farewell to his old friends. They left the monastery without seeing him again. +</p> + +<p> +And this is the story that Tommy Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam brought back with +them from their latest European tour. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII<br /> +THE GIRL AND THE GRAFT</h2> + +<p> +The other day I ran across my old friend Ferguson Pogue. Pogue is a +conscientious grafter of the highest type. His headquarters is the Western +Hemisphere, and his line of business is anything from speculating in town lots +on the Great Staked Plains to selling wooden toys in Connecticut, made by +hydraulic pressure from nutmegs ground to a pulp. +</p> + +<p> +Now and then when Pogue has made a good haul he comes to New York for a rest. +He says the jug of wine and loaf of bread and Thou in the wilderness business +is about as much rest and pleasure to him as sliding down the bumps at Coney +would be to President Taft. “Give me,” says Pogue, “a big +city for my vacation. Especially New York. I’m not much fond of New +Yorkers, and Manhattan is about the only place on the globe where I don’t +find any.” +</p> + +<p> +While in the metropolis Pogue can always be found at one of two places. One is +a little second-hand book-shop on Fourth Avenue, where he reads books about his +hobbies, Mahometanism and taxidermy. I found him at the other—his hall +bedroom in Eighteenth Street—where he sat in his stocking feet trying to +pluck “The Banks of the Wabash” out of a small zither. Four years +he has practised this tune without arriving near enough to cast the longest +trout line to the water’s edge. On the dresser lay a blued-steel +Colt’s forty-five and a tight roll of tens and twenties large enough +around to belong to the spring rattlesnake-story class. A chambermaid with a +room-cleaning air fluttered nearby in the hall, unable to enter or to flee, +scandalized by the stocking feet, aghast at the Colt’s, yet powerless, +with her metropolitan instincts, to remove herself beyond the magic influence +of the yellow-hued roll. +</p> + +<p> +I sat on his trunk while Ferguson Pogue talked. No one could be franker or more +candid in his conversation. Beside his expression the cry of Henry James for +lacteal nourishment at the age of one month would have seemed like a Chaldean +cryptogram. He told me stories of his profession with pride, for he considered +it an art. And I was curious enough to ask him whether he had known any women +who followed it. +</p> + +<p> +“Ladies?” said Pogue, with Western chivalry. “Well, not to +any great extent. They don’t amount to much in special lines of graft, +because they’re all so busy in general lines. What? Why, they have to. +Who’s got the money in the world? The men. Did you ever know a man to +give a woman a dollar without any consideration? A man will shell out his dust +to another man free and easy and gratis. But if he drops a penny in one of the +machines run by the Madam Eve’s Daughters’ Amalgamated Association +and the pineapple chewing gum don’t fall out when he pulls the lever you +can hear him kick to the superintendent four blocks away. Man is the hardest +proposition a woman has to go up against. He’s the low-grade one, and she +has to work overtime to make him pay. Two times out of five she’s salted. +She can’t put in crushers and costly machinery. He’d notice +’em and be onto the game. They have to pan out what they get, and it +hurts their tender hands. Some of ’em are natural sluice troughs and can +carry out $1,000 to the ton. The dry-eyed ones have to depend on signed +letters, false hair, sympathy, the kangaroo walk, cowhide whips, ability to +cook, sentimental juries, conversational powers, silk underskirts, ancestry, +rouge, anonymous letters, violet sachet powders, witnesses, revolvers, +pneumatic forms, carbolic acid, moonlight, cold cream and the evening +newspapers.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are outrageous, Ferg,” I said. “Surely there is none of +this ‘graft’ as you call it, in a perfect and harmonious +matrimonial union!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Pogue, “nothing that would justify you every +time in calling Police Headquarters and ordering out the reserves and a +vaudeville manager on a dead run. But it’s this way: Suppose you’re +a Fifth Avenue millionaire, soaring high, on the right side of copper and +cappers. +</p> + +<p> +“You come home at night and bring a $9,000,000 diamond brooch to the lady +who’s staked you for a claim. You hand it over. She says, ‘Oh, +George!’ and looks to see if it’s backed. She comes up and kisses +you. You’ve waited for it. You get it. All right. It’s graft. +</p> + +<p> +“But I’m telling you about Artemisia Blye. She was from Kansas and +she suggested corn in all of its phases. Her hair was as yellow as the silk; +her form was as tall and graceful as a stalk in the low grounds during a wet +summer; her eyes were as big and startling as bunions, and green was her +favorite color. +</p> + +<p> +“On my last trip into the cool recesses of your sequestered city I met a +human named Vaucross. He was worth—that is, he had a million. He told me +he was in business on the street. ‘A sidewalk merchant?’ says I, +sarcastic. ‘Exactly,’ says he, ‘Senior partner of a paving +concern.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I kind of took to him. For this reason, I met him on Broadway one night +when I was out of heart, luck, tobacco and place. He was all silk hat, diamonds +and front. He was all front. If you had gone behind him you would have only +looked yourself in the face. I looked like a cross between Count Tolstoy and a +June lobster. I was out of luck. I had—but let me lay my eyes on that +dealer again. +</p> + +<p> +“Vaucross stopped and talked to me a few minutes and then he took me to a +high-toned restaurant to eat dinner. There was music, and then some Beethoven, +and Bordelaise sauce, and cussing in French, and frangipangi, and some hauteur +and cigarettes. When I am flush I know them places. +</p> + +<p> +“I declare, I must have looked as bad as a magazine artist sitting there +without any money and my hair all rumpled like I was booked to read a chapter +from ‘Elsie’s School Days’ at a Brooklyn Bohemian smoker. But +Vaucross treated me like a bear hunter’s guide. He wasn’t afraid of +hurting the waiter’s feelings. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Mr. Pogue,’ he explains to me, ‘I am using +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Go on,’ says I; ‘I hope you don’t wake +up.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And then he tells me, you know, the kind of man he was. He was a New +Yorker. His whole ambition was to be noticed. He wanted to be conspicuous. He +wanted people to point him out and bow to him, and tell others who he was. He +said it had been the desire of his life always. He didn’t have but a +million, so he couldn’t attract attention by spending money. He said he +tried to get into public notice one time by planting a little public square on +the east side with garlic for free use of the poor; but Carnegie heard of it, +and covered it over at once with a library in the Gaelic language. Three times +he had jumped in the way of automobiles; but the only result was five broken +ribs and a notice in the papers that an unknown man, five feet ten, with four +amalgam-filled teeth, supposed to be the last of the famous Red Leary gang had +been run over. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ever try the reporters,’ I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Last month,’ says Mr. Vaucross, ‘my expenditure for +lunches to reporters was $124.80.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Get anything out of that?’ I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“‘That reminds me,’ says he; ‘add $8.50 for pepsin. +Yes, I got indigestion.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘How am I supposed to push along your scramble for +prominence?’ I inquires. ‘Contrast?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Something of that sort to-night,’ says Vaucross. ‘It +grieves me; but I am forced to resort to eccentricity.’ And here he drops +his napkin in his soup and rises up and bows to a gent who is devastating a +potato under a palm across the room. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Police Commissioner,’ says my climber, gratified. +‘Friend’, says I, in a hurry, ‘have ambitions but don’t +kick a rung out of your ladder. When you use me as a stepping stone to salute +the police you spoil my appetite on the grounds that I may be degraded and +incriminated. Be thoughtful.’ +</p> + +<p> +“At the Quaker City squab en casserole the idea about Artemisia Blye +comes to me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Suppose I can manage to get you in the papers,’ says +I—‘a column or two every day in all of ’em and your picture +in most of ’em for a week. How much would it be worth to you?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ten thousand dollars,’ says Vaucross, warm in a minute. +‘But no murder,’ says he; ‘and I won’t wear pink pants +at a cotillon.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I wouldn’t ask you to,’ says I. ‘This is +honorable, stylish and uneffeminate. Tell the waiter to bring a demi tasse and +some other beans, and I will disclose to you the opus moderandi.’ +</p> + +<p> +“We closed the deal an hour later in the rococo rouge et noise room. I +telegraphed that night to Miss Artemisia in Salina. She took a couple of +photographs and an autograph letter to an elder in the Fourth Presbyterian +Church in the morning, and got some transportation and $80. She stopped in +Topeka long enough to trade a flashlight interior and a valentine to the +vice-president of a trust company for a mileage book and a package of +five-dollar notes with $250 scrawled on the band. +</p> + +<p> +“The fifth evening after she got my wire she was waiting, all +décolletée and dressed up, for me and Vaucross to take her to +dinner in one of these New York feminine apartment houses where a man +can’t get in unless he plays bezique and smokes depilatory powder +cigarettes. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She’s a stunner,’ says Vaucross when he saw her. +‘They’ll give her a two-column cut sure.’ +</p> + +<p> +“This was the scheme the three of us concocted. It was business straight +through. Vaucross was to rush Miss Blye with all the style and display and +emotion he could for a month. Of course, that amounted to nothing as far as his +ambitions were concerned. The sight of a man in a white tie and patent leather +pumps pouring greenbacks through the large end of a cornucopia to purchase +nutriment and heartsease for tall, willowy blondes in New York is as common a +sight as blue turtles in delirium tremens. But he was to write her love +letters—the worst kind of love letters, such as your wife publishes after +you are dead—every day. At the end of the month he was to drop her, and +she would bring suit for $100,000 for breach of promise. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Artemisia was to get $10,000. If she won the suit that was all; and +if she lost she was to get it anyhow. There was a signed contract to that +effect. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes they had me out with ’em, but not often. I +couldn’t keep up to their style. She used to pull out his notes and +criticize them like bills of lading. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Say, you!’ she’d say. ‘What do you call +this—letter to a Hardware Merchant from His Nephew on Learning that His +Aunt Has Nettlerash? You Eastern duffers know as much about writing love +letters as a Kansas grasshopper does about tugboats. “My dear Miss +Blye!”—wouldn’t that put pink icing and a little red sugar +bird on your bridal cake? How long do you expect to hold an audience in a +court-room with that kind of stuff? You want to get down to business, and call +me “Tweedlums Babe” and “Honeysuckle,” and sign +yourself “Mama’s Own Big Bad Puggy Wuggy Boy” if you want any +limelight to concentrate upon your sparse gray hairs. Get sappy.’ +</p> + +<p> +“After that Vaucross dipped his pen in the indelible tabasco. His notes +read like something or other in the original. I could see a jury sitting up, +and women tearing one another’s hats to hear ’em read. And I could +see piling up for Mr. Vaucross as much notoriousness as Archbishop Cranmer or +the Brooklyn Bridge or cheese-on-salad ever enjoyed. He seemed mighty pleased +at the prospects. +</p> + +<p> +“They agreed on a night; and I stood on Fifth Avenue outside a solemn +restaurant and watched ’em. A process-server walked in and handed +Vaucross the papers at his table. Everybody looked at ’em; and he looked +as proud as Cicero. I went back to my room and lit a five-cent cigar, for I +knew the $10,000 was as good as ours. +</p> + +<p> +“About two hours later somebody knocked at my door. There stood Vaucross +and Miss Artemisia, and she was clinging—yes, sir, clinging—to his +arm. And they tells me they’d been out and got married. And they +articulated some trivial cadences about love and such. And they laid down a +bundle on the table and said ‘Good night’ and left. +</p> + +<p> +“And that’s why I say,” concluded Ferguson Pogue, “that +a woman is too busy occupied with her natural vocation and instinct of graft +such as is given her for self-preservation and amusement to make any great +success in special lines.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was in the bundle that they left?” I asked, with my usual +curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said Ferguson, “there was a scalper’s railroad +ticket as far as Kansas City and two pairs of Mr. Vaucross’s old +pants.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX<br /> +THE CALL OF THE TAME</h2> + +<p> +When the inauguration was accomplished—the proceedings were made smooth +by the presence of the Rough Riders—it is well known that a herd of those +competent and loyal ex-warriors paid a visit to the big city. The newspaper +reporters dug out of their trunks the old broad-brimmed hats and leather belts +that they wear to North Beach fish fries, and mixed with the visitors. No +damage was done beyond the employment of the wonderful plural +“tenderfeet” in each of the scribe’s stories. The Westerners +mildly contemplated the skyscrapers as high as the third story, yawned at +Broadway, hunched down in the big chairs in hotel corridors, and altogether +looked as bored and dejected as a member of Ye Ancient and Honorable Artillery +separated during a sham battle from his valet. +</p> + +<p> +Out of this sightseeing delegations of good King Teddy’s Gentlemen of the +Royal Bear-hounds dropped one Greenbrier Nye, of Pin Feather, Ariz. +</p> + +<p> +The daily cyclone of Sixth Avenue’s rush hour swept him away from the +company of his pardners true. The dust from a thousand rustling skirts filled +his eyes. The mighty roar of trains rushing across the sky deafened him. The +lightning-flash of twice ten hundred beaming eyes confused his vision. +</p> + +<p> +The storm was so sudden and tremendous that Greenbrier’s first impulse +was to lie down and grab a root. And then he remembered that the disturbance +was human, and not elemental; and he backed out of it with a grin into a +doorway. +</p> + +<p> +The reporters had written that but for the wide-brimmed hats the West was not +visible upon these gauchos of the North. Heaven sharpen their eyes! The suit of +black diagonal, wrinkled in impossible places; the bright blue four-in-hand, +factory tied; the low, turned-down collar, pattern of the days of Seymour and +Blair, white glazed as the letters on the window of the +open-day-and-night-except-Sunday restaurants; the out-curve at the knees from +the saddle grip; the peculiar spread of the half-closed right thumb and fingers +from the stiff hold upon the circling lasso; the deeply absorbed weather tan +that the hottest sun of Cape May can never equal; the seldom-winking blue eyes +that unconsciously divided the rushing crowds into fours, as though they were +being counted out of a corral; the segregated loneliness and solemnity of +expression, as of an Emperor or of one whose horizons have not intruded upon +him nearer than a day’s ride—these brands of the West were set upon +Greenbrier Nye. Oh, yes; he wore a broad-brimmed hat, gentle reader—just +like those the Madison Square Post Office mail carriers wear when they go up to +Bronx Park on Sunday afternoons. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Greenbrier Nye jumped into the drifting herd of metropolitan cattle, +seized upon a man, dragged him out of the stream and gave him a buffet upon his +collar-bone that sent him reeling against a wall. +</p> + +<p> +The victim recovered his hat, with the angry look of a New Yorker who has +suffered an outrage and intends to write to the Trib. about it. But he looked +at his assailant, and knew that the blow was in consideration of love and +affection after the manner of the West, which greets its friends with contumely +and uproar and pounding fists, and receives its enemies in decorum and order, +such as the judicious placing of the welcoming bullet demands. +</p> + +<p> +“God in the mountains!” cried Greenbrier, holding fast to the +foreleg of his cull. “Can this be Longhorn Merritt?” +</p> + +<p> +The other man was—oh, look on Broadway any day for the +pattern—business man—latest rolled-brim derby—good barber, +business, digestion and tailor. +</p> + +<p> +“Greenbrier Nye!” he exclaimed, grasping the hand that had smitten +him. “My dear fellow! So glad to see you! How did you come to—oh, +to be sure—the inaugural ceremonies—I remember you joined the Rough +Riders. You must come and have luncheon with me, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +Greenbrier pinned him sadly but firmly to the wall with a hand the size, shape +and color of a McClellan saddle. +</p> + +<p> +“Longy,” he said, in a melancholy voice that disturbed traffic, +“what have they been doing to you? You act just like a citizen. They done +made you into an inmate of the city directory. You never made no such Johnny +Branch execration of yourself as that out on the Gila. ‘Come and have +lunching with me!’ You never defined grub by any such terms of reproach +in them days.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been living in New York seven years,” said Merritt. +“It’s been eight since we punched cows together in Old Man +Garcia’s outfit. Well, let’s go to a café, anyhow. It sounds +good to hear it called ‘grub?’ again.” +</p> + +<p> +They picked their way through the crowd to a hotel, and drifted, as by a +natural law, to the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak up,” invited Greenbrier. +</p> + +<p> +“A dry Martini,” said Merritt. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lord!” cried Greenbrier; “and yet me and you once saw +the same pink Gila monsters crawling up the walls of the same hotel in +Cañon Diablo! A dry—but let that pass. Whiskey straight—and +they’re on you.” +</p> + +<p> +Merritt smiled, and paid. +</p> + +<p> +They lunched in a small extension of the dining room that connected with the +café. Merritt dexterously diverted his friend’s choice, that +hovered over ham and eggs, to a purée of celery, a salmon cutlet, a +partridge pie and a desirable salad. +</p> + +<p> +“On the day,” said Greenbrier, grieved and thunderous, “when +I can’t hold but one drink before eating when I meet a friend I +ain’t seen in eight years at a 2 by 4 table in a thirty-cent town at 1 +o’clock on the third day of the week, I want nine broncos to kick me +forty times over a 640-acre section of land. Get them statistics?” +</p> + +<p> +“Right, old man,” laughed Merritt. “Waiter, bring an absinthe +frappé and—what’s yours, Greenbrier?” +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey straight,” mourned Nye. “Out of the neck of a bottle +you used to take it, Longy—straight out of the neck of a bottle on a +galloping pony—Arizona redeye, not this ab—oh, what’s the +use? They’re on you.” +</p> + +<p> +Merritt slipped the wine card under his glass. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I suppose you think I’m spoiled by the city. I’m +as good a Westerner as you are, Greenbrier; but, somehow, I can’t make up +my mind to go back out there. New York is comfortable—comfortable. I make +a good living, and I live it. No more wet blankets and riding herd in +snowstorms, and bacon and cold coffee, and blowouts once in six months for me. +I reckon I’ll hang out here in the future. We’ll take in the +theatre to-night, Greenbrier, and after that we’ll dine at—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what you are, Merritt,” said Greenbrier, +laying one elbow in his salad and the other in his butter. “You are a +concentrated, effete, unconditional, short-sleeved, gotch-eared Miss Sally +Walker. God made you perpendicular and suitable to ride straddle and use cuss +words in the original. Wherefore you have suffered his handiwork to elapse by +removing yourself to New York and putting on little shoes tied with strings, +and making faces when you talk. I’ve seen you rope and tie a steer in +42½. If you was to see one now you’d write to the Police +Commissioner about it. And these flapdoodle drinks that you inoculate your +system with—these little essences of cowslip with acorns in ’em, +and paregoric flip—they ain’t anyways in assent with the cordiality +of manhood. I hate to see you this way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr. Greenbrier,” said Merritt, with apology in his tone, +“in a way you are right. Sometimes I do feel like I was being raised on +the bottle. But, I tell you, New York is comfortable—comfortable. +There’s something about it—the sights and the crowds, and the way +it changes every day, and the very air of it that seems to tie a one-mile-long +stake rope around a man’s neck, with the other end fastened somewhere +about Thirty-fourth Street. I don’t know what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“God knows,” said Greenbrier sadly, “and I know. The East has +gobbled you up. You was venison, and now you’re veal. You put me in mind +of a japonica in a window. You’ve been signed, sealed and diskivered. +Requiescat in hoc signo. You make me thirsty.” +</p> + +<p> +“A green chartreuse here,” said Merritt to the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey straight,” sighed Greenbrier, “and they’re on +you, you renegade of the round-ups.” +</p> + +<p> +“Guilty, with an application for mercy,” said Merritt. “You +don’t know how it is, Greenbrier. It’s so comfortable here +that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please loan me your smelling salts,” pleaded Greenbrier. “If +I hadn’t seen you once bluff three bluffers from Mazatzal City with an +empty gun in Phoenix—” +</p> + +<p> +Greenbrier’s voice died away in pure grief. +</p> + +<p> +“Cigars!” he called harshly to the waiter, to hide his emotion. +</p> + +<p> +“A pack of Turkish cigarettes for mine,” said Merritt. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re on you,” chanted Greenbrier, struggling to conceal +his contempt. +</p> + +<p> +At seven they dined in the Where-to-Dine-Well column. +</p> + +<p> +That evening a galaxy had assembled there. Bright shone the lights o’er +fair women and br—let it go, anyhow—brave men. The orchestra played +charmingly. Hardly had a tip from a diner been placed in its hands by a waiter +when it would burst forth into soniferousness. The more beer you contributed to +it the more Meyerbeer it gave you. Which is reciprocity. +</p> + +<p> +Merritt put forth exertions on the dinner. Greenbrier was his old friend, and +he liked him. He persuaded him to drink a cocktail. +</p> + +<p> +“I take the horehound tea,” said Greenbrier, “for old +times’ sake. But I’d prefer whiskey straight. They’re on +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right!” said Merritt. “Now, run your eye down that bill of +fare and see if it seems to hitch on any of these items.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lay me on my lava bed!” said Greenbrier, with bulging eyes. +“All these specimens of nutriment in the grub wagon! What’s this? +Horse with the heaves? I pass. But look along! Here’s truck for twenty +round-ups all spelled out in different directions. Wait till I see.” +</p> + +<p> +The viands ordered, Merritt turned to the wine list. +</p> + +<p> +“This Medoc isn’t bad,” he suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the doc,” said Greenbrier. “I’d rather +have whiskey straight. It’s on you.” +</p> + +<p> +Greenbrier looked around the room. The waiter brought things and took dishes +away. He was observing. He saw a New York restaurant crowd enjoying itself. +</p> + +<p> +“How was the range when you left the Gila?” asked Merritt. +</p> + +<p> +“Fine,” said Greenbrier. “You see that lady in the red +speckled silk at that table. Well, she could warm over her beans at my +campfire. Yes, the range was good. She looks as nice as a white mustang I see +once on Black River.” +</p> + +<p> +When the coffee came, Greenbrier put one foot on the seat of the chair next to +him. +</p> + +<p> +“You said it was a comfortable town, Longy,” he said, meditatively. +“Yes, it’s a comfortable town. It’s different from the plains +in a blue norther. What did you call that mess in the crock with the handle, +Longy? Oh, yes, squabs in a cash roll. They’re worth the roll. That white +mustang had just such a way of turning his head and shaking his mane—look +at her, Longy. If I thought I could sell out my ranch at a fair price, I +believe I’d— +</p> + +<p> +“Gyar—song!” he suddenly cried, in a voice that paralyzed +every knife and fork in the restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +The waiter dived toward the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Two more of them cocktail drinks,” ordered Greenbrier. +</p> + +<p> +Merritt looked at him and smiled significantly. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re on me,” said Greenbrier, blowing a puff of smoke to +the ceiling. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X<br /> +THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY</h2> + +<p> +The poet Longfellow—or was it Confucius, the inventor of +wisdom?—remarked: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Life is real, life is earnest;<br /> +And things are not what they seem.” +</p> + +<p> +As mathematics are—or is: thanks, old subscriber!—the only just +rule by which questions of life can be measured, let us, by all means, adjust +our theme to the straight edge and the balanced column of the great goddess +Two-and-Two-Makes-Four. Figures—unassailable sums in addition—shall +be set over against whatever opposing element there may be. +</p> + +<p> +A mathematician, after scanning the above two lines of poetry, would say: +“Ahem! young gentlemen, if we assume that X plus—that is, that life +is real—then things (all of which life includes) are real. Anything that +is real is what it seems. Then if we consider the proposition that +‘things are not what they seem,’ why—” +</p> + +<p> +But this is heresy, and not poesy. We woo the sweet nymph Algebra; we would +conduct you into the presence of the elusive, seductive, pursued, satisfying, +mysterious X. +</p> + +<p> +Not long before the beginning of this century, Septimus Kinsolving, an old New +Yorker, invented an idea. He originated the discovery that bread is made from +flour and not from wheat futures. Perceiving that the flour crop was short, and +that the Stock Exchange was having no perceptible effect on the growing wheat, +Mr. Kinsolving cornered the flour market. +</p> + +<p> +The result was that when you or my landlady (before the war she never had to +turn her hand to anything; Southerners accommodated) bought a five-cent loaf of +bread you laid down an additional two cents, which went to Mr. Kinsolving as a +testimonial to his perspicacity. +</p> + +<p> +A second result was that Mr. Kinsolving quit the game with $2,000,000 +prof—er—rake-off. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kinsolving’s son Dan was at college when the mathematical experiment +in breadstuffs was made. Dan came home during vacation, and found the old +gentleman in a red dressing-gown reading “Little Dorrit” on the +porch of his estimable red brick mansion in Washington Square. He had retired +from business with enough extra two-cent pieces from bread buyers to reach, if +laid side by side, fifteen times around the earth and lap as far as the public +debt of Paraguay. +</p> + +<p> +Dan shook hands with his father, and hurried over to Greenwich Village to see +his old high-school friend, Kenwitz. Dan had always admired Kenwitz. Kenwitz +was pale, curly-haired, intense, serious, mathematical, studious, altruistic, +socialistic, and the natural foe of oligarchies. Kenwitz had foregone college, +and was learning watch-making in his father’s jewelry store. Dan was +smiling, jovial, easy-tempered and tolerant alike of kings and ragpickers. The +two foregathered joyously, being opposites. And then Dan went back to college, +and Kenwitz to his mainsprings—and to his private library in the rear of +the jewelry shop. +</p> + +<p> +Four years later Dan came back to Washington Square with the accumulations of +B. A. and two years of Europe thick upon him. He took a filial look at Septimus +Kinsolving’s elaborate tombstone in Greenwood and a tedious excursion +through typewritten documents with the family lawyer; and then, feeling himself +a lonely and hopeless millionaire, hurried down to the old jewelry store across +Sixth Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +Kenwitz unscrewed a magnifying glass from his eye, routed out his parent from a +dingy rear room, and abandoned the interior of watches for outdoors. He went +with Dan, and they sat on a bench in Washington Square. Dan had not changed +much; he was stalwart, and had a dignity that was inclined to relax into a +grin. Kenwitz was more serious, more intense, more learned, philosophical and +socialistic. +</p> + +<p> +“I know about it now,” said Dan, finally. “I pumped it out of +the eminent legal lights that turned over to me poor old dad’s +collections of bonds and boodle. It amounts to $2,000,000, Ken. And I am told +that he squeezed it out of the chaps that pay their pennies for loaves of bread +at little bakeries around the corner. You’ve studied economics, Dan, and +you know all about monopolies, and the masses, and octopuses, and the rights of +laboring people. I never thought about those things before. Football and trying +to be white to my fellow-man were about the extent of my college curriculum. +</p> + +<p> +“But since I came back and found out how dad made his money I’ve +been thinking. I’d like awfully well to pay back those chaps who had to +give up too much money for bread. I know it would buck the line of my income +for a good many yards; but I’d like to make it square with ’em. Is +there any way it can be done, old Ways and Means?” +</p> + +<p> +Kenwitz’s big black eyes glowed fierily. His thin, intellectual face took +on almost a sardonic cast. He caught Dan’s arm with the grip of a friend +and a judge. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t do it!” he said, emphatically. “One of the +chief punishments of you men of ill-gotten wealth is that when you do repent +you find that you have lost the power to make reparation or restitution. I +admire your good intentions, Dan, but you can’t do anything. Those people +were robbed of their precious pennies. It’s too late to remedy the evil. +You can’t pay them back” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Dan, lighting his pipe, “we couldn’t +hunt up every one of the duffers and hand ’em back the right change. +There’s an awful lot of ’em buying bread all the time. Funny taste +they have—I never cared for bread especially, except for a toasted +cracker with the Roquefort. But we might find a few of ’em and chuck some +of dad’s cash back where it came from. I’d feel better if I could. +It seems tough for people to be held up for a soggy thing like bread. One +wouldn’t mind standing a rise in broiled lobsters or deviled crabs. Get +to work and think, Ken. I want to pay back all of that money I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are plenty of charities,” said Kenwitz, mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“Easy enough,” said Dan, in a cloud of smoke. “I suppose I +could give the city a park, or endow an asparagus bed in a hospital. But I +don’t want Paul to get away with the proceeds of the gold brick we sold +Peter. It’s the bread shorts I want to cover, Ken.” +</p> + +<p> +The thin fingers of Kenwitz moved rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know how much money it would take to pay back the losses of +consumers during that corner in flour?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not.” said Dan, stoutly. “My lawyer tells me that I +have two millions.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you had a hundred millions,” said Kenwitz, vehemently, +“you couldn’t repair a thousandth part of the damage that has been +done. You cannot conceive of the accumulated evils produced by misapplied +wealth. Each penny that was wrung from the lean purses of the poor reacted a +thousandfold to their harm. You do not understand. You do not see how hopeless +is your desire to make restitution. Not in a single instance can it be +done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Back up, philosopher!” said Dan. “The penny has no sorrow +that the dollar cannot heal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in one instance,” repeated Kenwitz. “I will give you +one, and let us see. Thomas Boyne had a little bakery over there in Varick +Street. He sold bread to the poorest people. When the price of flour went up he +had to raise the price of bread. His customers were too poor to pay it, +Boyne’s business failed and he lost his $1,000 capital—all he had +in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +Dan Kinsolving struck the park bench a mighty blow with his fist. +</p> + +<p> +“I accept the instance,” he cried. “Take me to Boyne. I will +repay his thousand dollars and buy him a new bakery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Write your check,” said Kenwitz, without moving, “and then +begin to write checks in payment of the train of consequences. Draw the next +one for $50,000. Boyne went insane after his failure and set fire to the +building from which he was about to be evicted. The loss amounted to that much. +Boyne died in an asylum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stick to the instance,” said Dan. “I haven’t noticed +any insurance companies on my charity list.” +</p> + +<p> +“Draw your next check for $100,000,” went on Kenwitz. +“Boyne’s son fell into bad ways after the bakery closed, and was +accused of murder. He was acquitted last week after a three years’ legal +battle, and the state draws upon taxpayers for that much expense.” +</p> + +<p> +“Back to the bakery!” exclaimed Dan, impatiently. “The +Government doesn’t need to stand in the bread line.” +</p> + +<p> +“The last item of the instance is—come and I will show you,” +said Kenwitz, rising. +</p> + +<p> +The Socialistic watchmaker was happy. He was a millionaire-baiter by nature and +a pessimist by trade. Kenwitz would assure you in one breath that money was but +evil and corruption, and that your brand-new watch needed cleaning and a new +ratchet-wheel. +</p> + +<p> +He conducted Kinsolving southward out of the square and into ragged, +poverty-haunted Varick Street. Up the narrow stairway of a squalid brick +tenement he led the penitent offspring of the Octopus. He knocked on a door, +and a clear voice called to them to enter. +</p> + +<p> +In that almost bare room a young woman sat sewing at a machine. She nodded to +Kenwitz as to a familiar acquaintance. One little stream of sunlight through +the dingy window burnished her heavy hair to the color of an ancient +Tuscan’s shield. She flashed a rippling smile at Kenwitz and a look of +somewhat flustered inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +Kinsolving stood regarding her clear and pathetic beauty in heart-throbbing +silence. Thus they came into the presence of the last item of the Instance. +</p> + +<p> +“How many this week, Miss Mary?” asked the watchmaker. A mountain +of coarse gray shirts lay upon the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Nearly thirty dozen,” said the young woman cheerfully. +“I’ve made almost $4. I’m improving, Mr. Kenwitz. I hardly +know what to do with so much money.” Her eyes turned, brightly soft, in +the direction of Dan. A little pink spot came out on her round, pale cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Kenwitz chuckled like a diabolic raven. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Boyne,” he said, “let me present Mr. Kinsolving, the +son of the man who put bread up five years ago. He thinks he would like to do +something to aid those who where inconvenienced by that act.” +</p> + +<p> +The smile left the young woman’s face. She rose and pointed her +forefinger toward the door. This time she looked Kinsolving straight in the +eye, but it was not a look that gave delight. +</p> + +<p> +The two men went down Varick Street. Kenwitz, letting all his pessimism and +rancor and hatred of the Octopus come to the surface, gibed at the moneyed side +of his friend in an acrid torrent of words. Dan appeared to be listening, and +then turned to Kenwitz and shook hands with him warmly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m obliged to you, Ken, old man,” he said, +vaguely—“a thousand times obliged.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mein Gott! you are crazy!” cried the watchmaker, dropping his +spectacles for the first time in years. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Two months afterward Kenwitz went into a large bakery on lower Broadway with a +pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses that he had mended for the proprietor. +</p> + +<p> +A lady was giving an order to a clerk as Kenwitz passed her. +</p> + +<p> +“These loaves are ten cents,” said the clerk. +</p> + +<p> +“I always get them at eight cents uptown,” said the lady. +“You need not fill the order. I will drive by there on my way +home.” +</p> + +<p> +The voice was familiar. The watchmaker paused. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kenwitz!” cried the lady, heartily. “How do you +do?” +</p> + +<p> +Kenwitz was trying to train his socialistic and economic comprehension on her +wonderful fur boa and the carriage waiting outside. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Miss Boyne!” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Kinsolving,” she corrected. “Dan and I were married a +month ago.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI<br /> +THE THING’S THE PLAY</h2> + +<p> +Being acquainted with a newspaper reporter who had a couple of free passes, I +got to see the performance a few nights ago at one of the popular vaudeville +houses. +</p> + +<p> +One of the numbers was a violin solo by a striking-looking man not much past +forty, but with very gray thick hair. Not being afflicted with a taste for +music, I let the system of noises drift past my ears while I regarded the man. +</p> + +<p> +“There was a story about that chap a month or two ago,” said the +reporter. “They gave me the assignment. It was to run a column and was to +be on the extremely light and joking order. The old man seems to like the funny +touch I give to local happenings. Oh, yes, I’m working on a farce comedy +now. Well, I went down to the house and got all the details; but I certainly +fell down on that job. I went back and turned in a comic write-up of an east +side funeral instead. Why? Oh, I couldn’t seem to get hold of it with my +funny hooks, somehow. Maybe you could make a one-act tragedy out of it for a +curtain-raiser. I’ll give you the details.” +</p> + +<p> +After the performance my friend, the reporter, recited to me the facts over the +Würzburger. +</p> + +<p> +“I see no reason,” said I, when he had concluded, “why that +shouldn’t make a rattling good funny story. Those three people +couldn’t have acted in a more absurd and preposterous manner if they had +been real actors in a real theatre. I’m really afraid that all the stage +is a world, anyhow, and all the players men and women. ‘The thing’s +the play,’ is the way I quote Mr. Shakespeare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try it,” said the reporter. +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said I; and I did, to show him how he could have made a +humorous column of it for his paper. +</p> + +<p> +There stands a house near Abingdon Square. On the ground floor there has been +for twenty-five years a little store where toys and notions and stationery are +sold. +</p> + +<p> +One night twenty years ago there was a wedding in the rooms above the store. +The Widow Mayo owned the house and store. Her daughter Helen was married to +Frank Barry. John Delaney was best man. Helen was eighteen, and her picture had +been printed in a morning paper next to the headlines of a “Wholesale +Female Murderess” story from Butte, Mont. But after your eye and +intelligence had rejected the connection, you seized your magnifying glass and +read beneath the portrait her description as one of a series of Prominent +Beauties and Belles of the lower west side. +</p> + +<p> +Frank Barry and John Delaney were “prominent” young beaux of the +same side, and bosom friends, whom you expected to turn upon each other every +time the curtain went up. One who pays his money for orchestra seats and +fiction expects this. That is the first funny idea that has turned up in the +story yet. Both had made a great race for Helen’s hand. When Frank won, +John shook his hand and congratulated him—honestly, he did. +</p> + +<p> +After the ceremony Helen ran upstairs to put on her hat. She was getting +married in a traveling dress. She and Frank were going to Old Point Comfort for +a week. Downstairs the usual horde of gibbering cave-dwellers were waiting with +their hands full of old Congress gaiters and paper bags of hominy. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was a rattle of the fire-escape, and into her room jumps the mad and +infatuated John Delaney, with a damp curl drooping upon his forehead, and made +violent and reprehensible love to his lost one, entreating her to flee or fly +with him to the Riviera, or the Bronx, or any old place where there are Italian +skies and <i>dolce far niente</i>. +</p> + +<p> +It would have carried Blaney off his feet to see Helen repulse him. With +blazing and scornful eyes she fairly withered him by demanding whatever he +meant by speaking to respectable people that way. +</p> + +<p> +In a few moments she had him going. The manliness that had possessed him +departed. He bowed low, and said something about “irresistible +impulse” and “forever carry in his heart the memory +of”—and she suggested that he catch the first fire-escape going +down. +</p> + +<p> +“I will away,” said John Delaney, “to the furthermost parts +of the earth. I cannot remain near you and know that you are another’s. I +will to Africa, and there amid other scenes strive to for—” +</p> + +<p> +“For goodness sake, get out,” said Helen. “Somebody might +come in.” +</p> + +<p> +He knelt upon one knee, and she extended him one white hand that he might give +it a farewell kiss. +</p> + +<p> +Girls, was this choice boon of the great little god Cupid ever vouchsafed +you—to have the fellow you want hard and fast, and have the one you +don’t want come with a damp curl on his forehead and kneel to you and +babble of Africa and love which, in spite of everything, shall forever bloom, +an amaranth, in his heart? To know your power, and to feel the sweet security +of your own happy state; to send the unlucky one, broken-hearted, to foreign +climes, while you congratulate yourself as he presses his last kiss upon your +knuckles, that your nails are well manicured—say, girls, it’s +galluptious—don’t ever let it get by you. +</p> + +<p> +And then, of course—how did you guess it?—the door opened and in +stalked the bridegroom, jealous of slow-tying bonnet strings. +</p> + +<p> +The farewell kiss was imprinted upon Helen’s hand, and out of the window +and down the fire-escape sprang John Delaney, Africa bound. +</p> + +<p> +A little slow music, if you please—faint violin, just a breath in the +clarinet and a touch of the ‘cello. Imagine the scene. Frank, white-hot, +with the cry of a man wounded to death bursting from him. Helen, rushing and +clinging to him, trying to explain. He catches her wrists and tears them from +his shoulders—once, twice, thrice he sways her this way and +that—the stage manager will show you how—and throws her from him to +the floor a huddled, crushed, moaning thing. Never, he cries, will he look upon +her face again, and rushes from the house through the staring groups of +astonished guests. +</p> + +<p> +And, now because it is the Thing instead of the Play, the audience must stroll +out into the real lobby of the world and marry, die, grow gray, rich, poor, +happy or sad during the intermission of twenty years which must precede the +rising of the curtain again. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Barry inherited the shop and the house. At thirty-eight she could have +bested many an eighteen-year-old at a beauty show on points and general +results. Only a few people remembered her wedding comedy, but she made of it no +secret. She did not pack it in lavender or moth balls, nor did she sell it to a +magazine. +</p> + +<p> +One day a middle-aged money-making lawyer, who bought his legal cap and ink of +her, asked her across the counter to marry him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m really much obliged to you,” said Helen, cheerfully, +“but I married another man twenty years ago. He was more a goose than a +man, but I think I love him yet. I have never seen him since about half an hour +after the ceremony. Was it copying ink that you wanted or just writing +fluid?” +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer bowed over the counter with old-time grace and left a respectful +kiss on the back of her hand. Helen sighed. Parting salutes, however romantic, +may be overdone. Here she was at thirty-eight, beautiful and admired; and all +that she seemed to have got from her lovers were approaches and adieus. Worse +still, in the last one she had lost a customer, too. +</p> + +<p> +Business languished, and she hung out a Room to Let card. Two large rooms on +the third floor were prepared for desirable tenants. Roomers came, and went +regretfully, for the house of Mrs. Barry was the abode of neatness, comfort and +taste. +</p> + +<p> +One day came Ramonti, the violinist, and engaged the front room above. The +discord and clatter uptown offended his nice ear; so a friend had sent him to +this oasis in the desert of noise. +</p> + +<p> +Ramonti, with his still youthful face, his dark eyebrows, his short, pointed, +foreign, brown beard, his distinguished head of gray hair, and his +artist’s temperament—revealed in his light, gay and sympathetic +manner—was a welcome tenant in the old house near Abingdon Square. +</p> + +<p> +Helen lived on the floor above the store. The architecture of it was singular +and quaint. The hall was large and almost square. Up one side of it, and then +across the end of it ascended an open stairway to the floor above. This hall +space she had furnished as a sitting room and office combined. There she kept +her desk and wrote her business letters; and there she sat of evenings by a +warm fire and a bright red light and sewed or read. Ramonti found the +atmosphere so agreeable that he spent much time there, describing to Mrs. Barry +the wonders of Paris, where he had studied with a particularly notorious and +noisy fiddler. +</p> + +<p> +Next comes lodger No. 2, a handsome, melancholy man in the early 40’s, +with a brown, mysterious beard, and strangely pleading, haunting eyes. He, too, +found the society of Helen a desirable thing. With the eyes of Romeo and +Othello’s tongue, he charmed her with tales of distant climes and wooed +her by respectful innuendo. +</p> + +<p> +From the first Helen felt a marvelous and compelling thrill in the presence of +this man. His voice somehow took her swiftly back to the days of her +youth’s romance. This feeling grew, and she gave way to it, and it led +her to an instinctive belief that he had been a factor in that romance. And +then with a woman’s reasoning (oh, yes, they do, sometimes) she leaped +over common syllogisms and theory, and logic, and was sure that her husband had +come back to her. For she saw in his eyes love, which no woman can mistake, and +a thousand tons of regret and remorse, which aroused pity, which is perilously +near to love requited, which is the <i>sine qua non</i> in the house that Jack +built. +</p> + +<p> +But she made no sign. A husband who steps around the corner for twenty years +and then drops in again should not expect to find his slippers laid out too +conveniently near nor a match ready lighted for his cigar. There must be +expiation, explanation, and possibly execration. A little purgatory, and then, +maybe, if he were properly humble, he might be trusted with a harp and crown. +And so she made no sign that she knew or suspected. +</p> + +<p> +And my friend, the reporter, could see nothing funny in this! Sent out on an +assignment to write up a roaring, hilarious, brilliant joshing story +of—but I will not knock a brother—let us go on with the story. +</p> + +<p> +One evening Ramonti stopped in Helen’s hall-office-reception-room and +told his love with the tenderness and ardor of the enraptured artist. His words +were a bright flame of the divine fire that glows in the heart of a man who is +a dreamer and doer combined. +</p> + +<p> +“But before you give me an answer,” he went on, before she could +accuse him of suddenness, “I must tell you that ‘Ramonti?’ is +the only name I have to offer you. My manager gave me that. I do not know who I +am or where I came from. My first recollection is of opening my eyes in a +hospital. I was a young man, and I had been there for weeks. My life before +that is a blank to me. They told me that I was found lying in the street with a +wound on my head and was brought there in an ambulance. They thought I must +have fallen and struck my head upon the stones. There was nothing to show who I +was. I have never been able to remember. After I was discharged from the +hospital, I took up the violin. I have had success. Mrs. Barry—I do not +know your name except that—I love you; the first time I saw you I +realized that you were the one woman in the world for +me—and”—oh, a lot of stuff like that. +</p> + +<p> +Helen felt young again. First a wave of pride and a sweet little thrill of +vanity went all over her; and then she looked Ramonti in the eyes, and a +tremendous throb went through her heart. She hadn’t expected that throb. +It took her by surprise. The musician had become a big factor in her life, and +she hadn’t been aware of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Ramonti,” she said sorrowfully (this was not on the stage, +remember; it was in the old home near Abingdon Square), “I’m +awfully sorry, but I’m a married woman.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she told him the sad story of her life, as a heroine must do, sooner +or later, either to a theatrical manager or to a reporter. +</p> + +<p> +Ramonti took her hand, bowed low and kissed it, and went up to his room. +</p> + +<p> +Helen sat down and looked mournfully at her hand. Well she might. Three suitors +had kissed it, mounted their red roan steeds and ridden away. +</p> + +<p> +In an hour entered the mysterious stranger with the haunting eyes. Helen was in +the willow rocker, knitting a useless thing in cotton-wool. He ricocheted from +the stairs and stopped for a chat. Sitting across the table from her, he also +poured out his narrative of love. And then he said: “Helen, do you not +remember me? I think I have seen it in your eyes. Can you forgive the past and +remember the love that has lasted for twenty years? I wronged you +deeply—I was afraid to come back to you—but my love overpowered my +reason. Can you, will you, forgive me?” +</p> + +<p> +Helen stood up. The mysterious stranger held one of her hands in a strong and +trembling clasp. +</p> + +<p> +There she stood, and I pity the stage that it has not acquired a scene like +that and her emotions to portray. +</p> + +<p> +For she stood with a divided heart. The fresh, unforgettable, virginal love for +her bridegroom was hers; the treasured, sacred, honored memory of her first +choice filled half her soul. She leaned to that pure feeling. Honor and faith +and sweet, abiding romance bound her to it. But the other half of her heart and +soul was filled with something else—a later, fuller, nearer influence. +And so the old fought against the new. +</p> + +<p> +And while she hesitated, from the room above came the soft, racking, +petitionary music of a violin. The hag, music, bewitches some of the noblest. +The daws may peck upon one’s sleeve without injury, but whoever wears his +heart upon his tympanum gets it not far from the neck. +</p> + +<p> +This music and the musician called her, and at her side honor and the old love +held her back. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me,” he pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty years is a long time to remain away from the one you say you +love,” she declared, with a purgatorial touch. +</p> + +<p> +“How could I tell?” he begged. “I will conceal nothing from +you. That night when he left I followed him. I was mad with jealousy. On a dark +street I struck him down. He did not rise. I examined him. His head had struck +a stone. I did not intend to kill him. I was mad with love and jealousy. I hid +near by and saw an ambulance take him away. Although you married him, +Helen—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Who Are You?</i>” cried the woman, with wide-open eyes, +snatching her hand away. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you remember me, Helen—the one who has always loved +you best? I am John Delaney. If you can forgive—” +</p> + +<p> +But she was gone, leaping, stumbling, hurrying, flying up the stairs toward the +music and him who had forgotten, but who had known her for his in each of his +two existences, and as she climbed up she sobbed, cried and sang: “Frank! +Frank! Frank!” +</p> + +<p> +Three mortals thus juggling with years as though they were billiard balls, and +my friend, the reporter, couldn’t see anything funny in it! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII<br /> +A RAMBLE IN APHASIA</h2> + +<p> +My wife and I parted on that morning in precisely our usual manner. She left +her second cup of tea to follow me to the front door. There she plucked from my +lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim +ownership) and bade me to take care of my cold. I had no cold. Next came her +kiss of parting—the level kiss of domesticity flavored with Young Hyson. +There was no fear of the extemporaneous, of variety spicing her infinite +custom. With the deft touch of long malpractice, she dabbed awry my well-set +scarf pin; and then, as I closed the door, I heard her morning slippers +pattering back to her cooling tea. +</p> + +<p> +When I set out I had no thought or premonition of what was to occur. The attack +came suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +For many weeks I had been toiling, almost night and day, at a famous railroad +law case that I won triumphantly but a few days previously. In fact, I had been +digging away at the law almost without cessation for many years. Once or twice +good Doctor Volney, my friend and physician, had warned me. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t slacken up, Bellford,” he said, +“you’ll go suddenly to pieces. Either your nerves or your brain +will give way. Tell me, does a week pass in which you do not read in the papers +of a case of aphasia—of some man lost, wandering nameless, with his past +and his identity blotted out—and all from that little brain clot made by +overwork or worry?” +</p> + +<p> +“I always thought,” said I, “that the clot in those instances +was really to be found on the brains of the newspaper reporters.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Volney shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“The disease exists,” he said. “You need a change or a rest. +Court-room, office and home—there is the only route you travel. For +recreation you—read law books. Better take warning in time.” +</p> + +<p> +“On Thursday nights,” I said, defensively, “my wife and I +play cribbage. On Sundays she reads to me the weekly letter from her mother. +That law books are not a recreation remains yet to be established.” +</p> + +<p> +That morning as I walked I was thinking of Doctor Volney’s words. I was +feeling as well as I usually did—possibly in better spirits than usual. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +I awoke with stiff and cramped muscles from having slept long on the +incommodious seat of a day coach. I leaned my head against the seat and tried +to think. After a long time I said to myself: “I must have a name of some +sort.” I searched my pockets. Not a card; not a letter; not a paper or +monogram could I find. But I found in my coat pocket nearly $3,000 in bills of +large denomination. “I must be some one, of course,” I repeated to +myself, and began again to consider. +</p> + +<p> +The car was well crowded with men, among whom, I told myself, there must have +been some common interest, for they intermingled freely, and seemed in the best +good humor and spirits. One of them—a stout, spectacled gentleman +enveloped in a decided odor of cinnamon and aloes—took the vacant half of +my seat with a friendly nod, and unfolded a newspaper. In the intervals between +his periods of reading, we conversed, as travelers will, on current affairs. I +found myself able to sustain the conversation on such subjects with credit, at +least to my memory. By and by my companion said: +</p> + +<p> +“You are one of us, of course. Fine lot of men the West sends in this +time. I’m glad they held the convention in New York; I’ve never +been East before. My name’s R. P. Bolder—Bolder & Son, of +Hickory Grove, Missouri.” +</p> + +<p> +Though unprepared, I rose to the emergency, as men will when put to it. Now +must I hold a christening, and be at once babe, parson and parent. My senses +came to the rescue of my slower brain. The insistent odor of drugs from my +companion supplied one idea; a glance at his newspaper, where my eye met a +conspicuous advertisement, assisted me further. +</p> + +<p> +“My name,” said I, glibly, “is Edward Pinkhammer. I am a +druggist, and my home is in Cornopolis, Kansas.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew you were a druggist,” said my fellow traveler, affably. +“I saw the callous spot on your right forefinger where the handle of the +pestle rubs. Of course, you are a delegate to our National Convention.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are all these men druggists?” I asked, wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +“They are. This car came through from the West. And they’re your +old-time druggists, too—none of your patent tablet-and-granule +pharmashootists that use slot machines instead of a prescription desk. We +percolate our own paregoric and roll our own pills, and we ain’t above +handling a few garden seeds in the spring, and carrying a side line of +confectionery and shoes. I tell you Hampinker, I’ve got an idea to spring +on this convention—new ideas is what they want. Now, you know the shelf +bottles of tartar emetic and Rochelle salt Ant. et Pot. Tart. and Sod. et Pot. +Tart.—one’s poison, you know, and the other’s harmless. +It’s easy to mistake one label for the other. Where do druggists mostly +keep ’em? Why, as far apart as possible, on different shelves. +That’s wrong. I say keep ’em side by side, so when you want one you +can always compare it with the other and avoid mistakes. Do you catch the +idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me a very good one,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“All right! When I spring it on the convention you back it up. +We’ll make some of these Eastern orange-phosphate-and-massage-cream +professors that think they’re the only lozenges in the market look like +hypodermic tablets.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I can be of any aid,” I said, warming, “the two bottles +of—er—” +</p> + +<p> +“Tartrate of antimony and potash, and tartrate of soda and potash.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall henceforth sit side by side,” I concluded, firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, there’s another thing,” said Mr. Bolder. “For an +excipient in manipulating a pill mass which do you prefer—the magnesia +carbonate or the pulverised glycerrhiza radix?” +</p> + +<p> +“The—er—magnesia,” I said. It was easier to say than +the other word. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bolder glanced at me distrustfully through his spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me the glycerrhiza,” said he. “Magnesia cakes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s another one of these fake aphasia cases,” he said, +presently, handing me his newspaper, and laying his finger upon an article. +“I don’t believe in ’em. I put nine out of ten of ’em +down as frauds. A man gets sick of his business and his folks and wants to have +a good time. He skips out somewhere, and when they find him he pretends to have +lost his memory—don’t know his own name, and won’t even +recognize the strawberry mark on his wife’s left shoulder. Aphasia! Tut! +Why can’t they stay at home and forget?” +</p> + +<p> +I took the paper and read, after the pungent headlines, the following: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“D<small>ENVER</small>, June 12.—Elwyn C. Bellford, a prominent +lawyer, is mysteriously missing from his home since three days ago, and all +efforts to locate him have been in vain. Mr. Bellford is a well-known citizen +of the highest standing, and has enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice. He +is married and owns a fine home and the most extensive private library in the +State. On the day of his disappearance, he drew quite a large sum of money from +his bank. No one can be found who saw him after he left the bank. Mr. Bellford +was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his +happiness in his home and profession. If any clue at all exists to his strange +disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been +deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the Q. Y. and Z. +Railroad Company. It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind. Every +effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me you are not altogether uncynical, Mr. Bolder,” I +said, after I had read the despatch. “This has the sound, to me, of a +genuine case. Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, +choose suddenly to abandon everything? I know that these lapses of memory do +occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, gammon and jalap!” said Mr. Bolder. “It’s larks +they’re after. There’s too much education nowadays. Men know about +aphasia, and they use it for an excuse. The women are wise, too. When +it’s all over they look you in the eye, as scientific as you please, and +say: ‘He hypnotized me.’” +</p> + +<p> +Thus Mr. Bolder diverted, but did not aid, me with his comments and philosophy. +</p> + +<p> +We arrived in New York about ten at night. I rode in a cab to a hotel, and I +wrote my name “Edward Pinkhammer” in the register. As I did so I +felt pervade me a splendid, wild, intoxicating buoyancy—a sense of +unlimited freedom, of newly attained possibilities. I was just born into the +world. The old fetters—whatever they had been—were stricken from my +hands and feet. The future lay before me a clear road such as an infant enters, +and I could set out upon it equipped with a man’s learning and +experience. +</p> + +<p> +I thought the hotel clerk looked at me five seconds too long. I had no baggage. +</p> + +<p> +“The Druggists’ Convention,” I said. “My trunk has +somehow failed to arrive.” I drew out a roll of money. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said he, showing an auriferous tooth, “we have quite a +number of the Western delegates stopping here.” He struck a bell for the +boy. +</p> + +<p> +I endeavored to give color to my rôle. +</p> + +<p> +“There is an important movement on foot among us Westerners,” I +said, “in regard to a recommendation to the convention that the bottles +containing the tartrate of antimony and potash, and the tartrate of sodium and +potash be kept in a contiguous position on the shelf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman to three-fourteen,” said the clerk, hastily. I was +whisked away to my room. +</p> + +<p> +The next day I bought a trunk and clothing, and began to live the life of +Edward Pinkhammer. I did not tax my brain with endeavors to solve problems of +the past. +</p> + +<p> +It was a piquant and sparkling cup that the great island city held up to my +lips. I drank of it gratefully. The keys of Manhattan belong to him who is able +to bear them. You must be either the city’s guest or its victim. +</p> + +<p> +The following few days were as gold and silver. Edward Pinkhammer, yet counting +back to his birth by hours only, knew the rare joy of having come upon so +diverting a world full-fledged and unrestrained. I sat entranced on the magic +carpets provided in theatres and roof-gardens, that transported one into +strange and delightful lands full of frolicsome music, pretty girls and +grotesque drolly extravagant parodies upon human kind. I went here and there at +my own dear will, bound by no limits of space, time or comportment. I dined in +weird cabarets, at weirder <i>tables d’hôte</i> to the sound of +Hungarian music and the wild shouts of mercurial artists and sculptors. Or, +again, where the night life quivers in the electric glare like a kinetoscopic +picture, and the millinery of the world, and its jewels, and the ones whom they +adorn, and the men who make all three possible are met for good cheer and the +spectacular effect. And among all these scenes that I have mentioned I learned +one thing that I never knew before. And that is that the key to liberty is not +in the hands of License, but Convention holds it. Comity has a toll-gate at +which you must pay, or you may not enter the land of Freedom. In all the +glitter, the seeming disorder, the parade, the abandon, I saw this law, +unobtrusive, yet like iron, prevail. Therefore, in Manhattan you must obey +these unwritten laws, and then you will be freest of the free. If you decline +to be bound by them, you put on shackles. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes, as my mood urged me, I would seek the stately, softly murmuring palm +rooms, redolent with high-born life and delicate restraint, in which to dine. +Again I would go down to the waterways in steamers packed with vociferous, +bedecked, unchecked love-making clerks and shop-girls to their crude pleasures +on the island shores. And there was always Broadway—glistening, opulent, +wily, varying, desirable Broadway—growing upon one like an opium habit. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon as I entered my hotel a stout man with a big nose and a black +mustache blocked my way in the corridor. When I would have passed around him, +he greet me with offensive familiarity. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Bellford!” he cried, loudly. “What the deuce are you +doing in New York? Didn’t know anything could drag you away from that old +book den of yours. Is Mrs. B. along or is this a little business run alone, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have made a mistake, sir,” I said, coldly, releasing my hand +from his grasp. “My name is Pinkhammer. You will excuse me.” +</p> + +<p> +The man dropped to one side, apparently astonished. As I walked to the +clerk’s desk I heard him call to a bell boy and say something about +telegraph blanks. +</p> + +<p> +“You will give me my bill,” I said to the clerk, “and have my +baggage brought down in half an hour. I do not care to remain where I am +annoyed by confidence men.” +</p> + +<p> +I moved that afternoon to another hotel, a sedate, old-fashioned one on lower +Fifth Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +There was a restaurant a little way off Broadway where one could be served +almost <i>al fresco</i> in a tropic array of screening flora. Quiet and luxury +and a perfect service made it an ideal place in which to take luncheon or +refreshment. One afternoon I was there picking my way to a table among the +ferns when I felt my sleeve caught. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bellford!” exclaimed an amazingly sweet voice. +</p> + +<p> +I turned quickly to see a lady seated alone—a lady of about thirty, with +exceedingly handsome eyes, who looked at me as though I had been her very dear +friend. +</p> + +<p> +“You were about to pass me,” she said, accusingly. +“Don’t tell me you do not know me. Why should we not shake +hands—at least once in fifteen years?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook hands with her at once. I took a chair opposite her at the table. I +summoned with my eyebrows a hovering waiter. The lady was philandering with an +orange ice. I ordered a <i>crème de menthe</i>. Her hair was reddish +bronze. You could not look at it, because you could not look away from her +eyes. But you were conscious of it as you are conscious of sunset while you +look into the profundities of a wood at twilight. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure you know me?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, smiling. “I was never sure of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you think,” I said, a little anxiously, “if I +were to tell you that my name is Edward Pinkhammer, from Cornopolis, +Kansas?” +</p> + +<p> +“What would I think?” she repeated, with a merry glance. +“Why, that you had not brought Mrs. Bellford to New York with you, of +course. I do wish you had. I would have liked to see Marian.” Her voice +lowered slightly—“You haven’t changed much, Elwyn.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt her wonderful eyes searching mine and my face more closely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you have,” she amended, and there was a soft, exultant note +in her latest tones; “I see it now. You haven’t forgotten. You +haven’t forgotten for a year or a day or an hour. I told you you never +could.” +</p> + +<p> +I poked my straw anxiously in the <i>crème de menthe</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I beg your pardon,” I said, a little uneasy at her +gaze. “But that is just the trouble. I have forgotten. I’ve +forgotten everything.” +</p> + +<p> +She flouted my denial. She laughed deliciously at something she seemed to see +in my face. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard of you at times,” she went on. +“You’re quite a big lawyer out West—Denver, isn’t it, +or Los Angeles? Marian must be very proud of you. You knew, I suppose, that I +married six months after you did. You may have seen it in the papers. The +flowers alone cost two thousand dollars.” +</p> + +<p> +She had mentioned fifteen years. Fifteen years is a long time. +</p> + +<p> +“Would it be too late,” I asked, somewhat timorously, “to +offer you congratulations?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if you dare do it,” she answered, with such fine intrepidity +that I was silent, and began to crease patterns on the cloth with my thumb +nail. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me one thing,” she said, leaning toward me rather +eagerly—“a thing I have wanted to know for many years—just +from a woman’s curiosity, of course—have you ever dared since that +night to touch, smell or look at white roses—at white roses wet with rain +and dew?” +</p> + +<p> +I took a sip of <i>crème de menthe</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be useless, I suppose,” I said, with a sigh, “for +me to repeat that I have no recollection at all about these things. My memory +is completely at fault. I need not say how much I regret it.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady rested her arms upon the table, and again her eyes disdained my words +and went traveling by their own route direct to my soul. She laughed softly, +with a strange quality in the sound—it was a laugh of +happiness—yes, and of content—and of misery. I tried to look away +from her. +</p> + +<p> +“You lie, Elwyn Bellford,” she breathed, blissfully. “Oh, I +know you lie!” +</p> + +<p> +I gazed dully into the ferns. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Edward Pinkhammer,” I said. “I came with the +delegates to the Druggists’ National Convention. There is a movement on +foot for arranging a new position for the bottles of tartrate of antimony and +tartrate of potash, in which, very likely, you would take little +interest.” +</p> + +<p> +A shining landau stopped before the entrance. The lady rose. I took her hand, +and bowed. +</p> + +<p> +“I am deeply sorry,” I said to her, “that I cannot remember. +I could explain, but fear you would not understand. You will not concede +Pinkhammer; and I really cannot at all conceive of the—the roses and +other things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Mr. Bellford,” she said, with her happy, sorrowful smile, +as she stepped into her carriage. +</p> + +<p> +I attended the theatre that night. When I returned to my hotel, a quiet man in +dark clothes, who seemed interested in rubbing his finger nails with a silk +handkerchief, appeared, magically, at my side. +</p> + +<p> + “Mr. Pinkhammer,” he said, giving the bulk of his attention to his + forefinger, “may I request you to step aside with me for a little + conversation? There is a room here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +He conducted me into a small, private parlor. A lady and a gentleman were +there. The lady, I surmised, would have been unusually good-looking had her +features not been clouded by an expression of keen worry and fatigue. She was +of a style of figure and possessed coloring and features that were agreeable to +my fancy. She was in a traveling dress; she fixed upon me an earnest look of +extreme anxiety, and pressed an unsteady hand to her bosom. I think she would +have started forward, but the gentleman arrested her movement with an +authoritative motion of his hand. He then came, himself, to meet me. He was a +man of forty, a little gray about the temples, and with a strong, thoughtful +face. +</p> + +<p> +“Bellford, old man,” he said, cordially, “I’m glad to +see you again. Of course we know everything is all right. I warned you, you +know, that you were overdoing it. Now, you’ll go back with us, and be +yourself again in no time.” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled ironically. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been ‘Bellforded’ so often,” I said, +“that it has lost its edge. Still, in the end, it may grow wearisome. +Would you be willing at all to entertain the hypothesis that my name is Edward +Pinkhammer, and that I never saw you before in my life?” +</p> + +<p> +Before the man could reply a wailing cry came from the woman. She sprang past +his detaining arm. “Elwyn!” she sobbed, and cast herself upon me, +and clung tight. “Elwyn,” she cried again, “don’t break +my heart. I am your wife—call my name once—just once. I could see +you dead rather than this way.” +</p> + +<p> +I unwound her arms respectfully, but firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Madam,” I said, severely, “pardon me if I suggest that you +accept a resemblance too precipitately. It is a pity,” I went on, with an +amused laugh, as the thought occurred to me, “that this Bellford and I +could not be kept side by side upon the same shelf like tartrates of sodium and +antimony for purposes of identification. In order to understand the +allusion,” I concluded airily, “it may be necessary for you to keep +an eye on the proceedings of the Druggists’ National Convention.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady turned to her companion, and grasped his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, Doctor Volney? Oh, what is it?” she moaned. +</p> + +<p> +He led her to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to your room for a while,” I heard him say. “I will +remain and talk with him. His mind? No, I think not—only a portion of the +brain. Yes, I am sure he will recover. Go to your room and leave me with +him.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady disappeared. The man in dark clothes also went outside, still +manicuring himself in a thoughtful way. I think he waited in the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to talk with you a while, Mr. Pinkhammer, if I may,” +said the gentleman who remained. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, if you care to,” I replied, “and will excuse me +if I take it comfortably; I am rather tired.” I stretched myself upon a +couch by a window and lit a cigar. He drew a chair nearby. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us speak to the point,” he said, soothingly. “Your name +is not Pinkhammer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that as well as you do,” I said, coolly. “But a man +must have a name of some sort. I can assure you that I do not extravagantly +admire the name of Pinkhammer. But when one christens one’s self +suddenly, the fine names do not seem to suggest themselves. But, suppose it had +been Scheringhausen or Scroggins! I think I did very well with +Pinkhammer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your name,” said the other man, seriously, “is Elwyn C. +Bellford. You are one of the first lawyers in Denver. You are suffering from an +attack of aphasia, which has caused you to forget your identity. The cause of +it was over-application to your profession, and, perhaps, a life too bare of +natural recreation and pleasures. The lady who has just left the room is your +wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is what I would call a fine-looking woman,” I said, after a +judicial pause. “I particularly admire the shade of brown in her +hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a wife to be proud of. Since your disappearance, nearly two weeks +ago, she has scarcely closed her eyes. We learned that you were in New York +through a telegram sent by Isidore Newman, a traveling man from Denver. He said +that he had met you in a hotel here, and that you did not recognize him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I remember the occasion,” I said. “The fellow called +me ‘Bellford,’ if I am not mistaken. But don’t you think it +about time, now, for you to introduce yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am Robert Volney—Doctor Volney. I have been your close friend +for twenty years, and your physician for fifteen. I came with Mrs. Bellford to +trace you as soon as we got the telegram. Try, Elwyn, old man—try to +remember!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the use to try?” I asked, with a little frown. +“You say you are a physician. Is aphasia curable? When a man loses his +memory does it return slowly, or suddenly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes gradually and imperfectly; sometimes as suddenly as it +went.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you undertake the treatment of my case, Doctor Volney?” I +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Old friend,” said he, “I’ll do everything in my power, +and will have done everything that science can do to cure you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said I. “Then you will consider that I am your +patient. Everything is in confidence now—professional confidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Doctor Volney. +</p> + +<p> +I got up from the couch. Some one had set a vase of white roses on the centre +table—a cluster of white roses, freshly sprinkled and fragrant. I threw +them far out of the window, and then I laid myself upon the couch again. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be best, Bobby,” I said, “to have this cure happen +suddenly. I’m rather tired of it all, anyway. You may go now and bring +Marian in. But, oh, Doc,” I said, with a sigh, as I kicked him on the +shin—“good old Doc—it was glorious!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII<br /> +A MUNICIPAL REPORT</h2> + +<p class="poem"> + The cities are full of pride,<br /> + Challenging each to each—<br /> + This from her mountainside,<br /> + That from her burthened beach. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +R. K<small>IPLING</small>. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! +There are just three big cities in the United States that are “story +cities”—New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San +Francisco.—F<small>RANK</small> N<small>ORRIS</small>. +</p> + +<p> +East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. +Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State. +They are the Southerners of the West. Now, Chicagoans are no less loyal to +their city; but when you ask them why, they stammer and speak of lake fish and +the new Odd Fellows Building. But Californians go into detail. +</p> + +<p> +Of course they have, in the climate, an argument that is good for half an hour +while you are thinking of your coal bills and heavy underwear. But as soon as +they come to mistake your silence for conviction, madness comes upon them, and +they picture the city of the Golden Gate as the Bagdad of the New World. So +far, as a matter of opinion, no refutation is necessary. But, dear cousins all +(from Adam and Eve descended), it is a rash one who will lay his finger on the +map and say: “In this town there can be no romance—what could +happen here?” Yes, it is a bold and a rash deed to challenge in one +sentence history, romance, and Rand and McNally. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +N<small>ASHVILLE</small>—A city, port of delivery, and the capital of the +State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River and on the N. C. & St. L. +and the L. & N. railroads. This city is regarded as the most important +educational centre in the South. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped off the train at 8 P.M. Having searched the thesaurus in vain for +adjectives, I must, as a substitution, hie me to comparison in the form of a +recipe. +</p> + +<p> +Take a London fog 30 parts; malaria 10 parts; gas leaks 20 parts; dewdrops +gathered in a brick yard at sunrise, 25 parts; odor of honeysuckle 15 parts. +Mix. +</p> + +<p> +The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashville drizzle. It +is not so fragrant as a moth-ball nor as thick as pea-soup; but ’tis +enough—’twill serve. +</p> + +<p> +I went to a hotel in a tumbril. It required strong self-suppression for me to +keep from climbing to the top of it and giving an imitation of Sidney Carton. +The vehicle was drawn by beasts of a bygone era and driven by something dark +and emancipated. +</p> + +<p> +I was sleepy and tired, so when I got to the hotel I hurriedly paid it the +fifty cents it demanded (with approximate lagniappe, I assure you). I knew its +habits; and I did not want to hear it prate about its old “marster” +or anything that happened “befo’ de wah.” +</p> + +<p> +The hotel was one of the kind described as “renovated.” That means +$20,000 worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brass +cuspidors in the lobby, and a new L. & N. time table and a lithograph of +Lookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The management was +without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the +service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored as Rip Van +Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. There is no other +hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers <i>en brochette</i>. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner I asked a Negro waiter if there was anything doing in town. He +pondered gravely for a minute, and then replied: “Well, boss, I +don’t really reckon there’s anything at all doin’ after +sundown.” +</p> + +<p> +Sundown had been accomplished; it had been drowned in the drizzle long before. +So that spectacle was denied me. But I went forth upon the streets in the +drizzle to see what might be there. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +It is built on undulating grounds; and the streets are lighted by electricity +at a cost of $32,470 per annum. +</p> + +<p> +As I left the hotel there was a race riot. Down upon me charged a company of +freedmen, or Arabs, or Zulus, armed with—no, I saw with relief that they +were not rifles, but whips. And I saw dimly a caravan of black, clumsy +vehicles; and at the reassuring shouts, “Kyar you anywhere in the town, +boss, fuh fifty cents,” I reasoned that I was merely a “fare” +instead of a victim. +</p> + +<p> +I walked through long streets, all leading uphill. I wondered how those streets +ever came down again. Perhaps they didn’t until they were +“graded.” On a few of the “main streets” I saw lights +in stores here and there; saw street cars go by conveying worthy burghers +hither and yon; saw people pass engaged in the art of conversation, and heard a +burst of semi-lively laughter issuing from a soda-water and ice-cream parlor. +The streets other than “main” seemed to have enticed upon their +borders houses consecrated to peace and domesticity. In many of them lights +shone behind discreetly drawn window shades; in a few pianos tinkled orderly +and irreproachable music. There was, indeed, little “doing.” I +wished I had come before sundown. So I returned to my hotel. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In November, 1864, the Confederate General Hood advanced against Nashville, +where he shut up a National force under General Thomas. The latter then sallied +forth and defeated the Confederates in a terrible conflict. +</p> + +<p> +All my life I have heard of, admired, and witnessed the fine marksmanship of +the South in its peaceful conflicts in the tobacco-chewing regions. But in my +hotel a surprise awaited me. There were twelve bright, new, imposing, capacious +brass cuspidors in the great lobby, tall enough to be called urns and so +wide-mouthed that the crack pitcher of a lady baseball team should have been +able to throw a ball into one of them at five paces distant. But, although a +terrible battle had raged and was still raging, the enemy had not suffered. +Bright, new, imposing, capacious, untouched, they stood. But, shades of +Jefferson Brick! the tile floor—the beautiful tile floor! I could not +avoid thinking of the battle of Nashville, and trying to draw, as is my foolish +habit, some deductions about hereditary marksmanship. +</p> + +<p> +Here I first saw Major (by misplaced courtesy) Wentworth Caswell. I knew him +for a type the moment my eyes suffered from the sight of him. A rat has no +geographical habitat. My old friend, A. Tennyson, said, as he so well said +almost everything: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip,<br /> + And curse me the British vermin, the rat. +</p> + +<p> +Let us regard the word “British” as interchangeable <i>ad lib</i>. +A rat is a rat. +</p> + +<p> +This man was hunting about the hotel lobby like a starved dog that had +forgotten where he had buried a bone. He had a face of great acreage, red, +pulpy, and with a kind of sleepy massiveness like that of Buddha. He possessed +one single virtue—he was very smoothly shaven. The mark of the beast is +not indelible upon a man until he goes about with a stubble. I think that if he +had not used his razor that day I would have repulsed his advances, and the +criminal calendar of the world would have been spared the addition of one +murder. +</p> + +<p> +I happened to be standing within five feet of a cuspidor when Major Caswell +opened fire upon it. I had been observant enough to perceive that the attacking +force was using Gatlings instead of squirrel rifles; so I side-stepped so +promptly that the major seized the opportunity to apologize to a noncombatant. +He had the blabbing lip. In four minutes he had become my friend and had +dragged me to the bar. +</p> + +<p> +I desire to interpolate here that I am a Southerner. But I am not one by +profession or trade. I eschew the string tie, the slouch hat, the Prince +Albert, the number of bales of cotton destroyed by Sherman, and plug chewing. +When the orchestra plays Dixie I do not cheer. I slide a little lower on the +leather-cornered seat and, well, order another Würzburger and wish that +Longstreet had—but what’s the use? +</p> + +<p> +Major Caswell banged the bar with his fist, and the first gun at Fort Sumter +re-echoed. When he fired the last one at Appomattox I began to hope. But then +he began on family trees, and demonstrated that Adam was only a third cousin of +a collateral branch of the Caswell family. Genealogy disposed of, he took up, +to my distaste, his private family matters. He spoke of his wife, traced her +descent back to Eve, and profanely denied any possible rumor that she may have +had relations in the land of Nod. +</p> + +<p> +By this time I was beginning to suspect that he was trying to obscure by noise +the fact that he had ordered the drinks, on the chance that I would be +bewildered into paying for them. But when they were down he crashed a silver +dollar loudly upon the bar. Then, of course, another serving was obligatory. +And when I had paid for that I took leave of him brusquely; for I wanted no +more of him. But before I had obtained my release he had prated loudly of an +income that his wife received, and showed a handful of silver money. +</p> + +<p> +When I got my key at the desk the clerk said to me courteously: “If that +man Caswell has annoyed you, and if you would like to make a complaint, we will +have him ejected. He is a nuisance, a loafer, and without any known means of +support, although he seems to have some money most the time. But we don’t +seem to be able to hit upon any means of throwing him out legally.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” said I, after some reflection; “I don’t see +my way clear to making a complaint. But I would like to place myself on record +as asserting that I do not care for his company. Your town,” I continued, +“seems to be a quiet one. What manner of entertainment, adventure, or +excitement have you to offer to the stranger within your gates?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir,” said the clerk, “there will be a show here next +Thursday. It is—I’ll look it up and have the announcement sent up +to your room with the ice water. Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +After I went up to my room I looked out the window. It was only about ten +o’clock, but I looked upon a silent town. The drizzle continued, spangled +with dim lights, as far apart as currants in a cake sold at the Ladies’ +Exchange. +</p> + +<p> +“A quiet place,” I said to myself, as my first shoe struck the +ceiling of the occupant of the room beneath mine. “Nothing of the life +here that gives color and variety to the cities in the East and West. Just a +good, ordinary, humdrum, business town.” +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Nashville occupies a foremost place among the manufacturing centres of the +country. It is the fifth boot and shoe market in the United States, the +largest candy and cracker manufacturing city in the South, and does an enormous +wholesale drygoods, grocery, and drug business. +</p> + +<p> +I must tell you how I came to be in Nashville, and I assure you the digression +brings as much tedium to me as it does to you. I was traveling elsewhere on my +own business, but I had a commission from a Northern literary magazine to stop +over there and establish a personal connection between the publication and one +of its contributors, Azalea Adair. +</p> + +<p> +Adair (there was no clue to the personality except the handwriting) had sent in +some essays (lost art!) and poems that had made the editors swear approvingly +over their one o’clock luncheon. So they had commissioned me to round up +said Adair and corner by contract his or her output at two cents a word before +some other publisher offered her ten or twenty. +</p> + +<p> +At nine o’clock the next morning, after my chicken livers <i>en +brochette</i> (try them if you can find that hotel), I strayed out into the +drizzle, which was still on for an unlimited run. At the first corner I came +upon Uncle Cæsar. He was a stalwart Negro, older than the pyramids, with +gray wool and a face that reminded me of Brutus, and a second afterwards of the +late King Cettiwayo. He wore the most remarkable coat that I ever had seen or +expect to see. It reached to his ankles and had once been a Confederate gray in +colors. But rain and sun and age had so variegated it that Joseph’s coat, +beside it, would have faded to a pale monochrome. I must linger with that coat, +for it has to do with the story—the story that is so long in coming, +because you can hardly expect anything to happen in Nashville. +</p> + +<p> +Once it must have been the military coat of an officer. The cape of it had +vanished, but all adown its front it had been frogged and tasseled +magnificently. But now the frogs and tassles were gone. In their stead had been +patiently stitched (I surmised by some surviving “black mammy”) new +frogs made of cunningly twisted common hempen twine. This twine was frayed and +disheveled. It must have been added to the coat as a substitute for vanished +splendors, with tasteless but painstaking devotion, for it followed faithfully +the curves of the long-missing frogs. And, to complete the comedy and pathos of +the garment, all its buttons were gone save one. The second button from the top +alone remained. The coat was fastened by other twine strings tied through the +buttonholes and other holes rudely pierced in the opposite side. There was +never such a weird garment so fantastically bedecked and of so many mottled +hues. The lone button was the size of a half-dollar, made of yellow horn and +sewed on with coarse twine. +</p> + +<p> +This Negro stood by a carriage so old that Ham himself might have started a +hack line with it after he left the ark with the two animals hitched to it. As +I approached he threw open the door, drew out a feather duster, waved it +without using it, and said in deep, rumbling tones: +</p> + +<p> +“Step right in, suh; ain’t a speck of dust in it—jus’ +got back from a funeral, suh.” +</p> + +<p> +I inferred that on such gala occasions carriages were given an extra cleaning. +I looked up and down the street and perceived that there was little choice +among the vehicles for hire that lined the curb. I looked in my memorandum book +for the address of Azalea Adair. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go to 861 Jessamine Street,” I said, and was about to +step into the hack. But for an instant the thick, long, gorilla-like arm of the +old Negro barred me. On his massive and saturnine face a look of sudden +suspicion and enmity flashed for a moment. Then, with quickly returning +conviction, he asked blandishingly: “What are you gwine there for, +boss?” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it to you?” I asked, a little sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothin’, suh, jus’ nothin’. Only it’s a lonesome +kind of part of town and few folks ever has business out there. Step right in. +The seats is clean—jes’ got back from a funeral, suh.” +</p> + +<p> +A mile and a half it must have been to our journey’s end. I could hear +nothing but the fearful rattle of the ancient hack over the uneven brick +paving; I could smell nothing but the drizzle, now further flavored with coal +smoke and something like a mixture of tar and oleander blossoms. All I could +see through the streaming windows were two rows of dim houses. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The city has an area of 10 square miles; 181 miles of streets, of which 137 +miles are paved; a system of water-works that cost $2,000,000, with 77 miles of +mains. +</p> + +<p> +Eight-sixty-one Jessamine Street was a decayed mansion. Thirty yards back from +the street it stood, outmerged in a splendid grove of trees and untrimmed +shrubbery. A row of box bushes overflowed and almost hid the paling fence from +sight; the gate was kept closed by a rope noose that encircled the gate post +and the first paling of the gate. But when you got inside you saw that 861 was +a shell, a shadow, a ghost of former grandeur and excellence. But in the story, +I have not yet got inside. +</p> + +<p> +When the hack had ceased from rattling and the weary quadrupeds came to a rest +I handed my jehu his fifty cents with an additional quarter, feeling a glow of +conscious generosity, as I did so. He refused it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s two dollars, suh,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s that?” I asked. “I plainly heard you call out at +the hotel: ‘Fifty cents to any part of the town.’” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s two dollars, suh,” he repeated obstinately. +“It’s a long ways from the hotel.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is within the city limits and well within them.” I argued. +“Don’t think that you have picked up a greenhorn Yankee. Do you see +those hills over there?” I went on, pointing toward the east (I could not +see them, myself, for the drizzle); “well, I was born and raised on their +other side. You old fool nigger, can’t you tell people from other people +when you see ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +The grim face of King Cettiwayo softened. “Is you from the South, suh? I +reckon it was them shoes of yourn fooled me. They is somethin’ sharp in +the toes for a Southern gen’l’man to wear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the charge is fifty cents, I suppose?” said I inexorably. +</p> + +<p> +His former expression, a mingling of cupidity and hostility, returned, remained +ten seconds, and vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“Boss,” he said, “fifty cents is right; but I <i>needs</i> +two dollars, suh; I’m <i>obleeged</i> to have two dollars. I ain’t +<i>demandin’</i> it now, suh; after I know whar you’s from; +I’m jus’ sayin’ that I <i>has</i> to have two dollars +to-night, and business is mighty po’.” +</p> + +<p> +Peace and confidence settled upon his heavy features. He had been luckier than +he had hoped. Instead of having picked up a greenhorn, ignorant of rates, he +had come upon an inheritance. +</p> + +<p> +“You confounded old rascal,” I said, reaching down to my pocket, +“you ought to be turned over to the police.” +</p> + +<p> +For the first time I saw him smile. He knew; <i>he knew</i>. HE KNEW. +</p> + +<p> +I gave him two one-dollar bills. As I handed them over I noticed that one of +them had seen parlous times. Its upper right-hand corner was missing, and it +had been torn through the middle, but joined again. A strip of blue tissue +paper, pasted over the split, preserved its negotiability. +</p> + +<p> +Enough of the African bandit for the present: I left him happy, lifted the rope +and opened a creaky gate. +</p> + +<p> +The house, as I said, was a shell. A paint brush had not touched it in twenty +years. I could not see why a strong wind should not have bowled it over like a +house of cards until I looked again at the trees that hugged it close—the +trees that saw the battle of Nashville and still drew their protecting branches +around it against storm and enemy and cold. +</p> + +<p> +Azalea Adair, fifty years old, white-haired, a descendant of the cavaliers, as +thin and frail as the house she lived in, robed in the cheapest and cleanest +dress I ever saw, with an air as simple as a queen’s, received me. +</p> + +<p> +The reception room seemed a mile square, because there was nothing in it except +some rows of books, on unpainted white-pine bookshelves, a cracked marble-top +table, a rag rug, a hairless horsehair sofa and two or three chairs. Yes, there +was a picture on the wall, a colored crayon drawing of a cluster of pansies. I +looked around for the portrait of Andrew Jackson and the pinecone hanging +basket but they were not there. +</p> + +<p> +Azalea Adair and I had conversation, a little of which will be repeated to you. +She was a product of the old South, gently nurtured in the sheltered life. Her +learning was not broad, but was deep and of splendid originality in its +somewhat narrow scope. She had been educated at home, and her knowledge of the +world was derived from inference and by inspiration. Of such is the precious, +small group of essayists made. While she talked to me I kept brushing my +fingers, trying, unconsciously, to rid them guiltily of the absent dust from +the half-calf backs of Lamb, Chaucer, Hazlitt, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne and +Hood. She was exquisite, she was a valuable discovery. Nearly everybody +nowadays knows too much—oh, so much too much—of real life. +</p> + +<p> +I could perceive clearly that Azalea Adair was very poor. A house and a dress +she had, not much else, I fancied. So, divided between my duty to the magazine +and my loyalty to the poets and essayists who fought Thomas in the valley of +the Cumberland, I listened to her voice, which was like a harpsichord’s, +and found that I could not speak of contracts. In the presence of the nine +Muses and the three Graces one hesitated to lower the topic to two cents. There +would have to be another colloquy after I had regained my commercialism. But I +spoke of my mission, and three o’clock of the next afternoon was set for +the discussion of the business proposition. +</p> + +<p> +“Your town,” I said, as I began to make ready to depart (which is +the time for smooth generalities), “seems to be a quiet, sedate place. A +home town, I should say, where few things out of the ordinary ever +happen.” +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +It carries on an extensive trade in stoves and hollow ware with the West and +South, and its flouring mills have a daily capacity of more than 2,000 barrels. +</p> + +<p> +Azalea Adair seemed to reflect. +</p> + +<p> +“I have never thought of it that way,” she said, with a kind of +sincere intensity that seemed to belong to her. “Isn’t it in the +still, quiet places that things do happen? I fancy that when God began to +create the earth on the first Monday morning one could have leaned out +one’s window and heard the drops of mud splashing from His trowel as He +built up the everlasting hills. What did the noisiest project in the +world—I mean the building of the Tower of Babel—result in finally? +A page and a half of Esperanto in the <i>North American Review</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said I platitudinously, “human nature is the +same everywhere; but there is more color—er—more drama and movement +and—er—romance in some cities than in others.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the surface,” said Azalea Adair. “I have traveled many +times around the world in a golden airship wafted on two wings—print and +dreams. I have seen (on one of my imaginary tours) the Sultan of Turkey +bowstring with his own hands one of his wives who had uncovered her face in +public. I have seen a man in Nashville tear up his theatre tickets because his +wife was going out with her face covered—with rice powder. In San +Francisco’s Chinatown I saw the slave girl Sing Yee dipped slowly, inch +by inch, in boiling almond oil to make her swear she would never see her +American lover again. She gave in when the boiling oil had reached three inches +above her knee. At a euchre party in East Nashville the other night I saw Kitty +Morgan cut dead by seven of her schoolmates and lifelong friends because she +had married a house painter. The boiling oil was sizzling as high as her heart; +but I wish you could have seen the fine little smile that she carried from +table to table. Oh, yes, it is a humdrum town. Just a few miles of red brick +houses and mud and lumber yards.” +</p> + +<p> +Some one knocked hollowly at the back of the house. Azalea Adair breathed a +soft apology and went to investigate the sound. She came back in three minutes +with brightened eyes, a faint flush on her cheeks, and ten years lifted from +her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“You must have a cup of tea before you go,” she said, “and a +sugar cake.” +</p> + +<p> +She reached and shook a little iron bell. In shuffled a small Negro girl about +twelve, barefoot, not very tidy, glowering at me with thumb in mouth and +bulging eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Azalea Adair opened a tiny, worn purse and drew out a dollar bill, a dollar +bill with the upper right-hand corner missing, torn in two pieces, and pasted +together again with a strip of blue tissue paper. It was one of the bills I had +given the piratical Negro—there was no doubt about it. +</p> + +<p> +“Go up to Mr. Baker’s store on the corner, Impy,” she said, +handing the girl the dollar bill, “and get a quarter of a pound of +tea—the kind he always sends me—and ten cents worth of sugar cakes. +Now, hurry. The supply of tea in the house happens to be exhausted,” she +explained to me. +</p> + +<p> +Impy left by the back way. Before the scrape of her hard, bare feet had died +away on the back porch, a wild shriek—I was sure it was hers—filled +the hollow house. Then the deep, gruff tones of an angry man’s voice +mingled with the girl’s further squeals and unintelligible words. +</p> + +<p> +Azalea Adair rose without surprise or emotion and disappeared. For two minutes +I heard the hoarse rumble of the man’s voice; then something like an oath +and a slight scuffle, and she returned calmly to her chair. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a roomy house,” she said, “and I have a tenant for +part of it. I am sorry to have to rescind my invitation to tea. It was +impossible to get the kind I always use at the store. Perhaps to-morrow, Mr. +Baker will be able to supply me.” +</p> + +<p> +I was sure that Impy had not had time to leave the house. I inquired concerning +street-car lines and took my leave. After I was well on my way I remembered +that I had not learned Azalea Adair’s name. But to-morrow would do. +</p> + +<p> +That same day I started in on the course of iniquity that this uneventful city +forced upon me. I was in the town only two days, but in that time I managed to +lie shamelessly by telegraph, and to be an accomplice—after the fact, if +that is the correct legal term—to a murder. +</p> + +<p> +As I rounded the corner nearest my hotel the Afrite coachman of the +polychromatic, nonpareil coat seized me, swung open the dungeony door of his +peripatetic sarcophagus, flirted his feather duster and began his ritual: +“Step right in, boss. Carriage is clean—jus’ got back from a +funeral. Fifty cents to any—” +</p> + +<p> +And then he knew me and grinned broadly. “’Scuse me, boss; you is +de gen’l’man what rid out with me dis mawnin’. Thank you +kindly, suh.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going out to 861 again to-morrow afternoon at three,” said I, +“and if you will be here, I’ll let you drive me. So you know Miss +Adair?” I concluded, thinking of my dollar bill. +</p> + +<p> +“I belonged to her father, Judge Adair, suh,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“I judge that she is pretty poor,” I said. “She hasn’t +much money to speak of, has she?” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant I looked again at the fierce countenance of King Cettiwayo, and +then he changed back to an extortionate old Negro hack driver. +</p> + +<p> +“She ain’t gwine to starve, suh,” he said slowly. “She +has reso’ces, suh; she has reso’ces.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall pay you fifty cents for the trip,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Dat is puffeckly correct, suh,” he answered humbly. “I +jus’ <i>had</i> to have dat two dollars dis mawnin’, boss.” +</p> + +<p> +I went to the hotel and lied by electricity. I wired the magazine: “A. +Adair holds out for eight cents a word.” +</p> + +<p> +The answer that came back was: “Give it to her quick you duffer.” +</p> + +<p> +Just before dinner “Major” Wentworth Caswell bore down upon me with +the greetings of a long-lost friend. I have seen few men whom I have so +instantaneously hated, and of whom it was so difficult to be rid. I was +standing at the bar when he invaded me; therefore I could not wave the white +ribbon in his face. I would have paid gladly for the drinks, hoping, thereby, +to escape another; but he was one of those despicable, roaring, advertising +bibbers who must have brass bands and fireworks attend upon every cent that +they waste in their follies. +</p> + +<p> +With an air of producing millions he drew two one-dollar bills from a pocket +and dashed one of them upon the bar. I looked once more at the dollar bill with +the upper right-hand corner missing, torn through the middle, and patched with +a strip of blue tissue paper. It was my dollar bill again. It could have been +no other. +</p> + +<p> +I went up to my room. The drizzle and the monotony of a dreary, eventless +Southern town had made me tired and listless. I remember that just before I +went to bed I mentally disposed of the mysterious dollar bill (which might have +formed the clew to a tremendously fine detective story of San Francisco) by +saying to myself sleepily: “Seems as if a lot of people here own stock in +the Hack-Driver’s Trust. Pays dividends promptly, too. Wonder +if—” Then I fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +King Cettiwayo was at his post the next day, and rattled my bones over the +stones out to 861. He was to wait and rattle me back again when I was ready. +</p> + +<p> +Azalea Adair looked paler and cleaner and frailer than she had looked on the +day before. After she had signed the contract at eight cents per word she grew +still paler and began to slip out of her chair. Without much trouble I managed +to get her up on the antediluvian horsehair sofa and then I ran out to the +sidewalk and yelled to the coffee-colored Pirate to bring a doctor. With a +wisdom that I had not expected in him, he abandoned his team and struck off up +the street afoot, realizing the value of speed. In ten minutes he returned with +a grave, gray-haired and capable man of medicine. In a few words (worth much +less than eight cents each) I explained to him my presence in the hollow house +of mystery. He bowed with stately understanding, and turned to the old Negro. +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle Cæsar,” he said calmly, “Run up to my house and +ask Miss Lucy to give you a cream pitcher full of fresh milk and half a tumbler +of port wine. And hurry back. Don’t drive—run. I want you to get +back sometime this week.” +</p> + +<p> +It occurred to me that Dr. Merriman also felt a distrust as to the speeding +powers of the land-pirate’s steeds. After Uncle Cæsar was gone, +lumberingly, but swiftly, up the street, the doctor looked me over with great +politeness and as much careful calculation until he had decided that I might +do. +</p> + +<p> +“It is only a case of insufficient nutrition,” he said. “In +other words, the result of poverty, pride, and starvation. Mrs. Caswell has +many devoted friends who would be glad to aid her, but she will accept nothing +except from that old Negro, Uncle Cæsar, who was once owned by her +family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Caswell!” said I, in surprise. And then I looked at the +contract and saw that she had signed it “Azalea Adair Caswell.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought she was Miss Adair,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Married to a drunken, worthless loafer, sir,” said the doctor. +“It is said that he robs her even of the small sums that her old servant +contributes toward her support.” +</p> + +<p> +When the milk and wine had been brought the doctor soon revived Azalea Adair. +She sat up and talked of the beauty of the autumn leaves that were then in +season, and their height of color. She referred lightly to her fainting seizure +as the outcome of an old palpitation of the heart. Impy fanned her as she lay +on the sofa. The doctor was due elsewhere, and I followed him to the door. I +told him that it was within my power and intentions to make a reasonable +advance of money to Azalea Adair on future contributions to the magazine, and +he seemed pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way,” he said, “perhaps you would like to know that +you have had royalty for a coachman. Old Cæsar’s grandfather was a +king in Congo. Cæsar himself has royal ways, as you may have +observed.” +</p> + +<p> +As the doctor was moving off I heard Uncle Cæsar’s voice inside: +“Did he get bofe of dem two dollars from you, Mis’ Zalea?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Cæsar,” I heard Azalea Adair answer weakly. And then I +went in and concluded business negotiations with our contributor. I assumed the +responsibility of advancing fifty dollars, putting it as a necessary formality +in binding our bargain. And then Uncle Cæsar drove me back to the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Here ends all of the story as far as I can testify as a witness. The rest must +be only bare statements of facts. +</p> + +<p> +At about six o’clock I went out for a stroll. Uncle Cæsar was at +his corner. He threw open the door of his carriage, flourished his duster and +began his depressing formula: “Step right in, suh. Fifty cents to +anywhere in the city—hack’s puffickly clean, suh—jus’ +got back from a funeral—” +</p> + +<p> +And then he recognized me. I think his eyesight was getting bad. His coat had +taken on a few more faded shades of color, the twine strings were more frayed +and ragged, the last remaining button—the button of yellow horn—was +gone. A motley descendant of kings was Uncle Cæsar! +</p> + +<p> +About two hours later I saw an excited crowd besieging the front of a drug +store. In a desert where nothing happens this was manna; so I wedged my way +inside. On an extemporized couch of empty boxes and chairs was stretched the +mortal corporeality of Major Wentworth Caswell. A doctor was testing him for +the immortal ingredient. His decision was that it was conspicuous by its +absence. +</p> + +<p> +The erstwhile Major had been found dead on a dark street and brought by curious +and ennuied citizens to the drug store. The late human being had been engaged +in terrific battle—the details showed that. Loafer and reprobate though +he had been, he had been also a warrior. But he had lost. His hands were yet +clinched so tightly that his fingers would not be opened. The gentle citizens +who had known him stood about and searched their vocabularies to find some good +words, if it were possible, to speak of him. One kind-looking man said, after +much thought: “When ‘Cas’ was about fo’teen he was one +of the best spellers in school.” +</p> + +<p> +While I stood there the fingers of the right hand of “the man that +was” which hung down the side of a white pine box, relaxed, and dropped +something at my feet. I covered it with one foot quietly, and a little later on +I picked it up and pocketed it. I reasoned that in his last struggle his hand +must have seized that object unwittingly and held it in a death grip. +</p> + +<p> +At the hotel that night the main topic of conversation, with the possible +exceptions of politics and prohibition, was the demise of Major Caswell. I +heard one man say to a group of listeners: +</p> + +<p> +“In my opinion, gentlemen, Caswell was murdered by some of these +no-account niggers for his money. He had fifty dollars this afternoon which he +showed to several gentlemen in the hotel. When he was found the money was not +on his person.” +</p> + +<p> +I left the city the next morning at nine, and as the train was crossing the +bridge over the Cumberland River I took out of my pocket a yellow horn overcoat +button the size of a fifty-cent piece, with frayed ends of coarse twine hanging +from it, and cast it out of the window into the slow, muddy waters below. +</p> + +<p> +<i>I wonder what’s doing in Buffalo!</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV<br /> +PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPER</h2> + +<p> +If you are a philosopher you can do this thing: you can go to the top of a high +building, look down upon your fellow-men 300 feet below, and despise them as +insects. Like the irresponsible black waterbugs on summer ponds, they crawl and +circle and hustle about idiotically without aim or purpose. They do not even +move with the admirable intelligence of ants, for ants always know when they +are going home. The ant is of a lowly station, but he will often reach home and +get his slippers on while you are left at your elevated station. +</p> + +<p> +Man, then, to the housetopped philosopher, appears to be but a creeping, +contemptible beetle. Brokers, poets, millionaires, bootblacks, beauties, +hod-carriers and politicians become little black specks dodging bigger black +specks in streets no wider than your thumb. +</p> + +<p> +From this high view the city itself becomes degraded to an unintelligible mass +of distorted buildings and impossible perspectives; the revered ocean is a duck +pond; the earth itself a lost golf ball. All the minutiae of life are gone. The +philosopher gazes into the infinite heavens above him, and allows his soul to +expand to the influence of his new view. He feels that he is the heir to +Eternity and the child of Time. Space, too, should be his by the right of his +immortal heritage, and he thrills at the thought that some day his kind shall +traverse those mysterious aerial roads between planet and planet. The tiny +world beneath his feet upon which this towering structure of steel rests as a +speck of dust upon a Himalayan mountain—it is but one of a countless +number of such whirling atoms. What are the ambitions, the achievements, the +paltry conquests and loves of those restless black insects below compared with +the serene and awful immensity of the universe that lies above and around their +insignificant city? +</p> + +<p> +It is guaranteed that the philosopher will have these thoughts. They have been +expressly compiled from the philosophies of the world and set down with the +proper interrogation point at the end of them to represent the invariable +musings of deep thinkers on high places. And when the philosopher takes the +elevator down his mind is broader, his heart is at peace, and his conception of +the cosmogony of creation is as wide as the buckle of Orion’s summer +belt. +</p> + +<p> +But if your name happened to be Daisy, and you worked in an Eighth Avenue candy +store and lived in a little cold hall bedroom, five feet by eight, and earned +$6 per week, and ate ten-cent lunches and were nineteen years old, and got up +at 6.30 and worked till 9, and never had studied philosophy, maybe things +wouldn’t look that way to you from the top of a skyscraper. +</p> + +<p> +Two sighed for the hand of Daisy, the unphilosophical. One was Joe, who kept +the smallest store in New York. It was about the size of a tool-box of the D. +P. W., and was stuck like a swallow’s nest against a corner of a +down-town skyscraper. Its stock consisted of fruit, candies, newspapers, song +books, cigarettes, and lemonade in season. When stern winter shook his +congealed locks and Joe had to move himself and the fruit inside, there was +exactly room in the store for the proprietor, his wares, a stove the size of a +vinegar cruet, and one customer. +</p> + +<p> +Joe was not of the nation that keeps us forever in a furore with fugues and +fruit. He was a capable American youth who was laying by money, and wanted +Daisy to help him spend it. Three times he had asked her. +</p> + +<p> +“I got money saved up, Daisy,” was his love song; “and you +know how bad I want you. That store of mine ain’t very big, +but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ain’t it?” would be the antiphony of the unphilosophical +one. “Why, I heard Wanamaker’s was trying to get you to sublet part +of your floor space to them for next year.” +</p> + +<p> +Daisy passed Joe’s corner every morning and evening. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Two-by-Four!” was her usual greeting. “Seems to me +your store looks emptier. You must have sold a pack of chewing gum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t much room in here, sure,” Joe would answer, with his +slow grin, “except for you, Daise. Me and the store are waitin’ for +you whenever you’ll take us. Don’t you think you might before +long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Store!”—a fine scorn was expressed by Daisy’s uptilted +nose—“sardine box! Waitin’ for me, you say? Gee! you’d +have to throw out about a hundred pounds of candy before I could get inside of +it, Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t mind an even swap like that,” said Joe, +complimentary. +</p> + +<p> +Daisy’s existence was limited in every way. She had to walk sideways +between the counter and the shelves in the candy store. In her own hall bedroom +coziness had been carried close to cohesiveness. The walls were so near to one +another that the paper on them made a perfect Babel of noise. She could light +the gas with one hand and close the door with the other without taking her eyes +off the reflection of her brown pompadour in the mirror. She had Joe’s +picture in a gilt frame on the dresser, and sometimes—but her next +thought would always be of Joe’s funny little store tacked like a soap +box to the corner of that great building, and away would go her sentiment in a +breeze of laughter. +</p> + +<p> +Daisy’s other suitor followed Joe by several months. He came to board in +the house where she lived. His name was Dabster, and he was a philosopher. +Though young, attainments stood out upon him like continental labels on a +Passaic (N. J.) suit-case. Knowledge he had kidnapped from cyclopedias and +handbooks of useful information; but as for wisdom, when she passed he was left +sniffling in the road without so much as the number of her motor car. He could +and would tell you the proportion of water and muscle-making properties of peas +and veal, the shortest verse in the Bible, the number of pounds of shingle +nails required to fasten 256 shingles laid four inches to the weather, the +population of Kankakee, Ill., the theories of Spinoza, the name of Mr. H. McKay +Twombly’s second hall footman, the length of the Hoosac Tunnel, the best +time to set a hen, the salary of the railway post-office messenger between +Driftwood and Red Bank Furnace, Pa., and the number of bones in the foreleg of +a cat. +</p> + +<p> +The weight of learning was no handicap to Dabster. His statistics were the +sprigs of parsley with which he garnished the feast of small talk that he would +set before you if he conceived that to be your taste. And again he used them as +breastworks in foraging at the boardinghouse. Firing at you a volley of figures +concerning the weight of a lineal foot of bar-iron 5 × 2¾ inches, +and the average annual rainfall at Fort Snelling, Minn., he would transfix with +his fork the best piece of chicken on the dish while you were trying to rally +sufficiently to ask him weakly why does a hen cross the road. +</p> + +<p> +Thus, brightly armed, and further equipped with a measure of good looks, of a +hair-oily, shopping-district-at-three-in-the-afternoon kind, it seems that Joe, +of the Lilliputian emporium, had a rival worthy of his steel. But Joe carried +no steel. There wouldn’t have been room in his store to draw it if he +had. +</p> + +<p> +One Saturday afternoon, about four o’clock, Daisy and Mr. Dabster stopped +before Joe’s booth. Dabster wore a silk hat, and—well, Daisy was a +woman, and that hat had no chance to get back in its box until Joe had seen it. +A stick of pineapple chewing gum was the ostensible object of the call. Joe +supplied it through the open side of his store. He did not pale or falter at +sight of the hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Dabster’s going to take me on top of the building to observe +the view,” said Daisy, after she had introduced her admirers. “I +never was on a skyscraper. I guess it must be awfully nice and funny up +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m!” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“The panorama,” said Mr. Dabster, “exposed to the gaze from +the top of a lofty building is not only sublime, but instructive. Miss Daisy +has a decided pleasure in store for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s windy up there, too, as well as here,” said Joe. +“Are you dressed warm enough, Daise?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure thing! I’m all lined,” said Daisy, smiling slyly at his +clouded brow. “You look just like a mummy in a case, Joe. Ain’t you +just put in an invoice of a pint of peanuts or another apple? Your stock looks +awful over-stocked.” +</p> + +<p> +Daisy giggled at her favorite joke; and Joe had to smile with her. +</p> + +<p> +“Your quarters are somewhat limited, Mr.—er—er,” +remarked Dabster, “in comparison with the size of this building. I +understand the area of its side to be about 340 by 100 feet. That would make +you occupy a proportionate space as if half of Beloochistan were placed upon a +territory as large as the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, with the +Province of Ontario and Belgium added.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that so, sport?” said Joe, genially. “You are +Weisenheimer on figures, all right. How many square pounds of baled hay do you +think a jackass could eat if he stopped brayin’ long enough to keep still +a minute and five eighths?” +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes later Daisy and Mr. Dabster stepped from an elevator to the top +floor of the skyscraper. Then up a short, steep stairway and out upon the roof. +Dabster led her to the parapet so she could look down at the black dots moving +in the street below. +</p> + +<p> +“What are they?” she asked, trembling. She had never been on a +height like this before. +</p> + +<p> +And then Dabster must needs play the philosopher on the tower, and conduct her +soul forth to meet the immensity of space. +</p> + +<p> +“Bipeds,” he said, solemnly. “See what they become even at +the small elevation of 340 feet—mere crawling insects going to and fro at +random.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they ain’t anything of the kind,” exclaimed Daisy, +suddenly—“they’re folks! I saw an automobile. Oh, gee! are we +that high up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Walk over this way,” said Dabster. +</p> + +<p> +He showed her the great city lying like an orderly array of toys far below, +starred here and there, early as it was, by the first beacon lights of the +winter afternoon. And then the bay and sea to the south and east vanishing +mysteriously into the sky. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like it,” declared Daisy, with troubled blue eyes. +“Say we go down.” +</p> + +<p> +But the philosopher was not to be denied his opportunity. He would let her +behold the grandeur of his mind, the half-nelson he had on the infinite, and +the memory he had for statistics. And then she would nevermore be content to +buy chewing gum at the smallest store in New York. And so he began to prate of +the smallness of human affairs, and how that even so slight a removal from +earth made man and his works look like one tenth part of a dollar thrice +computed. And that one should consider the sidereal system and the maxims of +Epictetus and be comforted. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t carry me with you,” said Daisy. “Say, I +think it’s awful to be up so high that folks look like fleas. One of them +we saw might have been Joe. Why, Jiminy! we might as well be in New Jersey! +Say, I’m afraid up here!” +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher smiled fatuously. +</p> + +<p> +“The earth,” said he, “is itself only as a grain of wheat in +space. Look up there.” +</p> + +<p> +Daisy gazed upward apprehensively. The short day was spent and the stars were +coming out above. +</p> + +<p> +“Yonder star,” said Dabster, “is Venus, the evening star. She +is 66,000,000 miles from the sun.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fudge!” said Daisy, with a brief flash of spirit, “where do +you think I come from—Brooklyn? Susie Price, in our store—her +brother sent her a ticket to go to San Francisco—that’s only three +thousand miles.” +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher smiled indulgently. +</p> + +<p> +“Our world,” he said, “is 91,000,000 miles from the sun. +There are eighteen stars of the first magnitude that are 211,000 times further +from us than the sun is. If one of them should be extinguished it would be +three years before we would see its light go out. There are six thousand stars +of the sixth magnitude. It takes thirty-six years for the light of one of them +to reach the earth. With an eighteen-foot telescope we can see 43,000,000 +stars, including those of the thirteenth magnitude, whose light takes 2,700 +years to reach us. Each of these stars—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re lyin’,” cried Daisy, angrily. +“You’re tryin’ to scare me. And you have; I want to go +down!” +</p> + +<p> +She stamped her foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Arcturus—” began the philosopher, soothingly, but he was +interrupted by a demonstration out of the vastness of the nature that he was +endeavoring to portray with his memory instead of his heart. For to the +heart-expounder of nature the stars were set in the firmament expressly to give +soft light to lovers wandering happily beneath them; and if you stand tiptoe +some September night with your sweetheart on your arm you can almost touch them +with your hand. Three years for their light to reach us, indeed! +</p> + +<p> +Out of the west leaped a meteor, lighting the roof of the skyscraper almost to +midday. Its fiery parabola was limned against the sky toward the east. It +hissed as it went, and Daisy screamed. +</p> + +<p> +“Take me down,” she cried, vehemently, “you—you mental +arithmetic!” +</p> + +<p> +Dabster got her to the elevator, and inside of it. She was wild-eyed, and she +shuddered when the express made its debilitating drop. +</p> + +<p> +Outside the revolving door of the skyscraper the philosopher lost her. She +vanished; and he stood, bewildered, without figures or statistics to aid him. +</p> + +<p> +Joe had a lull in trade, and by squirming among his stock succeeded in lighting +a cigarette and getting one cold foot against the attenuated stove. +</p> + +<p> +The door was burst open, and Daisy, laughing, crying, scattering fruit and +candies, tumbled into his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Joe, I’ve been up on the skyscraper. Ain’t it cozy and +warm and homelike in here! I’m ready for you, Joe, whenever you want +me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV<br /> +A BIRD OF BAGDAD</h2> + +<p> +Without a doubt much of the spirit and genius of the Caliph Harun Al Rashid +descended to the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. +</p> + +<p> +Quigg’s restaurant is in Fourth Avenue—that street that the city +seems to have forgotten in its growth. Fourth Avenue—born and bred in the +Bowery—staggers northward full of good resolutions. +</p> + +<p> +Where it crosses Fourteenth Street it struts for a brief moment proudly in the +glare of the museums and cheap theatres. It may yet become a fit mate for its +high-born sister boulevard to the west, or its roaring, polyglot, broad-waisted +cousin to the east. It passes Union Square; and here the hoofs of the dray +horses seem to thunder in unison, recalling the tread of marching +hosts—Hooray! But now come the silent and terrible +mountains—buildings square as forts, high as the clouds, shutting out the +sky, where thousands of slaves bend over desks all day. On the ground floors +are only little fruit shops and laundries and book shops, where you see copies +of “Littell’s Living Age” and G. W. M. Reynold’s novels +in the windows. And next—poor Fourth Avenue!—the street glides into +a mediaeval solitude. On each side are shops devoted to “Antiques.” +</p> + +<p> +Let us say it is night. Men in rusty armor stand in the windows and menace the +hurrying cars with raised, rusty iron gauntlets. Hauberks and helms, +blunderbusses, Cromwellian breastplates, matchlocks, creeses, and the swords +and daggers of an army of dead-and-gone gallants gleam dully in the ghostly +light. Here and there from a corner saloon (lit with Jack-o’-lanterns or +phosphorus), stagger forth shuddering, home-bound citizens, nerved by the +tankards within to their fearsome journey adown that eldrich avenue lined with +the bloodstained weapons of the fighting dead. What street could live inclosed +by these mortuary relics, and trod by these spectral citizens in whose sunken +hearts scarce one good whoop or tra-la-la remained? +</p> + +<p> +Not Fourth Avenue. Not after the tinsel but enlivening glories of the Little +Rialto—not after the echoing drum-beats of Union Square. There need be no +tears, ladies and gentlemen; ’tis but the suicide of a street. With a +shriek and a crash Fourth Avenue dives headlong into the tunnel at +Thirty-fourth and is never seen again. +</p> + +<p> +Near the sad scene of the thoroughfare’s dissolution stood the modest +restaurant of Quigg. It stands there yet if you care to view its crumbling +red-brick front, its show window heaped with oranges, tomatoes, layer cakes, +pies, canned asparagus—its papier-mâché lobster and two +Maltese kittens asleep on a bunch of lettuce—if you care to sit at one of +the little tables upon whose cloth has been traced in the yellowest of coffee +stains the trail of the Japanese advance—to sit there with one eye on +your umbrella and the other upon the bogus bottle from which you drop the +counterfeit sauce foisted upon us by the cursed charlatan who assumes to be our +dear old lord and friend, the “Nobleman in India.” +</p> + +<p> +Quigg’s title came through his mother. One of her ancestors was a +Margravine of Saxony. His father was a Tammany brave. On account of the +dilution of his heredity he found that he could neither become a reigning +potentate nor get a job in the City Hall. So he opened a restaurant. He was a +man full of thought and reading. The business gave him a living, though he gave +it little attention. One side of his house bequeathed to him a poetic and +romantic adventure. The other gave him the restless spirit that made him seek +adventure. By day he was Quigg, the restaurateur. By night he was the +Margrave—the Caliph—the Prince of Bohemia—going about the +city in search of the odd, the mysterious, the inexplicable, the recondite. +</p> + +<p> +One night at 9, at which hour the restaurant closed, Quigg set forth upon his +quest. There was a mingling of the foreign, the military and the artistic in +his appearance as he buttoned his coat high up under his short-trimmed brown +and gray beard and turned westward toward the more central life conduits of the +city. In his pocket he had stored an assortment of cards, written upon, without +which he never stirred out of doors. Each of those cards was good at his own +restaurant for its face value. Some called simply for a bowl of soup or +sandwiches and coffee; others entitled their bearer to one, two, three or more +days of full meals; a few were for single regular meals; a very few were, in +effect, meal tickets good for a week. +</p> + +<p> +Of riches and power Margrave Quigg had none; but he had a Caliph’s +heart—it may be forgiven him if his head fell short of the measure of +Harun Al Rashid’s. Perhaps some of the gold pieces in Bagdad had put less +warmth and hope into the complainants among the bazaars than had Quigg’s +beef stew among the fishermen and one-eyed calenders of Manhattan. +</p> + +<p> +Continuing his progress in search of romance to divert him, or of distress that +he might aid, Quigg became aware of a fast-gathering crowd that whooped and +fought and eddied at a corner of Broadway and the crosstown street that he was +traversing. Hurrying to the spot he beheld a young man of an exceedingly +melancholy and preoccupied demeanor engaged in the pastime of casting silver +money from his pockets in the middle of the street. With each motion of the +generous one’s hand the crowd huddled upon the falling largesse with +yells of joy. Traffic was suspended. A policeman in the centre of the mob +stooped often to the ground as he urged the blockaders to move on. +</p> + +<p> +The Margrave saw at a glance that here was food for his hunger after knowledge +concerning abnormal working of the human heart. He made his way swiftly to the +young man’s side and took his arm. “Come with me at once,” he +said, in the low but commanding voice that his waiters had learned to fear. +</p> + +<p> +“Pinched,” remarked the young man, looking up at him with +expressionless eyes. “Pinched by a painless dentist. Take me away, +flatty, and give me gas. Some lay eggs and some lay none. When is a hen?” +</p> + +<p> +Still deeply seized by some inward grief, but tractable, he allowed Quigg to +lead him away and down the street to a little park. +</p> + +<p> +There, seated on a bench, he upon whom a corner of the great Caliph’s +mantle has descended, spake with kindness and discretion, seeking to know what +evil had come upon the other, disturbing his soul and driving him to such +ill-considered and ruinous waste of his substance and stores. +</p> + +<p> +“I was doing the Monte Cristo act as adapted by Pompton, N. J., +wasn’t I?” asked the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“You were throwing small coins into the street for the people to scramble +after,” said the Margrave. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it. You buy all the beer you can hold, and then you throw +chicken feed to— Oh, curse that word chicken, and hens, feathers, +roosters, eggs, and everything connected with it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Young sir,” said the Margrave kindly, but with dignity, +“though I do not ask your confidence, I invite it. I know the world and I +know humanity. Man is my study, though I do not eye him as the scientist eyes a +beetle or as the philanthropist gazes at the objects of his +bounty—through a veil of theory and ignorance. It is my pleasure and +distraction to interest myself in the peculiar and complicated misfortunes that +life in a great city visits upon my fellow-men. You may be familiar with the +history of that glorious and immortal ruler, the Caliph Harun Al Rashid, whose +wise and beneficent excursions among his people in the city of Bagdad secured +him the privilege of relieving so much of their distress. In my humble way I +walk in his footsteps. I seek for romance and adventure in city +streets—not in ruined castles or in crumbling palaces. To me the greatest +marvels of magic are those that take place in men’s hearts when acted +upon by the furious and diverse forces of a crowded population. In your strange +behavior this evening I fancy a story lurks. I read in your act something +deeper than the wanton wastefulness of a spendthrift. I observe in your +countenance the certain traces of consuming grief or despair. I repeat—I +invite your confidence. I am not without some power to alleviate and advise. +Will you not trust me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, how you talk!” exclaimed the young man, a gleam of admiration +supplanting for a moment the dull sadness of his eyes. “You’ve got +the Astor Library skinned to a synopsis of preceding chapters. I mind that old +Turk you speak of. I read ‘The Arabian Nights’ when I was a kid. He +was a kind of Bill Devery and Charlie Schwab rolled into one. But, say, you +might wave enchanted dishrags and make copper bottles smoke up coon giants all +night without ever touching me. My case won’t yield to that kind of +treatment.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I could hear your story,” said the Margrave, with his lofty, +serious smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll spiel it in about nine words,” said the young man, with +a deep sigh, “but I don’t think you can help me any. Unless +you’re a peach at guessing it’s back to the Bosphorus for you on +your magic linoleum.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE HARNESS MAKER’S RIDDLE +</p> + +<p> +“I work in Hildebrant’s saddle and harness shop down in Grant +Street. I’ve worked there five years. I get $18 a week. That’s +enough to marry on, ain’t it? Well, I’m not going to get married. +Old Hildebrant is one of these funny Dutchmen—you know the +kind—always getting off bum jokes. He’s got about a million riddles +and things that he faked from Rogers Brothers’ great-grandfather. Bill +Watson works there, too. Me and Bill have to stand for them chestnuts day after +day. Why do we do it? Well, jobs ain’t to be picked off every Anheuser +bush— And then there’s Laura. +</p> + +<p> +“What? The old man’s daughter. Comes in the shop every day. About +nineteen, and the picture of the blonde that sits on the palisades of the Rhine +and charms the clam-diggers into the surf. Hair the color of straw matting, and +eyes as black and shiny as the best harness blacking—think of that! +</p> + +<p> +“Me? well, it’s either me or Bill Watson. She treats us both equal. +Bill is all to the psychopathic about her; and me?—well, you saw me +plating the roadbed of the Great Maroon Way with silver to-night. That was on +account of Laura. I was spiflicated, Your Highness, and I wot not of what I +wouldst. +</p> + +<p> +“How? Why, old Hildebrandt says to me and Bill this afternoon: +‘Boys, one riddle have I for you gehabt haben. A young man who cannot +riddles antworten, he is not so good by business for ein family to +provide—is not that—hein?’ And he hands us a riddle—a +conundrum, some calls it—and he chuckles interiorly and gives both of us +till to-morrow morning to work out the answer to it. And he says whichever of +us guesses the repartee end of it goes to his house o’ Wednesday night to +his daughter’s birthday party. And it means Laura for whichever of us +goes, for she’s naturally aching for a husband, and it’s either me +or Bill Watson, for old Hildebrant likes us both, and wants her to marry +somebody that’ll carry on the business after he’s stitched his last +pair of traces. +</p> + +<p> +“The riddle? Why, it was this: ‘What kind of a hen lays the +longest? Think of that! What kind of a hen lays the longest? Ain’t it +like a Dutchman to risk a man’s happiness on a fool proposition like +that? Now, what’s the use? What I don’t know about hens would fill +several incubators. You say you’re giving imitations of the old Arab guy +that gave away—libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairy +that’ll solve this hen query, or not?” +</p> + +<p> +When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by the park +bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, and said, in grave and +impressive tones: +</p> + +<p> +“I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent in +search of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountered a more +interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I have overlooked hens in my +researches and observations. As to their habits, their times and manner of +laying, their many varieties and cross-breedings, their span of life, +their—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t make an Ibsen drama of it!” interrupted the young +man, flippantly. “Riddles—especially old Hildebrant’s +riddles—don’t have to be worked out seriously. They are light +themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I +can’t strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. To-morrow +will tell. Well, Your Majesty, I’m glad anyhow that you butted in and +whiled the time away. I guess Mr. Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if +one of his constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I’ll +say good night. Peace fo’ yours, and what-you-may-call-its of +Allah.” +</p> + +<p> +The Margrave, still with a gloomy air, held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot express my regret,” he said, sadly. “Never before +have I found myself unable to assist in some way. ‘What kind of a hen +lays the longest? It is a baffling problem. There is a hen, I believe, called +the Plymouth Rock that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Cut it out,” said the young man. “The Caliph trade is a +mighty serious one. I don’t suppose you’d even see anything funny +in a preacher’s defense of John D. Rockefeller. Well, good night, Your +Nibs.” +</p> + +<p> +From habit the Margrave began to fumble in his pockets. He drew forth a card +and handed it to the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Do me the favor to accept this, anyhow,” he said. “The time +may come when it might be of use to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks!” said the young man, pocketing it carelessly. “My +name is Simmons.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Shame to him who would hint that the reader’s interest shall altogether +pursue the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. I am indeed astray if my +hand fail in keeping the way where my peruser’s heart would follow. Then +let us, on the morrow, peep quickly in at the door of Hildebrant, harness +maker. +</p> + +<p> +Hildebrant’s 200 pounds reposed on a bench, silver-buckling a raw leather +martingale. +</p> + +<p> +Bill Watson came in first. +</p> + +<p> +“Vell,” said Hildebrant, shaking all over with the vile conceit of +the joke-maker, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat kind of a hen lays der +longest?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Er—why, I think so,” said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. +“I think so, Mr. Hildebrant—the one that lives the longest— +Is that right?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nein!” said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. “You haf +not guessed der answer.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood. +</p> + +<p> +In came the young man of the Arabian Night’s fiasco—pale, +melancholy, hopeless. +</p> + +<p> +“Vell,” said Hildebrant, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat +kind of a hen lays der longest?’” +</p> + +<p> +Simmons regarded him with dull savagery in his eye. Should he curse this +mountain of pernicious humor—curse him and die? Why should— But +there was Laura. +</p> + +<p> +Dogged, speechless, he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and stood. His +hand encountered the strange touch of the Margrave’s card. He drew it out +and looked at it, as men about to be hanged look at a crawling fly. There was +written on it in Quigg’s bold, round hand: “Good for one roast +chicken to bearer.” +</p> + +<p> +Simmons looked up with a flashing eye. +</p> + +<p> +“A dead one!” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Goot!” roared Hildebrant, rocking the table with giant glee. +“Dot is right! You gome at mine house at 8 o’clock to der +party.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI<br /> +COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON</h2> + +<p> +There are no more Christmas stories to write. Fiction is exhausted; and +newspaper items, the next best, are manufactured by clever young journalists +who have married early and have an engagingly pessimistic view of life. +Therefore, for seasonable diversion, we are reduced to very questionable +sources—facts and philosophy. We will begin with—whichever you +choose to call it. +</p> + +<p> +Children are pestilential little animals with which we have to cope under a +bewildering variety of conditions. Especially when childish sorrows overwhelm +them are we put to our wits’ end. We exhaust our paltry store of +consolation; and then beat them, sobbing, to sleep. Then we grovel in the dust +of a million years, and ask God why. Thus we call out of the rat-trap. As for +the children, no one understands them except old maids, hunchbacks, and +shepherd dogs. +</p> + +<p> +Now comes the facts in the case of the Rag-Doll, the Tatterdemalion, and the +Twenty-fifth of December. +</p> + +<p> +On the tenth of that month the Child of the Millionaire lost her rag-doll. +There were many servants in the Millionaire’s palace on the Hudson, and +these ransacked the house and grounds, but without finding the lost treasure. +The child was a girl of five, and one of those perverse little beasts that +often wound the sensibilities of wealthy parents by fixing their affections +upon some vulgar, inexpensive toy instead of upon diamond-studded automobiles +and pony phaetons. +</p> + +<p> +The Child grieved sorely and truly, a thing inexplicable to the Millionaire, to +whom the rag-doll market was about as interesting as Bay State Gas; and to the +Lady, the Child’s mother, who was all form—that is, nearly all, as +you shall see. +</p> + +<p> +The Child cried inconsolably, and grew hollow-eyed, knock-kneed, spindling, and +corykilverty in many other respects. The Millionaire smiled and tapped his +coffers confidently. The pick of the output of the French and German toymakers +was rushed by special delivery to the mansion; but Rachel refused to be +comforted. She was weeping for her rag child, and was for a high protective +tariff against all foreign foolishness. Then doctors with the finest bedside +manners and stop-watches were called in. One by one they chattered futilely +about peptomanganate of iron and sea voyages and hypophosphites until their +stop-watches showed that Bill Rendered was under the wire for show or place. +Then, as men, they advised that the rag-doll be found as soon as possible and +restored to its mourning parent. The Child sniffed at therapeutics, chewed a +thumb, and wailed for her Betsy. And all this time cablegrams were coming from +Santa Claus saying that he would soon be here and enjoining us to show a true +Christian spirit and let up on the pool-rooms and tontine policies and platoon +systems long enough to give him a welcome. Everywhere the spirit of Christmas +was diffusing itself. The banks were refusing loans, the pawn-brokers had +doubled their gang of helpers, people bumped your shins on the streets with red +sleds, Thomas and Jeremiah bubbled before you on the bars while you waited on +one foot, holly-wreaths of hospitality were hung in windows of the stores, they +who had ’em were getting their furs. You hardly knew which was the best +bet in balls—three, high, moth, or snow. It was no time at which to lose +the rag-doll or your heart. +</p> + +<p> +If Doctor Watson’s investigating friend had been called in to solve this +mysterious disappearance he might have observed on the Millionaire’s wall +a copy of “The Vampire.” That would have quickly suggested, by +induction, “A rag and a bone and a hank of hair.” +“Flip,” a Scotch terrier, next to the rag-doll in the Child’s +heart, frisked through the halls. The hank of hair! Aha! X, the unfound +quantity, represented the rag-doll. But, the bone? Well, when dogs find bones +they—Done! It were an easy and a fruitful task to examine Flip’s +forefeet. Look, Watson! Earth—dried earth between the toes. Of course, +the dog—but Sherlock was not there. Therefore it devolves. But topography +and architecture must intervene. +</p> + +<p> +The Millionaire’s palace occupied a lordly space. In front of it was a +lawn close-mowed as a South Ireland man’s face two days after a shave. At +one side of it, and fronting on another street was a pleasaunce trimmed to a +leaf, and the garage and stables. The Scotch pup had ravished the rag-doll from +the nursery, dragged it to a corner of the lawn, dug a hole, and buried it +after the manner of careless undertakers. There you have the mystery solved, +and no checks to write for the hypodermical wizard or fi’-pun notes to +toss to the sergeant. Then let’s get down to the heart of the thing, +tiresome readers—the Christmas heart of the thing. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy was drunk—not riotously or helplessly or loquaciously, as you or I +might get, but decently, appropriately, and inoffensively, as becomes a +gentleman down on his luck. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy was a soldier of misfortune. The road, the haystack, the park bench, the +kitchen door, the bitter round of eleemosynary +beds-with-shower-bath-attachment, the petty pickings and ignobly garnered +largesse of great cities—these formed the chapters of his history. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy walked toward the river, down the street that bounded one side of the +Millionaire’s house and grounds. He saw a leg of Betsy, the lost +rag-doll, protruding, like the clue to a Lilliputian murder mystery, from its +untimely grave in a corner of the fence. He dragged forth the maltreated +infant, tucked it under his arm, and went on his way crooning a road song of +his brethren that no doll that has been brought up to the sheltered life should +hear. Well for Betsy that she had no ears. And well that she had no eyes save +unseeing circles of black; for the faces of Fuzzy and the Scotch terrier were +those of brothers, and the heart of no rag-doll could withstand twice to become +the prey of such fearsome monsters. +</p> + +<p> +Though you may not know it, Grogan’s saloon stands near the river and +near the foot of the street down which Fuzzy traveled. In Grogan’s, +Christmas cheer was already rampant. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy entered with his doll. He fancied that as a mummer at the feast of Saturn +he might earn a few drops from the wassail cup. +</p> + +<p> +He set Betsy on the bar and addressed her loudly and humorously, seasoning his +speech with exaggerated compliments and endearments, as one entertaining his +lady friend. The loafers and bibbers around caught the farce of it, and roared. +The bartender gave Fuzzy a drink. Oh, many of us carry rag-dolls. +</p> + +<p> +“One for the lady?” suggested Fuzzy impudently, and tucked another +contribution to Art beneath his waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +He began to see possibilities in Betsy. His first-night had been a success. +Visions of a vaudeville circuit about town dawned upon him. +</p> + +<p> +In a group near the stove sat “Pigeon” McCarthy, Black Riley, and +“One-ear” Mike, well and unfavorably known in the tough shoestring +district that blackened the left bank of the river. They passed a newspaper +back and forth among themselves. The item that each solid and blunt forefinger +pointed out was an advertisement headed “One Hundred Dollars +Reward.” To earn it one must return the rag-doll lost, strayed, or stolen +from the Millionaire’s mansion. It seemed that grief still ravaged, +unchecked, in the bosom of the too faithful Child. Flip, the terrier, capered +and shook his absurd whisker before her, powerless to distract. She wailed for +her Betsy in the faces of walking, talking, mama-ing, and eye-closing French +Mabelles and Violettes. The advertisement was a last resort. +</p> + +<p> +Black Riley came from behind the stove and approached Fuzzy in his one-sided +parabolic way. +</p> + +<p> +The Christmas mummer, flushed with success, had tucked Betsy under his arm, and +was about to depart to the filling of impromptu dates elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, ‘Bo,” said Black Riley to him, “where did you cop +out dat doll?” +</p> + +<p> +“This doll?” asked Fuzzy, touching Betsy with his forefinger to be +sure that she was the one referred to. Why, this doll was presented to me by +the Emperor of Beloochistan. I have seven hundred others in my country home in +Newport. This doll—” +</p> + +<p> +“Cheese the funny business,” said Riley. “You swiped it or +picked it up at de house on de hill where—but never mind dat. You want to +take fifty cents for de rags, and take it quick. Me brother’s kid at home +might be wantin’ to play wid it. Hey—what?” +</p> + +<p> +He produced the coin. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy laughed a gurgling, insolent, alcoholic laugh in his face. Go to the +office of Sarah Bernhardt’s manager and propose to him that she be +released from a night’s performance to entertain the Tackytown Lyceum and +Literary Coterie. You will hear the duplicate of Fuzzy’s laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Black Riley gauged Fuzzy quickly with his blueberry eye as a wrestler does. His +hand was itching to play the Roman and wrest the rag Sabine from the +extemporaneous merry-andrew who was entertaining an angel unaware. But he +refrained. Fuzzy was fat and solid and big. Three inches of well-nourished +corporeity, defended from the winter winds by dingy linen, intervened between +his vest and trousers. Countless small, circular wrinkles running around his +coat-sleeves and knees guaranteed the quality of his bone and muscle. His +small, blue eyes, bathed in the moisture of altruism and wooziness, looked upon +you kindly, yet without abashment. He was whiskerly, whiskyly, fleshily +formidable. So, Black Riley temporized. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’ll you take for it, den?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Money,” said Fuzzy, with husky firmness, “cannot buy +her.” +</p> + +<p> +He was intoxicated with the artist’s first sweet cup of attainment. To +set a faded-blue, earth-stained rag-doll on a bar, to hold mimic converse with +it, and to find his heart leaping with the sense of plaudits earned and his +throat scorching with free libations poured in his honor—could base coin +buy him from such achievements? You will perceive that Fuzzy had the +temperament. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy walked out with the gait of a trained sea-lion in search of other +cafés to conquer. +</p> + +<p> +Though the dusk of twilight was hardly yet apparent, lights were beginning to +spangle the city like pop-corn bursting in a deep skillet. Christmas Eve, +impatiently expected, was peeping over the brink of the hour. Millions had +prepared for its celebration. Towns would be painted red. You, yourself, have +heard the horns and dodged the capers of the Saturnalians. +</p> + +<p> +“Pigeon” McCarthy, Black Riley, and “One-ear” Mike held +a hasty converse outside Grogan’s. They were narrow-chested, pallid +striplings, not fighters in the open, but more dangerous in their ways of +warfare than the most terrible of Turks. Fuzzy, in a pitched battle, could have +eaten the three of them. In a go-as-you-please encounter he was already doomed. +</p> + +<p> +They overtook him just as he and Betsy were entering Costigan’s Casino. +They deflected him, and shoved the newspaper under his nose. Fuzzy could +read—and more. +</p> + +<p> +“Boys,” said he, “you are certainly damn true friends. Give +me a week to think it over.” +</p> + +<p> +The soul of a real artist is quenched with difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +The boys carefully pointed out to him that advertisements were soulless, and +that the deficiencies of the day might not be supplied by the morrow. +</p> + +<p> +“A cool hundred,” said Fuzzy thoughtfully and mushily. +</p> + +<p> +“Boys,” said he, “you are true friends. I’ll go up and +claim the reward. The show business is not what it used to be.” +</p> + +<p> +Night was falling more surely. The three tagged at his sides to the foot of the +rise on which stood the Millionaire’s house. There Fuzzy turned upon them +acrimoniously. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a pack of putty-faced beagle-hounds,” he roared. “Go +away.” +</p> + +<p> +They went away—a little way. +</p> + +<p> +In “Pigeon” McCarthy’s pocket was a section of one-inch +gas-pipe eight inches long. In one end of it and in the middle of it was a lead +plug. One-half of it was packed tight with solder. Black Riley carried a +slung-shot, being a conventional thug. “One-ear” Mike relied upon a +pair of brass knucks—an heirloom in the family. +</p> + +<p> +“Why fetch and carry,” said Black Riley, “when some one will +do it for ye? Let him bring it out to us. Hey—what?” +</p> + +<p> +“We can chuck him in the river,” said “Pigeon” +McCarthy, “with a stone tied to his feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Youse guys make me tired,” said “One-ear” Mike sadly. +“Ain’t progress ever appealed to none of yez? Sprinkle a little +gasoline on ’im, and drop ’im on the Drive—well?” +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy entered the Millionaire’s gate and zigzagged toward the softly +glowing entrance of the mansion. The three goblins came up to the gate and +lingered—one on each side of it, one beyond the roadway. They fingered +their cold metal and leather, confident. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy rang the door-bell, smiling foolishly and dreamily. An atavistic instinct +prompted him to reach for the button of his right glove. But he wore no gloves; +so his left hand dropped, embarrassed. +</p> + +<p> +The particular menial whose duty it was to open doors to silks and laces shied +at first sight of Fuzzy. But a second glance took in his passport, his card of +admission, his surety of welcome—the lost rag-doll of the daughter of the +house dangling under his arm. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy was admitted into a great hall, dim with the glow from unseen lights. The +hireling went away and returned with a maid and the Child. The doll was +restored to the mourning one. She clasped her lost darling to her breast; and +then, with the inordinate selfishness and candor of childhood, stamped her foot +and whined hatred and fear of the odious being who had rescued her from the +depths of sorrow and despair. Fuzzy wriggled himself into an ingratiatory +attitude and essayed the idiotic smile and blattering small talk that is +supposed to charm the budding intellect of the young. The Child bawled, and was +dragged away, hugging her Betsy close. +</p> + +<p> +There came the Secretary, pale, poised, polished, gliding in pumps, and +worshipping pomp and ceremony. He counted out into Fuzzy’s hand ten +ten-dollar bills; then dropped his eye upon the door, transferred it to James, +its custodian, indicated the obnoxious earner of the reward with the other, and +allowed his pumps to waft him away to secretarial regions. +</p> + +<p> +James gathered Fuzzy with his own commanding optic and swept him as far as the +front door. +</p> + +<p> +When the money touched fuzzy’s dingy palm his first instinct was to take +to his heels; but a second thought restrained him from that blunder of +etiquette. It was his; it had been given him. It—and, oh, what an elysium +it opened to the gaze of his mind’s eye! He had tumbled to the foot of +the ladder; he was hungry, homeless, friendless, ragged, cold, drifting; and he +held in his hand the key to a paradise of the mud-honey that he craved. The +fairy doll had waved a wand with her rag-stuffed hand; and now wherever he +might go the enchanted palaces with shining foot-rests and magic red fluids in +gleaming glassware would be open to him. +</p> + +<p> +He followed James to the door. +</p> + +<p> +He paused there as the flunky drew open the great mahogany portal for him to +pass into the vestibule. +</p> + +<p> +Beyond the wrought-iron gates in the dark highway Black Riley and his two pals +casually strolled, fingering under their coats the inevitably fatal weapons +that were to make the reward of the rag-doll theirs. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy stopped at the Millionaire’s door and bethought himself. Like +little sprigs of mistletoe on a dead tree, certain living green thoughts and +memories began to decorate his confused mind. He was quite drunk, mind you, and +the present was beginning to fade. Those wreaths and festoons of holly with +their scarlet berries making the great hall gay—where had he seen such +things before? Somewhere he had known polished floors and odors of fresh +flowers in winter, and—and some one was singing a song in the house that +he thought he had heard before. Some one singing and playing a harp. Of course, +it was Christmas—Fuzzy thought he must have been pretty drunk to have +overlooked that. +</p> + +<p> +And then he went out of the present, and there came back to him out of some +impossible, vanished, and irrevocable past a little, pure-white, transient, +forgotten ghost—the spirit of <i>noblesse oblige</i>. Upon a gentleman +certain things devolve. +</p> + +<p> +James opened the outer door. A stream of light went down the graveled walk to +the iron gate. Black Riley, McCarthy, and “One-ear” Mike saw, and +carelessly drew their sinister cordon closer about the gate. +</p> + +<p> +With a more imperious gesture than James’s master had ever used or could +ever use, Fuzzy compelled the menial to close the door. Upon a gentleman +certain things devolve. Especially at the Christmas season. +</p> + +<p> +“It is cust—customary,” he said to James, the flustered, +“when a gentleman calls on Christmas Eve to pass the compliments of the +season with the lady of the house. You und’stand? I shall not move shtep +till I pass compl’ments season with lady the house. +Und’stand?” +</p> + +<p> +There was an argument. James lost. Fuzzy raised his voice and sent it through +the house unpleasantly. I did not say he was a gentleman. He was simply a tramp +being visited by a ghost. +</p> + +<p> +A sterling silver bell rang. James went back to answer it, leaving Fuzzy in the +hall. James explained somewhere to some one. +</p> + +<p> +Then he came and conducted Fuzzy into the library. +</p> + +<p> +The lady entered a moment later. She was more beautiful and holy than any +picture that Fuzzy had seen. She smiled, and said something about a doll. Fuzzy +didn’t understand that; he remembered nothing about a doll. +</p> + +<p> +A footman brought in two small glasses of sparkling wine on a stamped +sterling-silver waiter. The Lady took one. The other was handed to Fuzzy. +</p> + +<p> +As his fingers closed on the slender glass stem his disabilities dropped from +him for one brief moment. He straightened himself; and Time, so disobliging to +most of us, turned backward to accommodate Fuzzy. +</p> + +<p> +Forgotten Christmas ghosts whiter than the false beards of the most opulent +Kris Kringle were rising in the fumes of Grogan’s whisky. What had the +Millionaire’s mansion to do with a long, wainscoted Virginia hall, where +the riders were grouped around a silver punch-bowl, drinking the ancient toast +of the House? And why should the patter of the cab horses’ hoofs on the +frozen street be in any wise related to the sound of the saddled hunters +stamping under the shelter of the west veranda? And what had Fuzzy to do with +any of it? +</p> + +<p> +The Lady, looking at him over her glass, let her condescending smile fade away +like a false dawn. Her eyes turned serious. She saw something beneath the rags +and Scotch terrier whiskers that she did not understand. But it did not matter. +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy lifted his glass and smiled vacantly. +</p> + +<p> +“P-pardon, lady,” he said, “but couldn’t leave without +exchangin’ comp’ments sheason with lady th’ house. +’Gainst princ’ples gen’leman do sho.” +</p> + +<p> +And then he began the ancient salutation that was a tradition in the House when +men wore lace ruffles and powder. +</p> + +<p> +“The blessings of another year—” +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy’s memory failed him. The Lady prompted: +</p> + +<p> +“—Be upon this hearth.” +</p> + +<p> +“—The guest—” stammered Fuzzy. +</p> + +<p> +“—And upon her who—” continued the Lady, with a leading +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, cut it out,” said Fuzzy, ill-manneredly. “I can’t +remember. Drink hearty.” +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy had shot his arrow. They drank. The Lady smiled again the smile of her +caste. James enveloped and re-conducted him toward the front door. The harp +music still softly drifted through the house. +</p> + +<p> +Outside, Black Riley breathed on his cold hands and hugged the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” said the Lady to herself, musing, “who—but +there were so many who came. I wonder whether memory is a curse or a blessing +to them after they have fallen so low.” +</p> + +<p> +Fuzzy and his escort were nearly at the door. The Lady called: +“James!” +</p> + +<p> +James stalked back obsequiously, leaving Fuzzy waiting unsteadily, with his +brief spark of the divine fire gone. +</p> + +<p> +Outside, Black Riley stamped his cold feet and got a firmer grip on his section +of gas-pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“You will conduct this gentleman,” said the lady, +“Downstairs. Then tell Louis to get out the Mercedes and take him to +whatever place he wishes to go.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII<br /> +A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIA</h2> + +<p> +The great city of Bagdad-on-the-Subway is caliph-ridden. Its palaces, bazaars, +khans, and byways are thronged with Al Rashids in divers disguises, seeking +diversion and victims for their unbridled generosity. You can scarcely find a +poor beggar whom they are willing to let enjoy his spoils unsuccored, nor a +wrecked unfortunate upon whom they will not reshower the means of fresh +misfortune. You will hardly find anywhere a hungry one who has not had the +opportunity to tighten his belt in gift libraries, nor a poor pundit who has +not blushed at the holiday basket of celery-crowned turkey forced resoundingly +through his door by the eleemosynary press. +</p> + +<p> +So then, fearfully through the Harun-haunted streets creep the one-eyed +calenders, the Little Hunchback and the Barber’s Sixth Brother, hoping to +escape the ministrations of the roving horde of caliphoid sultans. +</p> + +<p> +Entertainment for many Arabian nights might be had from the histories of those +who have escaped the largesse of the army of Commanders of the Faithful. Until +dawn you might sit on the enchanted rug and listen to such stories as are told +of the powerful genie Roc-Ef-El-Er who sent the Forty Thieves to soak up the +oil plant of Ali Baba; of the good Caliph Kar-Neg-Ghe, who gave away palaces; +of the Seven Voyages of Sailbad, the Sinner, who frequented wooden excursion +steamers among the islands; of the Fisherman and the Bottle; of the +Barmecides’ Boarding house; of Aladdin’s rise to wealth by means of +his Wonderful Gas-meter. +</p> + +<p> +But now, there being ten sultans to one Sheherazade, she is held too valuable +to be in fear of the bowstring. In consequence the art of narrative languishes. +And, as the lesser caliphs are hunting the happy poor and the resigned +unfortunate from cover to cover in order to heap upon them strange mercies and +mysterious benefits, too often comes the report from Arabian headquarters that +the captive refused “to talk.” +</p> + +<p> +This reticence, then, in the actors who perform the sad comedies of their +philanthropy-scourged world, must, in a degree, account for the shortcomings of +this painfully gleaned tale, which shall be called +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE STORY OF THE CALIPH WHO ALLEVIATED HIS CONSCIENCE +</p> + +<p> +Old Jacob Spraggins mixed for himself some Scotch and lithia water at his +$1,200 oak sideboard. Inspiration must have resulted from its imbibition, for +immediately afterward he struck the quartered oak soundly with his fist and +shouted to the empty dining room: +</p> + +<p> +“By the coke ovens of hell, it must be that ten thousand dollars! If I +can get that squared, it’ll do the trick.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus, by the commonest artifice of the trade, having gained your interest, the +action of the story will now be suspended, leaving you grumpily to consider a +sort of dull biography beginning fifteen years before. +</p> + +<p> +When old Jacob was young Jacob he was a breaker boy in a Pennsylvania coal +mine. I don’t know what a breaker boy is; but his occupation seems to be +standing by a coal dump with a wan look and a dinner-pail to have his picture +taken for magazine articles. Anyhow, Jacob was one. But, instead of dying of +overwork at nine, and leaving his helpless parents and brothers at the mercy of +the union strikers’ reserve fund, he hitched up his galluses, put a +dollar or two in a side proposition now and then, and at forty-five was worth +$20,000,000. +</p> + +<p> +There now! it’s over. Hardly had time to yawn, did you? I’ve seen +biographies that—but let us dissemble. +</p> + +<p> +I want you to consider Jacob Spraggins, Esq., after he had arrived at the +seventh stage of his career. The stages meant are, first, humble origin; +second, deserved promotion; third, stockholder; fourth, capitalist; fifth, +trust magnate; sixth, rich malefactor; seventh, caliph; eighth, <i>x</i>. The +eighth stage shall be left to the higher mathematics. +</p> + +<p> +At fifty-five Jacob retired from active business. The income of a czar was +still rolling in on him from coal, iron, real estate, oil, railroads, +manufactories, and corporations, but none of it touched Jacob’s hands in +a raw state. It was a sterilized increment, carefully cleaned and dusted and +fumigated until it arrived at its ultimate stage of untainted, spotless checks +in the white fingers of his private secretary. Jacob built a +three-million-dollar palace on a corner lot fronting on Nabob Avenue, city of +New Bagdad, and began to feel the mantle of the late H. A. Rashid descending +upon him. Eventually Jacob slipped the mantle under his collar, tied it in a +neat four-in-hand, and became a licensed harrier of our Mesopotamian +proletariat. +</p> + +<p> +When a man’s income becomes so large that the butcher actually sends him +the kind of steak he orders, he begins to think about his soul’s +salvation. Now, the various stages or classes of rich men must not be +forgotten. The capitalist can tell you to a dollar the amount of his wealth. +The trust magnate “estimates” it. The rich malefactor hands you a +cigar and denies that he has bought the P. D. & Q. The caliph merely smiles +and talks about Hammerstein and the musical lasses. There is a record of +tremendous altercation at breakfast in a “Where-to-Dine-Well” +tavern between a magnate and his wife, the rift within the loot being that the +wife calculated their fortune at a figure $3,000,000 higher than did her future +<i>divorcé</i>. Oh, well, I, myself, heard a similar quarrel between a +man and his wife because he found fifty cents less in his pockets than he +thought he had. After all, we are all human—Count Tolstoi, R. +Fitzsimmons, Peter Pan, and the rest of us. +</p> + +<p> +Don’t lose heart because the story seems to be degenerating into a sort +of moral essay for intellectual readers. +</p> + +<p> +There will be dialogue and stage business pretty soon. +</p> + +<p> +When Jacob first began to compare the eyes of needles with the camels in the +Zoo he decided upon organized charity. He had his secretary send a check for +one million to the Universal Benevolent Association of the Globe. You may have +looked down through a grating in front of a decayed warehouse for a nickel that +you had dropped through. But that is neither here nor there. The Association +acknowledged receipt of his favor of the 24th ult. with enclosure as stated. +Separated by a double line, but still mighty close to the matter under the +caption of “Oddities of the Day’s News” in an evening paper, +Jacob Spraggins read that one “Jasper Spargyous” had “donated +$100,000 to the U. B. A. of G.” A camel may have a stomach for each day +in the week; but I dare not venture to accord him whiskers, for fear of the +Great Displeasure at Washington; but if he have whiskers, surely not one of +them will seem to have been inserted in the eye of a needle by that effort of +that rich man to enter the K. of H. The right is reserved to reject any and all +bids; signed, S. Peter, secretary and gatekeeper. +</p> + +<p> +Next, Jacob selected the best endowed college he could scare up and presented +it with a $200,000 laboratory. The college did not maintain a scientific +course, but it accepted the money and built an elaborate lavatory instead, +which was no diversion of funds so far as Jacob ever discovered. +</p> + +<p> +The faculty met and invited Jacob to come over and take his A B C degree. +Before sending the invitation they smiled, cut out the C, added the proper +punctuation marks, and all was well. +</p> + +<p> +While walking on the campus before being capped and gowned, Jacob saw two +professors strolling nearby. Their voices, long adapted to indoor acoustics, +undesignedly reached his ear. +</p> + +<p> +“There goes the latest <i>chevalier d’industrie</i>,” said +one of them, “to buy a sleeping powder from us. He gets his degree +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>In foro conscientiæ</i>,” said the other. +“Let’s ’eave ’arf a brick at ’im.” +</p> + +<p> +Jacob ignored the Latin, but the brick pleasantry was not too hard for him. +There was no mandragora in the honorary draught of learning that he had bought. +That was before the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act. +</p> + +<p> +Jacob wearied of philanthropy on a large scale. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could see folks made happier,” he said to +himself—“If I could see ’em myself and hear ’em express +their gratitude for what I done for ’em it would make me feel better. +This donatin’ funds to institutions and societies is about as +satisfactory as dropping money into a broken slot machine.” +</p> + +<p> +So Jacob followed his nose, which led him through unswept streets to the homes +of the poorest. +</p> + +<p> +“The very thing!” said Jacob. “I will charter two river +steamboats, pack them full of these unfortunate children and—say ten +thousand dolls and drums and a thousand freezers of ice cream, and give them a +delightful outing up the Sound. The sea breezes on that trip ought to blow the +taint off some of this money that keeps coming in faster than I can work it off +my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Jacob must have leaked some of his benevolent intentions, for an immense person +with a bald face and a mouth that looked as if it ought to have a “Drop +Letters Here” sign over it hooked a finger around him and set him in a +space between a barber’s pole and a stack of ash cans. Words came out of +the post-office slit—smooth, husky words with gloves on ’em, but +sounding as if they might turn to bare knuckles any moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Sport, do you know where you are at? Well, dis is Mike +O’Grady’s district you’re buttin’ into—see? +Mike’s got de stomach-ache privilege for every kid in dis +neighborhood—see? And if dere’s any picnics or red balloons to be +dealt out here, Mike’s money pays for ’em—see? Don’t +you butt in, or something’ll be handed to you. Youse +d–––– settlers and reformers with your social ologies +and your millionaire detectives have got dis district in a hell of a fix, +anyhow. With your college students and professors rough-housing de soda-water +stands and dem rubber-neck coaches fillin’ de streets, de folks down here +are ’fraid to go out of de houses. Now, you leave ’em to Mike. Dey +belongs to him, and he knows how to handle ’em. Keep on your own side of +de town. Are you some wiser now, uncle, or do you want to scrap wit’ Mike +O’Grady for de Santa Claus belt in dis district?” +</p> + +<p> +Clearly, that spot in the moral vineyard was preempted. So Caliph Spraggins +menaced no more the people in the bazaars of the East Side. To keep down his +growing surplus he doubled his donations to organized charity, presented the Y. +M. C. A. of his native town with a $10,000 collection of butterflies, and sent +a check to the famine sufferers in China big enough to buy new emerald eyes and +diamond-filled teeth for all their gods. But none of these charitable acts +seemed to bring peace to the caliph’s heart. He tried to get a personal +note into his benefactions by tipping bellboys and waiters $10 and $20 bills. +He got well snickered at and derided for that by the minions who accept with +respect gratuities commensurate to the service performed. He sought out an +ambitious and talented but poor young woman, and bought for her the star part +in a new comedy. He might have gotten rid of $50,000 more of his cumbersome +money in this philanthropy if he had not neglected to write letters to her. But +she lost the suit for lack of evidence, while his capital still kept piling up, +and his <i>optikos needleorum camelibus</i>—or rich man’s +disease—was unrelieved. +</p> + +<p> +In Caliph Spraggins’s $3,000,000 home lived his sister Henrietta, who +used to cook for the coal miners in a twenty-five-cent eating house in +Coketown, Pa., and who now would have offered John Mitchell only two fingers of +her hand to shake. And his daughter Celia, nineteen, back from boarding-school +and from being polished off by private instructors in the restaurant languages +and those études and things. +</p> + +<p> +Celia is the heroine. Lest the artist’s delineation of her charms on this +very page humbug your fancy, take from me her authorized description. She was a +nice-looking, awkward, loud, rather bashful, brown-haired girl, with a sallow +complexion, bright eyes, and a perpetual smile. She had a wholesome, +Spraggins-inherited love for plain food, loose clothing, and the society of the +lower classes. She had too much health and youth to feel the burden of wealth. +She had a wide mouth that kept the peppermint-pepsin tablets rattling like hail +from the slot-machine wherever she went, and she could whistle hornpipes. Keep +this picture in mind; and let the artist do his worst. +</p> + +<p> +Celia looked out of her window one day and gave her heart to the grocer’s +young man. The receiver thereof was at that moment engaged in conceding +immortality to his horse and calling down upon him the ultimate fate of the +wicked; so he did not notice the transfer. A horse should stand still when you +are lifting a crate of strictly new-laid eggs out of the wagon. +</p> + +<p> +Young lady reader, you would have liked that grocer’s young man yourself. +But you wouldn’t have given him your heart, because you are saving it for +a riding-master, or a shoe-manufacturer with a torpid liver, or something quiet +but rich in gray tweeds at Palm Beach. Oh, I know about it. So I am glad the +grocer’s young man was for Celia, and not for you. +</p> + +<p> +The grocer’s young man was slim and straight and as confident and easy in +his movements as the man in the back of the magazines who wears the new +frictionless roller suspenders. He wore a gray bicycle cap on the back of his +head, and his hair was straw-colored and curly, and his sunburned face looked +like one that smiled a good deal when he was not preaching the doctrine of +everlasting punishment to delivery-wagon horses. He slung imported A1 fancy +groceries about as though they were only the stuff he delivered at +boarding-houses; and when he picked up his whip, your mind instantly recalled +Mr. Tackett and his air with the buttonless foils. +</p> + +<p> +Tradesmen delivered their goods at a side gate at the rear of the house. The +grocer’s wagon came about ten in the morning. For three days Celia +watched the driver when he came, finding something new each time to admire in +the lofty and almost contemptuous way he had of tossing around the choicest +gifts of Pomona, Ceres, and the canning factories. Then she consulted Annette. +</p> + +<p> +To be explicit, Annette McCorkle, the second housemaid who deserves a paragraph +herself. Annette Fletcherized large numbers of romantic novels which she +obtained at a free public library branch (donated by one of the biggest caliphs +in the business). She was Celia’s side-kicker and chum, though Aunt +Henrietta didn’t know it, you may hazard a bean or two. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, canary-bird seed!” exclaimed Annette. “Ain’t it a +corkin’ situation? You a heiress, and fallin’ in love with him on +sight! He’s a sweet boy, too, and above his business. But he ain’t +susceptible like the common run of grocer’s assistants. He never pays no +attention to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He will to me,” said Celia. +</p> + +<p> +“Riches—” began Annette, unsheathing the not unjustifiable +feminine sting. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re not so beautiful,” said Celia, with her wide, +disarming smile. “Neither am I; but he sha’n’t know that +there’s any money mixed up with my looks, such as they are. That’s +fair. Now, I want you to lend me one of your caps and an apron, Annette.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, marshmallows!” cried Annette. “I see. Ain’t it +lovely? It’s just like ‘Lurline, the Left-Handed; or, A Buttonhole +Maker’s Wrongs.’ I’ll bet he’ll turn out to be a +count.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long hallway (or “passageway,” as they call it in the +land of the Colonels) with one side latticed, running along the rear of the +house. The grocer’s young man went through this to deliver his goods. One +morning he passed a girl in there with shining eyes, sallow complexion, and +wide, smiling mouth, wearing a maid’s cap and apron. But as he was +cumbered with a basket of Early Drumhead lettuce and Trophy tomatoes and three +bunches of asparagus and six bottles of the most expensive Queen olives, he saw +no more than that she was one of the maids. +</p> + +<p> +But on his way out he came up behind her, and she was whistling +“Fisher’s Hornpipe” so loudly and clearly that all the +piccolos in the world should have disjointed themselves and crept into their +cases for shame. +</p> + +<p> +The grocer’s young man stopped and pushed back his cap until it hung on +his collar button behind. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s out o’ sight, Kid,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Celia, if you please,” said the whistler, dazzling him +with a three-inch smile. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right. I’m Thomas McLeod. What part of the house +do you work in?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m the—the second parlor maid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know the ‘Falling Waters’?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Celia, “we don’t know anybody. We got rich +too quick—that is, Mr. Spraggins did.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll make you acquainted,” said Thomas McLeod. +“It’s a strathspey—the first cousin to a hornpipe.” +</p> + +<p> +If Celia’s whistling put the piccolos out of commission, Thomas +McLeod’s surely made the biggest flutes hunt their holes. He could +actually whistle <i>bass</i>. +</p> + +<p> +When he stopped Celia was ready to jump into his delivery wagon and ride with +him clear to the end of the pier and on to the ferry-boat of the Charon line. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be around to-morrow at 10:15,” said Thomas, “with +some spinach and a case of carbonic.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll practice that what-you-may-call-it,” said Celia. +“I can whistle a fine second.” +</p> + +<p> +The processes of courtship are personal, and do not belong to general +literature. They should be chronicled in detail only in advertisements of iron +tonics and in the secret by-laws of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Ancient +Order of the Rat Trap. But genteel writing may contain a description of certain +stages of its progress without intruding upon the province of the X-ray or of +park policemen. +</p> + +<p> +A day came when Thomas McLeod and Celia lingered at the end of the latticed +“passage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sixteen a week isn’t much,” said Thomas, letting his cap +rest on his shoulder blades. +</p> + +<p> +Celia looked through the lattice-work and whistled a dead march. Shopping with +Aunt Henrietta the day before, she had paid that much for a dozen +handkerchiefs. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe I’ll get a raise next month,” said Thomas. +“I’ll be around to-morrow at the same time with a bag of flour and +the laundry soap.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Celia. “Annette’s married cousin pays +only $20 a month for a flat in the Bronx.” +</p> + +<p> +Never for a moment did she count on the Spraggins money. She knew Aunt +Henrietta’s invincible pride of caste and pa’s mightiness as a +Colossus of cash, and she understood that if she chose Thomas she and her +grocer’s young man might go whistle for a living. +</p> + +<p> +Another day came, Thomas violating the dignity of Nabob Avenue with “The +Devil’s Dream,” whistled keenly between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Raised to eighteen a week yesterday,” he said. “Been pricing +flats around Morningside. You want to start untying those apron strings and +unpinning that cap, old girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tommy!” said Celia, with her broadest smile. +“Won’t that be enough? I got Betty to show me how to make a cottage +pudding. I guess we could call it a flat pudding if we wanted to.” +</p> + +<p> +“And tell no lie,” said Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +“And I can sweep and polish and dust—of course, a parlor maid +learns that. And we could whistle duets of evenings.” +</p> + +<p> +“The old man said he’d raise me to twenty at Christmas if Bryan +couldn’t think of any harder name to call a Republican than a +‘postponer,’” said the grocer’s young man. +</p> + +<p> +“I can sew,” said Celia; “and I know that you must make the +gas company’s man show his badge when he comes to look at the meter; and +I know how to put up quince jam and window curtains.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bully! you’re all right, Cele. Yes, I believe we can pull it off +on eighteen.” +</p> + +<p> +As he was jumping into the wagon the second parlor maid braved discovery by +running swiftly to the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“And, oh, Tommy, I forgot,” she called, softly. “I believe I +could make your neckties.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forget it,” said Thomas decisively. +</p> + +<p> +“And another thing,” she continued. “Sliced cucumbers at +night will drive away cockroaches.” +</p> + +<p> +“And sleep, too, you bet,” said Mr. McLeod. “Yes, I believe +if I have a delivery to make on the West Side this afternoon I’ll look in +at a furniture store I know over there.” +</p> + +<p> +It was just as the wagon dashed away that old Jacob Spraggins struck the +sideboard with his fist and made the mysterious remark about ten thousand +dollars that you perhaps remember. Which justifies the reflection that some +stories, as well as life, and puppies thrown into wells, move around in +circles. Painfully but briefly we must shed light on Jacob’s words. +</p> + +<p> +The foundation of his fortune was made when he was twenty. A poor coal-digger +(ever hear of a rich one?) had saved a dollar or two and bought a small tract +of land on a hillside on which he tried to raise corn. Not a nubbin. Jacob, +whose nose was a divining-rod, told him there was a vein of coal beneath. He +bought the land from the miner for $125 and sold it a month afterward for +$10,000. Luckily the miner had enough left of his sale money to drink himself +into a black coat opening in the back, as soon as he heard the news. +</p> + +<p> +And so, for forty years afterward, we find Jacob illuminated with the sudden +thought that if he could make restitution of this sum of money to the heirs or +assigns of the unlucky miner, respite and Nepenthe might be his. +</p> + +<p> +And now must come swift action, for we have here some four thousand words and +not a tear shed and never a pistol, joke, safe, nor bottle cracked. +</p> + +<p> +Old Jacob hired a dozen private detectives to find the heirs, if any existed, +of the old miner, Hugh McLeod. +</p> + +<p> +Get the point? Of course I know as well as you do that Thomas is going to be +the heir. I might have concealed the name; but why always hold back your +mystery till the end? I say, let it come near the middle so people can stop +reading there if they want to. +</p> + +<p> +After the detectives had trailed false clues about three thousand +dollars—I mean miles—they cornered Thomas at the grocery and got +his confession that Hugh McLeod had been his grandfather, and that there were +no other heirs. They arranged a meeting for him and old Jacob one morning in +one of their offices. +</p> + +<p> +Jacob liked the young man very much. He liked the way he looked straight at him +when he talked, and the way he threw his bicycle cap over the top of a +rose-colored vase on the centre-table. +</p> + +<p> +There was a slight flaw in Jacob’s system of restitution. He did not +consider that the act, to be perfect, should include confession. So he +represented himself to be the agent of the purchaser of the land who had sent +him to refund the sale price for the ease of his conscience. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir,” said Thomas, “this sounds to me like an +illustrated post-card from South Boston with ‘We’re having a good +time here’ written on it. I don’t know the game. Is this ten +thousand dollars money, or do I have to save so many coupons to get it?” +</p> + +<p> +Old Jacob counted out to him twenty five-hundred-dollar bills. +</p> + +<p> +That was better, he thought, than a check. Thomas put them thoughtfully into +his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfather’s best thanks,” he said, “to the party who +sends it.” +</p> + +<p> +Jacob talked on, asking him about his work, how he spent his leisure time, and +what his ambitions were. The more he saw and heard of Thomas, the better he +liked him. He had not met many young men in Bagdad so frank and wholesome. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to have you visit my house,” he said. “I might +help you in investing or laying out your money. I am a very wealthy man. I have +a daughter about grown, and I would like for you to know her. There are not +many young men I would care to have call on her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m obliged,” said Thomas. “I’m not much at +making calls. It’s generally the side entrance for mine. And, besides, +I’m engaged to a girl that has the Delaware peach crop killed in the +blossom. She’s a parlor maid in a house where I deliver goods. She +won’t be working there much longer, though. Say, don’t forget to +give your friend my grandfather’s best regards. You’ll excuse me +now; my wagon’s outside with a lot of green stuff that’s got to be +delivered. See you again, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +At eleven Thomas delivered some bunches of parsley and lettuce at the Spraggins +mansion. Thomas was only twenty-two; so, as he came back, he took out the +handful of five-hundred-dollar bills and waved them carelessly. Annette took a +pair of eyes as big as creamed onion to the cook. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you he was a count,” she said, after relating. “He +never would carry on with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you say he showed money,” said the cook. +</p> + +<p> +“Hundreds of thousands,” said Annette. “Carried around loose +in his pockets. And he never would look at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was paid to me to-day,” Thomas was explaining to Celia outside. +“It came from my grandfather’s estate. Say, Cele, what’s the +use of waiting now? I’m going to quit the job to-night. Why can’t +we get married next week?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tommy,” said Celia. “I’m no parlor maid. I’ve +been fooling you. I’m Miss Spraggins—Celia Spraggins. The +newspapers say I’ll be worth forty million dollars some day.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas pulled his cap down straight on his head for the first time since we +have known him. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose then,” said he, “I suppose then you’ll not +be marrying me next week. But you <i>can</i> whistle.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Celia, “I’ll not be marrying you next week. +My father would never let me marry a grocer’s clerk. But I’ll marry +you to-night, Tommy, if you say so.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Jacob Spraggins came home at 9:30 P. M., in his motor car. The make of it +you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidized fiction; had +it been a street car I could have told you its voltage and the number of wheels +it had. Jacob called for his daughter; he had bought a ruby necklace for her, +and wanted to hear her say what a kind, thoughtful, dear old dad he was. +</p> + +<p> +There was a brief search in the house for her, and then came Annette, glowing +with the pure flame of truth and loyalty well mixed with envy and histrionics. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir,” said she, wondering if she should kneel, “Miss +Celia’s just this minute running away out of the side gate with a young +man to be married. I couldn’t stop her, sir. They went in a cab.” +</p> + +<p> +“What young man?” roared old Jacob. +</p> + +<p> +“A millionaire, if you please, sir—a rich nobleman in disguise. He +carries his money with him, and the red peppers and the onions was only to +blind us, sir. He never did seem to take to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Jacob rushed out in time to catch his car. The chauffeur had been delayed by +trying to light a cigarette in the wind. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Gaston, or Mike, or whatever you call yourself, scoot around the +corner quicker than blazes and see if you can see a cab. If you do, run it +down.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a cab in sight a block away. Gaston, or Mike, with his eyes half shut +and his mind on his cigarette, picked up the trail, neatly crowded the cab to +the curb and pocketed it. +</p> + +<p> +“What t’ell you doin’?” yelled the cabman. +</p> + +<p> +“Pa!” shrieked Celia. +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfather’s remorseful friend’s agent!” said Thomas. +“Wonder what’s on his conscience now.” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand thunders,” said Gaston, or Mike. “I have no other +match.” +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” said old Jacob, severely, “how about that parlor +maid you were engaged to?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A couple of years afterward old Jacob went into the office of his private +secretary. +</p> + +<p> +“The Amalgamated Missionary Society solicits a contribution of $30,000 +toward the conversion of the Koreans,” said the secretary. +</p> + +<p> +“Pass ’em up,” said Jacob. +</p> + +<p> +“The University of Plumville writes that its yearly endowment fund of +$50,000 that you bestowed upon it is past due.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell ’em it’s been cut out.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Scientific Society of Clam Cove, Long Island, asks for $10,000 to +buy alcohol to preserve specimens.” +</p> + +<p> +“Waste basket.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Society for Providing Healthful Recreation for Working Girls wants +$20,000 from you to lay out a golf course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell ’em to see an undertaker.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cut ’em all out,” went on Jacob. “I’ve quit +being a good thing. I need every dollar I can scrape or save. I want you to +write to the directors of every company that I’m interested in and +recommend a 10 per cent. cut in salaries. And say—I noticed half a cake +of soap lying in a corner of the hall as I came in. I want you to speak to the +scrubwoman about waste. I’ve got no money to throw away. And +say—we’ve got vinegar pretty well in hand, haven’t we?’ +</p> + +<p> +“The Globe Spice & Seasons Company,” said secretary, +“controls the market at present.” +</p> + +<p> +“Raise vinegar two cents a gallon. Notify all our branches.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Jacob Spraggins’s plump red face relaxed into a pulpy grin. He +walked over to the secretary’s desk and showed a small red mark on his +thick forefinger. +</p> + +<p> +“Bit it,” he said, “darned if he didn’t, and he +ain’t had the tooth three weeks—Jaky McLeod, my Celia’s kid. +He’ll be worth a hundred millions by the time he’s twenty-one if I +can pile it up for him.” +</p> + +<p> +As he was leaving, old Jacob turned at the door, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Better make that vinegar raise three cents instead of two. I’ll be +back in an hour and sign the letters.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The true history of the Caliph Harun Al Rashid relates that toward the end of +his reign he wearied of philanthropy, and caused to be beheaded all his former +favorites and companions of his “Arabian Nights” rambles. Happy are +we in these days of enlightenment, when the only death warrant the caliphs can +serve on us is in the form of a tradesman’s bill. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII<br /> +THE GIRL AND THE HABIT</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +H<small>ABIT</small>—a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or +frequent repetition. +</p> + +<p> +The critics have assailed every source of inspiration save one. To that one we +are driven for our moral theme. When we levied upon the masters of old they +gleefully dug up the parallels to our columns. When we strove to set forth real +life they reproached us for trying to imitate Henry George, George Washington, +Washington Irving, and Irving Bacheller. We wrote of the West and the East, and +they accused us of both Jesse and Henry James. We wrote from our +heart—and they said something about a disordered liver. We took a text +from Matthew or—er—yes, Deuteronomy, but the preachers were +hammering away at the inspiration idea before we could get into type. So, +driven to the wall, we go for our subject-matter to the reliable, old, moral, +unassailable vade mecum—the unabridged dictionary. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Merriam was cashier at Hinkle’s. Hinkle’s is one of the big +downtown restaurants. It is in what the papers call the “financial +district.” Each day from 12 o’clock to 2 Hinkle’s was full of +hungry customers—messenger boys, stenographers, brokers, owners of mining +stock, promoters, inventors with patents pending—and also people with +money. +</p> + +<p> +The cashiership at Hinkle’s was no sinecure. Hinkle egged and toasted and +griddle-caked and coffeed a good many customers; and he lunched (as good a word +as “dined”) many more. It might be said that Hinkle’s +breakfast crowd was a contingent, but his luncheon patronage amounted to a +horde. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Merriam sat on a stool at a desk inclosed on three sides by a strong, high +fencing of woven brass wire. Through an arched opening at the bottom you thrust +your waiter’s check and the money, while your heart went pit-a-pat. +</p> + +<p> +For Miss Merriam was lovely and capable. She could take 45 cents out of a $2 +bill and refuse an offer of marriage before you could—Next!—lost +your chance—please don’t shove. She could keep cool and collected +while she collected your check, give you the correct change, win your heart, +indicate the toothpick stand, and rate you to a quarter of a cent better than +Bradstreet could to a thousand in less time than it takes to pepper an egg with +one of Hinkle’s casters. +</p> + +<p> +There is an old and dignified allusion to the “fierce light that beats +upon a throne.” The light that beats upon the young lady cashier’s +cage is also something fierce. The other fellow is responsible for the slang. +</p> + +<p> +Every male patron of Hinkle’s, from the A. D. T. boys up to the curbstone +brokers, adored Miss Merriam. When they paid their checks they wooed her with +every wile known to Cupid’s art. Between the meshes of the brass railing +went smiles, winks, compliments, tender vows, invitations to dinner, sighs, +languishing looks and merry banter that was wafted pointedly back by the gifted +Miss Merriam. +</p> + +<p> +There is no coign of vantage more effective than the position of young lady +cashier. She sits there, easily queen of the court of commerce; she is duchess +of dollars and devoirs, countess of compliments and coin, leading lady of love +and luncheon. You take from her a smile and a Canadian dime, and you go your +way uncomplaining. You count the cheery word or two that she tosses you as +misers count their treasures; and you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. +Perhaps the brass-bound inaccessibility multiplies her charms—anyhow, she +is a shirt-waisted angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, +ready, alert—Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your +circulating medium after your sirloin medium. +</p> + +<p> +The young men who broke bread at Hinkle’s never settled with the cashier +without an exchange of badinage and open compliment. Many of them went to +greater lengths and dropped promissory hints of theatre tickets and chocolates. +The older men spoke plainly of orange blossoms, generally withering the +tentative petals by after-allusions to Harlem flats. One broker, who had been +squeezed by copper proposed to Miss Merriam more regularly than he ate. +</p> + +<p> +During a brisk luncheon hour Miss Merriam’s conversation, while she took +money for checks, would run something like this: +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Mr. Haskins—sir?—it’s natural, thank +you—don’t be quite so fresh . . . Hello, Johnny—ten, fifteen, +twenty—chase along now or they’ll take the letters off your cap . . +. Beg pardon—count it again, please—Oh, don’t mention it . . +. Vaudeville?—thanks; not on your moving picture—I was to see +Carter in Hedda Gabler on Wednesday night with Mr. Simmons . . . ’Scuse +me, I thought that was a quarter . . . Twenty-five and seventy-five’s a +dollar—got that ham-and-cabbage habit yet. I see, Billy . . . Who are you +addressing?—say—you’ll get all that’s coming to you in +a minute . . . Oh, fudge! Mr. Bassett—you’re always +fooling—no—? Well, maybe I’ll marry you some day—three, +four and sixty-five is five . . . Kindly keep them remarks to yourself, if you +please . . . Ten cents?—’scuse me; the check calls for +seventy—well, maybe it is a one instead of a seven . . . Oh, do you like +it that way, Mr. Saunders?—some prefer a pomp; but they say this Cleo de +Merody does suit refined features . . . and ten is fifty . . . Hike along +there, buddy; don’t take this for a Coney Island ticket booth . . . +Huh?—why, Macy’s—don’t it fit nice? Oh, no, it +isn’t too cool—these light-weight fabrics is all the go this season +. . . Come again, please—that’s the third time you’ve tried +to—what?—forget it—that lead quarter is an old friend of mine +. . . Sixty-five?—must have had your salary raised, Mr. Wilson . . . I +seen you on Sixth Avenue Tuesday afternoon, Mr. De +Forest—swell?—oh, my!—who is she? . . . What’s the +matter with it?—why, it ain’t money—what?—Columbian +half?—well, this ain’t South America . . . Yes, I like the mixed +best—Friday?—awfully sorry, but I take my jiu-jitsu lesson on +Friday—Thursday, then . . . Thanks—that’s sixteen times +I’ve been told that this morning—I guess I must be beautiful . . . +Cut that out, please—who do you think I am? . . . Why, Mr. +Westbrook—do you really think so?—the idea!—one—eighty +and twenty’s a dollar—thank you ever so much, but I don’t +ever go automobile riding with gentlemen—your aunt?—well, +that’s different—perhaps . . . Please don’t get +fresh—your check was fifteen cents, I believe—kindly step aside and +let . . . Hello, Ben—coming around Thursday evening?—there’s +a gentleman going to send around a box of chocolates, and . . . forty and sixty +is a dollar, and one is two . . .” +</p> + +<p> +About the middle of one afternoon the dizzy goddess Vertigo—whose other +name is Fortune—suddenly smote an old, wealthy and eccentric banker while +he was walking past Hinkle’s, on his way to a street car. A wealthy and +eccentric banker who rides in street cars is—move up, please; there are +others. +</p> + +<p> +A Samaritan, a Pharisee, a man and a policeman who were first on the spot +lifted Banker McRamsey and carried him into Hinkle’s restaurant. When the +aged but indestructible banker opened his eyes he saw a beautiful vision +bending over him with a pitiful, tender smile, bathing his forehead with beef +tea and chafing his hands with something frappé out of a chafing-dish. +Mr. McRamsey sighed, lost a vest button, gazed with deep gratitude upon his +fair preserveress, and then recovered consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +To the Seaside Library all who are anticipating a romance! Banker McRamsey had +an aged and respected wife, and his sentiments toward Miss Merriam were +fatherly. He talked to her for half an hour with interest—not the kind +that went with his talks during business hours. The next day he brought Mrs. +McRamsey down to see her. The old couple were childless—they had only a +married daughter living in Brooklyn. +</p> + +<p> +To make a short story shorter, the beautiful cashier won the hearts of the good +old couple. They came to Hinkle’s again and again; they invited her to +their old-fashioned but splendid home in one of the East Seventies. Miss +Merriam’s winning loveliness, her sweet frankness and impulsive heart +took them by storm. They said a hundred times that Miss Merriam reminded them +so much of their lost daughter. The Brooklyn matron, née Ramsey, had the +figure of Buddha and a face like the ideal of an art photographer. Miss Merriam +was a combination of curves, smiles, rose leaves, pearls, satin and hair-tonic +posters. Enough of the fatuity of parents. +</p> + +<p> +A month after the worthy couple became acquainted with Miss Merriam, she stood +before Hinkle one afternoon and resigned her cashiership. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re going to adopt me,” she told the bereft +restaurateur. “They’re funny old people, but regular dears. And the +swell home they have got! Say, Hinkle, there isn’t any use of +talking—I’m on the à la carte to wear brown duds and goggles +in a whiz wagon, or marry a duke at least. Still, I somehow hate to break out +of the old cage. I’ve been cashiering so long I feel funny doing anything +else. I’ll miss joshing the fellows awfully when they line up to pay for +the buckwheats and. But I can’t let this chance slide. And they’re +awfully good, Hinkle; I know I’ll have a swell time. You owe me +nine-sixty-two and a half for the week. Cut out the half if it hurts you, +Hinkle.” +</p> + +<p> +And they did. Miss Merriam became Miss Rosa McRamsey. And she graced the +transition. Beauty is only skin-deep, but the nerves lie very near to the skin. +Nerve—but just here will you oblige by perusing again the quotation with +which this story begins? +</p> + +<p> +The McRamseys poured out money like domestic champagne to polish their adopted +one. Milliners, dancing masters and private tutors got it. +Miss—er—McRamsey was grateful, loving, and tried to forget +Hinkle’s. To give ample credit to the adaptability of the American girl, +Hinkle’s did fade from her memory and speech most of the time. +</p> + +<p> +Not every one will remember when the Earl of Hitesbury came to East +Seventy–––– Street, America. He was only a +fair-to-medium earl, without debts, and he created little excitement. But you +will surely remember the evening when the Daughters of Benevolence held their +bazaar in the W––––f-A––––a +Hotel. For you were there, and you wrote a note to Fannie on the hotel paper, +and mailed it, just to show her that—you did not? Very well; that was the +evening the baby was sick, of course. +</p> + +<p> +At the bazaar the McRamseys were prominent. Miss Mer—er—McRamsey +was exquisitely beautiful. The Earl of Hitesbury had been very attentive to her +since he dropped in to have a look at America. At the charity bazaar the affair +was supposed to be going to be pulled off to a finish. An earl is as good as a +duke. Better. His standing may be lower, but his outstanding accounts are also +lower. +</p> + +<p> +Our ex-young-lady-cashier was assigned to a booth. She was expected to sell +worthless articles to nobs and snobs at exorbitant prices. The proceeds of the +bazaar were to be used for giving the poor children of the slums a Christmas +din––––Say! did you ever wonder where they get the +other 364? +</p> + +<p> +Miss McRamsey—beautiful, palpitating, excited, charming, +radiant—fluttered about in her booth. An imitation brass network, with a +little arched opening, fenced her in. +</p> + +<p> +Along came the Earl, assured, delicate, accurate, admiring—admiring +greatly, and faced the open wicket. +</p> + +<p> +“You look chawming, you know—’pon my word you do—my +deah,” he said, beguilingly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss McRamsey whirled around. +</p> + +<p> +“Cut that joshing out,” she said, coolly and briskly. “Who do +you think you are talking to? Your check, please. Oh, Lordy!—” +</p> + +<p> +Patrons of the bazaar became aware of a commotion and pressed around a certain +booth. The Earl of Hitesbury stood near by pulling a pale blond and puzzled +whisker. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss McRamsey has fainted,” some one explained. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX<br /> +PROOF OF THE PUDDING</h2> + +<p> +Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the <i>Minerva +Magazine</i>, and deflected him from his course. He had lunched in his favorite +corner of a Broadway hotel, and was returning to his office when his feet +became entangled in the lure of the vernal coquette. Which is by way of saying +that he turned eastward in Twenty-sixth Street, safely forded the spring +freshet of vehicles in Fifth Avenue, and meandered along the walks of budding +Madison Square. +</p> + +<p> +The lenient air and the settings of the little park almost formed a pastoral; +the color motif was green—the presiding shade at the creation of man and +vegetation. +</p> + +<p> +The callow grass between the walks was the color of verdigris, a poisonous +green, reminiscent of the horde of derelict humans that had breathed upon the +soil during the summer and autumn. The bursting tree buds looked strangely +familiar to those who had botanized among the garnishings of the fish course of +a forty-cent dinner. The sky above was of that pale aquamarine tint that +ballroom poets rhyme with “true” and “Sue” and +“coo.” The one natural and frank color visible was the ostensible +green of the newly painted benches—a shade between the color of a pickled +cucumber and that of a last year’s fast-black cravenette raincoat. But, +to the city-bred eye of Editor Westbrook, the landscape appeared a masterpiece. +</p> + +<p> +And now, whether you are of those who rush in, or of the gentle concourse that +fears to tread, you must follow in a brief invasion of the editor’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +Editor Westbrook’s spirit was contented and serene. The April number of +the <i>Minerva</i> had sold its entire edition before the tenth day of the +month—a newsdealer in Keokuk had written that he could have sold fifty +copies more if he had ’em. The owners of the magazine had raised his (the +editor’s) salary; he had just installed in his home a jewel of a recently +imported cook who was afraid of policemen; and the morning papers had published +in full a speech he had made at a publishers’ banquet. Also there were +echoing in his mind the jubilant notes of a splendid song that his charming +young wife had sung to him before he left his up-town apartment that morning. +She was taking enthusiastic interest in her music of late, practising early and +diligently. When he had complimented her on the improvement in her voice she +had fairly hugged him for joy at his praise. He felt, too, the benign, tonic +medicament of the trained nurse, Spring, tripping softly adown the wards of the +convalescent city. +</p> + +<p> +While Editor Westbrook was sauntering between the rows of park benches (already +filling with vagrants and the guardians of lawless childhood) he felt his +sleeve grasped and held. Suspecting that he was about to be panhandled, he +turned a cold and unprofitable face, and saw that his captor +was—Dawe—Shackleford Dawe, dingy, almost ragged, the genteel +scarcely visible in him through the deeper lines of the shabby. +</p> + +<p> +While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlight biography +of Dawe is offered. +</p> + +<p> +He was a fiction writer, and one of Westbrook’s old acquaintances. At one +time they might have called each other old friends. Dawe had some money in +those days, and lived in a decent apartment house near Westbrook’s. The +two families often went to theatres and dinners together. Mrs. Dawe and Mrs. +Westbrook became “dearest” friends. Then one day a little tentacle +of the octopus, just to amuse itself, ingurgitated Dawe’s capital, and he +moved to the Gramercy Park neighborhood where one, for a few groats per week, +may sit upon one’s trunk under eight-branched chandeliers and opposite +Carrara marble mantels and watch the mice play upon the floor. Dawe thought to +live by writing fiction. Now and then he sold a story. He submitted many to +Westbrook. The <i>Minerva</i> printed one or two of them; the rest were +returned. Westbrook sent a careful and conscientious personal letter with each +rejected manuscript, pointing out in detail his reasons for considering it +unavailable. Editor Westbrook had his own clear conception of what constituted +good fiction. So had Dawe. Mrs. Dawe was mainly concerned about the +constituents of the scanty dishes of food that she managed to scrape together. +One day Dawe had been spouting to her about the excellencies of certain French +writers. At dinner they sat down to a dish that a hungry schoolboy could have +encompassed at a gulp. Dawe commented. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Maupassant hash,” said Mrs. Dawe. “It may not be +art, but I do wish you would do a five-course Marion Crawford serial with an +Ella Wheeler Wilcox sonnet for dessert. I’m hungry.” +</p> + +<p> +As far as this from success was Shackleford Dawe when he plucked Editor +Westbrook’s sleeve in Madison Square. That was the first time the editor +had seen Dawe in several months. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Shack, is this you?” said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for +the form of his phrase seemed to touch upon the other’s changed +appearance. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down for a minute,” said Dawe, tugging at his sleeve. +“This is my office. I can’t come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, sit +down—you won’t be disgraced. Those half-plucked birds on the other +benches will take you for a swell porch-climber. They won’t know you are +only an editor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Smoke, Shack?” said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon the +virulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield. +</p> + +<p> +Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sunperch, or a girl pecks +at a chocolate cream. +</p> + +<p> +“I have just—” began the editor. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know; don’t finish,” said Dawe. “Give me a +match. You have just ten minutes to spare. How did you manage to get past my +office-boy and invade my sanctum? There he goes now, throwing his club at a dog +that couldn’t read the ‘Keep off the Grass’ signs.” +</p> + +<p> +“How goes the writing?” asked the editor. + +“Look at me,” said Dawe, “for your answer. Now don’t +put on that embarrassed, friendly-but-honest look and ask me why I don’t +get a job as a wine agent or a cab driver. I’m in the fight to a finish. +I know I can write good fiction and I’ll force you fellows to admit it +yet. I’ll make you change the spelling of ‘regrets’ to +‘c-h-e-q-u-e’ before I’m done with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Editor Westbrook gazed through his nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, +omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression—the copyrighted expression +of the editor beleagured by the unavailable contributor. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you read the last story I sent you—‘The Alarum of the +Soul’?” asked Dawe. +</p> + +<p> +“Carefully. I hesitated over that story, Shack, really I did. It had some +good points. I was writing you a letter to send with it when it goes back to +you. I regret—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind the regrets,” said Dawe, grimly. “There’s +neither salve nor sting in ’em any more. What I want to know is +<i>why</i>. Come now; out with the good points first.” +</p> + +<p> +“The story,” said Westbrook, deliberately, after a suppressed sigh, +“is written around an almost original plot. Characterization—the +best you have done. Construction—almost as good, except for a few weak +joints which might be strengthened by a few changes and touches. It was a good +story, except—” +</p> + +<p> +“I can write English, can’t I?” interrupted Dawe. +</p> + +<p> +“I have always told you,” said the editor, “that you had a +style.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the trouble is—” +</p> + +<p> +“Same old thing,” said Editor Westbrook. “You work up to your +climax like an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I +don’t know what form of obstinate madness possesses you, but that is what +you do with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparison with +the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of its impossible +perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every +dénouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your brush that +I have so often complained of. If you would rise to the literary pinnacle of +your dramatic senses, and paint them in the high colors that art requires, the +postman would leave fewer bulky, self-addressed envelopes at your door.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, fiddles and footlights!” cried Dawe, derisively. +“You’ve got that old sawmill drama kink in your brain yet. When the +man with the black mustache kidnaps golden-haired Bessie you are bound to have +the mother kneel and raise her hands in the spotlight and say: ‘May high +heaven witness that I will rest neither night nor day till the heartless +villain that has stolen me child feels the weight of another’s +vengeance!’” +</p> + +<p> +Editor Westbrook conceded a smile of impervious complacency. +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said he, “that in real life the woman would +express herself in those words or in very similar ones.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in a six hundred nights’ run anywhere but on the stage,” +said Dawe hotly. “I’ll tell you what she’d say in real life. +She’d say: ‘What! Bessie led away by a strange man? Good Lord! +It’s one trouble after another! Get my other hat, I must hurry around to +the police-station. Why wasn’t somebody looking after her, I’d like +to know? For God’s sake, get out of my way or I’ll never get ready. +Not that hat—the brown one with the velvet bows. Bessie must have been +crazy; she’s usually shy of strangers. Is that too much powder? Lordy! +How I’m upset!’ +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way she’d talk,” continued Dawe. +“People in real life don’t fly into heroics and blank verse at +emotional crises. They simply can’t do it. If they talk at all on such +occasions they draw from the same vocabulary that they use every day, and +muddle up their words and ideas a little more, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shack,” said Editor Westbrook impressively, “did you ever +pick up the mangled and lifeless form of a child from under the fender of a +street car, and carry it in your arms and lay it down before the distracted +mother? Did you ever do that and listen to the words of grief and despair as +they flowed spontaneously from her lips?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never did,” said Dawe. “Did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no,” said Editor Westbrook, with a slight frown. “But +I can well imagine what she would say.” +</p> + +<p> +“So can I,” said Dawe. +</p> + +<p> +And now the fitting time had come for Editor Westbrook to play the oracle and +silence his opinionated contributor. It was not for an unarrived fictionist to +dictate words to be uttered by the heroes and heroines of the <i>Minerva +Magazine</i>, contrary to the theories of the editor thereof. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Shack,” said he, “if I know anything of life I know +that every sudden, deep and tragic emotion in the human heart calls forth an +apposite, concordant, conformable and proportionate expression of feeling. How +much of this inevitable accord between expression and feeling should be +attributed to nature, and how much to the influence of art, it would be +difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of the lioness that has been +deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr +as the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level of his +senile vaporings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be +called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is awakened by a sufficiently deep +and powerful emotion—a sense unconsciously acquired from literature and +the stage that prompts them to express those emotions in language befitting +their importance and histrionic value.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in the name of the seven sacred saddle-blankets of Sagittarius, +where did the stage and literature get the stunt?” asked Dawe. +</p> + +<p> +“From life,” answered the editor, triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +The story writer rose from the bench and gesticulated eloquently but dumbly. He +was beggared for words with which to formulate adequately his dissent. +</p> + +<p> +On a bench nearby a frowzy loafer opened his red eyes and perceived that his +moral support was due a downtrodden brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Punch him one, Jack,” he called hoarsely to Dawe. +“W’at’s he come makin’ a noise like a penny arcade for +amongst gen’lemen that comes in the square to set and think?” +</p> + +<p> +Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of leisure. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, “what especial +faults in ‘The Alarum of the Soul’ caused you to throw it +down?” +</p> + +<p> +“When Gabriel Murray,” said Westbrook, “goes to his telephone +and is told that his fiancée has been shot by a burglar, he says—I +do not recall the exact words, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said Dawe. “He says: ‘Damn Central; she always +cuts me off.’ (And then to his friend) ‘Say, Tommy, does a +thirty-two bullet make a big hole? It’s kind of hard luck, ain’t +it? Could you get me a drink from the sideboard, Tommy? No; straight; nothing +on the side.’” +</p> + +<p> +“And again,” continued the editor, without pausing for argument, +“when Berenice opens the letter from her husband informing her that he +has fled with the manicure girl, her words are—let me see—” +</p> + +<p> +“She says,” interposed the author: “‘Well, what do you +think of that!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Absurdly inappropriate words,” said Westbrook, “presenting +an anti-climax—plunging the story into hopeless bathos. Worse yet; they +mirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal colloquialisms when +confronted by sudden tragedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wrong,” said Dawe, closing his unshaven jaws doggedly. “I +say no man or woman ever spouts ‘high-falutin’ talk when they go up +against a real climax. They talk naturally and a little worse.” +</p> + +<p> +The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and inside +information. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Westbrook,” said Dawe, pinning him by the lapel, “would +you have accepted ‘The Alarum of the Soul’ if you had believed that +the actions and words of the characters were true to life in the parts of the +story that we discussed?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very likely that I would, if I believed that way,” said the +editor. “But I have explained to you that I do not.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I could prove to you that I am right?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry, Shack, but I’m afraid I haven’t time to +argue any further just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to argue,” said Dawe. “I want to +demonstrate to you from life itself that my view is the correct one.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could you do that?” asked Westbrook, in a surprised tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen,” said the writer, seriously. “I have thought of a +way. It is important to me that my theory of true-to-life fiction be recognized +as correct by the magazines. I’ve fought for it for three years, and +I’m down to my last dollar, with two months’ rent due.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have applied the opposite of your theory,” said the editor, +“in selecting the fiction for the <i>Minerva Magazine</i>. The +circulation has gone up from ninety thousand to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Four hundred thousand,” said Dawe. “Whereas it should have +been boosted to a million.” +</p> + +<p> +“You said something to me just now about demonstrating your pet +theory.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will. If you’ll give me about half an hour of your time +I’ll prove to you that I am right. I’ll prove it by Louise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your wife!” exclaimed Westbrook. “How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, not exactly by her, but <i>with</i> her,” said Dawe. +“Now, you know how devoted and loving Louise has always been. She thinks +I’m the only genuine preparation on the market that bears the old +doctor’s signature. She’s been fonder and more faithful than ever, +since I’ve been cast for the neglected genius part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, she is a charming and admirable life companion,” agreed +the editor. “I remember what inseparable friends she and Mrs. Westbrook +once were. We are both lucky chaps, Shack, to have such wives. You must bring +Mrs. Dawe up some evening soon, and we’ll have one of those informal +chafing-dish suppers that we used to enjoy so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Later,” said Dawe. “When I get another shirt. And now +I’ll tell you my scheme. When I was about to leave home after +breakfast—if you can call tea and oatmeal breakfast—Louise told me +she was going to visit her aunt in Eighty-ninth Street. She said she would +return at three o’clock. She is always on time to a minute. It is +now—” +</p> + +<p> +Dawe glanced toward the editor’s watch pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-seven minutes to three,” said Westbrook, scanning his +time-piece. +</p> + +<p> +“We have just enough time,” said Dawe. “We will go to my flat +at once. I will write a note, address it to her and leave it on the table where +she will see it as she enters the door. You and I will be in the dining-room +concealed by the portières. In that note I’ll say that I have fled +from her forever with an affinity who understands the needs of my artistic soul +as she never did. When she reads it we will observe her actions and hear her +words. Then we will know which theory is the correct one—yours or +mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never!” exclaimed the editor, shaking his head. “That +would be inexcusably cruel. I could not consent to have Mrs. Dawe’s +feelings played upon in such a manner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brace up,” said the writer. “I guess I think as much of her +as you do. It’s for her benefit as well as mine. I’ve got to get a +market for my stories in some way. It won’t hurt Louise. She’s +healthy and sound. Her heart goes as strong as a ninety-eight-cent watch. +It’ll last for only a minute, and then I’ll step out and explain to +her. You really owe it to me to give me the chance, Westbrook.” +</p> + +<p> +Editor Westbrook at length yielded, though but half willingly. And in the half +of him that consented lurked the vivisectionist that is in all of us. Let him +who has not used the scalpel rise and stand in his place. Pity ’tis that +there are not enough rabbits and guinea-pigs to go around. +</p> + +<p> +The two experimenters in Art left the Square and hurried eastward and then to +the south until they arrived in the Gramercy neighborhood. Within its high iron +railings the little park had put on its smart coat of vernal green, and was +admiring itself in its fountain mirror. Outside the railings the hollow square +of crumbling houses, shells of a bygone gentry, leaned as if in ghostly gossip +over the forgotten doings of the vanished quality. <i>Sic transit gloria +urbis</i>. +</p> + +<p> +A block or two north of the Park, Dawe steered the editor again eastward, then, +after covering a short distance, into a lofty but narrow flathouse burdened +with a floridly over-decorated façade. To the fifth story they toiled, +and Dawe, panting, pushed his latch-key into the door of one of the front +flats. +</p> + +<p> +When the door opened Editor Westbrook saw, with feelings of pity, how meanly +and meagerly the rooms were furnished. +</p> + +<p> +“Get a chair, if you can find one,” said Dawe, “while I hunt +up pen and ink. Hello, what’s this? Here’s a note from Louise. She +must have left it there when she went out this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +He picked up an envelope that lay on the centre-table and tore it open. He +began to read the letter that he drew out of it; and once having begun it aloud +he so read it through to the end. These are the words that Editor Westbrook +heard: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“D<small>EAR</small> S<small>HACKLEFORD</small>:<br /> +<br /> + By the time you get this I will be about a hundred miles away and still +a-going. I’ve got a place in the chorus of the Occidental Opera Co., and +we start on the road to-day at twelve o’clock. I didn’t want to +starve to death, and so I decided to make my own living. I’m not coming +back. Mrs. Westbrook is going with me. She said she was tired of living with a +combination phonograph, iceberg and dictionary, and she’s not coming +back, either. We’ve been practising the songs and dances for two months +on the quiet. I hope you will be successful, and get along all right! +Good-bye.<br /> +<br /> + + + + + +“L<small>OUISE</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +Dawe dropped the letter, covered his face with his trembling hands, and cried +out in a deep, vibrating voice: +</p> + +<p> +<i>“My God, why hast thou given me this cup to drink? Since she is false, +then let Thy Heaven’s fairest gifts, faith and love, become the jesting +by-words of traitors and fiends!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Editor Westbrook’s glasses fell to the floor. The fingers of one hand +fumbled with a button on his coat as he blurted between his pale lips: +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Say, Shack, ain’t that a hell of a note? Wouldn’t that +knock you off your perch, Shack? Ain’t it hell, now, +Shack—ain’t it?”</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX<br /> +PAST ONE AT ROONEY’S</h2> + +<p> +Only on the lower East Side of New York do the houses of Capulet and Montagu +survive. There they do not fight by the book of arithmetic. If you but bite +your thumb at an upholder of your opposing house you have work cut out for your +steel. On Broadway you may drag your man along a dozen blocks by his nose, and +he will only bawl for the watch; but in the domain of the East Side Tybalts and +Mercutios you must observe the niceties of deportment to the wink of any +eyelash and to an inch of elbow room at the bar when its patrons include foes +of your house and kin. +</p> + +<p> +So, when Eddie McManus, known to the Capulets as Cork McManus, drifted into +Dutch Mike’s for a stein of beer, and came upon a bunch of Montagus +making merry with the suds, he began to observe the strictest parliamentary +rules. Courtesy forbade his leaving the saloon with his thirst unslaked; +caution steered him to a place at the bar where the mirror supplied the +cognizance of the enemy’s movements that his indifferent gaze seemed to +disdain; experience whispered to him that the finger of trouble would be busy +among the chattering steins at Dutch Mike’s that night. Close by his side +drew Brick Cleary, his Mercutio, companion of his perambulations. Thus they +stood, four of the Mulberry Hill Gang and two of the Dry Dock Gang, minding +their P’s and Q’s so solicitously that Dutch Mike kept one eye on +his customers and the other on an open space beneath his bar in which it was +his custom to seek safety whenever the ominous politeness of the rival +associations congealed into the shapes of bullets and cold steel. +</p> + +<p> +But we have not to do with the wars of the Mulberry Hills and the Dry Docks. We +must to Rooney’s, where, on the most blighted dead branch of the tree of +life, a little pale orchid shall bloom. +</p> + +<p> +Overstrained etiquette at last gave way. It is not known who first overstepped +the bounds of punctilio; but the consequences were immediate. Buck Malone, of +the Mulberry Hills, with a Dewey-like swiftness, got an eight-inch gun swung +round from his hurricane deck. But McManus’s simile must be the torpedo. +He glided in under the guns and slipped a scant three inches of knife blade +between the ribs of the Mulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile Brick Cleary, a +devotee to strategy, had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch +of the electrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of gunfire alone. +Dutch Mike crawled from his haven and ran into the street crying for the watch +instead of for a Shakespeare to immortalize the Cimmerian shindy. +</p> + +<p> +The cop came, and found a prostrate, bleeding Montagu supported by three +distrait and reticent followers of the House. Faithful to the ethics of the +gangs, no one knew whence the hurt came. There was no Capulet to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Raus mit der interrogatories,” said Buck Malone to the officer. +“Sure I know who done it. I always manages to get a bird’s eye view +of any guy that comes up an’ makes a show case for a hardware store out +of me. No. I’m not telling you his name. I’ll settle with um +meself. Wow—ouch! Easy, boys! Yes, I’ll attend to his case meself. +I’m not making any complaint.” +</p> + +<p> +At midnight McManus strolled around a pile of lumber near an East Side dock, +and lingered in the vicinity of a certain water plug. Brick Cleary drifted +casually to the trysting place ten minutes later. “He’ll maybe not +croak,” said Brick; “and he won’t tell, of course. But Dutch +Mike did. He told the police he was tired of having his place shot up. +It’s unhandy just now, because Tim Corrigan’s in Europe for a +week’s end with Kings. He’ll be back on the <i>Kaiser Williams</i> +next Friday. You’ll have to duck out of sight till then. Tim’ll fix +it up all right for us when he comes back.” +</p> + +<p> +This goes to explain why Cork McManus went into Rooney’s one night and +there looked upon the bright, stranger face of Romance for the first time in +his precarious career. +</p> + +<p> +Until Tim Corrigan should return from his jaunt among Kings and Princes and +hold up his big white finger in private offices, it was unsafe for Cork in any +of the old haunts of his gang. So he lay, perdu, in the high rear room of a +Capulet, reading pink sporting sheets and cursing the slow paddle wheels of the +<i>Kaiser Wilhelm</i>. +</p> + +<p> +It was on Thursday evening that Cork’s seclusion became intolerable to +him. Never a hart panted for water fountain as he did for the cool touch of a +drifting stein, for the firm security of a foot-rail in the hollow of his shoe +and the quiet, hearty challenges of friendship and repartee along and across +the shining bars. But he must avoid the district where he was known. The cops +were looking for him everywhere, for news was scarce, and the newspapers were +harping again on the failure of the police to suppress the gangs. If they got +him before Corrigan came back, the big white finger could not be uplifted; it +would be too late then. But Corrigan would be home the next day, so he felt +sure there would be small danger in a little excursion that night among the +crass pleasures that represented life to him. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past twelve McManus stood in a darkish cross-town street looking up at +the name “Rooney’s,” picked out by incandescent lights +against a signboard over a second-story window. He had heard of the place as a +tough “hang-out”; with its frequenters and its locality he was +unfamiliar. Guided by certain unerring indications common to all such resorts, +he ascended the stairs and entered the large room over the café. +</p> + +<p> +Here were some twenty or thirty tables, at this time about half-filled with +Rooney’s guests. Waiters served drinks. At one end a human pianola with +drugged eyes hammered the keys with automatic and furious unprecision. At +merciful intervals a waiter would roar or squeak a song—songs full of +“Mr. Johnsons” and “babes” and +“coons”—historical word guaranties of the genuineness of +African melodies composed by red waistcoated young gentlemen, natives of the +cotton fields and rice swamps of West Twenty-eighth Street. +</p> + +<p> +For one brief moment you must admire Rooney with me as he receives, seats, +manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. He has +Wellington’s nose, Dante’s chin, the cheek-bones of an Iroquois, +the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett’s foot work, and the poise of an +eleven-year-old East Side Central Park Queen of the May. He is assisted by a +lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, who goes among +the tables seeing that dull care does not intrude. Now, what is there about +Rooney’s to inspire all this pother? It is more respectable by daylight; +stout ladies with children and mittens and bundles and unpedigreed dogs drop up +of afternoons for a stein and a chat. Even by gaslight the diversions are +melancholy i’ the mouth—drink and rag-time, and an occasional +surprise when the waiter swabs the suds from under your sticky glass. There is +an answer. Transmigration! The soul of Sir Walter Raleigh has traveled from +beneath his slashed doublet to a kindred home under Rooney’s visible +plaid waistcoat. Rooney’s is twenty years ahead of the times. Rooney has +removed the embargo. Rooney has spread his cloak upon the soggy crossing of +public opinion, and any Elizabeth who treads upon it is as much a queen as +another. Attend to the revelation of the secret. In Rooney’s ladies may +smoke! +</p> + +<p> +McManus sat down at a vacant table. He paid for the glass of beer that he +ordered, tilted his narrow-brimmed derby to the back of his brick-dust head, +twined his feet among the rungs of his chair, and heaved a sigh of contentment +from the breathing spaces of his innermost soul; for this mud honey was +clarified sweetness to his taste. The sham gaiety, the hectic glow of +counterfeit hospitality, the self-conscious, joyless laughter, the wine-born +warmth, the loud music retrieving the hour from frequent whiles of awful and +corroding silence, the presence of well-clothed and frank-eyed beneficiaries of +Rooney’s removal of the restrictions laid upon the weed, the familiar +blended odors of soaked lemon peel, flat beer, and <i>peau +d’Espagne</i>—all these were manna to Cork McManus, hungry for his +week in the desert of the Capulet’s high rear room. +</p> + +<p> +A girl, alone, entered Rooney’s, glanced around with leisurely swiftness, +and sat opposite McManus at his table. Her eyes rested upon him for two seconds +in the look with which woman reconnoitres all men whom she for the first time +confronts. In that space of time she will decide upon one of two +things—either to scream for the police, or that she may marry him later +on. +</p> + +<p> +Her brief inspection concluded, the girl laid on the table a worn red morocco +shopping bag with the inevitable top-gallant sail of frayed lace handkerchief +flying from a corner of it. After she had ordered a small beer from the +immediate waiter she took from her bag a box of cigarettes and lighted one with +slightly exaggerated ease of manner. Then she looked again in the eyes of Cork +McManus and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the doom of each was sealed. +</p> + +<p> +The unqualified desire of a man to buy clothes and build fires for a woman for +a whole lifetime at first sight of her is not uncommon among that humble +portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet or coats-of-arms or +Shaw’s plays. Love at first sight has occurred a time or two in high +life; but, as a rule, the extempore mania is to be found among unsophisticated +creatures such as the dove, the blue-tailed dingbat, and the ten-dollar-a-week +clerk. Poets, subscribers to all fiction magazines, and schatchens, take +notice. +</p> + +<p> +With the exchange of the mysterious magnetic current came to each of them the +instant desire to lie, pretend, dazzle and deceive, which is the worst thing +about the hypocritical disorder known as love. +</p> + +<p> +“Have another beer?” suggested Cork. In his circle the phrase was +considered to be a card, accompanied by a letter of introduction and +references. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks,” said the girl, raising her eyebrows and choosing her +conventional words carefully. “I—merely dropped in for—a +slight refreshment.” The cigarette between her fingers seemed to require +explanation. “My aunt is a Russian lady,” she concluded, “and +we often have a post perannual cigarette after dinner at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cheese it!” said Cork, whom society airs oppressed. “Your +fingers are as yellow as mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” said the girl, blazing upon him with low-voiced indignation, +“what do you think I am? Say, who do you think you are talking to? +What?” +</p> + +<p> +She was pretty to look at. Her eyes were big, brown, intrepid and bright. Under +her flat sailor hat, planted jauntily on one side, her crinkly, tawny hair +parted and was drawn back, low and massy, in a thick, pendant knot behind. The +roundness of girlhood still lingered in her chin and neck, but her cheeks and +fingers were thinning slightly. She looked upon the world with defiance, +suspicion, and sullen wonder. Her smart, short tan coat was soiled and +expensive. Two inches below her black dress dropped the lowest flounce of a +heliotrope silk underskirt. +</p> + +<p> +“Beg your pardon,” said Cork, looking at her admiringly. “I +didn’t mean anything. Sure, it’s no harm to smoke, Maudy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rooney’s,” said the girl, softened at once by his amends, +“is the only place I know where a lady can smoke. Maybe it ain’t a +nice habit, but aunty lets us at home. And my name ain’t Maudy, if you +please; it’s Ruby Delamere.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a swell handle,” said Cork approvingly. +“Mine’s McManus—Cor—er—Eddie McManus.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you can’t help that,” laughed Ruby. “Don’t +apologize.” +</p> + +<p> +Cork looked seriously at the big clock on Rooney’s wall. The girl’s +ubiquitous eyes took in the movement. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it’s late,” she said, reaching for her bag; +“but you know how you want a smoke when you want one. Ain’t +Rooney’s all right? I never saw anything wrong here. This is twice +I’ve been in. I work in a bookbindery on Third Avenue. A lot of us girls +have been working overtime three nights a week. They won’t let you smoke +there, of course. I just dropped in here on my way home for a puff. Ain’t +it all right in here? If it ain’t, I won’t come any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a little bit late for you to be out alone anywhere,” +said Cork. “I’m not wise to this particular joint; but anyhow you +don’t want to have your picture taken in it for a present to your Sunday +School teacher. Have one more beer, and then say I take you home.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t know you,” said the girl, with fine +scrupulosity. “I don’t accept the company of gentlemen I +ain’t acquainted with. My aunt never would allow that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said Cork McManus, pulling his ear, “I’m the +latest thing in suitings with side vents and bell skirt when it comes to +escortin’ a lady. You bet you’ll find me all right, Ruby. And +I’ll give you a tip as to who I am. My governor is one of the hottest +cross-buns of the Wall Street push. Morgan’s cab horse casts a shoe every +time the old man sticks his head out the window. Me! Well, I’m in +trainin’ down the Street. The old man’s goin’ to put a seat +on the Stock Exchange in my stockin’ my next birthday. But it all sounds +like a lemon to me. What I like is golf and yachtin’ +and—er—well, say a corkin’ fast ten-round bout between +welter-weights with walkin’ gloves.” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you can walk to the door with me,” said the girl +hesitatingly, but with a certain pleased flutter. “Still I never heard +anything extra good about Wall Street brokers, or sports who go to prize +fights, either. Ain’t you got any other recommendations?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re the swellest looker I’ve had my lamps on in +little old New York,” said Cork impressively. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll be about enough of that, now. Ain’t you the +kidder!” She modified her chiding words by a deep, long, beaming, +smile-embellished look at her cavalier. “We’ll drink our beer +before we go, ha?” +</p> + +<p> +A waiter sang. The tobacco smoke grew denser, drifting and rising in spirals, +waves, tilted layers, cumulus clouds, cataracts and suspended fogs like some +fifth element created from the ribs of the ancient four. Laughter and chat grew +louder, stimulated by Rooney’s liquids and Rooney’s gallant +hospitality to Lady Nicotine. +</p> + +<p> +One o’clock struck. Down-stairs there was a sound of closing and locking +doors. Frank pulled down the green shades of the front windows carefully. +Rooney went below in the dark hall and stood at the front door, his cigarette +cached in the hollow of his hand. Thenceforth whoever might seek admittance +must present a countenance familiar to Rooney’s hawk’s +eye—the countenance of a true sport. +</p> + +<p> +Cork McManus and the bookbindery girl conversed absorbedly, with their elbows +on the table. Their glasses of beer were pushed to one side, scarcely touched, +with the foam on them sunken to a thin white scum. Since the stroke of one the +stale pleasures of Rooney’s had become renovated and spiced; not by any +addition to the list of distractions, but because from that moment the sweets +became stolen ones. The flattest glass of beer acquired the tang of illegality; +the mildest claret punch struck a knockout blow at law and order; the harmless +and genial company became outlaws, defying authority and rule. For after the +stroke of one in such places as Rooney’s, where neither bed nor board is +to be had, drink may not be set before the thirsty of the city of the four +million. It is the law. +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” said Cork McManus, almost covering the table with his +eloquent chest and elbows, “was that dead straight about you +workin’ in the bookbindery and livin’ at home—and just +happenin’ in here—and—and all that spiel you gave me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure it was,” answered the girl with spirit. “Why, what do +you think? Do you suppose I’d lie to you? Go down to the shop and ask +’em. I handed it to you on the level.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the dead level?” said Cork. “That’s the way I want +it; because—” +</p> + +<p> +“Because what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I throw up my hands,” said Cork. “You’ve got me +goin’. You’re the girl I’ve been lookin’ for. Will you +keep company with me, Ruby?” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to—Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surest thing. But I wanted a straight story about—about yourself, +you know. When a fellow had a girl—a steady girl—she’s got to +be all right, you know. She’s got to be straight goods.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find I’ll be straight goods, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you will. I believe what you told me. But you can’t +blame me for wantin’ to find out. You don’t see many girls +smokin’ cigarettes in places like Rooney’s after midnight that are +like you.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl flushed a little and lowered her eyes. “I see that now,” +she said meekly. “I didn’t know how bad it looked. But I +won’t do it any more. And I’ll go straight home every night and +stay there. And I’ll give up cigarettes if you say so, +Eddie—I’ll cut ’em out from this minute on.” +</p> + +<p> +Cork’s air became judicial, proprietary, condemnatory, yet sympathetic. +“A lady can smoke,” he decided, slowly, “at times and places. +Why? Because it’s bein’ a lady that helps her pull it off.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to quit. There’s nothing to it,” said the +girl. She flicked the stub of her cigarette to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“At times and places,” repeated Cork. “When I call round for +you of evenin’s we’ll hunt out a dark bench in Stuyvesant Square +and have a puff or two. But no more Rooney’s at one +o’clock—see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eddie, do you really like me?” The girl searched his hard but +frank features eagerly with anxious eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“On the dead level.” +</p> + +<p> +“When are you coming to see me—where I live?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thursday—day after to-morrow evenin’. That suit you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine. I’ll be ready for you. Come about seven. Walk to the door +with me to-night and I’ll show you where I live. Don’t forget, now. +And don’t you go to see any other girls before then, mister! I bet you +will, though.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the dead level,” said Cork, “you make ’em all look +like rag-dolls to me. Honest, you do. I know when I’m suited. On the dead +level, I do.” +</p> + +<p> +Against the front door down-stairs repeated heavy blows were delivered. The +loud crashes resounded in the room above. Only a trip-hammer or a +policeman’s foot could have been the author of those sounds. Rooney +jumped like a bullfrog to a corner of the room, turned off the electric lights +and hurried swiftly below. The room was left utterly dark except for the +winking red glow of cigars and cigarettes. A second volley of crashes came up +from the assaulted door. A little, rustling, murmuring panic moved among the +besieged guests. Frank, cool, smooth, reassuring, could be seen in the rosy +glow of the burning tobacco, going from table to table. +</p> + +<p> +“All keep still!” was his caution. “Don’t talk or make +any noise! Everything will be all right. Now, don’t feel the slightest +alarm. We’ll take care of you all.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruby felt across the table until Cork’s firm hand closed upon hers. +“Are you afraid, Eddie?” she whispered. “Are you afraid +you’ll get a free ride?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothin’ doin’ in the teeth-chatterin’ line,” +said Cork. “I guess Rooney’s been slow with his envelope. +Don’t you worry, girly; I’ll look out for you all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet Mr. McManus’s ease was only skin- and muscle-deep. With the police +looking everywhere for Buck Malone’s assailant, and with Corrigan still +on the ocean wave, he felt that to be caught in a police raid would mean an +ended career for him. He wished he had remained in the high rear room of the +true Capulet reading the pink extras. +</p> + +<p> +Rooney seemed to have opened the front door below and engaged the police in +conference in the dark hall. The wordless low growl of their voices came up the +stairway. Frank made a wireless news station of himself at the upper door. +Suddenly he closed the door, hurried to the extreme rear of the room and +lighted a dim gas jet. +</p> + +<p> +“This way, everybody!” he called sharply. “In a hurry; but no +noise, please!” +</p> + +<p> +The guests crowded in confusion to the rear. Rooney’s lieutenant swung +open a panel in the wall, overlooking the back yard, revealing a ladder already +placed for the escape. +</p> + +<p> +“Down and out, everybody!” he commanded. “Ladies first! Less +talking, please! Don’t crowd! There’s no danger.” +</p> + +<p> +Among the last, Cork and Ruby waited their turn at the open panel. Suddenly she +swept him aside and clung to his arm fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“Before we go out,” she whispered in his ear—“before +anything happens, tell me again, Eddie, do you l—do you really like +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the dead level,” said Cork, holding her close with one arm, +“when it comes to you, I’m all in.” +</p> + +<p> +When they turned they found they were lost and in darkness. The last of the +fleeing customers had descended. Half way across the yard they bore the ladder, +stumbling, giggling, hurrying to place it against an adjoining low building +over the roof of which their only route to safety. +</p> + +<p> +“We may as well sit down,” said Cork grimly. “Maybe Rooney +will stand the cops off, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat at a table; and their hands came together again. +</p> + +<p> +A number of men then entered the dark room, feeling their way about. One of +them, Rooney himself, found the switch and turned on the electric light. The +other man was a cop of the old régime—a big cop, a thick cop, a +fuming, abrupt cop—not a pretty cop. He went up to the pair at the table +and sneered familiarly at the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“What are youse doin’ in here?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Dropped in for a smoke,” said Cork mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Had any drinks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not later than one o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get out—quick!” ordered the cop. Then, “Sit +down!” he countermanded. +</p> + +<p> +He took off Cork’s hat roughly and scrutinized him shrewdly. “Your +name’s McManus.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bad guess,” said Cork. “It’s Peterson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cork McManus, or something like that,” said the cop. “You +put a knife into a man in Dutch Mike’s saloon a week ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, forget it!” said Cork, who perceived a shade of doubt in the +officer’s tones. “You’ve got my mug mixed with somebody +else’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I? Well, you’ll come to the station with me, anyhow, and be +looked over. The description fits you all right.” The cop twisted his +fingers under Cork’s collar. “Come on!” he ordered roughly. +</p> + +<p> +Cork glanced at Ruby. She was pale, and her thin nostrils quivered. Her quick +eye danced from one man’s face to the other as they spoke or moved. What +hard luck! Cork was thinking—Corrigan on the briny; and Ruby met and lost +almost within an hour! Somebody at the police station would recognize him, +without a doubt. Hard luck! +</p> + +<p> +But suddenly the girl sprang up and hurled herself with both arms extended +against the cop. His hold on Cork’s collar was loosened and he stumbled +back two or three paces. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go so fast, Maguire!” she cried in shrill fury. +“Keep your hands off my man! You know me, and you know I’m +givin’ you good advice. Don’t you touch him again! He’s not +the guy you are lookin’ for—I’ll stand for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“See here, Fanny,” said the Cop, red and angry, “I’ll +take you, too, if you don’t look out! How do you know this ain’t +the man I want? What are you doing in here with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know?” said the girl, flaming red and white by turns. +“Because I’ve known him a year. He’s mine. Oughtn’t I +to know? And what am I doin’ here with him? That’s easy.” +</p> + +<p> +She stooped low and reached down somewhere into a swirl of flirted draperies, +heliotrope and black. An elastic snapped, she threw on the table toward Cork a +folded wad of bills. The money slowly straightened itself with little leisurely +jerks. +</p> + +<p> +“Take that, Jimmy, and let’s go,” said the girl. +“I’m declarin’ the usual dividends, Maguire,” she said +to the officer. “You had your usual five-dollar graft at the usual corner +at ten.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lie!” said the cop, turning purple. “You go on my beat +again and I’ll arrest you every time I see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you won’t,” said the girl. “And I’ll tell +you why. Witnesses saw me give you the money to-night, and last week, too. +I’ve been getting fixed for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Cork put the wad of money carefully into his pocket, and said: “Come on, +Fanny; let’s have some chop suey before we go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Clear out, quick, both of you, or I’ll—” +</p> + +<p> +The cop’s bluster trailed away into inconsequentiality. +</p> + +<p> +At the corner of the street the two halted. Cork handed back the money without +a word. The girl took it and slipped it slowly into her hand-bag. Her +expression was the same she had worn when she entered Rooney’s that +night—she looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion and sullen +wonder. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess I might as well say good-bye here,” she said dully. +“You won’t want to see me again, of course. Will you—shake +hands—Mr. McManus.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mightn’t have got wise if you hadn’t give the snap +away,” said Cork. “Why did you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d have been pinched if I hadn’t. That’s why. +Ain’t that reason enough?” Then she began to cry. “Honest, +Eddie, I was goin’ to be the best girl in the world. I hated to be what I +am; I hated men; I was ready almost to die when I saw you. And you seemed +different from everybody else. And when I found you liked me, too, why, I +thought I’d make you believe I was good, and I was goin’ to be +good. When you asked to come to my house and see me, why, I’d have died +rather than do anything wrong after that. But what’s the use of talking +about it? I’ll say good-by, if you will, Mr. McManus.” +</p> + +<p> +Cork was pulling at his ear. “I knifed Malone,” said he. “I +was the one the cop wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right,” said the girl listlessly. “It +didn’t make any difference about that.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was all hot air about Wall Street. I don’t do nothin’ +but hang out with a tough gang on the East Side.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was all right, too,” repeated the girl. “It +didn’t make any difference.” +</p> + +<p> +Cork straightened himself, and pulled his hat down low. “I could get a +job at O’Brien’s,” he said aloud, but to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by,” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” said Cork, taking her arm. “I know a place.” +</p> + +<p> +Two blocks away he turned with her up the steps of a red brick house facing a +little park. +</p> + +<p> +“What house is this?” she asked, drawing back. “Why are you +going in there?” +</p> + +<p> +A street lamp shone brightly in front. There was a brass nameplate at one side +of the closed front doors. Cork drew her firmly up the steps. “Read +that,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at the name on the plate, and gave a cry between a moan and a +scream. “No, no, no, Eddie! Oh, my God, no! I won’t let you do +that—not now! Let me go! You shan’t do that! You +can’t—you mus’n’t! Not after you know! No, no! Come +away quick! Oh, my God! Please, Eddie, come!” +</p> + +<p> +Half fainting, she reeled, and was caught in the bend of his arm. Cork’s +right hand felt for the electric button and pressed it long. +</p> + +<p> +Another cop—how quickly they scent trouble when trouble is on the +wing!—came along, saw them, and ran up the steps. “Here! What are +you doing with that girl?” he called gruffly. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll be all right in a minute,” said Cork. +“It’s a straight deal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Reverend Jeremiah Jones,” read the cop from the door-plate with +true detective cunning. +</p> + +<p> +“Correct,” said Cork. “On the dead level, we’re +goin’ to get married.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>XXI<br /> +THE VENTURERS</h2> + +<p> +Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the <i>Non Sequitur</i> +Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observation car +“<i>Raison d’être</i>” for one moment. It is for no +longer than to consider a brief essay on the subject—let us call it: +“What’s Around the Corner.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Omne mundus in duas partes divisum est</i>—men who wear rubbers and +pay poll-taxes, and men who discover new continents. There are no more +continents to discover; but by the time overshoes are out of date and the poll +has developed into an income tax, the other half will be paralleling the canals +of Mars with radium railways. +</p> + +<p> +Fortune, Chance, and Adventure are given as synonymous in the dictionaries. To +the knowing each has a different meaning. Fortune is a prize to be won. +Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the +roadside. The face of Fortune is radiant and alluring; that of Adventure is +flushed and heroic. The face of Chance is the beautiful +countenance—perfect because vague and dream-born—that we see in our +tea-cups at breakfast while we growl over our chops and toast. +</p> + +<p> +The V<small>ENTURER</small> is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and +wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune. That is the +difference between him and the Adventurer. Eating the forbidden fruit was the +best record ever made by a Venturer. Trying to prove that it happened is the +highest work of the Adventuresome. To be either is disturbing to the cosmogony +of creation. So, as bracket-sawed and city-directoried citizens, let us light +our pipes, chide the children and the cat, arrange ourselves in the willow +rocker under the flickering gas jet at the coolest window and scan this little +tale of two modern followers of Chance. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Did you ever hear that story about the man from the West?” asked +Billinger, in the little dark-oak room to your left as you penetrate the +interior of the Powhatan Club. +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless,” said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the +room. +</p> + +<p> +Forster got his straw hat (straws will be in and maybe out again long before +this is printed) from the checkroom boy, and walked out of the air (as Hamlet +says). Billinger was used to having his stories insulted and would not mind. +Forster was in his favorite mood and wanted to go away from anywhere. A man, in +order to get on good terms with himself, must have his opinions corroborated +and his moods matched by some one else. (I had written that +“somebody”; but an A. D. T. boy who once took a telegram for me +pointed out that I could save money by using the compound word. This is a vice +versa case.) +</p> + +<p> +Forster’s favorite mood was that of greatly desiring to be a follower of +Chance. He was a Venturer by nature, but convention, birth, tradition and the +narrowing influences of the tribe of Manhattan had denied him full privilege. +He had trodden all the main-traveled thoroughfares and many of the side roads +that are supposed to relieve the tedium of life. But none had sufficed. The +reason was that he knew what was to be found at the end of every street. He +knew from experience and logic almost precisely to what end each digression +from routine must lead. He found a depressing monotony in all the variations +that the music of his sphere had grafted upon the tune of life. He had not +learned that, although the world was made round, the circle has been squared, +and that it’s true interest is to be in “What’s Around the +Corner.” +</p> + +<p> +Forster walked abroad aimlessly from the Powhatan, trying not to tax either his +judgment or his desire as to what streets he traveled. He would have been glad +to lose his way if it were possible; but he had no hope of that. Adventure and +Fortune move at your beck and call in the Greater City; but Chance is oriental. +She is a veiled lady in a sedan chair, protected by a special traffic squad of +dragonians. Crosstown, uptown, and downtown you may move without seeing her. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of an hour’s stroll, Forster stood on a corner of a broad, +smooth avenue, looking disconsolately across it at a picturesque old hotel +softly but brilliantly lit. Disconsolately, because he knew that he must dine; +and dining in that hotel was no venture. It was one of his favorite +caravansaries, and so silent and swift would be the service and so delicately +choice the food, that he regretted the hunger that must be appeased by the +“dead perfection” of the place’s cuisine. Even the music +there seemed to be always playing <i>da capo</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy came to him that he would dine at some cheap, even dubious, restaurant +lower down in the city, where the erratic chefs from all countries of the world +spread their national cookery for the omnivorous American. Something might +happen there out of the routine—he might come upon a subject without a +predicate, a road without an end, a question without an answer, a cause without +an effect, a gulf stream in life’s salt ocean. He had not dressed for +evening; he wore a dark business suit that would not be questioned even where +the waiters served the spaghetti in their shirt sleeves. +</p> + +<p> +So John Reginald Forster began to search his clothes for money; because the +more cheaply you dine, the more surely must you pay. All of the thirteen +pockets, large and small, of his business suit he explored carefully and found +not a penny. His bank book showed a balance of five figures to his credit in +the Old Ironsides Trust Company, but— +</p> + +<p> +Forster became aware of a man nearby at his left hand who was really regarding +him with some amusement. He looked like any business man of thirty or so, +neatly dressed and standing in the attitude of one waiting for a street car. +But there was no car line on that avenue. So his proximity and unconcealed +curiosity seemed to Forster to partake of the nature of a personal intrusion. +But, as he was a consistent seeker after “What’s Around the +Corner,” instead of manifesting resentment he only turned a +half-embarrassed smile upon the other’s grin of amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“All in?” asked the intruder, drawing nearer. +</p> + +<p> +“Seems so,” said Forster. “Now, I thought there was a dollar +in—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know,” said the other man, with a laugh. “But there +wasn’t. I’ve just been through the same process myself, as I was +coming around the corner. I found in an upper vest pocket—I don’t +know how they got there—exactly two pennies. You know what kind of a +dinner exactly two pennies will buy!” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t dined, then?” asked Forster. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not. But I would like to. Now, I’ll make you a proposition. +You look like a man who would take up one. Your clothes look neat and +respectable. Excuse personalities. I think mine will pass the scrutiny of a +head waiter, also. Suppose we go over to that hotel and dine together. We will +choose from the menu like millionaires—or, if you prefer, like gentlemen +in moderate circumstances dining extravagantly for once. When we have finished +we will match with my two pennies to see which of us will stand the brunt of +the house’s displeasure and vengeance. My name is Ives. I think we have +lived in the same station of life—before our money took wings.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re on,” said Forster, joyfully. +</p> + +<p> +Here was a venture at least within the borders of the mysterious country of +Chance—anyhow, it promised something better than the stale infestivity of +a table d’hôte. +</p> + +<p> +The two were soon seated at a corner table in the hotel dining room. Ives +chucked one of his pennies across the table to Forster. +</p> + +<p> +“Match for which of us gives the order,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Forster lost. +</p> + +<p> +Ives laughed and began to name liquids and viands to the waiter with the +absorbed but calm deliberation of one who was to the menu born. Forster, +listening, gave his admiring approval of the order. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a man,” said Ives, during the oysters, “Who has made a +lifetime search after the to-be-continued-in-our-next. I am not like the +ordinary adventurer who strikes for a coveted prize. Nor yet am I like a +gambler who knows he is either to win or lose a certain set stake. What I want +is to encounter an adventure to which I can predict no conclusion. It is the +breath of existence to me to dare Fate in its blindest manifestations. The +world has come to run so much by rote and gravitation that you can enter upon +hardly any footpath of chance in which you do not find signboards informing you +of what you may expect at its end. I am like the clerk in the Circumlocution +Office who always complained bitterly when any one came in to ask information. +‘He wanted to <i>know</i>, you know!’ was the kick he made to his +fellow-clerks. Well, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to reason, +I don’t want to guess—I want to bet my hand without seeing +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” said Forster delightedly. “I’ve often +wanted the way I feel put into words. You’ve done it. I want to take +chances on what’s coming. Suppose we have a bottle of Moselle with the +next course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Agreed,” said Ives. “I’m glad you catch my idea. It +will increase the animosity of the house toward the loser. If it does not weary +you, we will pursue the theme. Only a few times have I met a true +venturer—one who does not ask a schedule and map from Fate when he begins +a journey. But, as the world becomes more civilized and wiser, the more +difficult it is to come upon an adventure the end of which you cannot foresee. +In the Elizabethan days you could assault the watch, wring knockers from doors +and have a jolly set-to with the blades in any convenient angle of a wall and +‘get away with it.’ Nowadays, if you speak disrespectfully to a +policeman, all that is left to the most romantic fancy is to conjecture in what +particular police station he will land you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I know,” said Forster, nodding approval. +</p> + +<p> +“I returned to New York to-day,” continued Ives, “from a +three years’ ramble around the globe. Things are not much better abroad +than they are at home. The whole world seems to be overrun by conclusions. The +only thing that interests me greatly is a premise. I’ve tried shooting +big game in Africa. I know what an express rifle will do at so many yards; and +when an elephant or a rhinoceros falls to the bullet, I enjoy it about as much +as I did when I was kept in after school to do a sum in long division on the +blackboard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I know,” said Forster. +</p> + +<p> +“There might be something in aeroplanes,” went on Ives, +reflectively. “I’ve tried ballooning; but it seems to be merely a +cut-and-dried affair of wind and ballast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Women,” suggested Forster, with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Three months ago,” said Ives. “I was pottering around in one +of the bazaars in Constantinople. I noticed a lady, veiled, of course, but with +a pair of especially fine eyes visible, who was examining some amber and pearl +ornaments at one of the booths. With her was an attendant—a big Nubian, +as black as coal. After a while the attendant drew nearer to me by degrees and +slipped a scrap of paper into my hand. I looked at it when I got a chance. On +it was scrawled hastily in pencil: ‘The arched gate of the Nightingale +Garden at nine to-night.’ Does that appear to you to be an interesting +premise, Mr. Forster?” +</p> + +<p> +“I made inquiries and learned that the Nightingale Garden was the +property of an old Turk—a grand vizier, or something of the sort. Of +course I prospected for the arched gate and was there at nine. The same Nubian +attendant opened the gate promptly on time, and I went inside and sat on a +bench by a perfumed fountain with the veiled lady. We had quite an extended +chat. She was Myrtle Thompson, a lady journalist, who was writing up the +Turkish harems for a Chicago newspaper. She said she noticed the New York cut +of my clothes in the bazaar and wondered if I couldn’t work something +into the metropolitan papers about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Forster. “I see.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve canoed through Canada,” said Ives, “down many +rapids and over many falls. But I didn’t seem to get what I wanted out of +it because I knew there were only two possible outcomes—I would either go +to the bottom or arrive at the sea level. I’ve played all games at cards; +but the mathematicians have spoiled that sport by computing the percentages. +I’ve made acquaintances on trains, I’ve answered advertisements, +I’ve rung strange door-bells, I’ve taken every chance that +presented itself; but there has always been the conventional ending—the +logical conclusion to the premise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” repeated Forster. “I’ve felt it all. But +I’ve had few chances to take my chance at chances. Is there any life so +devoid of impossibilities as life in this city? There seems to be a myriad of +opportunities for testing the undeterminable; but not one in a thousand fails +to land you where you expected it to stop. I wish the subways and street cars +disappointed one as seldom.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sun has risen,” said Ives, “on the Arabian nights. There +are no more caliphs. The fisherman’s vase is turned to a vacuum bottle, +warranted to keep any genie boiling or frozen for forty-eight hours. Life moves +by rote. Science has killed adventure. There are no more opportunities such as +Columbus and the man who ate the first oyster had. The only certain thing is +that there is nothing uncertain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Forster, “my experience has been the limited one +of a city man. I haven’t seen the world as you have; but it seems that we +view it with the same opinion. But, I tell you I am grateful for even this +little venture of ours into the borders of the haphazard. There may be at least +one breathless moment when the bill for the dinner is presented. Perhaps, after +all, the pilgrims who traveled without scrip or purse found a keener taste to +life than did the knights of the Round Table who rode abroad with a retinue and +King Arthur’s certified checks in the lining of their helmets. And now, +if you’ve finished your coffee, suppose we match one of your insufficient +coins for the impending blow of Fate. What have I up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heads,” called Ives. +</p> + +<p> +“Heads it is,” said Forster, lifting his hand. “I lose. We +forgot to agree upon a plan for the winner to escape. I suggest that when the +waiter comes you make a remark about telephoning to a friend. I will hold the +fort and the dinner check long enough for you to get your hat and be off. I +thank you for an evening out of the ordinary, Mr. Ives, and wish we might have +others.” +</p> + +<p> +“If my memory is not at fault,” said Ives, laughing, “the +nearest police station is in MacDougal Street. I have enjoyed the dinner, too, +let me assure you.” +</p> + +<p> +Forster crooked his finger for the waiter. Victor, with a locomotive effort +that seemed to owe more to pneumatics than to pedestrianism, glided to the +table and laid the card, face downward, by the loser’s cup. Forster took +it up and added the figures with deliberate care. Ives leaned back comfortably +in his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” said Forster; “but I thought you were going to +ring Grimes about that theatre party for Thursday night. Had you forgotten +about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Ives, settling himself more comfortably, “I can do +that later on. Get me a glass of water, waiter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Want to be in at the death, do you?” asked Forster. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you don’t object,” said Ives, pleadingly. +“Never in my life have I seen a gentleman arrested in a public restaurant +for swindling it out of a dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Forster, calmly. “You are entitled to see a +Christian die in the arena as your <i>pousse-café</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Victor came with the glass of water and remained, with the disengaged air of an +inexorable collector. +</p> + +<p> +Forster hesitated for fifteen seconds, and then took a pencil from his pocket +and scribbled his name on the dinner check. The waiter bowed and took it away. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is,” said Forster, with a little embarrassed laugh, +“I doubt whether I’m what they call a ‘game sport,’ +which means the same as a ‘soldier of Fortune.’ I’ll have to +make a confession. I’ve been dining at this hotel two or three times a +week for more than a year. I always sign my checks.” And then, with a +note of appreciation in his voice: “It was first-rate of you to stay to +see me through with it when you knew I had no money, and that you might be +scooped in, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess I’ll confess, too,” said Ives, with a grin. “I +own the hotel. I don’t run it, of course, but I always keep a suite on +the third floor for my use when I happen to stray into town.” +</p> + +<p> +He called a waiter and said: “Is Mr. Gilmore still behind the desk? All +right. Tell him that Mr. Ives is here, and ask him to have my rooms made ready +and aired.” +</p> + +<p> +“Another venture cut short by the inevitable,” said Forster. +“Is there a conundrum without an answer in the next number? But +let’s hold to our subject just for a minute or two, if you will. It +isn’t often that I meet a man who understands the flaws I pick in +existence. I am engaged to be married a month from to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I reserve comment,” said Ives. +</p> + +<p> +“Right; I am going to add to the assertion. I am devotedly fond of the +lady; but I can’t decide whether to show up at the church or make a sneak +for Alaska. It’s the same idea, you know, that we were +discussing—it does for a fellow as far as possibilities are concerned. +Everybody knows the routine—you get a kiss flavored with Ceylon tea after +breakfast; you go to the office; you come back home and dress for +dinner—theatre twice a week—bills—moping around most evenings +trying to make conversation—a little quarrel occasionally—maybe +sometimes a big one, and a separation—or else a settling down into a +middle-aged contentment, which is worst of all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Ives, nodding wisely. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the dead certainty of the thing,” went on Forster, +“that keeps me in doubt. There’ll nevermore be anything around the +corner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing after the ‘Little Church,’” said Ives. +“I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Understand,” said Forster, “that I am in no doubt as to my +feelings toward the lady. I may say that I love her truly and deeply. But there +is something in the current that runs through my veins that cries out against +any form of the calculable. I do not know what I want; but I know that I want +it. I’m talking like an idiot, I suppose, but I’m sure of what I +mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand you,” said Ives, with a slow smile. “Well, I +think I will be going up to my rooms now. If you would dine with me here one +evening soon, Mr. Forster, I’d be glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thursday?” suggested Forster. +</p> + +<p> +“At seven, if it’s convenient,” answered Ives. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven goes,” assented Forster. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past eight Ives got into a cab and was driven to a number in one of the +correct West Seventies. His card admitted him to the reception room of an +old-fashioned house into which the spirits of Fortune, Chance and Adventure had +never dared to enter. On the walls were the Whistler etchings, the steel +engravings by Oh-what’s-his-name?, the still-life paintings of the grapes +and garden truck with the watermelon seeds spilled on the table as natural as +life, and the Greuze head. It was a household. There were even brass andirons. +On a table was an album, half-morocco, with oxidized-silver protections on the +corners of the lids. A clock on the mantel ticked loudly, with a warning click +at five minutes to nine. Ives looked at it curiously, remembering a time-piece +in his grandmother’s home that gave such a warning. +</p> + +<p> +And then down the stairs and into the room came Mary Marsden. She was +twenty-four, and I leave her to your imagination. But I must say this +much—youth and health and simplicity and courage and greenish-violet eyes +are beautiful, and she had all these. She gave Ives her hand with the sweet +cordiality of an old friendship. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t think what a pleasure it is,” she said, “to +have you drop in once every three years or so.” +</p> + +<p> +For half an hour they talked. I confess that I cannot repeat the conversation. +You will find it in books in the circulating library. When that part of it was +over, Mary said: +</p> + +<p> +“And did you find what you wanted while you were abroad?” +</p> + +<p> +“What I wanted?” said Ives. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. You know you were always queer. Even as a boy you wouldn’t +play marbles or baseball or any game with rules. You wanted to dive in water +where you didn’t know whether it was ten inches or ten feet deep. And +when you grew up you were just the same. We’ve often talked about your +peculiar ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I am an incorrigible,” said Ives. “I am opposed to +the doctrine of predestination, to the rule of three, gravitation, taxation, +and everything of the kind. Life has always seemed to me something like a +serial story would be if they printed above each instalment a synopsis of +<i>succeeding</i> chapters.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary laughed merrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Bob Ames told us once,” she said, “of a funny thing you did. +It was when you and he were on a train in the South, and you got off at a town +where you hadn’t intended to stop just because the brakeman hung up a +sign in the end of the car with the name of the next station on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember,” said Ives. “That ‘next station’ has +been the thing I’ve always tried to get away from.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” said Mary. “And you’ve been very foolish. +I hope you didn’t find what you wanted not to find, or get off at the +station where there wasn’t any, or whatever it was you expected +wouldn’t happen to you during the three years you’ve been +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was something I wanted before I went away,” said Ives. +</p> + +<p> +Mary looked in his eyes clearly, with a slight, but perfectly sweet smile. +</p> + +<p> +“There was,” she said. “You wanted me. And you could have had +me, as you very well know.” +</p> + +<p> +Without replying, Ives let his gaze wander slowly about the room. There had +been no change in it since last he had been in it, three years before. He +vividly recalled the thoughts that had been in his mind then. The contents of +that room were as fixed, in their way, as the everlasting hills. No change +would ever come there except the inevitable ones wrought by time and decay. +That silver-mounted album would occupy that corner of that table, those +pictures would hang on the walls, those chairs be found in their same places +every morn and noon and night while the household hung together. The brass +andirons were monuments to order and stability. Here and there were relics of a +hundred years ago which were still living mementos and would be for many years +to come. One going from and coming back to that house would never need to +forecast or doubt. He would find what he left, and leave what he found. The +veiled lady, Chance, would never lift her hand to the knocker on the outer +door. +</p> + +<p> +And before him sat the lady who belonged in the room. Cool and sweet and +unchangeable she was. She offered no surprises. If one should pass his life +with her, though she might grow white-haired and wrinkled, he would never +perceive the change. Three years he had been away from her, and she was still +waiting for him as established and constant as the house itself. He was sure +that she had once cared for him. It was the knowledge that she would always do +so that had driven him away. Thus his thoughts ran. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to be married soon,” said Mary. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On the next Thursday afternoon Forster came hurriedly to Ive’s hotel. +</p> + +<p> +“Old man,” said he, “we’ll have to put that dinner off +for a year or so; I’m going abroad. The steamer sails at four. That was a +great talk we had the other night, and it decided me. I’m going to knock +around the world and get rid of that incubus that has been weighing on both you +and me—the terrible dread of knowing what’s going to happen. +I’ve done one thing that hurts my conscience a little; but I know +it’s best for both of us. I’ve written to the lady to whom I was +engaged and explained everything—told her plainly why I was +leaving—that the monotony of matrimony would never do for me. Don’t +you think I was right?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not for me to say,” answered Ives. “Go ahead and shoot +elephants if you think it will bring the element of chance into your life. +We’ve got to decide these things for ourselves. But I tell you one thing, +Forster, I’ve found the way. I’ve found out the biggest hazard in +the world—a game of chance that never is concluded, a venture that may +end in the highest heaven or the blackest pit. It will keep a man on edge until +the clods fall on his coffin, because he will never know—not until his +last day, and not then will he know. It is a voyage without a rudder or +compass, and you must be captain and crew and keep watch, every day and night, +yourself, with no one to relieve you. I have found the V<small>ENTURE</small>. +Don’t bother yourself about leaving Mary Marsden, Forster. I married her +yesterday at noon.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>XXII<br /> +THE DUEL</h2> + +<p> +The gods, lying beside their nectar on ’Lympus and peeping over the edge +of the cliff, perceive a difference in cities. Although it would seem that to +their vision towns must appear as large or small ant-hills without special +characteristics, yet it is not so. Studying the habits of ants from so great a +height should be but a mild diversion when coupled with the soft drink that +mythology tells us is their only solace. But doubtless they have amused +themselves by the comparison of villages and towns; and it will be no news to +them (nor, perhaps, to many mortals), that in one particularity New York stands +unique among the cities of the world. This shall be the theme of a little story +addressed to the man who sits smoking with his Sabbath-slippered feet on +another chair, and to the woman who snatches the paper for a moment while +boiling greens or a narcotized baby leaves her free. With these I love to sit +upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of Kings. +</p> + +<p> +New York City is inhabited by 4,000,000 mysterious strangers; thus beating Bird +Centre by three millions and half a dozen nine’s. They came here in +various ways and for many reasons—Hendrik Hudson, the art schools, green +goods, the stork, the annual dressmakers’ convention, the Pennsylvania +Railroad, love of money, the stage, cheap excursion rates, brains, personal +column ads., heavy walking shoes, ambition, freight trains—all these have +had a hand in making up the population. +</p> + +<p> +But every man Jack when he first sets foot on the stones of Manhattan has got +to fight. He has got to fight at once until either he or his adversary wins. +There is no resting between rounds, for there are no rounds. It is slugging +from the first. It is a fight to a finish. +</p> + +<p> +Your opponent is the City. You must do battle with it from the time the +ferry-boat lands you on the island until either it is yours or it has conquered +you. It is the same whether you have a million in your pocket or only the price +of a week’s lodging. +</p> + +<p> +The battle is to decide whether you shall become a New Yorker or turn the +rankest outlander and Philistine. You must be one or the other. You cannot +remain neutral. You must be for or against—lover or enemy—bosom +friend or outcast. And, oh, the city is a general in the ring. Not only by +blows does it seek to subdue you. It woos you to its heart with the subtlety of +a siren. It is a combination of Delilah, green Chartreuse, Beethoven, chloral +and John L. in his best days. +</p> + +<p> +In other cities you may wander and abide as a stranger man as long as you +please. You may live in Chicago until your hair whitens, and be a citizen and +still prate of beans if Boston mothered you, and without rebuke. You may become +a civic pillar in any other town but Knickerbocker’s, and all the time +publicly sneering at its buildings, comparing them with the architecture of +Colonel Telfair’s residence in Jackson, Miss., whence you hail, and you +will not be set upon. But in New York you must be either a New Yorker or an +invader of a modern Troy, concealed in the wooden horse of your conceited +provincialism. And this dreary preamble is only to introduce to you the +unimportant figures of William and Jack. +</p> + +<p> +They came out of the West together, where they had been friends. They came to +dig their fortunes out of the big city. +</p> + +<p> +Father Knickerbocker met them at the ferry, giving one a right-hander on the +nose and the other an upper-cut with his left, just to let them know that the +fight was on. +</p> + +<p> +William was for business; Jack was for Art. Both were young and ambitious; so +they countered and clinched. I think they were from Nebraska or possibly +Missouri or Minnesota. Anyhow, they were out for success and scraps and scads, +and they tackled the city like two Lochinvars with brass knucks and a pull at +the City Hall. +</p> + +<p> +Four years afterward William and Jack met at luncheon. The business man blew in +like a March wind, hurled his silk hat at a waiter, dropped into the chair that +was pushed under him, seized the bill of fare, and had ordered as far as cheese +before the artist had time to do more than nod. After the nod a humorous smile +came into his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Billy,” he said, “you’re done for. The city has +gobbled you up. It has taken you and cut you to its pattern and stamped you +with its brand. You are so nearly like ten thousand men I have seen to-day that +you couldn’t be picked out from them if it weren’t for your laundry +marks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Camembert,” finished William. “What’s that? Oh, +you’ve still got your hammer out for New York, have you? Well, little old +Noisyville-on-the-Subway is good enough for me. It’s giving me mine. And, +say, I used to think the West was the whole round world—only slightly +flattened at the poles whenever Bryan ran. I used to yell myself hoarse about +the free expense, and hang my hat on the horizon, and say cutting things in the +grocery to little soap drummers from the East. But I’d never seen New +York, then, Jack. Me for it from the rathskellers up. Sixth Avenue is the West +to me now. Have you heard this fellow Crusoe sing? The desert isle for him, I +say, but my wife made me go. Give me May Irwin or E. S. Willard any +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Billy,” said the artist, delicately fingering a cigarette. +“You remember, when we were on our way to the East how we talked about +this great, wonderful city, and how we meant to conquer it and never let it get +the best of us? We were going to be just the same fellows we had always been, +and never let it master us. It has downed you, old man. You have changed from a +maverick into a butterick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t see exactly what you are driving at,” said William. +“I don’t wear an alpaca coat with blue trousers and a seersucker +vest on dress occasions, like I used to do at home. You talk about being cut to +a pattern—well, ain’t the pattern all right? When you’re in +Rome you’ve got to do as the Dagoes do. This town seems to me to have +other alleged metropolises skinned to flag stations. According to the railroad +schedule I’ve got in mind, Chicago and Saint Jo and Paris, France, are +asterisk stops—which means you wave a red flag and get on every other +Tuesday. I like this little suburb of Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. There’s +something or somebody doing all the time. I’m clearing $8,000 a year +selling automatic pumps, and I’m living like kings-up. Why, yesterday, I +was introduced to John W. Gates. I took an auto ride with a wine agent’s +sister. I saw two men run over by a street car, and I seen Edna May play in the +evening. Talk about the West, why, the other night I woke everybody up in the +hotel hollering. I dreamed I was walking on a board sidewalk in Oshkosh. What +have you got against this town, Jack? There’s only one thing in it that I +don’t care for, and that’s a ferryboat.” +</p> + +<p> +The artist gazed dreamily at the cartridge paper on the wall. “This +town,” said he, “is a leech. It drains the blood of the country. +Whoever comes to it accepts a challenge to a duel. Abandoning the figure of the +leech, it is a juggernaut, a Moloch, a monster to which the innocence, the +genius, and the beauty of the land must pay tribute. Hand to hand every +newcomer must struggle with the leviathan. You’ve lost, Billy. It shall +never conquer me. I hate it as one hates sin or pestilence or—the color +work in a ten-cent magazine. I despise its very vastness and power. It has the +poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the lowest skyscrapers, the +dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw. It has caught you, old man, but I +will never run beside its chariot wheels. It glosses itself as the Chinaman +glosses his collars. Give me the domestic finish. I could stand a town ruled by +wealth or one ruled by an aristocracy; but this is one controlled by its lowest +ingredients. Claiming culture, it is the crudest; asseverating its +pre-eminence, it is the basest; denying all outside values and virtue, it is +the narrowest. Give me the pure and the open heart of the West country. I would +go back there to-morrow if I could.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you like this <i>filet mignon</i>?” said William. +“Shucks, now, what’s the use to knock the town! It’s the +greatest ever. I couldn’t sell one automatic pump between Harrisburg and +Tommy O’Keefe’s saloon, in Sacramento, where I sell twenty here. +And have you seen Sara Bernhardt in ‘Andrew Mack’ yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“The town’s got you, Billy,” said Jack. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said William. “I’m going to buy a cottage +on Lake Ronkonkoma next summer.” +</p> + +<p> +At midnight Jack raised his window and sat close to it. He caught his breath at +what he saw, though he had seen and felt it a hundred times. +</p> + +<p> +Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream. The irregular +houses were like the broken exteriors of cliffs lining deep gulches and winding +streams. Some were mountainous; some lay in long, desert cañons. Such +was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, +great city. But into this background were cut myriads of brilliant +parallelograms and circles and squares through which glowed many colored +lights. And out of the violet and purple depths ascended like the city’s +soul sounds and odors and thrills that make up the civic body. There arose the +breath of gaiety unrestrained, of love, of hate, of all the passions that man +can know. There below him lay all things, good or bad, that can be brought from +the four corners of the earth to instruct, please, thrill, enrich, despoil, +elevate, cast down, nurture or kill. Thus the flavor of it came up to him and +went into his blood. +</p> + +<p> +There was a knock on his door. A telegram had come for him. It came from the +West, and these were its words: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Come back and the answer will be yes. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +D<small>OLLY</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +He kept the boy waiting ten minutes, and then wrote the reply: +“Impossible to leave here at present.” Then he sat at the window +again and let the city put its cup of mandragora to his lips again. +</p> + +<p> +After all it isn’t a story; but I wanted to know which one of the heroes +won the battle against the city. So I went to a very learned friend and laid +the case before him. What he said was: “Please don’t bother me; I +have Christmas presents to buy.” +</p> + +<p> +So there it rests; and you will have to decide for yourself. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>XXIII<br /> +“WHAT YOU WANT”</h2> + +<p> +Night had fallen on that great and beautiful city known as +Bagdad-on-the-Subway. And with the night came the enchanted glamour that +belongs not to Arabia alone. In different masquerade the streets, bazaars and +walled houses of the occidental city of romance were filled with the same kind +of folk that so much interested our interesting old friend, the late Mr. H. A. +Rashid. They wore clothes eleven hundred years nearer to the latest styles than +H. A. saw in old Bagdad; but they were about the same people underneath. With +the eye of faith, you could have seen the Little Hunchback, Sinbad the Sailor, +Fitbad the Tailor, the Beautiful Persian, the one-eyed Calenders, Ali Baba and +Forty Robbers on every block, and the Barber and his Six Brothers, and all the +old Arabian gang easily. +</p> + +<p> +But let us revenue to our lamb chops. +</p> + +<p> +Old Tom Crowley was a caliph. He had $42,000,000 in preferred stocks and bonds +with solid gold edges. In these times, to be called a caliph you must have +money. The old-style caliph business as conducted by Mr. Rashid is not safe. If +you hold up a person nowadays in a bazaar or a Turkish bath or a side street, +and inquire into his private and personal affairs, the police court’ll +get you. +</p> + +<p> +Old Tom was tired of clubs, theatres, dinners, friends, music, money and +everything. That’s what makes a caliph—you must get to despise +everything that money can buy, and then go out and try to want something that +you can’t pay for. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take a little trot around town all by myself,” thought +old Tom, “and try if I can stir up anything new. Let’s see—it +seems I’ve read about a king or a Cardiff giant or something in old times +who used to go about with false whiskers on, making Persian dates with folks he +hadn’t been introduced to. That don’t listen like a bad idea. I +certainly have got a case of humdrumness and fatigue on for the ones I do know. +That old Cardiff used to pick up cases of trouble as he ran upon ’em and +give ’em gold—sequins, I think it was—and make ’em +marry or got ’em good Government jobs. Now, I’d like something of +that sort. My money is as good as his was even if the magazines do ask me every +month where I got it. Yes, I guess I’ll do a little Cardiff business +to-night, and see how it goes.” +</p> + +<p> +Plainly dressed, old Tom Crowley left his Madison Avenue palace, and walked +westward and then south. As he stepped to the sidewalk, Fate, who holds the +ends of the strings in the central offices of all the enchanted cities pulled a +thread, and a young man twenty blocks away looked at a wall clock, and then put +on his coat. +</p> + +<p> +James Turner worked in one of those little hat-cleaning establishments on Sixth +Avenue in which a fire alarm rings when you push the door open, and where they +clean your hat while you wait—two days. James stood all day at an +electric machine that turned hats around faster than the best brands of +champagne ever could have done. Overlooking your mild impertinence in feeling a +curiosity about the personal appearance of a stranger, I will give you a +modified description of him. Weight, 118; complexion, hair and brain, light; +height, five feet six; age, about twenty-three; dressed in a $10 suit of +greenish-blue serge; pockets containing two keys and sixty-three cents in +change. +</p> + +<p> +But do not misconjecture because this description sounds like a General Alarm +that James was either lost or a dead one. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Allons!</i> +</p> + +<p> +James stood all day at his work. His feet were tender and extremely susceptible +to impositions being put upon or below them. All day long they burned and +smarted, causing him much suffering and inconvenience. But he was earning +twelve dollars per week, which he needed to support his feet whether his feet +would support him or not. +</p> + +<p> +James Turner had his own conception of what happiness was, just as you and I +have ours. Your delight is to gad about the world in yachts and motor-cars and +to hurl ducats at wild fowl. Mine is to smoke a pipe at evenfall and watch a +badger, a rattlesnake, and an owl go into their common prairie home one by one. +</p> + +<p> +James Turner’s idea of bliss was different; but it was his. He would go +directly to his boarding-house when his day’s work was done. After his +supper of small steak, Bessemer potatoes, stooed (not stewed) apples and +infusion of chicory, he would ascend to his fifth-floor-back hall room. Then he +would take off his shoes and socks, place the soles of his burning feet against +the cold bars of his iron bed, and read Clark Russell’s sea yarns. The +delicious relief of the cool metal applied to his smarting soles was his +nightly joy. His favorite novels never palled upon him; the sea and the +adventures of its navigators were his sole intellectual passion. No millionaire +was ever happier than James Turner taking his ease. +</p> + +<p> +When James left the hat-cleaning shop he walked three blocks out of his way +home to look over the goods of a second-hand bookstall. On the sidewalk stands +he had more than once picked up a paper-covered volume of Clark Russell at half +price. +</p> + +<p> +While he was bending with a scholarly stoop over the marked-down miscellany of +cast-off literature, old Tom the caliph sauntered by. His discerning eye, made +keen by twenty years’ experience in the manufacture of laundry soap (save +the wrappers!) recognized instantly the poor and discerning scholar, a worthy +object of his caliphanous mood. He descended the two shallow stone steps that +led from the sidewalk, and addressed without hesitation the object of his +designed munificence. His first words were no worse than salutatory and +tentative. +</p> + +<p> +James Turner looked up coldly, with “Sartor Resartus” in one hand +and “A Mad Marriage” in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Beat it,” said he. “I don’t want to buy any coat +hangers or town lots in Hankipoo, New Jersey. Run along, now, and play with +your Teddy bear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” said the caliph, ignoring the flippancy of the hat +cleaner, “I observe that you are of a studious disposition. Learning is +one of the finest things in the world. I never had any of it worth mentioning, +but I admire to see it in others. I come from the West, where we imagine +nothing but facts. Maybe I couldn’t understand the poetry and allusions +in them books you are picking over, but I like to see somebody else seem to +know what they mean. I’m worth about $40,000,000, and I’m getting +richer every day. I made the height of it manufacturing Aunt Patty’s +Silver Soap. I invented the art of making it. I experimented for three years +before I got just the right quantity of chloride of sodium solution and caustic +potash mixture to curdle properly. And after I had taken some $9,000,000 out of +the soap business I made the rest in corn and wheat futures. Now, you seem to +have the literary and scholarly turn of character; and I’ll tell you what +I’ll do. I’ll pay for your education at the finest college in the +world. I’ll pay the expense of your rummaging over Europe and the art +galleries, and finally set you up in a good business. You needn’t make it +soap if you have any objections. I see by your clothes and frazzled necktie +that you are mighty poor; and you can’t afford to turn down the offer. +Well, when do you want to begin?” +</p> + +<p> +The hat cleaner turned upon old Tom the eye of the Big City, which is an eye +expressive of cold and justifiable suspicion, of judgment suspended as high as +Haman was hung, of self-preservation, of challenge, curiosity, defiance, +cynicism, and, strange as you may think it, of a childlike yearning for +friendliness and fellowship that must be hidden when one walks among the +“stranger bands.” For in New Bagdad one, in order to survive, must +suspect whosoever sits, dwells, drinks, rides, walks or sleeps in the adjacent +chair, house, booth, seat, path or room. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Mike,” said James Turner, “what’s your line, +anyway—shoe laces? I’m not buying anything. You better put an egg +in your shoe and beat it before incidents occur to you. You can’t work +off any fountain pens, gold spectacles you found on the street, or trust +company certificate house clearings on me. Say, do I look like I’d +climbed down one of them missing fire-escapes at Helicon Hall? What’s +vitiating you, anyhow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Son,” said the caliph, in his most Harunish tones, “as I +said, I’m worth $40,000,000. I don’t want to have it all put in my +coffin when I die. I want to do some good with it. I seen you handling over +these here volumes of literature, and I thought I’d keep you. I’ve +give the missionary societies $2,000,000, but what did I get out of it? Nothing +but a receipt from the secretary. Now, you are just the kind of young man +I’d like to take up and see what money could make of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Volumes of Clark Russell were hard to find that evening at the Old Book Shop. +And James Turner’s smarting and aching feet did not tend to improve his +temper. Humble hat cleaner though he was, he had a spirit equal to any +caliph’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you old faker,” he said, angrily, “be on your way. I +don’t know what your game is, unless you want change for a bogus +$40,000,000 bill. Well, I don’t carry that much around with me. But I do +carry a pretty fair left-handed punch that you’ll get if you don’t +move on.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a blamed impudent little gutter pup,” said the caliph. +</p> + +<p> +Then James delivered his self-praised punch; old Tom seized him by the collar +and kicked him thrice; the hat cleaner rallied and clinched; two bookstands +were overturned, and the books sent flying. A cop came up, took an arm of each, +and marched them to the nearest station house. “Fighting and disorderly +conduct,” said the cop to the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +“Three hundred dollars bail,” said the sergeant at once, +asseveratingly and inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“Sixty-three cents,” said James Turner with a harsh laugh. +</p> + +<p> +The caliph searched his pockets and collected small bills and change amounting +to four dollars. +</p> + +<p> +“I am worth,” he said, “forty million dollars, +but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lock ’em up,” ordered the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +In his cell, James Turner laid himself on his cot, ruminating. “Maybe +he’s got the money, and maybe he ain’t. But if he has or he +ain’t, what does he want to go ’round butting into other +folks’s business for? When a man knows what he wants, and can get it, +it’s the same as $40,000,000 to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Then an idea came to him that brought a pleased look to his face. +</p> + +<p> +He removed his socks, drew his cot close to the door, stretched himself out +luxuriously, and placed his tortured feet against the cold bars of the cell +door. Something hard and bulky under the blankets of his cot gave one shoulder +discomfort. He reached under, and drew out a paper-covered volume by Clark +Russell called “A Sailor’s Sweetheart.” He gave a great sigh +of contentment. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, to his cell came the doorman and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, kid, that old gazabo that was pinched with you for scrapping seems +to have been the goods after all. He ’phoned to his friends, and +he’s out at the desk now with a roll of yellowbacks as big as a Pullman +car pillow. He wants to bail you, and for you to come out and see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him I ain’t in,” said James Turner. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRICTLY BUSINESS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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