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diff --git a/2141-0.txt b/2141-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77330a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/2141-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8550 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Strictly Business, by O. Henry + +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 +www.gutenberg.org. 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. + +Title: Strictly Business + +Author: O. Henry + +Release Date: April, 2000 [eBook #2141] +[Most recently updated: October 4, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteers and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRICTLY BUSINESS *** + + + + +Strictly Business + +by O. Henry + + +Contents + + I. STRICTLY BUSINESS + II. THE GOLD THAT GLITTERED + III. BABES IN THE JUNGLE + IV. THE DAY RESURGENT + V. THE FIFTH WHEEL + VI. THE POET AND THE PEASANT + VII. THE ROBE OF PEACE + VIII. THE GIRL AND THE GRAFT + IX. THE CALL OF THE TAME + X. THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY + XI. THE THING'S THE PLAY + XII. A RAMBLE IN APHASIA + XIII. A MUNICIPAL REPORT + XIV. PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPER + XV. A BIRD OF BAGDAD + XVI. COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON + XVII. A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIA + XVIII. THE GIRL AND THE HABIT + XIX. PROOF OF THE PUDDING + XX. PAST ONE AT ROONEY’S + XXI. THE VENTURERS + XXII. THE DUEL + XXIII. “WHAT YOU WANT” + + + + +I +STRICTLY BUSINESS + + +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: + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _loreleis_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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— + +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. + +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. + +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. + +By daylight, in a secular shirtwaist and plain _voile_ 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. + +“I know your act, Mr. Hart,” she said after she had looked over his +card carefully. “What did you wish to see me about?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +Bob Hart drew his cherished “Mice Will Play” from his pocket, and read +it to her. + +“Read it again, please,” said Miss Cherry. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Two hundred,” answered Hart. + +“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. + +“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 _on the level_, 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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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? + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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!” + +With that out she whips, of course, the trusty 32-caliber. + +“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 _her_ picture on the mantel. I +will send through her more beautiful face the bullet that should have +pierced your craven heart.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +That night at 11:30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good +night at her boarding-house door. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor’s New York houses, said of Hart & +Cherry: + +“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.” + +And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of +the story: + +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. + +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. + +But, listen. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Bob,” said Vincente in his serious way, “I’m glad it’s no worse. The +little lady is wild about you.” + +“Who?” asked Hart. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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 +_you_? Is she nothing to you? I wish you could hear her call you.” + +“Loves me?” asked Bob Hart, rising from the stack of scenery on which +he lay. “Cherry loves me? Why, it’s impossible.” + +“I wish you could see her and hear her,” said Griggs. + +“But, man,” said Bob Hart, sitting up, “it’s impossible. It’s +impossible, I tell you. I never dreamed of such a thing.” + +“No human being,” said the Tramp Juggler, “could mistake it. She’s wild +for love of you. How have you been so blind?” + +“But, my God,” said Bob Hart, rising to his feet, “it’s _too late_. +It’s too late, I tell you, Sam; _it’s too late_. It can’t be. You must +be wrong. It’s _impossible_. There’s some mistake. + +“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.” + +“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, _Cherry and I have been married +two years!_” + + + + +II +THE GOLD THAT GLITTERED + + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Spanish or Dago?” asked Mrs. O’Brien, pleasantly. + +“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?” + +“Well, you’ve been speaking it, ain’t you?” said the madam. “I’m sure I +can’t.” + +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.” + +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?” + +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. + +In pouncing upon their self-evident prey, Mr. Kelley was a shade the +quicker. His elbow fended accurately the onslaught of Mr. McGuire. + +“G’wan!” he commanded harshly. “I saw it first.” McGuire slunk away, +awed by superior intelligence. + +“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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +They parted at the door of the Hotel Español. The General rolled his +eyes at the moon and sighed. + +“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!” + +Kelley went to the nearest telephone booth and called up McCrary’s +café, far up on Broadway. He asked for Jimmy Dunn. + +“Is that Jimmy Dunn?” asked Kelley. + +“Yes,” came the answer. + +“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.” + +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. + +These two gentlemen held a conference that night at McCrary’s. Kelley +explained. + +“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.” + +They talked it over for two hours, and then Dunn said; “Bring him to +No. –––– Broadway, at four o’clock to-morrow afternoon.” + +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. + +“The Secretary of War is waitin’ for us,” said Kelley. + +The General tore himself away with an effort. + +“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.” + +Now Mr. Kelley was a wit; and better men have been shriveled by the +fire of their own imagination. + +“Sure!” he said with a grin; “but you mean a peroxide Juno, don’t you?” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +The Secretary struck a bell, and an orderly with the letters A. D. T. +on his cap stepped promptly into the room. + +“Bring me Schedule B of the small arms inventory,” said the Secretary. + +The orderly quickly returned with a printed paper. The Secretary +studied it closely. + +“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!” + +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: + +“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?” + +“Sangre de mi vida!” exclaimed the General. “Impossible it is that you +speak of my good friend, Señor Kelley.” + +“Come into the summer garden,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “I want to have a +talk with you.” + +Let us suppose that an hour has elapsed. + +“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?” + +“And dirt cheap at that,” sighed the lady. + +“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.” + +Mrs. O’Brien rested her blond pompadour against the shoulder of the +Colombian patriot. + +“Oh, señor,” she sighed, happily, “ain’t you terrible!” + +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. + +Mr. Kelley hurried, at the hour, to the Hotel Español. He found the +General behind the desk adding up accounts. + +“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.” + +Mr. Kelley almost strangled. + +“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.” + +“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!” + +Mr. Kelley choked again. + +“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?” + + + + +III +BABES IN THE JUNGLE + + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +“Paresis or superannuated?” I asks him. + +“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.” + +“Is there a crush already in the waiting rooms of the old doctor that +does skin grafting?” I asks. + +“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 _Evening Daily_. + +“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.” + +Silver takes me up in a hotel. He has a quantity of irrelevant objects +lying about. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Dozens of ’em,” says Silver. “How much capital have you got, Billy?” + +“A thousand,” I told him. + +“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.” + +The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous +and stirred with a kind of silent joy. + +“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.” + +“That sounds nice and plausible,” says I. “I’d like to know Mr. +Morgan.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“Mr. Silver and Mr. Pescud,” says Klein. “It sounds superfluous,” says +he, “to mention the name of the greatest financial—” + +“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—” + +“Now, Pierpont,” cuts in Klein, “you forget!” + +“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.” + +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. + +“They have been pounding your stocks to-day on the Street, Pierpont?” +asks Klein, smiling. + +“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—” + +“Why, Mr. Morgan,” says Klein; “I thought you owned all of the De +Vinchy paintings.” + +“What is the picture like, Mr. Morgan?” asks Silver. “It must be as big +as the side of the Flatiron Building.” + +“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.” + +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. + +After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone, Silver jumps at me +and waves his hands. + +“Did you see it?” says he. “Did you see it, Billy?” + +“What?” I asks. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +The pawnbroker smiles and goes on showing us plate watch-chains. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Did you see Mr. Morgan?” I asks. “How much did he pay you for it?” + +Silver sits down and fools with a tassel on the table cover. + +“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.” + + + + +IV +THE DAY RESURGENT + + +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. + +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. + +Second—the melancholy lady with upturned eyes in a framework of lilies. +This is magazine-covery, but reliable. + +Third—Miss Manhattan in the Fifth Avenue Easter Sunday parade. + +Fourth—Maggie Murphy with a new red feather in her old straw hat, happy +and self-conscious, in the Grand Street turnout. + +Of course, the rabbits do not count. Nor the Easter eggs, since the +higher criticism has hard-boiled them. + +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 _ficus carica_. + +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. + +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? + +“’Tis Easter Day,” said Mrs. McCree. + +“Scramble mine,” said Danny. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Have you heard any talk of a hippopotamus?” asked Danny of Mike, the +janitor, as he went out the door downstairs. + +“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?” + +“It was the old man who spoke of it,” said Danny. “Likely there’s +nothing in it.” + +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. + +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. + +Around a corner, white-gloved, pink-gilled and tightly buttoned, walked +Corrigan, the cop, shield to the curb. Danny knew him. + +“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?” + +“’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.” + +“Thanks,” said Danny. “And say—did you ever hear a man complain of +hippopotamuses? When not specially in drink, I mean.” + +“Nothing larger than sea turtles,” said Corrigan, reflecting, “and +there was wood alcohol in that.” + +Danny wandered. The double, heavy incumbency of enjoying simultaneously +a Sunday and a festival day was his. + +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. + +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. + +“Say, Tim,” he said to the waiter, “why do they have Easter?” + +“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?” + +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. + +A block from her house on Avenue A he met her going to church. They +pumped hands on the corner. + +“Gee! but you look dumpish and dressed up,” said Katy. “What’s wrong? +Come away with me to church and be cheerful.” + +“What’s doing at church?” asked Danny. + +“Why, it’s Easter Sunday. Silly! I waited till after eleven expectin’ +you might come around to go.” + +“What does this Easter stand for, Katy,” asked Danny gloomily. “Nobody +seems to know.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +After church Danny lingered on a corner while Katy waited, with pique +in her sky-blue eyes. + +“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?” + +“I’ll be around Wednesday night as usual,” said Danny, turning and +crossing the street. + +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. + +Suddenly Danny slapped his leg and gave forth a hoarse yell of delight. + +“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. + +“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.” + +Danny caught a crosstown car and went up to the rear flat that his +labor supported. + +Old man McCree was still sitting by the window. His extinct pipe lay on +the sill. + +“Will that be you, lad?” he asked. + +Danny flared into the rage of a strong man who is surprised at the +outset of committing a good deed. + +“Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?” he +snapped, viciously. “Have I no right to come in?” + +“Ye’re a faithful lad,” said old man McCree, with a sigh. “Is it +evening yet?” + +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: + +“Was it the hippopotamus you wanted to be read to about then?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +With his hand to his ear, rapt in the Peloponnesian War, old man McCree +sat for an hour, listening. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“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?” + + + + +V +THE FIFTH WHEEL + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +_“No man ever learned to be a drunkard on five-cent whisky.”_ + +Think of it, tippler. It covers the ground from the sprouting rye to +the Potter’s Field. + +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. + +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. + +The Bed Liner standing at his right was a young man of about his own +age, shabby but neat. + +“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.” + +The other young man seemed to welcome the advances of the airy +ex-coachman. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Strange—strange!” said he. “Once or twice even I, myself, have fancied +that the Chaldean Chiroscope has availed. Could it be possible?” + +Then he addressed less mysterious words to the waiting and hopeful +Thomas. + +“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?” + +“Oughtn’t I to?” replied Thomas. “I lived there. Wish I did yet.” + +The sealskinned gentleman opened a door of the car. + +“Step in please,” he said. “You have been expected.” + +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. + +“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.” + +Submerged in his greatcoat, the mysterious automobilist seemed, +himself, to marvel at the surprises of life. “Wonderful! amazing! +strange!” he repeated to himself constantly. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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 _d t’s_ to be mindful +of his _p’s_ and _q’s_. When he viewed this silken, polished, and +somewhat terrifying host he thought vaguely of dentists. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +The Grand Duke rubbed his white hands together softly. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“Why, there was no sense in those words that it wrote with my hands on +it,” she said. “What do you mean?” + +“The words were these,” said Professor Cherubusco, rising to his full +magnificent height: “_‘By the fifth wheel of the chariot he shall +come.’_” + +“I haven’t seen many chariots,” said the lady, “but I never saw one +with five wheels.” + +“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.” + +And now the lady was disturbed both in her disbelief and in her poise. + +“O professor!” she cried anxiously—“When?—where? Has he been found? Do +not keep me in suspense.” + +“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.” + +Thomas was contentedly munching the last crumbs of the bread and fowl +when the enchanter appeared suddenly at his side. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“My dear young man,” said the other, “she has been searching for you +everywhere.” + +“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.” + +And now a change came o’er the suave countenance of the Caliph of +Bagdad. He looked keenly and suspiciously at the ex-coachman. + +“May I ask what your name is?” he said shortly. + +“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?” + +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. + +As soon as the ex-coachman had recovered his feet and his wits he +hastened as fast as he could eastward toward Broadway. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Sorry to see you back again,” said the young man, turning to speak to +him. “I hoped you had struck something better than this.” + +“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.” + +“In this kind of weather,” said the young man, “charity avails itself +of the proverb, and both begins and ends at home.” + +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. + +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. + +“You fool, you fool!” she cried, weeping and laughing, and hanging upon +his neck, “why did you do it?” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Professor Ch–––– Don’t know the guy. What saloon does he work in?” + +“He’s a clairvoyant, Thomas; the greatest in the world. He found you +with the Chaldean telescope, he said.” + +“He’s a liar,” said Thomas. “I never had it. He never saw me have +anybody’s telescope.” + +“And he said you came in a chariot with five wheels or something.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Great!” said Thomas earnestly. “You are It, Annie. But when did these +stunts happen?” + +“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.” + +“What’s the professor’s line?” + +“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.” + +“What’s the old lady want this cherry-buster to do?” + +“That’s a family secret,” said Annie. “And now you’ve asked enough +questions. Come on home, you big fool.” + +They had moved but a little way up the street when Thomas stopped. + +“Got any dough with you, Annie?” he asked. + +Annie looked at him sharply. + +“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.” + +Annie’s fingers began to wiggle in her purse. + +“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.” + +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: + +“Mr. Walter— Oh—Mr. Walter! + +“Is that you, Annie?” said the young man meekly. + +“Oh, Mr. Walter!—and the Missis hunting high and low for you!” + +“Does mother want to see me?” he asked, with a flush coming out on his +pale cheek. + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +On the Broadway car Annie handed each one of the prodigals a nickel to +pay the conductor. + +“Seems to me you are mighty reckless the way you throw large sums of +money around,” said Thomas sarcastically. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +Presently Thomas moved tentatively in his seat, and thoughtfully felt +an abrasion or two on his knees and his elbows. + +“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 _d t’s_, why am I so sore?” + +“Shut up, you fool,” said Annie. + +“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.” + + + + +VI +THE POET AND THE PEASANT + + +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. + +It was a living pastoral, full of the genuine breath of the fields, the +song of birds, and the pleasant chatter of trickling streams. + +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: + +“Too artificial.” + +Several of us met over spaghetti and Dutchess County chianti, and +swallowed indignation with slippery forkfuls. + +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. + +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. + +But this has very little to do with the story. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I wouldn’t mind having a glass of lager beer,” acknowledged the other. + +They went to a café frequented by men with smooth faces and shifty +eyes, and sat at their drinks. + +“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.” + +He fished them out of Noah’s valise—a rare, inimitable deck, greasy +with bacon suppers and grimy with the soil of cornfields. + +“Bunco Harry” laughed loud and briefly. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Bunco Harry” took up the roll of money and looked at it with almost +respect in his smiling eyes. + +“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.” + +“What’s his line?” asked two or three shifty-eyed men of “Bunco Harry” +after Haylocks had gathered up his impugned money and departed. + +“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.” + +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. + +Haylocks swung his valise across the bar. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Divvy, Mike,” said the men hanging upon the bar, winking openly at one +another. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +A hurt look appeared through the dirt on the newsy’s face. + +“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.” + +On a corner lounged a keen-eyed steerer for a gambling-house. He saw +Haylocks, and his expression suddenly grew cold and virtuous. + +“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.” + +The steerer looked pained, and investigated a white speck on his left +forefinger nail. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“The juiciest jay I’ve seen in six months,” said the man with gray +eyes. “Come along.” + +It was half-past eleven when a man galloped into the West Forty-seventh +Street Police Station with the story of his wrongs. + +“Nine hundred and fifty dollars,” he gasped, “all my share of +grandmother’s farm.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Thanks,” said Conant. “I suppose the check will be round on Thursday, +as usual.” + +The morals of this story have somehow gotten mixed. You can take your +choice of “Stay on the Farm” or “Don’t Write Poetry.” + + + + +VII +THE ROBE OF PEACE + + +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. + +Johnny Bellchambers, as is well known, belonged to the intrinsically +inner circle of the _élite_. Without any of the ostentation of the +fashionable ones who endeavor to attract notice by eccentric display of +wealth and show he still was _au fait_ in everything that gave deserved +lustre to his high position in the ranks of society. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!” + +Gilliam saw and recognized the lost glass of fashion. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“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!” + +Bellchambers looked down at his sandaled feet and smiled. + +“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—” + +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. + +And this is the story that Tommy Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam brought +back with them from their latest European tour. + + + + +VIII +THE GIRL AND THE GRAFT + + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“You are outrageous, Ferg,” I said. “Surely there is none of this +‘graft’ as you call it, in a perfect and harmonious matrimonial union!” + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘Mr. Pogue,’ he explains to me, ‘I am using you.’ + +“‘Go on,’ says I; ‘I hope you don’t wake up.’ + +“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. + +“‘Ever try the reporters,’ I asked him. + +“‘Last month,’ says Mr. Vaucross, ‘my expenditure for lunches to +reporters was $124.80.’ + +“‘Get anything out of that?’ I asks. + +“‘That reminds me,’ says he; ‘add $8.50 for pepsin. Yes, I got +indigestion.’ + +“‘How am I supposed to push along your scramble for prominence?’ I +inquires. ‘Contrast?’ + +“‘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. + +“‘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.’ + +“At the Quaker City squab en casserole the idea about Artemisia Blye +comes to me. + +“‘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?’ + +“‘Ten thousand dollars,’ says Vaucross, warm in a minute. ‘But no +murder,’ says he; ‘and I won’t wear pink pants at a cotillon.’ + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘She’s a stunner,’ says Vaucross when he saw her. ‘They’ll give her a +two-column cut sure.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“What was in the bundle that they left?” I asked, with my usual +curiosity. + +“Why,” said Ferguson, “there was a scalper’s railroad ticket as far as +Kansas City and two pairs of Mr. Vaucross’s old pants.” + + + + +IX +THE CALL OF THE TAME + + +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. + +Out of this sightseeing delegations of good King Teddy’s Gentlemen of +the Royal Bear-hounds dropped one Greenbrier Nye, of Pin Feather, Ariz. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“God in the mountains!” cried Greenbrier, holding fast to the foreleg +of his cull. “Can this be Longhorn Merritt?” + +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. + +“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.” + +Greenbrier pinned him sadly but firmly to the wall with a hand the +size, shape and color of a McClellan saddle. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +They picked their way through the crowd to a hotel, and drifted, as by +a natural law, to the bar. + +“Speak up,” invited Greenbrier. + +“A dry Martini,” said Merritt. + +“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.” + +Merritt smiled, and paid. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Right, old man,” laughed Merritt. “Waiter, bring an absinthe frappé +and—what’s yours, Greenbrier?” + +“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.” + +Merritt slipped the wine card under his glass. + +“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—” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“A green chartreuse here,” said Merritt to the waiter. + +“Whiskey straight,” sighed Greenbrier, “and they’re on you, you +renegade of the round-ups.” + +“Guilty, with an application for mercy,” said Merritt. “You don’t know +how it is, Greenbrier. It’s so comfortable here that—” + +“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—” + +Greenbrier’s voice died away in pure grief. + +“Cigars!” he called harshly to the waiter, to hide his emotion. + +“A pack of Turkish cigarettes for mine,” said Merritt. + +“They’re on you,” chanted Greenbrier, struggling to conceal his +contempt. + +At seven they dined in the Where-to-Dine-Well column. + +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. + +Merritt put forth exertions on the dinner. Greenbrier was his old +friend, and he liked him. He persuaded him to drink a cocktail. + +“I take the horehound tea,” said Greenbrier, “for old times’ sake. But +I’d prefer whiskey straight. They’re on you.” + +“Right!” said Merritt. “Now, run your eye down that bill of fare and +see if it seems to hitch on any of these items.” + +“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.” + +The viands ordered, Merritt turned to the wine list. + +“This Medoc isn’t bad,” he suggested. + +“You’re the doc,” said Greenbrier. “I’d rather have whiskey straight. +It’s on you.” + +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. + +“How was the range when you left the Gila?” asked Merritt. + +“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.” + +When the coffee came, Greenbrier put one foot on the seat of the chair +next to him. + +“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— + +“Gyar—song!” he suddenly cried, in a voice that paralyzed every knife +and fork in the restaurant. + +The waiter dived toward the table. + +“Two more of them cocktail drinks,” ordered Greenbrier. + +Merritt looked at him and smiled significantly. + +“They’re on me,” said Greenbrier, blowing a puff of smoke to the +ceiling. + + + + +X +THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY + + +The poet Longfellow—or was it Confucius, the inventor of +wisdom?—remarked: + +“Life is real, life is earnest; +And things are not what they seem.” + + +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. + +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—” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +A second result was that Mr. Kinsolving quit the game with $2,000,000 +prof—er—rake-off. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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” + +“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.” + +“There are plenty of charities,” said Kenwitz, mechanically. + +“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.” + +The thin fingers of Kenwitz moved rapidly. + +“Do you know how much money it would take to pay back the losses of +consumers during that corner in flour?” he asked. + +“I do not.” said Dan, stoutly. “My lawyer tells me that I have two +millions.” + +“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.” + +“Back up, philosopher!” said Dan. “The penny has no sorrow that the +dollar cannot heal.” + +“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.” + +Dan Kinsolving struck the park bench a mighty blow with his fist. + +“I accept the instance,” he cried. “Take me to Boyne. I will repay his +thousand dollars and buy him a new bakery.” + +“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.” + +“Stick to the instance,” said Dan. “I haven’t noticed any insurance +companies on my charity list.” + +“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.” + +“Back to the bakery!” exclaimed Dan, impatiently. “The Government +doesn’t need to stand in the bread line.” + +“The last item of the instance is—come and I will show you,” said +Kenwitz, rising. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“How many this week, Miss Mary?” asked the watchmaker. A mountain of +coarse gray shirts lay upon the floor. + +“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. + +Kenwitz chuckled like a diabolic raven. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“I’m obliged to you, Ken, old man,” he said, vaguely—“a thousand times +obliged.” + +“Mein Gott! you are crazy!” cried the watchmaker, dropping his +spectacles for the first time in years. + +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. + +A lady was giving an order to a clerk as Kenwitz passed her. + +“These loaves are ten cents,” said the clerk. + +“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.” + +The voice was familiar. The watchmaker paused. + +“Mr. Kenwitz!” cried the lady, heartily. “How do you do?” + +Kenwitz was trying to train his socialistic and economic comprehension +on her wonderful fur boa and the carriage waiting outside. + +“Why, Miss Boyne!” he began. + +“Mrs. Kinsolving,” she corrected. “Dan and I were married a month ago.” + + + + +XI +THE THING’S THE PLAY + + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +After the performance my friend, the reporter, recited to me the facts +over the Würzburger. + +“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.” + +“Try it,” said the reporter. + +“I will,” said I; and I did, to show him how he could have made a +humorous column of it for his paper. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _dolce far niente_. + +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. + +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. + +“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—” + +“For goodness sake, get out,” said Helen. “Somebody might come in.” + +He knelt upon one knee, and she extended him one white hand that he +might give it a farewell kiss. + +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. + +And then, of course—how did you guess it?—the door opened and in +stalked the bridegroom, jealous of slow-tying bonnet strings. + +The farewell kiss was imprinted upon Helen’s hand, and out of the +window and down the fire-escape sprang John Delaney, Africa bound. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _sine qua non_ in the house that Jack built. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +Ramonti took her hand, bowed low and kissed it, and went up to his +room. + +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. + +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?” + +Helen stood up. The mysterious stranger held one of her hands in a +strong and trembling clasp. + +There she stood, and I pity the stage that it has not acquired a scene +like that and her emotions to portray. + +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. + +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. + +This music and the musician called her, and at her side honor and the +old love held her back. + +“Forgive me,” he pleaded. + +“Twenty years is a long time to remain away from the one you say you +love,” she declared, with a purgatorial touch. + +“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—” + +“_Who Are You?_” cried the woman, with wide-open eyes, snatching her +hand away. + +“Don’t you remember me, Helen—the one who has always loved you best? I +am John Delaney. If you can forgive—” + +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!” + +Three mortals thus juggling with years as though they were billiard +balls, and my friend, the reporter, couldn’t see anything funny in it! + + + + +XII +A RAMBLE IN APHASIA + + +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. + +When I set out I had no thought or premonition of what was to occur. +The attack came suddenly. + +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. + +“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?” + +“I always thought,” said I, “that the clot in those instances was +really to be found on the brains of the newspaper reporters.” + +Doctor Volney shook his head. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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: + +“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.” + +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. + +“My name,” said I, glibly, “is Edward Pinkhammer. I am a druggist, and +my home is in Cornopolis, Kansas.” + +“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.” + +“Are all these men druggists?” I asked, wonderingly. + +“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?” + +“It seems to me a very good one,” I said. + +“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.” + +“If I can be of any aid,” I said, warming, “the two bottles of—er—” + +“Tartrate of antimony and potash, and tartrate of soda and potash.” + +“Shall henceforth sit side by side,” I concluded, firmly. + +“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?” + +“The—er—magnesia,” I said. It was easier to say than the other word. + +Mr. Bolder glanced at me distrustfully through his spectacles. + +“Give me the glycerrhiza,” said he. “Magnesia cakes.” + +“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?” + +I took the paper and read, after the pungent headlines, the following: + +“DENVER, 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.” + + +“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.” + +“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.’” + +Thus Mr. Bolder diverted, but did not aid, me with his comments and +philosophy. + +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. + +I thought the hotel clerk looked at me five seconds too long. I had no +baggage. + +“The Druggists’ Convention,” I said. “My trunk has somehow failed to +arrive.” I drew out a roll of money. + +“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. + +I endeavored to give color to my rôle. + +“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.” + +“Gentleman to three-fourteen,” said the clerk, hastily. I was whisked +away to my room. + +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. + +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. + +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 _tables d’hôte_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“You have made a mistake, sir,” I said, coldly, releasing my hand from +his grasp. “My name is Pinkhammer. You will excuse me.” + +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. + +“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.” + +I moved that afternoon to another hotel, a sedate, old-fashioned one on +lower Fifth Avenue. + +There was a restaurant a little way off Broadway where one could be +served almost _al fresco_ 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. + +“Mr. Bellford!” exclaimed an amazingly sweet voice. + +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. + +“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?” + +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 _crème de menthe_. 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. + +“Are you sure you know me?” I asked. + +“No,” she said, smiling. “I was never sure of that.” + +“What would you think,” I said, a little anxiously, “if I were to tell +you that my name is Edward Pinkhammer, from Cornopolis, Kansas?” + +“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.” + +I felt her wonderful eyes searching mine and my face more closely. + +“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.” + +I poked my straw anxiously in the _crème de menthe_. + +“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.” + +She flouted my denial. She laughed deliciously at something she seemed +to see in my face. + +“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.” + +She had mentioned fifteen years. Fifteen years is a long time. + +“Would it be too late,” I asked, somewhat timorously, “to offer you +congratulations?” + +“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. + +“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?” + +I took a sip of _crème de menthe_. + +“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.” + +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. + +“You lie, Elwyn Bellford,” she breathed, blissfully. “Oh, I know you +lie!” + +I gazed dully into the ferns. + +“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.” + +A shining landau stopped before the entrance. The lady rose. I took her +hand, and bowed. + +“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.” + +“Good-by, Mr. Bellford,” she said, with her happy, sorrowful smile, as +she stepped into her carriage. + +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. + + “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.” + +“Certainly,” I answered. + +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. + +“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.” + +I smiled ironically. + +“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?” + +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.” + +I unwound her arms respectfully, but firmly. + +“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.” + +The lady turned to her companion, and grasped his arm. + +“What is it, Doctor Volney? Oh, what is it?” she moaned. + +He led her to the door. + +“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.” + +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. + +“I would like to talk with you a while, Mr. Pinkhammer, if I may,” said +the gentleman who remained. + +“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. + +“Let us speak to the point,” he said, soothingly. “Your name is not +Pinkhammer.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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!” + +“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?” + +“Sometimes gradually and imperfectly; sometimes as suddenly as it +went.” + +“Will you undertake the treatment of my case, Doctor Volney?” I asked. + +“Old friend,” said he, “I’ll do everything in my power, and will have +done everything that science can do to cure you.” + +“Very well,” said I. “Then you will consider that I am your patient. +Everything is in confidence now—professional confidence.” + +“Of course,” said Doctor Volney. + +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. + +“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!” + + + + +XIII +A MUNICIPAL REPORT + + + The cities are full of pride, + Challenging each to each— + This from her mountainside, + That from her burthened beach. + + +R. KIPLING. + + +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.—FRANK NORRIS. + + +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. + +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. + +NASHVILLE—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. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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 _en brochette_. + +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.” + +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. + +It is built on undulating grounds; and the streets are lighted by +electricity at a cost of $32,470 per annum. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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: + + Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, + And curse me the British vermin, the rat. + + +Let us regard the word “British” as interchangeable _ad lib_. A rat is +a rat. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +At nine o’clock the next morning, after my chicken livers _en +brochette_ (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. + +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. + +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: + +“Step right in, suh; ain’t a speck of dust in it—jus’ got back from a +funeral, suh.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“What is it to you?” I asked, a little sharply. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +“It’s two dollars, suh,” he said. + +“How’s that?” I asked. “I plainly heard you call out at the hotel: +‘Fifty cents to any part of the town.’” + +“It’s two dollars, suh,” he repeated obstinately. “It’s a long ways +from the hotel.” + +“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?” + +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.” + +“Then the charge is fifty cents, I suppose?” said I inexorably. + +His former expression, a mingling of cupidity and hostility, returned, +remained ten seconds, and vanished. + +“Boss,” he said, “fifty cents is right; but I _needs_ two dollars, suh; +I’m _obleeged_ to have two dollars. I ain’t _demandin’_ it now, suh; +after I know whar you’s from; I’m jus’ sayin’ that I _has_ to have two +dollars to-night, and business is mighty po’.” + +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. + +“You confounded old rascal,” I said, reaching down to my pocket, “you +ought to be turned over to the police.” + +For the first time I saw him smile. He knew; _he knew_. HE KNEW. + +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. + +Enough of the African bandit for the present: I left him happy, lifted +the rope and opened a creaky gate. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + + +Azalea Adair seemed to reflect. + +“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 _North American Review_.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“You must have a cup of tea before you go,” she said, “and a sugar +cake.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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—” + +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.” + +“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. + +“I belonged to her father, Judge Adair, suh,” he replied. + +“I judge that she is pretty poor,” I said. “She hasn’t much money to +speak of, has she?” + +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. + +“She ain’t gwine to starve, suh,” he said slowly. “She has reso’ces, +suh; she has reso’ces.” + +“I shall pay you fifty cents for the trip,” said I. + +“Dat is puffeckly correct, suh,” he answered humbly. “I jus’ _had_ to +have dat two dollars dis mawnin’, boss.” + +I went to the hotel and lied by electricity. I wired the magazine: “A. +Adair holds out for eight cents a word.” + +The answer that came back was: “Give it to her quick you duffer.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Mrs. Caswell!” said I, in surprise. And then I looked at the contract +and saw that she had signed it “Azalea Adair Caswell.” + +“I thought she was Miss Adair,” I said. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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?” + +“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. + +Here ends all of the story as far as I can testify as a witness. The +rest must be only bare statements of facts. + +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—” + +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! + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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: + +“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.” + +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. + +_I wonder what’s doing in Buffalo!_ + + + + +XIV +PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPER + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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—” + +“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.” + +Daisy passed Joe’s corner every morning and evening. + +“Hello, Two-by-Four!” was her usual greeting. “Seems to me your store +looks emptier. You must have sold a pack of chewing gum.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“I wouldn’t mind an even swap like that,” said Joe, complimentary. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“H’m!” said Joe. + +“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.” + +“It’s windy up there, too, as well as here,” said Joe. “Are you dressed +warm enough, Daise?” + +“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.” + +Daisy giggled at her favorite joke; and Joe had to smile with her. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +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. + +“What are they?” she asked, trembling. She had never been on a height +like this before. + +And then Dabster must needs play the philosopher on the tower, and +conduct her soul forth to meet the immensity of space. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Walk over this way,” said Dabster. + +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. + +“I don’t like it,” declared Daisy, with troubled blue eyes. “Say we go +down.” + +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. + +“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!” + +The philosopher smiled fatuously. + +“The earth,” said he, “is itself only as a grain of wheat in space. +Look up there.” + +Daisy gazed upward apprehensively. The short day was spent and the +stars were coming out above. + +“Yonder star,” said Dabster, “is Venus, the evening star. She is +66,000,000 miles from the sun.” + +“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.” + +The philosopher smiled indulgently. + +“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—” + +“You’re lyin’,” cried Daisy, angrily. “You’re tryin’ to scare me. And +you have; I want to go down!” + +She stamped her foot. + +“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! + +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. + +“Take me down,” she cried, vehemently, “you—you mental arithmetic!” + +Dabster got her to the elevator, and inside of it. She was wild-eyed, +and she shuddered when the express made its debilitating drop. + +Outside the revolving door of the skyscraper the philosopher lost her. +She vanished; and he stood, bewildered, without figures or statistics +to aid him. + +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. + +The door was burst open, and Daisy, laughing, crying, scattering fruit +and candies, tumbled into his arms. + +“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.” + + + + +XV +A BIRD OF BAGDAD + + +Without a doubt much of the spirit and genius of the Caliph Harun Al +Rashid descended to the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. + +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. + +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.” + +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? + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +Still deeply seized by some inward grief, but tractable, he allowed +Quigg to lead him away and down the street to a little park. + +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. + +“I was doing the Monte Cristo act as adapted by Pompton, N. J., wasn’t +I?” asked the young man. + +“You were throwing small coins into the street for the people to +scramble after,” said the Margrave. + +“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!” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“If I could hear your story,” said the Margrave, with his lofty, +serious smile. + +“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.” + +THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE HARNESS MAKER’S RIDDLE + + +“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. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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. + +“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?” + +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: + +“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—” + +“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.” + +The Margrave, still with a gloomy air, held out his hand. + +“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—” + +“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.” + +From habit the Margrave began to fumble in his pockets. He drew forth a +card and handed it to the young man. + +“Do me the favor to accept this, anyhow,” he said. “The time may come +when it might be of use to you.” + +“Thanks!” said the young man, pocketing it carelessly. “My name is +Simmons.” + + +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. + +Hildebrant’s 200 pounds reposed on a bench, silver-buckling a raw +leather martingale. + +Bill Watson came in first. + +“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?’” + +“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?” + +“Nein!” said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. “You haf not +guessed der answer.” + +Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood. + +In came the young man of the Arabian Night’s fiasco—pale, melancholy, +hopeless. + +“Vell,” said Hildebrant, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat kind of a hen lays +der longest?’” + +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. + +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.” + +Simmons looked up with a flashing eye. + +“A dead one!” said he. + +“Goot!” roared Hildebrant, rocking the table with giant glee. “Dot is +right! You gome at mine house at 8 o’clock to der party.” + + + + +XVI +COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON + + +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. + +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. + +Now comes the facts in the case of the Rag-Doll, the Tatterdemalion, +and the Twenty-fifth of December. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“One for the lady?” suggested Fuzzy impudently, and tucked another +contribution to Art beneath his waistcoat. + +He began to see possibilities in Betsy. His first-night had been a +success. Visions of a vaudeville circuit about town dawned upon him. + +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. + +Black Riley came from behind the stove and approached Fuzzy in his +one-sided parabolic way. + +The Christmas mummer, flushed with success, had tucked Betsy under his +arm, and was about to depart to the filling of impromptu dates +elsewhere. + +“Say, ‘Bo,” said Black Riley to him, “where did you cop out dat doll?” + +“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—” + +“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?” + +He produced the coin. + +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. + +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. + +“Wot’ll you take for it, den?” he asked. + +“Money,” said Fuzzy, with husky firmness, “cannot buy her.” + +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. + +Fuzzy walked out with the gait of a trained sea-lion in search of other +cafés to conquer. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +“Boys,” said he, “you are certainly damn true friends. Give me a week +to think it over.” + +The soul of a real artist is quenched with difficulty. + +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. + +“A cool hundred,” said Fuzzy thoughtfully and mushily. + +“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.” + +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. + +“You are a pack of putty-faced beagle-hounds,” he roared. “Go away.” + +They went away—a little way. + +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. + +“Why fetch and carry,” said Black Riley, “when some one will do it for +ye? Let him bring it out to us. Hey—what?” + +“We can chuck him in the river,” said “Pigeon” McCarthy, “with a stone +tied to his feet.” + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +James gathered Fuzzy with his own commanding optic and swept him as far +as the front door. + +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. + +He followed James to the door. + +He paused there as the flunky drew open the great mahogany portal for +him to pass into the vestibule. + +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. + +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. + +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 _noblesse oblige_. Upon a +gentleman certain things devolve. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +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. + +A sterling silver bell rang. James went back to answer it, leaving +Fuzzy in the hall. James explained somewhere to some one. + +Then he came and conducted Fuzzy into the library. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +Fuzzy lifted his glass and smiled vacantly. + +“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.” + +And then he began the ancient salutation that was a tradition in the +House when men wore lace ruffles and powder. + +“The blessings of another year—” + +Fuzzy’s memory failed him. The Lady prompted: + +“—Be upon this hearth.” + +“—The guest—” stammered Fuzzy. + +“—And upon her who—” continued the Lady, with a leading smile. + +“Oh, cut it out,” said Fuzzy, ill-manneredly. “I can’t remember. Drink +hearty.” + +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. + +Outside, Black Riley breathed on his cold hands and hugged the gate. + +“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.” + +Fuzzy and his escort were nearly at the door. The Lady called: “James!” + +James stalked back obsequiously, leaving Fuzzy waiting unsteadily, with +his brief spark of the divine fire gone. + +Outside, Black Riley stamped his cold feet and got a firmer grip on his +section of gas-pipe. + +“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.” + + + + +XVII +A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIA + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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 + +THE STORY OF THE CALIPH WHO ALLEVIATED HIS CONSCIENCE + + +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: + +“By the coke ovens of hell, it must be that ten thousand dollars! If I +can get that squared, it’ll do the trick.” + +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. + +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. + +There now! it’s over. Hardly had time to yawn, did you? I’ve seen +biographies that—but let us dissemble. + +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, _x_. The eighth stage shall be left to the higher +mathematics. + +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. + +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 _divorcé_. 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. + +Don’t lose heart because the story seems to be degenerating into a sort +of moral essay for intellectual readers. + +There will be dialogue and stage business pretty soon. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“There goes the latest _chevalier d’industrie_,” said one of them, “to +buy a sleeping powder from us. He gets his degree to-morrow.” + +“_In foro conscientiæ_,” said the other. “Let’s ’eave ’arf a brick at +’im.” + +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. + +Jacob wearied of philanthropy on a large scale. + +“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.” + +So Jacob followed his nose, which led him through unswept streets to +the homes of the poorest. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +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 _optikos needleorum +camelibus_—or rich man’s disease—was unrelieved. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“He will to me,” said Celia. + +“Riches—” began Annette, unsheathing the not unjustifiable feminine +sting. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +The grocer’s young man stopped and pushed back his cap until it hung on +his collar button behind. + +“That’s out o’ sight, Kid,” said he. + +“My name is Celia, if you please,” said the whistler, dazzling him with +a three-inch smile. + +“That’s all right. I’m Thomas McLeod. What part of the house do you +work in?” + +“I’m the—the second parlor maid.” + +“Do you know the ‘Falling Waters’?” + +“No,” said Celia, “we don’t know anybody. We got rich too quick—that +is, Mr. Spraggins did.” + +“I’ll make you acquainted,” said Thomas McLeod. “It’s a strathspey—the +first cousin to a hornpipe.” + +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 _bass_. + +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. + +“I’ll be around to-morrow at 10:15,” said Thomas, “with some spinach +and a case of carbonic.” + +“I’ll practice that what-you-may-call-it,” said Celia. “I can whistle a +fine second.” + +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. + +A day came when Thomas McLeod and Celia lingered at the end of the +latticed “passage.” + +“Sixteen a week isn’t much,” said Thomas, letting his cap rest on his +shoulder blades. + +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. + +“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.” + +“All right,” said Celia. “Annette’s married cousin pays only $20 a +month for a flat in the Bronx.” + +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. + +Another day came, Thomas violating the dignity of Nabob Avenue with +“The Devil’s Dream,” whistled keenly between his teeth. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“And tell no lie,” said Thomas. + +“And I can sweep and polish and dust—of course, a parlor maid learns +that. And we could whistle duets of evenings.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Bully! you’re all right, Cele. Yes, I believe we can pull it off on +eighteen.” + +As he was jumping into the wagon the second parlor maid braved +discovery by running swiftly to the gate. + +“And, oh, Tommy, I forgot,” she called, softly. “I believe I could make +your neckties.” + +“Forget it,” said Thomas decisively. + +“And another thing,” she continued. “Sliced cucumbers at night will +drive away cockroaches.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Old Jacob hired a dozen private detectives to find the heirs, if any +existed, of the old miner, Hugh McLeod. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +Old Jacob counted out to him twenty five-hundred-dollar bills. + +That was better, he thought, than a check. Thomas put them thoughtfully +into his pocket. + +“Grandfather’s best thanks,” he said, “to the party who sends it.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“I told you he was a count,” she said, after relating. “He never would +carry on with me.” + +“But you say he showed money,” said the cook. + +“Hundreds of thousands,” said Annette. “Carried around loose in his +pockets. And he never would look at me.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +Thomas pulled his cap down straight on his head for the first time +since we have known him. + +“I suppose then,” said he, “I suppose then you’ll not be marrying me +next week. But you _can_ whistle.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“What young man?” roared old Jacob. + +“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.” + +Jacob rushed out in time to catch his car. The chauffeur had been +delayed by trying to light a cigarette in the wind. + +“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.” + +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. + +“What t’ell you doin’?” yelled the cabman. + +“Pa!” shrieked Celia. + +“Grandfather’s remorseful friend’s agent!” said Thomas. “Wonder what’s +on his conscience now.” + +“A thousand thunders,” said Gaston, or Mike. “I have no other match.” + +“Young man,” said old Jacob, severely, “how about that parlor maid you +were engaged to?” + +A couple of years afterward old Jacob went into the office of his +private secretary. + +“The Amalgamated Missionary Society solicits a contribution of $30,000 +toward the conversion of the Koreans,” said the secretary. + +“Pass ’em up,” said Jacob. + +“The University of Plumville writes that its yearly endowment fund of +$50,000 that you bestowed upon it is past due.” + +“Tell ’em it’s been cut out.” + +“The Scientific Society of Clam Cove, Long Island, asks for $10,000 to +buy alcohol to preserve specimens.” + +“Waste basket.” + +“The Society for Providing Healthful Recreation for Working Girls wants +$20,000 from you to lay out a golf course.” + +“Tell ’em to see an undertaker.” + +“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?’ + +“The Globe Spice & Seasons Company,” said secretary, “controls the +market at present.” + +“Raise vinegar two cents a gallon. Notify all our branches.” + +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. + +“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.” + +As he was leaving, old Jacob turned at the door, and said: + +“Better make that vinegar raise three cents instead of two. I’ll be +back in an hour and sign the letters.” + +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. + + + + +XVIII +THE GIRL AND THE HABIT + + +HABIT—a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or frequent repetition. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +During a brisk luncheon hour Miss Merriam’s conversation, while she +took money for checks, would run something like this: + +“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 . . .” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +A month after the worthy couple became acquainted with Miss Merriam, +she stood before Hinkle one afternoon and resigned her cashiership. + +“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.” + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +Miss McRamsey—beautiful, palpitating, excited, charming, +radiant—fluttered about in her booth. An imitation brass network, with +a little arched opening, fenced her in. + +Along came the Earl, assured, delicate, accurate, admiring—admiring +greatly, and faced the open wicket. + +“You look chawming, you know—’pon my word you do—my deah,” he said, +beguilingly. + +Miss McRamsey whirled around. + +“Cut that joshing out,” she said, coolly and briskly. “Who do you think +you are talking to? Your check, please. Oh, Lordy!—” + +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. + +“Miss McRamsey has fainted,” some one explained. + + + + +XIX +PROOF OF THE PUDDING + + +Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the _Minerva +Magazine_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Editor Westbrook’s spirit was contented and serene. The April number of +the _Minerva_ 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. + +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. + +While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlight +biography of Dawe is offered. + +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 _Minerva_ 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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Why, Shack, is this you?” said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for the +form of his phrase seemed to touch upon the other’s changed appearance. + +“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.” + +“Smoke, Shack?” said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon the +virulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield. + +Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sunperch, or a +girl pecks at a chocolate cream. + +“I have just—” began the editor. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“Have you read the last story I sent you—‘The Alarum of the Soul’?” +asked Dawe. + +“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—” + +“Never mind the regrets,” said Dawe, grimly. “There’s neither salve nor +sting in ’em any more. What I want to know is _why_. Come now; out with +the good points first.” + +“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—” + +“I can write English, can’t I?” interrupted Dawe. + +“I have always told you,” said the editor, “that you had a style.” + +“Then the trouble is—” + +“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.” + +“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!’” + +Editor Westbrook conceded a smile of impervious complacency. + +“I think,” said he, “that in real life the woman would express herself +in those words or in very similar ones.” + +“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!’ + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“I never did,” said Dawe. “Did you?” + +“Well, no,” said Editor Westbrook, with a slight frown. “But I can well +imagine what she would say.” + +“So can I,” said Dawe. + +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 _Minerva Magazine_, contrary to the theories of the +editor thereof. + +“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.” + +“And in the name of the seven sacred saddle-blankets of Sagittarius, +where did the stage and literature get the stunt?” asked Dawe. + +“From life,” answered the editor, triumphantly. + +The story writer rose from the bench and gesticulated eloquently but +dumbly. He was beggared for words with which to formulate adequately +his dissent. + +On a bench nearby a frowzy loafer opened his red eyes and perceived +that his moral support was due a downtrodden brother. + +“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?” + +Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of leisure. + +“Tell me,” asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, “what especial faults in +‘The Alarum of the Soul’ caused you to throw it down?” + +“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—” + +“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.’” + +“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—” + +“She says,” interposed the author: “‘Well, what do you think of that!’” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and inside +information. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“If I could prove to you that I am right?” + +“I’m sorry, Shack, but I’m afraid I haven’t time to argue any further +just now.” + +“I don’t want to argue,” said Dawe. “I want to demonstrate to you from +life itself that my view is the correct one.” + +“How could you do that?” asked Westbrook, in a surprised tone. + +“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.” + +“I have applied the opposite of your theory,” said the editor, “in +selecting the fiction for the _Minerva Magazine_. The circulation has +gone up from ninety thousand to—” + +“Four hundred thousand,” said Dawe. “Whereas it should have been +boosted to a million.” + +“You said something to me just now about demonstrating your pet +theory.” + +“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.” + +“Your wife!” exclaimed Westbrook. “How?” + +“Well, not exactly by her, but _with_ 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.” + +“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.” + +“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—” + +Dawe glanced toward the editor’s watch pocket. + +“Twenty-seven minutes to three,” said Westbrook, scanning his +time-piece. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. _Sic transit gloria urbis_. + +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. + +When the door opened Editor Westbrook saw, with feelings of pity, how +meanly and meagerly the rooms were furnished. + +“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.” + +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: + +“DEAR SHACKLEFORD: + + 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. + +“LOUISE.” + + +Dawe dropped the letter, covered his face with his trembling hands, and +cried out in a deep, vibrating voice: + +_“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!”_ + +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: + +_“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?”_ + + + + +XX +PAST ONE AT ROONEY’S + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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 _Kaiser Williams_ 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.” + +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. + +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 _Kaiser Wilhelm_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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 _peau d’Espagne_—all these were manna to +Cork McManus, hungry for his week in the desert of the Capulet’s high +rear room. + +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. + +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. + +Instantly the doom of each was sealed. + +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. + +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. + +“Have another beer?” suggested Cork. In his circle the phrase was +considered to be a card, accompanied by a letter of introduction and +references. + +“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.” + +“Cheese it!” said Cork, whom society airs oppressed. “Your fingers are +as yellow as mine.” + +“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?” + +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. + +“Beg your pardon,” said Cork, looking at her admiringly. “I didn’t mean +anything. Sure, it’s no harm to smoke, Maudy.” + +“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.” + +“That’s a swell handle,” said Cork approvingly. “Mine’s +McManus—Cor—er—Eddie McManus.” + +“Oh, you can’t help that,” laughed Ruby. “Don’t apologize.” + +Cork looked seriously at the big clock on Rooney’s wall. The girl’s +ubiquitous eyes took in the movement. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“I think you’re the swellest looker I’ve had my lamps on in little old +New York,” said Cork impressively. + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“On the dead level?” said Cork. “That’s the way I want it; because—” + +“Because what?” + +“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?” + +“Would you like me to—Eddie?” + +“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.” + +“You’ll find I’ll be straight goods, Eddie.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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.” + +“I’m going to quit. There’s nothing to it,” said the girl. She flicked +the stub of her cigarette to the floor. + +“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?” + +“Eddie, do you really like me?” The girl searched his hard but frank +features eagerly with anxious eyes. + +“On the dead level.” + +“When are you coming to see me—where I live?” + +“Thursday—day after to-morrow evenin’. That suit you?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“This way, everybody!” he called sharply. “In a hurry; but no noise, +please!” + +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. + +“Down and out, everybody!” he commanded. “Ladies first! Less talking, +please! Don’t crowd! There’s no danger.” + +Among the last, Cork and Ruby waited their turn at the open panel. +Suddenly she swept him aside and clung to his arm fiercely. + +“Before we go out,” she whispered in his ear—“before anything happens, +tell me again, Eddie, do you l—do you really like me?” + +“On the dead level,” said Cork, holding her close with one arm, “when +it comes to you, I’m all in.” + +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. + +“We may as well sit down,” said Cork grimly. “Maybe Rooney will stand +the cops off, anyhow.” + +They sat at a table; and their hands came together again. + +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. + +“What are youse doin’ in here?” he asked. + +“Dropped in for a smoke,” said Cork mildly. + +“Had any drinks?” + +“Not later than one o’clock.” + +“Get out—quick!” ordered the cop. Then, “Sit down!” he countermanded. + +He took off Cork’s hat roughly and scrutinized him shrewdly. “Your +name’s McManus.” + +“Bad guess,” said Cork. “It’s Peterson.” + +“Cork McManus, or something like that,” said the cop. “You put a knife +into a man in Dutch Mike’s saloon a week ago.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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! + +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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“A lie!” said the cop, turning purple. “You go on my beat again and +I’ll arrest you every time I see you.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +“Clear out, quick, both of you, or I’ll—” + +The cop’s bluster trailed away into inconsequentiality. + +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. + +“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.” + +“I mightn’t have got wise if you hadn’t give the snap away,” said Cork. +“Why did you do it?” + +“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.” + +Cork was pulling at his ear. “I knifed Malone,” said he. “I was the one +the cop wanted.” + +“Oh, that’s all right,” said the girl listlessly. “It didn’t make any +difference about that.” + +“That was all hot air about Wall Street. I don’t do nothin’ but hang +out with a tough gang on the East Side.” + +“That was all right, too,” repeated the girl. “It didn’t make any +difference.” + +Cork straightened himself, and pulled his hat down low. “I could get a +job at O’Brien’s,” he said aloud, but to himself. + +“Good-by,” said the girl. + +“Come on,” said Cork, taking her arm. “I know a place.” + +Two blocks away he turned with her up the steps of a red brick house +facing a little park. + +“What house is this?” she asked, drawing back. “Why are you going in +there?” + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +“She’ll be all right in a minute,” said Cork. “It’s a straight deal.” + +“Reverend Jeremiah Jones,” read the cop from the door-plate with true +detective cunning. + +“Correct,” said Cork. “On the dead level, we’re goin’ to get married.” + + + + +XXI +THE VENTURERS + + +Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the _Non Sequitur_ +Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observation +car “_Raison d’être_” 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.” + +_Omne mundus in duas partes divisum est_—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. + +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. + +The VENTURER 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. + +“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. + +“Doubtless,” said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the room. + +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.) + +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.” + +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. + +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 _da capo_. + +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. + +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— + +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. + +“All in?” asked the intruder, drawing nearer. + +“Seems so,” said Forster. “Now, I thought there was a dollar in—” + +“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!” + +“You haven’t dined, then?” asked Forster. + +“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.” + +“You’re on,” said Forster, joyfully. + +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. + +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. + +“Match for which of us gives the order,” he said. + +Forster lost. + +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. + +“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 _know_, 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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I know—I know,” said Forster, nodding approval. + +“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.” + +“I know—I know,” said Forster. + +“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.” + +“Women,” suggested Forster, with a smile. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“I see,” said Forster. “I see.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Heads,” called Ives. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“Oh,” said Ives, settling himself more comfortably, “I can do that +later on. Get me a glass of water, waiter.” + +“Want to be in at the death, do you?” asked Forster. + +“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.” + +“All right,” said Forster, calmly. “You are entitled to see a Christian +die in the arena as your _pousse-café_.” + +Victor came with the glass of water and remained, with the disengaged +air of an inexorable collector. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +“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.” + +“I reserve comment,” said Ives. + +“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.” + +“I know,” said Ives, nodding wisely. + +“It’s the dead certainty of the thing,” went on Forster, “that keeps me +in doubt. There’ll nevermore be anything around the corner.” + +“Nothing after the ‘Little Church,’” said Ives. “I know.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Thursday?” suggested Forster. + +“At seven, if it’s convenient,” answered Ives. + +“Seven goes,” assented Forster. + +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. + +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. + +“You can’t think what a pleasure it is,” she said, “to have you drop in +once every three years or so.” + +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: + +“And did you find what you wanted while you were abroad?” + +“What I wanted?” said Ives. + +“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.” + +“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 _succeeding_ chapters.” + +Mary laughed merrily. + +“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.” + +“I remember,” said Ives. “That ‘next station’ has been the thing I’ve +always tried to get away from.” + +“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.” + +“There was something I wanted before I went away,” said Ives. + +Mary looked in his eyes clearly, with a slight, but perfectly sweet +smile. + +“There was,” she said. “You wanted me. And you could have had me, as +you very well know.” + +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. + +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. + +“I am going to be married soon,” said Mary. + +On the next Thursday afternoon Forster came hurriedly to Ive’s hotel. + +“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?” + +“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 VENTURE. Don’t bother yourself about leaving Mary Marsden, Forster. +I married her yesterday at noon.” + + + + +XXII +THE DUEL + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +They came out of the West together, where they had been friends. They +came to dig their fortunes out of the big city. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +“Don’t you like this _filet mignon_?” 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?” + +“The town’s got you, Billy,” said Jack. + +“All right,” said William. “I’m going to buy a cottage on Lake +Ronkonkoma next summer.” + +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. + +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. + +There was a knock on his door. A telegram had come for him. It came +from the West, and these were its words: + +“Come back and the answer will be yes. + + +DOLLY.” + + +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. + +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.” + +So there it rests; and you will have to decide for yourself. + + + + +XXIII +“WHAT YOU WANT” + + +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. + +But let us revenue to our lamb chops. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +But do not misconjecture because this description sounds like a General +Alarm that James was either lost or a dead one. + +_Allons!_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +James Turner looked up coldly, with “Sartor Resartus” in one hand and +“A Mad Marriage” in the other. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“You are a blamed impudent little gutter pup,” said the caliph. + +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. + +“Three hundred dollars bail,” said the sergeant at once, asseveratingly +and inquiringly. + +“Sixty-three cents,” said James Turner with a harsh laugh. + +The caliph searched his pockets and collected small bills and change +amounting to four dollars. + +“I am worth,” he said, “forty million dollars, but—” + +“Lock ’em up,” ordered the sergeant. + +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.” + +Then an idea came to him that brought a pleased look to his face. + +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. + +Presently, to his cell came the doorman and said: + +“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.” + +“Tell him I ain’t in,” said James Turner. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRICTLY BUSINESS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +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-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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