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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York, by 
+Lemuel Ely  Quigg
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York
+       A Series of Stories and Sketches Portraying Many Singular
+       Phases of Metropolitan Life
+
+Author: Lemuel Ely  Quigg
+
+Illustrator: Harry  Beard
+
+Release Date: September 23, 2007 [EBook #22731]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIN-TYPES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Irma Špehar, Janet Blenkinship and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TIN-TYPES
+
+TAKEN IN
+
+THE STREETS OF NEW YORK
+
+
+_A SERIES OF STORIES AND SKETCHES
+PORTRAYING MANY SINGULAR PHASES
+OF METROPOLITAN LIFE_
+
+
+BY
+
+LEMUEL ELY QUIGG
+
+
+_With Fifty-three Illustrations by Harry Beard_
+
+
+NEW YORK:
+CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
+104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
+
+
+COPYRIGHT,
+
+1890,
+
+By O. M. DUNHAM,
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+Press W. L. Mershon & Co.,
+Rahway, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+   I.  MR. RICKETTY,                                                   1
+
+  II.  MR. JAYRES,                                                    20
+
+ III.  BLUDOFFSKI,                                                    43
+
+  IV.  MAGGIE,                                                        65
+
+   V.  THE HON. DOYLE O'MEAGHER,                                      87
+
+  VI. THE SAME (_concluded_),                                        107
+
+ VII. MR. GALLIVANT,                                                 126
+
+VIII. TULITZ,                                                        148
+
+  IX. MR. MCCAFFERTY,                                                170
+
+   X. MR. MADDLEDOCK,                                                189
+
+  XI. MR. WRANGLER,                                                  211
+
+ XII. MR. CINCH,                                                     242
+
+XIII. GRANDMOTHER CRUNCHER,                                          271
+
+
+
+
+TIN-TYPES.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+MR. RICKETTY.
+
+
+Mr. Ricketty is composed of angles. From his high silk hat worn into
+dulness, through his black frock coat worn into brightness, along each
+leg of his broad-checked trowsers worn into rustiness, down into his
+flat, multi-patched boots, he is a long series of unrelieved angles.
+
+Tipped on the back of his head, but well down over it, he wears an
+antique high hat, which has assumed that patient, resigned expression
+occasionally to be observed in the face of some venerable mule, which,
+having long and hopelessly struggled to free herself of a despicable
+bondage, at last bows submissively to the inevitable and trudges bravely
+on till she dies in her tracks.
+
+Everything about Mr. Ricketty, indeed, appears to have an individual
+expression. His heavily lined, indented brow comes out in a sharp angle
+over his snappy black eyes, which, sunk far within their sockets, look
+just like black beans in an elsewise empty eggshell.
+
+His nose is sharp, thin, pendent, and exceedingly ample in its
+proportions, and it comes inquiringly out from his face as if employed
+by the rest of his features as a sort of picket sentinel.
+
+It is that uncommonly knowing nose to which the prudent observer of Mr.
+Ricketty would give his closest attention. He would look at the acute
+interior angle which it formed at the eyes, and think it much too acute
+to be pleasant and much too interior to be pretty. He would look at the
+obtuse exterior angle which it formed on its bridge, and wonder how any
+humane parent could have permitted such a development to grow before his
+very eyes when by one quick and dexterous strike with a flat-iron it
+might have been remedied. He would look at the angle of incidence made
+by the sun's rays on one side of his nose and then at the angle of
+reflection on the other, and find himself lost in amazement that
+anything so thin could produce so dark a shadow.
+
+[Illustration: MR. RICKETTY.]
+
+It is a most uncomfortable nose. It had a way of hanging protectingly
+over his heavy dark-brown mustache, which, in its turn, hangs
+protectingly over his thin, wide lips, so as to make it disagreeably
+certain that they can open and shut, laugh, snap, and sneer without any
+one being the wiser.
+
+Upon lines almost parallel with those of his nose, his sharp chin
+extends out and down, fitting by means of another angle upon his long
+neck, wherein his Adam's apple, like the corner of a cube, wanders up
+and down at random. Under his side-whiskers the outlines of his square
+jaws are faintly to be traced, holding in position a pair of hollow
+cheeks that end directly under his eyes in a little knob of ruddy flesh.
+
+Mr. Ricketty is walking along the Bowery. His step is light and easy,
+and an air pervades him betokening peace and serenity of mind. In one
+hand he carries a short rattan stick, which he twirls in his fingers
+carelessly. His little black eyes travel further and faster than his
+legs, and rove up and down and across the Bowery ceaselessly. He stops
+in front of a building devoted, according to the signs spread numerously
+about it, to a variety of trade.
+
+The fifth floor is occupied by a photographer, the fourth by a dealer in
+picture frames, the third and the second are let out for offices. Over
+the first hangs the gilded symbol of the three balls and the further
+information, lettered on a signboard, "Isaac Buxbaum, Money to Loan."
+The basement is given over to a restaurant-keeper whose identity is
+fixed by the testimony of another signboard, bearing the two words,
+"Butter-cake Bob's." Mr. Ricketty's little black eyes wander for an
+instant up and down the front of the building, and then he trips lightly
+down the basement steps into the restaurant.
+
+A score or more of small tables fastened securely to the floor--for
+many, as Bob often said, "comes here deep in liquor an' can't tell a
+white-pine table from a black felt hat"--were disposed about the room at
+measured distances from each other, equipped with four short-legged
+stools, a set of casters, and a jar of sugar, all so firmly fixed as to
+baffle both cupidity and nervousness. On walls, posts, and pillars were
+hung a number of allusions to the variety and excellence of Bob's
+larder.
+
+It was represented that coffee and cakes could be obtained for the
+trifling sum of ten cents, that corned-beef hash was a specialty, and
+that as for Bob's chicken soup it was the best in the Bowery. Apparently
+attracted by this statement, Mr. Ricketty sat down, and intimated to a
+large young man who presented himself that he was willing to try the
+chicken soup together with a cup of coffee.
+
+The young man lifted his head and shouted vociferously toward the
+ceiling, "Chicken in de bowl, draw one!"
+
+"My friend," said Mr. Ricketty, "what a noble pair of lungs you've got
+and what a fine quality of voice."
+
+The young man grinned cheerfully.
+
+"I am tempted to lavish a cigar on you," continued Mr. Ricketty, "in
+token of my regard for those lungs. A cigar represents to me a large
+amount of capital, but it shall all be yours if you'll just step
+upstairs and see if my old friend, Ike Buxbaum, is in."
+
+"He aint in," said the waiter.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I jist seen him goin' down de street."
+
+"Who runs his business when he adjourns to the street."
+
+"Dunno. Guess it's his wife."
+
+"Aha! the beauteous Becky?"
+
+"I dunno; I've seen a woman in dere."
+
+"You're sure Ike has gone off, are you?"
+
+"Didn't I say I seen him?"
+
+"True. I am answered. My friend, there's the cigar. There, too, are the
+fifteen cents wherewith to pay for my frugal luncheon. Look upon the
+luncheon when it comes as yours. I bethink me of an immediate
+engagement," and rising abruptly Mr. Ricketty hastened out of the
+restaurant into the street.
+
+[Illustration: "CHICKEN IN DE BOWL, DRAW ONE!"]
+
+He glanced quickly through the pawnshop window and made out the figure
+of a woman standing within among the shadows. He adjusted his hat to his
+head and a winsome smile to his countenance, and entered.
+
+"Good-morning!" he said, breezily, to the young woman who came forward,
+"where's Ike?"
+
+"Gone out," she answered, looking him over carefully.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut," said Mr. Ricketty, as if utterly annoyed and
+disappointed. "That's too bad. Will he be gone long?"
+
+"All the morning."
+
+"Will he now? Well, I'll call again," and Mr. Ricketty started for the
+door. He stopped when he had gone a step or two, however, and, wheeling
+about, looked earnestly at Becky.
+
+"Let me see," he said, "you must be Ike's wife. You must be the fair and
+radiant Becky. There's no doubt of it, not the least, now, is there?"
+
+"Well, what if there aint?" said Becky, coolly.
+
+"Why if there aint you ought to know me. You ought to have heard Ike
+speaking of his friend Ricketty. You ought to have heard him telling of
+what a good-for-nothing old fool I am. If you are Becky, then you and I
+are old friends."
+
+"S'posin' we be," said Becky, "what then?"
+
+"To be sure," Mr. Ricketty replied, "what then? Then, Becky, fair
+daughter of Israel, I've a treasure for you. I always lay my treasure at
+the feet of my friends. This may not be wise; it may not be the way to
+grow rich; but it is Steve Ricketty's way, and he can't help it. I have
+a treasure here now for you. It has taken months of suffering and sorrow
+to induce me to part with it. Around it cluster memories of other and
+brighter days. Look!"
+
+Mr. Ricketty produced a string of large and beautiful pearls. They were
+evidently of the very finest quality, and Becky's black eyes sparkled as
+she caught their radiance.
+
+"See," said Mr. Ricketty, "see the bedazzling heirloom. Full oft, sweet
+Jewess, have I held it to my bosom, have I bedewed it with my tears--"
+
+"Oh, yes," interrupted Becky, with a satirical smile, "that's what's
+made the colors so fine, I suppose."
+
+"Becky, do not taunt me," Mr. Ricketty answered, reproachfully. "This is
+a sad hour to me. What'll you give for it?"
+
+"Where did it come from?" asked Becky, shrewdly. "We like to know what
+we're doing when we buy pearl necklaces at retail."
+
+"It was my mother's," replied Mr. Ricketty, touching his handkerchief to
+his eyes. "When she breathed her last she placed these pearls about my
+neck. 'Stephen,' she said, 'keep them for my sake.'"
+
+Becky hesitated. Not that she was at all impressed with this story of
+how the necklace came into Mr. Ricketty's possession. She was fully
+alive to the risk she ran in entering into any bargain with gentlemen of
+Mr. Ricketty's appearance, but the luster of the pearls burned in
+Becky's eyes.
+
+"Well," she said, with a vast assumption of indifference, "I'll give you
+fifty dollars for them."
+
+Mr. Ricketty cast forth at her one long, scornful look and then started
+to go out.
+
+"Oh, well," she called after him, "I'll be liberal. I'll make it a
+hundred."
+
+"No, Becky, you wont. You'll not get that glorious relic for the price
+of a champagne supper. I will die. I will take my pearls and go and jump
+off the bridge, and together we'll float with the turning tide out into
+the blue sea. Adieu, Rebecca, so beautiful and yet so cold, adieu! How
+could Heaven have made thy face so fair, thine eyes so full of light,
+thy ruddy lips so merry, but thy heart so hard! I press thy hand for
+the last time, fair Rebecca--"
+
+"Well, I like that," cried Becky; "seeing that it's the first. You're
+very gay for a man of your years, and you'd best keep your fine words
+for them that wants 'em,--_I_ don't"; and Becky withdrew her hand,
+detaining, however, the pearls within it.
+
+Becky was not ill-favored. Her black, silky hair, as fine as a Skye
+terrier's, curled around a comely head. Her complexion was soft and
+dark, and her figure light and easy in its movement. These
+peculiarities, together with her way of fondling the pearls, did not
+escape Mr. Ricketty's calculating observation.
+
+"Becky," he began blandly.
+
+"Who told you to call me 'Becky'?" she angrily demanded.
+
+"Daughter of Canaan, lend me thine ear, itself as fair as any of these
+gems of the Southern Sea."
+
+"Oh, come off!" said Becky.
+
+"It has cost me many pangs to bring these jewels here--"
+
+"And you're going to sell them at so much the pang, I s'pose."
+
+"For hours together have I walked up and down the Bowery, trying to
+rouse my feeble courage. But when I would stop under the three golden
+balls, I seemed to see a sneer on every passer's lips. They were all
+saying, 'There goes Steve Ricketty, about to sell his fond mother's
+pearls.' The thought choked me, Becky, it burned my filial heart."
+
+"Don't seem as if it did your cheek no harm," observed Becky dryly.
+
+"But when I saw your face through the window there, so beautiful and
+sympathetic, I said to myself, 'There is a true woman. She will feel for
+me and my grief.' Suppose we make it two hundred and fifty. Come, Becky,
+the pearls are yours for two hundred and fifty."
+
+"I wont."
+
+"Am I deceived? No, no, it can't be true. I will not believe--"
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you two hundred to get rid of
+you."
+
+Mr. Ricketty picked up a little hand-glass that lay upon the counter and
+placed it before her face.
+
+"Look there," he said, "and tell me what it is that makes Rebecca so
+heartless. Not those lustrous eyes, so frank and warm; not that--"
+
+"Oh, now, stop that."
+
+"Not that sensitive, shapely nose--"
+
+"Well, I thank goodness it's got no such bulge on it as yours."
+
+"Not those refined lips, arched like the love-god's bow and many times
+as dangerous; not those cheeks--those soft peach-tinted cheeks, telling
+in dainty blushes--"
+
+"Oh, six bright stars!"
+
+"Of a soul pure as a sunbeam--"
+
+"Now, I want you to stop and go 'way. I wont take your old pearls at any
+price."
+
+"Not that brow--that fair, enameled brow--nor yet that creamy throat.
+Think, sweet Becky, just how these pearls would look clasped with their
+diamond catch about that creamy throat. I fear to show you lest their
+luster pale. But yet, I will! See!" and catching up the jewels he threw
+them about her neck and held the glass steadily before her.
+
+Becky looked. It was evidently not a new idea to Becky. She had all
+along been considering just the situation Mr. Ricketty proposed, and
+when he finally dropped the pearls and struck an attitude of profound
+admiration, Becky snatched the prize from her neck, slid it into a
+drawer under the counter, and drew a leather purse from the safe behind
+her. She had begun to count out the money, when a figure passing the
+window caught her eye.
+
+"There!" she said sharply. "You've been bothering me so long that Ike's
+come back, and we've got to go through a scene. Two hundred and fifty
+dollars! It'll break Ike's heart."
+
+Mr. Ricketty snatched the pocket-book from her hands, coolly extracted
+bills to the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars, returned the book,
+and whipped out his handkerchief. As the Jew entered he beheld a man
+leaning against his counter holding a wad of greenbacks in his hand and
+sobbing violently.
+
+Apparently summoning all his resolution, Mr. Ricketty dried his eyes and
+fervently grasped the money-lender's hand.
+
+"Ikey, my boy," he said, "I leave my all with you. I go from your door,
+Ikey, like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted. I have sold
+you my birthright, dear boy, for a mess of pottage--a mere mess of
+pottage--a paltry two hundred and fifty dollars."
+
+Ikey turned pale. "Pecky!" he cried, "who vas der fool mans und vat he
+means apoudt der dwo huntered und feefty tollars, hey?"
+
+"Well may you call me a fool, Ikey; I can't deny it. I can't even lift
+my voice in protest. No man in his sober senses would have sold that
+necklace of glorious gems for such a miserable pittance. Here, Ikey,
+take back your money and give me my pearls."
+
+[Illustration: BECKY.]
+
+He held out the greenbacks with one hand, while with the other he placed
+his handkerchief to his eyes, of which with great dexterity he reserved
+a considerable corner for the purposes of observation. At the same
+time, Becky, well knowing that she had bought the pearls for a sum
+which, though probably more than her husband would have consented to
+give, was still far less than their value, handed him the necklace.
+
+The pawnbroker looked from money to jewels and from jewels to money with
+an expression of curiously mingled grief and greed. Finally, taking
+Ricketty by the coat-tails, he dragged him towards the door, saying, "I
+nefer go pack by anydings vat mine vife does, meester, but ven you haf
+shewels some more, yust coom along ven I vas der shtore py mineselluf,
+hey?"
+
+Mr. Ricketty shook his hand effusively. "I will, Ikey, I will. These
+women are very unsatisfactory to deal with. Au revoir, Ikey! Au revoir,
+madam!" and bowing with the utmost urbanity to the genial Becky, he
+strode into the street.
+
+It was easy to see, as Mr. Ricketty wandered aimlessly down the Bowery,
+that his humor was entirely amiable. The knobs of ruddy flesh under his
+twinkling black eyes were encircled by a set of merry wrinkles, and his
+mustache had expanded far across his face.
+
+[Illustration: THE PAWNBROKER.]
+
+He had gone as far as Canal Street, and was just about to turn the
+corner, when he heard a low, chirping sort of whistle. All in a second
+his face changed its expression. The merry wrinkles melted and his
+mustache drew itself compactly together. But he did not turn his head or
+alter his gait. He walked on for several steps until he heard the
+whistle again, and this time its tone was sharp. He stopped, wheeled
+around, and encountered two men.
+
+One of these was a darkly tinted, strongly built man, with big brown
+eyes, tremendous arms, and an oppressive manner. To him Mr. Ricketty at
+once addressed himself.
+
+"Ah, my dear Inspector!" he cried gayly. "I'm amazingly happy to see
+you. You're looking so well and hearty."
+
+"Yes, Steve," replied the darkly tinted man, "I'm feeling fairly well,
+Steve, and how is it with you?"
+
+"So, so."
+
+"I haven't happened to meet you recently, Steve."
+
+"Well, no, Inspector. I've been West, but my brother's death--"
+
+"I never knew you had a brother, Steve?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Inspector; and a charming fellow he was. He died last week
+and--"
+
+"Was he honest, Steve?"
+
+"As honest as a quart measure."
+
+"And did he tell the truth?"
+
+"Like a sun-dial."
+
+"Then it's an almighty pity he died, for you need that kind of man in
+your family, Steve."
+
+Mr. Ricketty closed one of his little black eyes, and drew down the ends
+of his mustache, but beyond this indirect method of communicating his
+thoughts he made no reply to this observation.
+
+"I suppose you're not contemplating a very long stay in the city,
+Steve?" suggested the Inspector.
+
+"N--n--no," said Mr. Ricketty.
+
+"You seem in doubt?"
+
+"No, I guess I'll return to the West this afternoon."
+
+"Well, on the whole, I shouldn't wonder if that wouldn't be best. Your
+brother's estate can be settled up, I fancy, without you?"
+
+"It aint very large."
+
+"Well, then, good-by, Steve, and, mind now, this afternoon."
+
+"All right, Inspector; good-by!"
+
+As Mr. Ricketty disappeared down Canal Street, the inspector of police
+turned to his friend and said: "That fellow was a clergyman once, and
+they say he used to preach brilliant sermons."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+MR. JAYRES.
+
+
+[Illustration: B]
+
+Bootsey Biggs was a Boy. From the topmost hair of his shocky head to the
+nethermost sole of his tough little feet, Bootsey Biggs was a Boy.
+Bootsey was on his way to business. He had come to his tenement home in
+Cherry Street, just below Franklin Square, to partake of his noonday
+meal. He had climbed five flights of tenement-house stairs, equal to
+about thirty flights of civilized stairs, and procuring the key of his
+mother's room from Mrs. Maguinness, who lived in the third room beyond,
+where it was always left when Mrs. Biggs went out to get her papers, he
+had entered within the four walls that he called his home.
+
+Spread upon the little pine table that stood in one corner was his
+luncheon all ready for him, and after clambering into the big dry-goods
+box originally purchased for a coal-bin, but converted under the stress
+of a recent emergency into the baby's crib, and after kissing and poking
+and mauling and squeezing the poor little baby into a mild convulsion,
+Bootsey had gone heartily at work upon his luncheon.
+
+He was now satisfied. His stomach was full of boiled cabbage, and his
+soul was full of peace. He clambered back into the dry-goods box and
+renewed his guileless operations on the baby. By all odds the baby was
+the most astonishing thing that had ever come under Bootsey's
+observation, and the only time during which Bootsey was afforded a fair
+and uninterrupted opportunity of examining the baby was that period of
+the day which Mr. Jayres, Bootsey's employer, was wont to term "the
+noonday hour."
+
+Long before Bootsey came home for his luncheon, Mrs. Biggs was off for
+her stand in front of "The Sun" building, where she conducted a large
+and, let us hope, a lucrative business in the afternoon newspapers, so
+that Bootsey and the baby were left to enjoy the fulness of each other's
+society alone and undisturbed.
+
+To Bootsey's mind the baby presented a great variety of psychological
+and other problems. He wondered what could be the mental operation that
+caused it to kink its nose in that amazing manner, why it should
+manifest such a persistent desire to swallow its fist, what could be the
+particular woe and grievance that suddenly possessed its little soul and
+moved it to pucker up its mouth and yell as though it saw nothing but
+despair as its earthly portion?
+
+Bootsey had debated these and similar questions until two beats upon the
+clock warned him that, even upon the most liberal calculation, the
+noonday hour must be looked upon as gone. Then he rolled the baby up in
+one corner of the box and started back to the office.
+
+It was Mr. Absalom Jayres's office to which Bootsey's way tended, and a
+peculiarity about it that had impressed both Mr. Jayres and Bootsey was
+that Bootsey could perform a given distance of which it was the
+starting-point in at least one-tenth the time required to perform the
+same distance of which it was the destination. This was odd, but true.
+
+After taking leave of the baby and locking it in, all snugly smothered
+at the bottom of its dry-goods box, Bootsey delivered the key of the
+room to Mrs. Maguinness and descended into the court. Here he found two
+other boys involved in a difficulty. Things had gone so far that
+Bootsey saw it would be a waste of time to try to ascertain the merits
+of the controversy--his only and obvious duty being to hasten the
+crisis.
+
+"Hi! Shunks!" he cried, "O'll betcher Jakey kin lick ye!"
+
+The rapidity with which this remark was followed by offensive movements
+on Shunks's part proved how admirably it had been judged.
+
+"Kin he!" screamed Shunks. "He's nawfin' but a Sheeny two-fer!"
+
+Jakey needed no further provocation, and with great dexterity he crowded
+his fists into Shunks's eyes, deposited his head in Shunks's stomach,
+and was making a meritorious effort to climb upon Shunks's shoulders,
+when a lordly embodiment of the law's majesty hove gracefully into
+sight. Bootsey yelled a shrill warning, and himself set the example of
+flight.
+
+While passing under the Brooklyn Bridge Bootsey met a couple of
+Chinamen, and moved by a sudden inspiration he grabbed the cue of one of
+them, and both he and the Chinaman precipitately sat down. Bootsey
+recovered quickly and in a voice quivering with rage he demanded to know
+what the Chinaman had done that for. A large crowd immediately assembled
+and lent its interest to the solution of this question. It was in vain
+that the Chinaman protested innocence of any aggressive act or
+thought. The crowd's sympathies were with Bootsey, and when he insisted
+that the Mongol had tangled him up in his pig-tail, the aroused populace
+with great difficulty restrained its desire to demolish the amazed
+heathens. At last, however, they were permitted to go, followed by a
+rabble of urchins, and Bootsey proceeded on his way to the office.
+
+[Illustration: HE GRABBED THE CUE OF ONE OF THEM.]
+
+Many other interruptions retarded his progress. He had not gone far
+before he was invited into a game of ball, and this, of course, could
+not be neglected. The game ending in a general conflict of the players,
+caused by Bootsey's falling on top of another boy, whom he utterly
+refused to let up unless it should be admitted that the flattened
+unfortunate was "out," he issued from the turmoil in time to join in an
+attack upon a peanut roaster and to avail himself largely of the spoils.
+Enriched with peanuts, he had got as far as the City Hall Park when a
+drunken man attracted his attention, and he assisted actively in an
+effort to convince the drunken man that the Mayor's office was the ferry
+to Weehawken. It was while engaged in giving these disinterested
+assurances that he felt himself lifted off his feet by a steady pull at
+his ears, and looking up he beheld Mr. Jayres.
+
+"You unmitigated little rascal!" cried Mr. Jayres, "where've you been?"
+
+"Nowhere," said Bootsey, in an injured tone.
+
+"Didn't I tell you to get back promptly?"
+
+"Aint I a-getting' back?"
+
+"Aint you a-get--whew!" roared Mr. Jayres, with the utmost exasperation,
+"how I'd like to tan your plaguey little carcass till it was black and
+blue! Come on, now," and Mr. Jayres strode angrily ahead.
+
+Bootsey followed. He offered no reply to this savage expression, but
+from his safe position in the rear he grinned amiably.
+
+Mr. Jayres was large and dark and dirty. His big fat face, shaped like a
+dumpling, wore a hard and ugly expression. Small black eyes sat under
+his low, expansive forehead. His cheeks and chin were supposed to be
+shaven, and perhaps that experience may occasionally have befallen them.
+His costume was antique. Around his thick neck he wore a soiled choker.
+His waistcoat was low, and from it protruded the front of a fluted
+shirt. A dark-blue swallow-tail coat with big buttons and a high collar
+wrapped his huge body, and over his shoulders hung a heavy mass of black
+hair, upon which his advanced age had made but a slight impression.
+
+[Illustration: "WE'VE CALLED," SAID THE MAN, SLOWLY.]
+
+His office was upon the top floor of a building in Murray Street. It
+was a long, low room. Upon its door was fastened a battered tin sign
+showing the words: "Absalom Jayres, Counsellor." The walls and ceiling
+were covered with dusty cobwebs. In one end of the room stood an old
+wood stove, and near it was a pile of hickory sticks. A set of shelves
+occupied a large portion of the wall, bearing many volumes, worn, dusty,
+and eaten with age.
+
+Among them were books of the English peerage, records of titled
+families, reports of the Court of Chancery in hundreds of testamentary
+cases, scrap-books full of newspaper clippings concerning American
+claimants to British fortunes, lists of family estates in Great Britain
+and Ireland, and many other works bearing upon heraldry, the laws of
+inheritance, and similar subjects.
+
+Upon the walls hung charts showing the genealogical trees of illustrious
+families, tracing the descent of Washington, of Queen Victoria, and of
+other important personages. There was no covering on the floor except
+that which had accumulated by reason of the absence of broom and mop. A
+couple of tables, a few dilapidated chairs, a pitcher and a basin, were
+about all the furniture that the room contained.
+
+Being elderly and huge, it required far more time for Mr. Jayres to make
+the ascent to his office than for Bootsey. Having this fact in mind,
+Bootsey sat down upon the first step of the first flight, intending to
+wait until Mr. Jayres had at least reached the final flight before he
+started up at all. He failed to communicate his resolution, however, and
+when Mr. Jayres turned about upon the third floor, hearing no footsteps
+behind him, he stopped. He frowned. He clinched his fist and swore.
+
+"There'll be murder on me," he said, "I know there will, if that Boy
+don't do better! Now, where the pestering dickens can he be?"
+
+Mr. Jayres leaned over the bannister and started to call. "Boo--" he
+roared, and then checked himself. "Drat such a name as that," he said.
+"Who ever heard of a civilized Boy being called Bootsey? What'll people
+think to see a man of my age hanging over a bannister yelling 'Bootsey'!
+No, I must go down and hunt him up. I wonder why I keep that Boy? I
+wonder why I do it?"
+
+Mr. Jayres turned, and with a heavy sigh he began to descend to the
+street. On the second landing he met Bootsey smoking a cigarette and
+whistling. Mr. Jayres did not fly into a passion. He did not grow red
+and frantic. He just took Bootsey by the hand and led him, step by step,
+up the rest of the way to the office. He drew him inside, shut the door,
+and led him over to his own table. Then he sat down, still holding
+Bootsey's hand, and waited until he had caught his breath.
+
+"Now, then," he said, at last.
+
+"Yez'r," said Bootsey.
+
+"You're a miserable little rogue!" said Mr. Jayres.
+
+Bootsey held his peace.
+
+"I've stood your deviltries till I've got no patience left, and now I'm
+going to discharge you!"
+
+"Aw, don't," said Bootsey.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Jayres, "I will; if I don't, the end of it all will be
+murder. Some time or other I'll be seized of a passion, and there's no
+telling what'll happen. There's your two dollars to the end of the
+week--now, go!"
+
+"Aw, now," said Bootsey, "wot's de use? I aint done nawfin'. 'Fi gets
+bounced mom'll drub me awful! You said you wanted me to take a letter up
+to Harlem dis afternoon."
+
+"Yes, you scamp! And here's the afternoon half gone."
+
+"O'll have it dere in less 'n no time," pleaded Bootsey.
+
+Mr. Jayres scowled hard at Bootsey and hesitated. But finally he drew
+the letter from the drawer of his table and handed it over, saying as he
+did so, "If you aint back here by 5 o'clock, I'll break every bone in
+your body!"
+
+Bootsey left the office with great precipitation, and as he closed the
+door behind him, Mr. Jayres glared morosely at a knot-hole in the floor.
+"Funny about that boy!" he said reflectively. "I don't know as I ever
+gave in to any living human being before that Boy came along in all my
+life."
+
+Mr. Jayres turned to his table and began to write, but was almost
+immediately interrupted by a knock upon the door. He called out a
+summons to enter, and two people, a man and a woman, came in. The man
+was large, stolid, and rather vacant in his expression. The woman was
+small and quick and sharp.
+
+"Well, sir," said Mr. Jayres.
+
+The woman poked the man and told him to speak.
+
+"We've called--" said the man slowly.
+
+"About your advertisement in the paper," added the woman quickly.
+
+"Which paper?" asked Mr Jayres.
+
+"Where's the paper?" asked the man, turning to the woman.
+
+"Here," she replied, producing it.
+
+"Oh, yes, I see," said Mr. Jayres, "it's about the Bugwug estate. What
+is your name, sir?"
+
+"His name is Tobey, and I'm Mrs. Tobey, and we keeps the Gallinipper
+Laundry, sir, which is in Washington Place, being a very respectable
+neighborhood, though the prices is low owing to competition of a party
+across the street."
+
+"Now, Maggie," said the man, "let me talk."
+
+"Who's hindering you from talking, Tobey? I'm not, and that's certain.
+The gentleman wanted to know who we were, and I've told him. He'd been a
+week finding out from you."
+
+"Come, come," said Mr. Jayres sharply, "let's get to business."
+
+"That's what I said," replied Mrs. Tobey, "while I was putting on my
+things to come down town. 'Tobey,' says I, 'get right to business. Don't
+be wasting the gentleman's time,' which he always does, sir, halting and
+hesitating and not knowing what to say, nor ever coming to the point.
+'It's bad manners,' says I, 'and what's more, these lawyers,' says I,
+'which is very sharp folks, wont stand it,' says I. But I don't suppose
+I done him much good, for he's always been that way, sir, though I'm
+sure I've worked my best to spur him up. But a poor, weak woman can't do
+everything, though you'd think he thought so, if--"
+
+"Oh, now stop, stop, stop!" cried Mr. Jayres, "you mustn't run on so.
+Your name is Tobey and you have called about the Bugwug property. Well,
+now, what of it?"
+
+"I want to know is there any money in it," answered Mr. Tobey.
+
+"Now, if you please, sir, just listen to that," cried Mrs. Tobey
+pityingly. "He wants to know is there money in it! Why, of course,
+there's money in it, Tobey. You're a dreadful trial to me, Tobey. Didn't
+the gentleman's advertisement say there was 500,000 pounds in it? Aint
+that enough? Couldn't you and me get along on 500,000 pounds, or even
+less, on a pinch?"
+
+"But the question is," said Mr. Jayres, "what claim you have on the
+Bugwug property. Are you descended from Timothy Bugwug, and if so, how
+directly and in what remove?"
+
+"That's what we wants you to tell us, sir," replied Mr. Tobey.
+
+"Why, we supposed you'd have it all settled," added his wife. "Aint you
+a lawyer?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm a lawyer," Mr. Jayres suavely replied, "and I can tell you
+what your claim is if I know your relationship to Timothy Bugwug. He
+died in 1672, leaving four children, Obediah, Martin, Ezekiel, and
+Sarah. Obediah died without issue. Martin and Sarah came to America, and
+Ezekiel was lost at sea before he had married. Now then, where do you
+come in?"
+
+"My mother--" said Mr. Tobey.
+
+"Was a Bugwug," said Mrs. Tobey. "There's no doubt at all but what all
+that money belongs to us, and if you've got it you must pay it right
+away to us, for plenty of use we have for it with six young children
+a-growing up and prospects of another come April, which as regards me is
+terrible to think of, though, I suppose, I shouldn't repine, seeing that
+it's the Lord's will that woman should suffer, which, I must say, it
+seems to me that they have more than their fair share. However, I don't
+blame Tobey, for he's a fine man, and a hard-working one, if he hasn't
+got the gift of speech and is never able to come to the point, though
+that's not for the lack of having it dinged into his ears, for if I says
+it once I says it fifty times a day, 'Tobey, will you come to the
+point?'"
+
+Mr. Jayres took up his pen. "Well, let's see," he said. "What is your
+full name, Mr. Tobey?"
+
+"William Tobey, sir. I am the son of--"
+
+"Jonathan Tobey and Henrietta Bugwug," continued the lady, "it being so
+stated in the marriage license which the minister said was for my
+protection, and bears the likeness of Tobey on one side and mine on the
+other and clasped hands in the center signifying union, and is now in
+the left-hand corner of the sixth shelf from the bottom in the china
+closet and can be produced at any time if it's needful. I've kept it
+very careful."
+
+"Whose daughter was Henrietta Bugwug?" asked Mr. Jayres.
+
+"Tobey's grandfather's, sir, a very odd old gentleman, though blind,
+which he got from setting off fireworks on a Fourth of July, and nearly
+burned the foot off the blue twin, called blue from the color of his
+eyes, the other being dark-blue, which is the only way we have of
+telling 'em apart, except that one likes cod liver oil and the other
+don't, and several times when the blue twin's been sick the dark-blue
+twin has got all the medicine by squinting up his eyes so as I couldn't
+make him out and pretending it was him that had the colic, and Mr.
+Bugwug, that's Tobey's grandfather, lives in Harlem all by himself,
+because he says there's too much noise and talking in our flat, and I
+dare say there is, though I don't notice it."
+
+"In Harlem, eh? When did you first hear that you had an interest in the
+Bugwug estates?"
+
+"Oh, ever so long, and we'd have had the money long ago if it hadn't
+been that a church burned down a long time ago somewhere in Virginia
+where one of the Bugwugs married somebody and all the records were lost,
+though I don't see what that had to do with it, because Tobey's here all
+ready to take the property, and it stands to reason that he wouldn't
+have been here unless that wedding had 'a' happened without they mean to
+insult us, which they'd better not, and wont, if they know when they are
+well off," and at the very thought of such a thing Mrs. Tobey tossed her
+head angrily.
+
+"I see," said Mr. Jayres, "I see. And you want me to take the matter in
+hand, I suppose, and see if I can recover the money, eh?"
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Tobey, in a disappointed tone, "I thought from the
+piece in the paper that the money was all ready for us."
+
+"You mustn't be so impatient," soothingly responded Mr. Jayres, laying
+his fat finger on his fat cheek and smiling softly. "All in good time.
+All in good time. The money's where it's safe. You only need to
+establish your right to it. We must fetch a suit in the Court of
+Chancery, and that I'll do at once upon looking up the facts. Of
+course--er--there'll be a little fee."
+
+"A little what?" said Mr. Tobey.
+
+"A little which?" said Mrs. Tobey.
+
+[Illustration: "A LITTLE FEE," SAID MR. JAYRES, SMILING SWEETLY.]
+
+"A little fee," said Mr. Jayres, smiling sweetly. "A mere trifle, I
+assure you; just enough to defray expenses--say--er--a hundred dollars."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" cried Mrs. Tobey. "This is vexing. To think of coming
+down town, Tobey, dear, with the expectations of going back rich, and
+then going back a hundred dollars poorer than we were. I really don't
+think we'd better do it, Tobey?"
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Jayres, "but think also of the fortune. Two millions and
+a half! Isn't that worth spending a few hundred dollars for? Just put
+your mind on it, ma'am."
+
+"I've had my mind on it ever since I seen your piece in the paper,"
+replied Mrs. Tobey, "and a hundred dollars does seem, as you say, little
+enough to pay for two millions and a half, which would be all I'd ask or
+wish for, and would put us where we belong, Tobey, which is not in the
+laundry line competing with an unscrupulous party across the street,
+though I don't mention names, which perhaps I ought, for the public
+ought to be warned. It's a party that hasn't any honor at all--"
+
+"I'm sure not," said Mr. Jayres sympathetically. "He is, without doubt,
+a dirty dog."
+
+"Oh, it isn't a he," Mrs. Tobey replied, "the party is a her."
+
+[Illustration: "THE PARTY IS A HER," SAID MRS. TOBEY.]
+
+"Of course, of course," said Mr. Jayres. "And to think that you have to
+put up with the tricks of a female party directly across the street.
+Why, it's shameful, ma'am! But if you had that two millions, as you just
+observed, all that would be over."
+
+"Two million and a half I thought you said it was," said Mrs. Tobey
+rather sharply.
+
+"Oh, yes, and a half--and a half," the lawyer admitted in a tone of
+indifference, as much as to say that there should be no haggling about
+the odd $500,000. "What a pretty pile it is, Mrs. Tobey?"
+
+"I don't know, Tobey, but what we'd better do it," Mrs. Tobey said after
+a pause. "It aint so very much when you think of what we're to get for
+it."
+
+"That's the right way to look at it, ma'am. I'll just draw up the
+receipt, and to-morrow I'll call at the Gallinipper Laundry to get some
+further particulars necessary to help me make out the papers."
+
+Mr. Tobey seemed to be somewhat at a loss to know precisely what was the
+net result of the proceedings in which he had thus far taken so small a
+part, but upon being directed by Mrs. Tobey to produce the hundred
+dollars, he ventured a feeble remonstrance. This was immediately checked
+by Mrs. Tobey, who assured him that he knew nothing whatever about such
+matters and never could come to the point, which he ought to be able to
+do by this time, for nobody could say but that she had done her part. At
+last two fifty-dollar bills were deposited in Mr. Jayres's soft palm and
+a bit of writing was handed over to Mrs. Tobey in exchange for them; and
+followed by Mr. Jayres's warm insistence that they had never done a
+better thing in their lives, the Tobeys withdrew.
+
+It was nearly six o'clock when the door of Mr. Jayres's office opened
+again and the shocky head of Bootsey appeared. Mr. Jayres was waiting
+for him.
+
+"Here you are at last, you wretched little scamp!" he cried. "Didn't I
+tell you I'd whale you if you weren't back by five o'clock?"
+
+"I come jest as soon 's I could," said Bootsey. "He was a werry fly ole
+gen'l'man."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He said he didn't hev no doubts but wot you was a reg'lar villyum an'
+swin'ler, an' cheat an' blackmailer, an' ef he had de user his eyes an'
+legs he'd come down yere an' han' you over ter de coppers; dat you aint
+smart enuff ter get no money outer him, fer he's bin bled by sich coveys
+like you all he's a-going ter bleed, an' dat he don't b'lieve dere is
+any sech ting as de Bugwug estate nohow, an' ef yer wants ter keep
+outen jail yer'd better let him an' his folks alone."
+
+Mr. Jayres scowled until it seemed as if his black eyebrows would meet
+his bristly upper lip, and then he said: "Bootsey, before you come to
+the office to-morrow morning you'd better go to the Gallinipper Laundry
+in Washington Place, and tell a man named Tobey who keeps it,
+that--er--that I've gone out of town for a few days, Bootsey, on a
+pressing matter of business."
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+BLUDOFFSKI.
+
+
+The friends of Mr. Richard O'Royster always maintained that he was the
+best of good fellows. Many, indeed, went so far as to say he had no
+faults whatever; and while such an encomium seems, on the face of it, to
+be extravagant, its probability is much strengthened by the fact that
+whatever he had they always came into the possession of sooner or later.
+If he had any faults, therefore, they must have known it. They would
+never have allowed anything so valuable as a fault to escape them.
+
+Mr. O'Royster was sitting, one afternoon, in the private office of his
+bankers, Coldpin & Breaker. Mr. Coldpin sat with him, discussing the
+advisability of his investing $250,000 in the bonds of the East and West
+Telegraph Company. It was a safe investment, in Mr. Coldpin's judgment,
+and Mr. O'Royster was about to order the transaction carried out, when
+the office door was thrust open and a long, black-bearded, wiry-haired,
+savage-looking man walked in.
+
+[Illustration: BLUDOFFSKI.]
+
+His head was an irregular hump set fixedly on his shoulders so that
+one almost expected to hear it creak when he moved it. His eyes were
+little, and curiously stuck on either side of his thick, stumpy nose, as
+if it were only by the merest accident that they hadn't taken a position
+back of his ears or up in his forehead or down in his hollow cheeks. His
+entrance put a sudden and disagreeable stop to the conversation. Mr.
+O'Royster adjusted his eyeglass and looked with a sort of serene
+curiosity at the man. Mr. Coldpin moved nervously in his chair.
+
+"Vell," the fellow said, after a pause, "I haf come to sbeak mit you."
+
+"You come very often," replied Mr. Coldpin in a mildly remonstrative
+tone.
+
+No answer was returned to this suggestion. The intruder simply settled
+himself on his feet in an obstinate sort of way.
+
+Mr. Coldpin produced a dollar-bill and handed it over, remarking
+testily, "There, now, I'm very busy!"
+
+"Nein, nein!" said the man. "It vas not enough!"
+
+"Not enough?"
+
+"I vants dwenty tollar."
+
+"Oh, come now; this wont do at all. You mustn't bother me so. I can't
+be--"
+
+The man did something with his mouth. Possibly he smiled. Possibly he
+was malevolently disposed. At all events, whatever his motive or his
+humor, he did something with his mouth, and straightway his two rows of
+teeth gleamed forth, his eyes changed their position and also their hue,
+and the hollows in his cheeks became caverns.
+
+"Great Cćsar!" cried Mr. O'Royster. "Look here, my good fellow, now
+don't! If you must have the money, we'll try to raise it. Don't do that.
+Take in your teeth, my man, take 'em in right away, and we'll see what
+we can do about the twenty."
+
+He composed his mouth, reducing it to its normal dimensions and
+arranging it in its normal shape, whereupon Mr. O'Royster, drawing a
+roll of bills from his pocket, counted out twenty dollars.
+
+Mr. Coldpin interposed. "You may naturally think, O'Royster," he
+observed quietly, "that this man has some hold upon me by which he is in
+a position to extort money. There is no such phase to this remarkable
+case. I owe him nothing. He is simply in the habit of coming here and
+demanding money, which I have let him have from time to time in small
+sums to--well, get rid of him. I think, though, that it's time to stop.
+You must not give him that $20. I won't permit it. Put it back in--"
+
+[Illustration: "IT WOULDN'T HURT HIM TO SHOOT HIM."]
+
+The man did something else in a facial way just as defiant of analysis
+as his previous contortion and equally effective on Mr. O'Royster's
+nerves. He moved toward Mr. O'Royster and held up his hand for the
+money. It was slowly yielded up, and without so much as an
+acknowledgment, the man thrust it into his pocket and stalked out.
+
+Mr. O'Royster watched his misshapen body as it disappeared through the
+entry. Then he gazed at the banker and finally remarked: "Can't say that
+your friend pleases me, Coldpin."
+
+"To tell the truth, O'Royster, I live in mortal terror of that creature.
+He followed me into this room from the street one day and demanded,
+rather than begged, some money. I scarcely noticed him, telling him I
+had nothing, when he did something that attracted my attention, and the
+next minute my flesh began to creep, my backbone began to shake, and I
+thought I should have spasms. I gave him a handful of change and off he
+went. Since then, as I told you, he has been coming here every month or
+so. I'm going to move next May into a building where I can have a more
+guarded office."
+
+"Odd tale!" said Mr. O'Royster, "deuced odd. Why don't you get a
+pistol?"
+
+"Well, I have a sort of feeling that it wouldn't hurt him to shoot him.
+Of course it would, you know, but still--"
+
+"Yes, I know what you mean. He certainly does look as if a pistol would
+be no adequate defense against him. What you want is a nice,
+self-cocking, automatic thunderbolt."
+
+They changed the subject, returning to their interrupted business, and
+having concluded that they talked on until it had grown quite late.
+
+"By Jove!" cried Mr. O'Royster, glancing at his watch, "it's half-past
+six, and I've a dinner engagement at the club at seven. I must be off.
+Ring for a cab, wont you?"
+
+The cab arrived in a few moments and Mr. O'Royster hurried out. "Drive
+me to the Union Club," he said, "and whip up lively."
+
+He sprang in, the cab started off with a whirl, and he turned in his
+seat to let down the window. A startled look came into his face.
+
+"It's too dark to see well," he said to himself, "and this thing bounces
+like a tugboat in a gale, but if that ourang-outang wasn't standing
+under that gaslight yonder, I'll be hanged!"
+
+Mr. O'Royster's was the sort of mind that dwelt lightly and briefly on
+subjects affecting it disagreeably, and long before he reached the club
+it had left the ourang-outang far in the distance. In the presence of a
+jolly company, red-headed duck, burgundy and champagne, it had room for
+nothing but wit and frolic, to which its inclinations always strongly
+tended.
+
+The night had far advanced when Mr. O'Royster left the club. He turned
+into Fifth Avenue, journeying toward Twenty-third Street, and had walked
+about half the distance when he felt a touch upon his arm. Mr. O'Royster
+was in that condition when his mental senses acted more quickly than his
+physical senses. Bringing his eyes to bear upon the spot where he felt
+the touch, he made out the shape of a big, dirty hand, and following it
+and the arm above it, he presently ascertained that a man was close at
+his elbow. He spent several minutes scrutinizing the man's face, and
+finally he said:
+
+"Ah, I shee. Beg pawdon, dear boy, f'not 'bsherving you b'fore. Mos'
+happy to renew zhe 'quaintance so auspishously begun 'saffer-noon.
+H--hic!--'ope you're feeling well. By zhe way, ol' f'llaw, wha' zhure
+name?"
+
+"Bludoffski."
+
+"Razzer hard name t' pronounce, but easy one t' 'member. Glad 'tain't
+Dobbins. 'F zenny sing I hate, 's name like Dobb'ns, 'r Wobb'ns, 'r
+Wigg'ns. Some-pin highly unconventional in name of Bludoffski. Mr.
+Bludoffski, kindly 'cept 'shurances of my--rhic!--gard!"
+
+Mr. Bludoffski executed a facial maneuver intended possibly for a smile.
+It excited Mr. O'Royster's attention directly.
+
+"Doffski!" he said, stopping shortly and balancing himself on his legs,
+"are you sure you're feelin' quite well?"
+
+"Yah, puty vell."
+
+"Zere's no great sorrer gnawin' chure vitals, is zere, Moffski?"
+
+"I vas all ride."
+
+"Not sufferin' f'om any mad r'gret, 'r misplaced love, 'rensing zat
+kind, eh, Woffski?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Feeling jush sames' ushyal?"
+
+"Yah."
+
+"Zen 'sall right. Don't 'pol'gize, 's all right. Zere was somepin' 'n
+you're looksh made me shink p'raps yu's feeling trifle in'sposed. I am,
+an' didn't know but what you might be same way. You may've noticed 't
+I'm jush trifle--er, well, some people ud shay zhrunk, Toffski--rude 'n'
+dish'gree'ble people dshay zhrunk. P'raps zere 'bout half right,
+Woffski, but it's zhrude way of putting it. Now, zhen, I want t'ask you
+queshun. I ask ash frien'. Look 't me carefully and shay, on y'r honor,
+Loffski, where d'you shin' I'm mos' largely 'tossicated?"
+
+"In der legs," replied Mr. Bludoffski, promptly.
+
+"Shank you. 'S very kind. 'T may not be alt'gesser dignified to be
+'tossicated in zhe legs, but 's far besser'n if 'twas in zhe eyes.
+'Spise a man 'at looks drunk in's eyes. Pos'ively 'sgusting!"
+
+They had now reached Twenty-third Street, and following his companion's
+lead, O'Royster crossed unsteadily into Madison Square and through one
+of the park walks. Presently he halted.
+
+"By zhe way, Woffski," he said, "do you know where we're goin'?"
+
+"Yah."
+
+"Well, zat's what I call lucky. I'm free t' confesh I haven't gotter
+shingle idea. But 'f you know, 's all right. W'en a man feels himself
+slightly 'tossicated, 's nozzin' like bein' in comp'ny of f'law 'at
+knows where 's goin'. 'Parts a highly 'gree'ble feelin' 'f conf'dence.
+Don't wanter 'splay any 'pert'nent cur'osity, Boffski, but p'raps 's no
+harm in askin' where 'tis 'at you know you're goin'?"
+
+"Home."
+
+An expression of disgust crossed Mr. O'Royster's face. "Home?" he
+inquired. "D' you shay 'home,' Toffski? Haven't you got any uzzer place
+t' go? Wen a man'sh r'duced t' th' 'str--hic--remity 'f goin' home,
+must be in dev'lish hard luck."
+
+"Der vhy 've go home," said Bludoffski, "is dot I somedings haf I show
+you."
+
+"Ah. I shee. Za's diff'rent zing. You're goin' t'show me some-'zin',
+eh?"
+
+"Yah."
+
+"Picshur? Hope 'taint pichshur, Koffski. I'm ord'narily very fon' of
+art, but f'law needs good legs t' 'zamine picshur, an' I'm boun'ter
+confesh my legsh not just 'dapted t'--"
+
+"Nein."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"It vasn't noddings like dot."
+
+"'Taint china, is 't, Boffski? 'Taint Willow Pattern er Crown Derby er
+zat sorter zing? T' tell truth, Boffski, I aint mush on china. Some
+people go crashy at er shight er piece nicked china. My wife tol' me
+zuzzer day she saw piece Crown Derby 'n' fainted dead way, 'n' r'fused
+t' come to f'r half 'n hour. I said I'd give ton er Crown Derby for
+bashket champagne 'n' she didn't speak to me rester 'zhe week. Jush
+shows how shum people--"
+
+"Nein!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"It vasn't shina."
+
+"By zhove, you 'rouse my cur'os'ty, Woffski. If 'tain't picshur er
+piece pottery, wha' deuce is't?"
+
+"You shall see."
+
+"Myst'ry! Well, I'm great boy f'r myst'ries. Hullo! Zis, zh' place?"
+
+They had walked through Twenty-ninth Street, into Second Avenue, and had
+reached the center of a gloomy and dismal block. Directly in front of
+the gloomiest and most dismal house of all Bludoffski had suddenly
+stopped, and in answer to Mr. O'Royster's exclamation, he drew from his
+pocket a latch-key and opened the side door.
+
+The entry was dark, but the glimmer of a light was visible at the end of
+the hall. He did not speak, but motioned with his hand an invitation for
+Mr. O'Royster to go in. It was accepted, not, however, without a slight
+manifestation of reluctance. Mr. O'Royster's senses were somewhat
+clouded, but the shadows of the entry were dark enough to impress even
+him with a vague feeling of dread.
+
+Bludoffski shut the door behind them carefully and drew a bolt or two.
+Then he led the way down the hall toward the light. As they advanced
+voices were heard, one louder than the rest, which broke out in rude
+interruption, dying down into a sort of murmuring accompaniment.
+
+When they reached the end of the hall Bludoffski opened another door and
+they entered a large beer saloon. At a score of tables men were sitting,
+many apparently of German birth. They were smoking pipes, drinking beer,
+and listening to the hoarse voice of an orator standing in the furthest
+corner of the room.
+
+He was a little round man with little round eyes, a little round nose, a
+little round stomach, and little round legs. Though very small in
+person, his voice was formidable enough, and he appeared to be
+astonishingly in earnest.
+
+Bludoffski's entrance created a considerable stir. Several persons began
+to applaud, and some said, "Bravo! bravo!" One sharp-visaged and angular
+man with black finger-nails, spectacles, and a high tenor voice, cried
+out with a burst of enthusiasm, "Hail! Dear apostle uf luf!" a sentiment
+that brought out a general and spontaneous cheer. Mr. O'Royster,
+apparently under the impression that he was the object of these
+flattering attentions, bowed and smiled with the greatest cheerfulness
+and murmured something about this being the proudest moment of his life.
+He was on the point of addressing some remarks to the bartender, when
+the little round orator cut in with an energy quite amazing.
+
+[Illustration: "VE VILL SHTRIKE, MEIN PRUDERS!"]
+
+"Der zoshul refolushun haf gome, my prudders!" he said. "Der bowder
+vas all retty der match to be struck mit. Ve neet noddings but ter
+stretch out mit der hant und der victory dake. Der gabitalist fool
+himselluf. He say mit himselluf 'I haf der golt und der bower, hey?' He
+von pig fool. He dinks you der fool vas, und der eye uf him he vinks
+like der glown py der circus. But yust vait. Vait till der honest sons
+uf doil rise by deir might oop und smite der blow vich gif liperty to
+der millions!"
+
+At this there was a wild outburst of applause and a chorus of hoarse
+shouts: "Up mit der red flag!" "Strike now!" "Anarchy foreffer!"
+
+"Ve vill shtrike, mine prudders," continued the little round orator,
+growing very ardent and red in the face. "Ve vill no vait long. Ve vill
+kill! Ve vill burn! Ve vill der togs uf var loose und ride to driumph in
+der shariot uf fire. Ve vill deir housen pull down deir hets upoud, und
+der street will run mit der foul plood uf der gabitalist!"
+
+A mighty uproar arose at these gory suggestions, and would not be
+subdued until all the glasses had been refilled and the enthusiasm that
+had been aroused was quenched in beer.
+
+Mr. O'Royster had listened to these proceedings with some misgivings. He
+turned to his companion, who stood solemn and silent by his side, and
+observed:
+
+"D' I unnerstan' you t' say, Woffski, 't you 's goin' home?"
+
+"Yah."
+
+"Doncher zhink 's mos' time t' go?"
+
+"Ve vas dere now."
+
+"Home?"
+
+"Yah."
+
+"Can't say I'm pleased with your d'mestic surroundings, Boffski. Razzer
+too mush noise f' man of my temp'ment. Guesh I'll haffer bid you
+g'night, Boffski."
+
+"Nein."
+
+"Yesh, Boffski, mush go. Gotter 'gagement."
+
+"Vait. I haf not show you yet--"
+
+"T' tell truf, Moffski, I've seen 'nuff. 'F I wasser shee more, might
+not sleep well. Might have nightmare. Don't shink 's good f' me t' shee
+too much, ol' f'law."
+
+"Listen."
+
+The little round orator, refreshed and reinvigorated, began again.
+
+"You must arm yoursellef, my prudders. You must haf guns und powder und
+ball und--"
+
+"Dynamite!" yelled several.
+
+"Yah. Dot vas der drue veapon uf der zoshul refolushun. Dynamite! You
+must plenty haf. Ve must avenge der murder uf our brudders in Shegaco.
+Deir innocent plood gries ter heffen for revensh. A t'ousan' lifes vill
+not der benalty bay. Der goundry must pe drench mit plood. Den vill
+Anarchy reign subreme ofer de gabitalist vampire! Are you retty?"
+
+The whole crowd rose in a body, banged their glasses viciously on the
+tables in front of them and shouted: "Ve vas!"
+
+"Den lose no time to rouse your frients. Vake up der laporing mans all
+eferywhere. Gif dem blenty pomb und der sicnal vatch for, und ven it vas
+gif shoot und kill und spare nopoddy! Der time for vorts vas gone. Now
+der time vas for teets!"
+
+"Loffski," whispered Mr. O'Royster, "really must 'scuse me, Loffski, but
+'s time er go. I have sorter feelin' 's if I's gettin' 'tossercated in
+zhe eyes. Always know 's time er go when I have zat feelin'. F' I'd know
+chure home 's in place like zis I'd asked you t' go t' mine where zere's
+more r--hic--pose."
+
+There was a door behind them near the bar, and Bludoffski, opening it,
+motioned Mr. O'Royster to go in ahead. He obeyed, not without
+reluctance, and the Anarchist followed. Two tables covered with papers,
+a bed and several chairs were in the room, together with many little
+jars, bits of gaspipe, lumps of sulphur, phosphorus and lead.
+
+"Sit down," said Bludoffski.
+
+Mr. O'Royster sat.
+
+"I am an Anarchist," Bludoffski began.
+
+"'S very nice," Mr. O'Royster replied. "I 's zhinkin' uzzer day 'bout
+bein' Anarchis' m'self, but Mrs. O'Royster said she's 'fraid m' health
+washn't good 'nuff f' such--hic--heavy work."
+
+"You hear der vorts uf dot shbeaker und you see der faces uf der men.
+Vat you t'ink it mean? Hey? It mean var upon der reech. It mean Nye
+Yorick in ashes--"
+
+"Wha's use? Don't seem t' me s' t' would pay. Of course, ol' f'law,
+whatever you says, goes. But 't seems t' me--"
+
+"You can safe all dot var. You can der means be uf pringing aboud der
+reign uf anarchy mitout der shtrike uf von blow. Eferypody vill lif und
+pe habby."
+
+"Boffski," said Mr. O'Royster, after a pause, during which he seemed to
+be making a violent effort to gather his intellectual forces. "Zere's no
+doubt I'm 'tossercated in zhe eyes. W'en a man's eyes 'fected by
+champagne, he's liter'ly no good. Talk to me 'bout zis t'mor', Woffski.
+Subjec's too 'mportant to be d'scussed unner present conditions."
+
+"Nein! nein! You can safe der vorlt uf you vill. Von vort from you vill
+mean peace. Midoutdt dot vort oceans of plood vill be spill."
+
+"Woffski, you ev'dently zhink I zhrunker'n I am. I'm some zhrunk,
+Woffski, I know, _some_ zhrunk, but 'taint 's bad's you zhink."
+
+"I vill sbeak more blain."
+
+"Do, ol' f'law, 'f you please."
+
+"It vas selfishness vot der vorld make pad. It was being ignorant und
+selfish vot crime und bofferty pring to der many und vealth und ease to
+der few. Der beoples tondt see dot. Tey tondt know vot Anarchy mean. It
+vas all rest, all peace, nopoddy pad, no var, no bestilence. Dot is
+Anarchy, hey?
+
+"I haf my life gif to der cause uf Anarchy. I haf dravel der vorlt over
+shbeaking, wriding, delling der beoples to make vay for der zoshul
+refolushun. Uf dey vill not, ve must der reech kill. We must remofe dem
+vich stand py der roat und stay der march of civilization. Some say
+'Make haste! kill! kill!' I say, 'Nein, vait, gif der wretched beoples
+some chance to be safe. Tell dem vot is Anarchy. Etjucade dem.'
+
+"Vell, den, dey listen to me. Dey say, 'Ve bow der vill before uf Herr
+Bludoffski, whose vordt vas goot. Ve vait. But how long? Ah, dat I can
+not tell. But I have decide I make von appeal. I gif der vorlt von
+chance to come ofer to Anarchy and be save. Ha! Se! I haf write a pook!
+I haf say der pook inside all apout Anarchy. I haf tell der peauties of
+der commune, vere no selfishness vas, no law, but efery man equal und
+none petter as some udder. I haf describe it all. Nopody can dot pook
+reat mitout he say ven he lay him down, 'I vil be an Anarchist.'"
+
+Mr. Bludoffski had become intensely interested in his own remarks. He
+picked his manuscripts from the table and caressed them lovingly.
+
+"See," he said, "dere vas der pook vich make mankind brudders. I tell
+you how you help. I vas poor. I haf no money. I lif on noddings, und dem
+noddings I peg. Ven I see you und you dot money gif me, I say 'Dis man
+he haf soul! He shall be save.' Den I say more as dot. I say he shall
+join his hand mit me. He shall print him, den million copies, send him
+de vorlt ofer, in all der lankviches, to all der peoples. Dink uf dot!
+You shall be great Anarchist as I. Ve go down mit fame togedder!"
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAF NO SOUL, NO HEART, NO MIND, NO NODDINGS."]
+
+He paused for Mr. O'Royster's reply, trembling with fanatical
+excitement. The reply was somewhat slow in coming. Mr. O'Royster, when
+his companion began to talk, had leaned his head on his arm and closed
+his eyes. He had preserved this attitude throughout the address and was
+now breathing hard.
+
+"Vell!" said Bludoffski, impatiently.
+
+Mr. O'Royster drew a more resonant breath, long, deep and mellow.
+
+"He sleep!" cried Bludoffski, in scornful fury. "Der tog! He sleep ven I
+tell him--"
+
+He sprang up, ran across the room and returned with a huge
+carving-knife. "I vill kill him!" he cried, and, indeed, made start to
+do it. But as suddenly he checked himself, tossed the knife on the
+floor, muttering, "Bah, he not fit to kill," and opened the door into
+the saloon. The Anarchist meeting had ended, but several persons were
+still sitting around the tables, drinking beer. He called to two of
+these, and said, in a tone of almost pitiful despair:
+
+"Take dot man home. I not know who he vas. I not know vere he lif.
+Somebotty fin' oud. Look his pockets insite. Ask der boleecemans. Do any
+dings, but take him avay. He haf no soul, no mind, no heart, no
+noddings!"
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MAGGIE.
+
+
+Wrapped in contemplation and but little else, probably because his stock
+of contemplation largely exceeded his stock of else, Mr. Dootleby
+wandered down the Bowery. Midnight sounded out from the spire in St.
+Mark's Church just as Mr. Dootleby, having come from Broadway through
+Astor Place, turned about at the Cooper Union.
+
+There was a touch of melancholy in Mr. Dootleby's expression as he
+looked down the big, brilliant Bowery, glowing with the light of a
+hundred electric burners and myriads of gas-jets, and seething with
+unnatural activity. He stopped a moment in the shadow thrown by the
+booth of a coffee and cake vender, and looked attentively into the faces
+of the throngs that passed him. He seemed to be thinking hard.
+
+[Illustration: MR. DOOTLEBY.]
+
+In truth, it is a suggestive place, is the Bowery. Day and night are all
+the same to it. It never gets up and it never goes to bed. It never
+takes a holiday. It never keeps Lent. It indulges in no sentiments. It
+acknowl-edges no authority that bids it remember the Sabbath Day to
+keep it holy. But from year's end to year's end it bubbles, and boils,
+and seethes, and frets while the daylight lasts, and in the glare of its
+brighter night it plunges headlong into carousal!
+
+Mr. Dootleby had a great habit of walking at night, though he seldom
+came down town so far as this. His apartments were in Harlem, and
+usually, after he had taken his dinner and played a rubber of whist, he
+found himself sufficiently exercised by a stroll as far as Forty-second
+Street. But to-night he felt a trifle restless, and journeyed on.
+
+Though his hair was nearly white and his face somewhat deeply furrowed,
+Mr. Dootleby's tall heavy figure stood straight toward the zenith, and
+moved with an ease and celerity that many a younger man had envied. With
+his antecedents I am not entirely familiar, but they say he was always
+eccentric. I, for my part, shall like him none the less for this. They
+say he was rich once, but that he never knew how to take care of his
+money, and what part of it he did not give away slipped off of its own
+accord.
+
+They say he was past fifty when he married, and his bride was a young
+woman, and when they went off together he was as frisky as a young
+fellow of twenty-three. Then, they say, she died, and after that he took
+but little interest in things, spending his time chiefly in such amiable
+pursuits as the entertainment of the children playing in Central Park,
+and the writing of an occasional article for the scientific papers, on
+"The Peculiar Behavior of Alloys."
+
+Despite the dinginess of his costume, Mr. Dootleby was a handsome old
+man, and he looked very out of place on the Bowery. Not that good looks
+are wanting in the Bowery, for many a crownless Cleopatra mingles with
+its crowds. But Mr. Dootleby, as he stood in the shadow of the
+coffee-vender's booth, seemed to be the one kind of being necessarily
+incongruous with the midnight Bowery spectacle.
+
+Mr. Dootleby stood and looked for full twenty minutes. In some of the
+faces that passed him he saw only a careless sensuality brightened by
+the flush of excitement. Others, somewhat older, were full of brazen
+coarseness, and others, older still, bore that pitiful look of hopeless
+regret, quickly changing to one that says as plainly as can be that the
+time for thinking and caring has gone. Upon many was stamped the brand
+of inborn infamy, their only inheritance.
+
+[Illustration: THE BOWERY NIGHT-SCENE.]
+
+Some hunted souls went by, their manner jaded and hapless, their steps
+nervous and irresolute, and their eyes sweeping the streets before them,
+never resting, never closed. A few as they passed scowled at him--even
+at him, as if there were not one in all this world upon whom they had
+not declared war. Want had marked most of them with unmistakable lines,
+and crossing these were often others telling that they knew no better
+than they did.
+
+Mr. Dootleby watched awhile and then went on, pausing occasionally at
+the corners to peer through the dark side streets, up at the big
+tenement-houses--those ugly nurseries of vice--from whose black shadows
+came many of these that had been christened into crime. But in the
+Bowery itself there was no gloomy spot. Light streamed from every
+window, and flooded the pavements. The street-cars whirled along. Even
+the bony creatures that drew them caught the spirit of this feverish
+thoroughfare. From every other doorway, shielded by cloth or wicker
+screens, came the sounds of twanging harps and scraping fiddles, the
+click of glasses and the shrill chatter and laughter of discordant
+voices.
+
+Here and there, in front of a bewildering canvas, upon which, in the
+gayest of gay colors, mountainous fat women, prodigious giants, scaly
+mermaids, wild men from Zululand, living skeletons, and three-headed
+girls were painted, stood clamorous gentlemen in tights, urgently
+importuning passers-by to enter the establishments they represented,
+whereof the glories and mysteries could be but too feebly told in words.
+And upon the sidewalks all about him, swarms of itinerant musicians,
+instantaneous photographers, dealers in bric-a-brac, toilet articles,
+precious stones, soda water, and other needful and nutritious wares,
+urged themselves upon Mr. Dootleby's attention.
+
+He walked leisurely on, moralizing as he went, until he had passed
+Chatham Square, and had got into the somberer district below. He turned
+a corner somewhere, thinking to walk around the block and find his way
+back into the Bowery. But the more corners he rounded the more he found
+ever at his elbow, and the conviction began to make its way into his
+mind that he had lost his bearings.
+
+The block in which he was now wandering was quite dark and dismal, save
+for a single gas-jet hanging almost hidden within a dirty globe, over
+some steep steps that led into a cellar. Mr. Dootleby concluded to stop
+there and ask his way. As he approached the cellar, he heard what seemed
+to be cries of distress. They grew more distinct, and accompanying them
+were the dull sounds of blows and the harsh accents of a man's voice,
+evidently permeated with rage.
+
+Mr. Dootleby ran down the steps and flung the door open, presenting his
+eyes with a spectacle that made his blood run cold. The room was long
+and narrow. At one end and near the door was a bar fitted up with a few
+black bottles and broken tumblers, a keg or two of beer, and some boxes
+of cigars. Along the walls stood a couple of benches, and further on
+were half a dozen little rooms, partitioned from each other, all opening
+into the bar-room. On the benches six girls were lolling about, dressed
+in gaudy tights, and with them were three or four men. The room was hot
+to suffocation, and the smell from the dim and dirty lamps that stood on
+each end of the bar, together with the foul tobacco-smoke with which the
+atmosphere was saturated, combined to make the place disgusting and
+poisonous.
+
+All these conditions Mr. Dootleby took in at his first glance, and his
+second fell upon two figures in the center of the room, from whom had
+proceded the noises he had heard. One was that of a girl cowering on her
+knees and moaning in a voice from which reason had clearly departed. A
+big, unconscionably brutal-looking man stood over her, holding her down
+by her hair, which, braided in a single plait, was wound about his hand.
+He had just thrown the stick upon the floor with which he had been
+beating her, and was drawing from the stove a red-hot poker.
+
+[Illustration: THE FELLOW WHEELED QUICKLY AROUND.]
+
+Mr. Dootleby was not of an excitable temperament ordinarily, but his
+senses were so affected by the horrors he saw and the pestilential air
+he breathed that his head began to swim, and only by an especial draft
+upon his resolution was he able to command himself. There was a pause
+consequent upon his entrance, and his quick eyes made good use of it.
+
+He saw that the girl had already been half murdered, and that her
+assailant was a short, thick-set old man, with the eyes of a snake and
+the neck of a bull. He saw that the men on the bench, all beastly
+specimens, were contemplating her torture with an indifference that
+would have shamed the grossest savage. Several of the women, too--the
+older ones--were looking on with scarcely the sign of a protest in their
+faces, and only one, a mere child, seemed to feel a genuine sense of
+terror and sympathy.
+
+Mr. Dootleby threw open his coat, tightened his grasp on his
+walking-stick, and said, very quietly: "What are you doing?"
+
+The fellow wheeled quickly around. He looked with intense malice at Mr.
+Dootleby, and then shouted at one of the women, "Why didencher lock de
+door like I toljer, you fool?"
+
+Mr. Dootleby did not wait for either of these questions to be answered.
+He sprang into action with all the agility and ferocity of a young
+panther. The handle of his cane was a huge knob of carved ivory. He
+brought it directly on the head of the ruffian in a blow of tremendous
+force, and as the fellow staggered, Mr. Dootleby grasped the poker,
+turning it so that its heated end touched his antagonist's arm. Of
+course, the man loosened his hold, and in an instant more dropped upon
+the floor. Then Mr. Dootleby, keenly alive to the necessity of improving
+every second, caught the prostrate girl by the arm and threw her behind
+him toward the open door. "Run for your life!" he said.
+
+But she didn't run. She couldn't run, and while she was struggling to
+get upon her feet, the fellow recovered himself and emitted a roar that
+acted on her terrified soul as if it had been a blow. She fell
+incontinently upon her back in a dead swoon.
+
+Mr. Dootleby's situation was perilous. He had hoped by a sudden and
+overwhelming attack to stun the man and get the girl out into the
+street. But the man's quick recovery and the girl's exhaustion left him
+in almost as bad a situation as ever, and he glanced apprehensively at
+the party upon the benches.
+
+They had scarcely stirred! One of the men, indeed, had risen, and was
+standing with his hands in his pockets and something in the nature of an
+amused smile upon his face. The others had so far shifted their
+positions as to be the better able to see whatever went on, and only one
+of them manifested the slightest desire to take a hand in the
+proceedings. This was the little girl of twelve or fourteen. She was
+intensely excited, and in the moment's pause that succeeded Mr.
+Dootleby's onslaught she dashed across the room, and lifting the head of
+the unconscious girl, rested it on her knee, and stroked it soothingly.
+
+"Good for you, my child!" said Mr. Dootleby. "Try to bring her to."
+
+The hideous old scoundrel, as he now turned again to confront Mr.
+Dootleby, was more hideous than ever. Blood from the wound in his head
+was trickling over his face, into which the fury of a legion of devils
+was concentrated. "Sissy!" he bellowed, "go back to yer bench!"
+
+"Don't do it, my child," said Mr. Dootleby. "You're all right. Run
+outside if it gets too dangerous for you in here."
+
+The fellow gathered himself together, evidently intending to dash past
+Mr. Dootleby toward the bar beyond. But Mr. Dootleby lifted the poker
+ominously. "Stand back!" he cried.
+
+A slight chuckle came from the man who had risen from the bench. "Dey
+don't seem ter be no flies on dis party, Pete!" he said, with a broad
+grin.
+
+Pete's answer was a scowl and an oath.
+
+"W'y doncher come on, an' help me do him up?" he snorted.
+
+"Wot ud be de use? I t'ink he kin get away wid you, Pete, an' I wanter
+see de fun. He's chain lightnin', ole man, an' you better be sure of yer
+holt."
+
+"I'll give all dere is on him if you'll help, Dick!" said Pete.
+
+Mr. Dootleby took his watch, his gold pencil, and a dollar or so in
+change from his pockets, and tossed them toward Dick.
+
+"That's all I've got," he said. "Now, let us alone."
+
+Dick slid the coins in his pocket and carefully examined the gold watch.
+"Dere's a good 'eal er sportin' blood in de old gen'l'man, Pete; a good
+'eal er sportin' blood," he remarked, with the utmost cheerfulness.
+"Bein' a sportin' man myself I ainter goin' back on a frien'."
+
+"You're goin' back on your word fast enough!" said Pete bitterly.
+
+"No, I aint. I toljer I wouldn't bodder you. I didn't guarantee nobody
+else. You sed she was yourn, and you was goin' to make her promise to
+quit young Swiggsy. I offered to match you five dollars agin de gurl,
+an' I said if you was to win I wouldn't trouble you. You said if I
+winned I could have her. All right. I lost, an' I give up my good money.
+Den you went ter work wallopin' de gurl. You'd er kilt her if dis covey
+hadn't er lit in. All right, dat wasn't no fault er mine. An' fur all
+me, he kin stick dat blazin' iron clear down yer t'roat, an' I'll set
+yere an' take it in widout winkin'."
+
+Mr. Dootleby listened intently to this speech. It afforded him an
+inkling of the situation.
+
+"Is this girl your daughter?" he said.
+
+Pete was in no humor to parley. He could only growl and swear. When he
+had relieved himself without, enlightening Mr. Dootleby, Dick spoke
+again.
+
+"She ain't nobody's darter, ole gent, but he sez she's his gurl. She
+been keepin' comp'ny wid young Swiggsy, an' she wont promise not ter.
+Dat's de whole biznuss. De harder he walloped, de more she wouldn't
+promise."
+
+Mr. Dootleby felt in his arms the strength of a whole army corps. "Look
+here," he said to Dick, "will you promise me fair play?"
+
+"Dey wont nobody interfere widjer," Dick replied. "I'll be de empire,
+an' I t'ink I kin referee a mill 'long er de bes'. Sail right in, ole
+gent. The gurl stan's fer de di'mun' belt. If you knocks out yer man,
+she's yourn. If he licks you, an' has any strength left, he kin go on
+wid his wallopin'."
+
+"Sissy's" soothing hand and the fresh air coming through the door had
+brought back life into the girl's limp body. She was still weak and
+prostrate, lying at full length on the floor, with her head supported
+upon Sissy's shoulder.
+
+She was a brilliant type of the ignorant and vicious population which
+overflows the tenements in certain downtown districts and furnishes the
+largest element in the city's criminal society. Her eyes were large, and
+must have been, under better conditions, full of light and expression.
+
+Even now, when great lumps, dark and burning with inflammation, stood
+out upon her forehead, and heavy sashes of black circled her eyes, while
+all the rest of her face was white and bloodless and cruelly distorted
+with pain--even now there was a kind of beauty about her that gave her
+rank above the class to which conditions, more forceful than laws,
+condemned her.
+
+Condemned? Yes, condemned; why not? What did she know of the science of
+morals, of souls, or revelations, or higher laws? Who had ever mentioned
+these things to her. What had she to do with questions of right and
+wrong? What was right to her but gratification, or wrong but want? What
+was passion but nature pent up, or crime but congested nature suddenly
+set free?
+
+She spoke a Christian tongue. She wore a Christian dress. Her heart
+answered to the same emotions that quicken or deaden the beat of other
+breasts. She had tears to shed, hopes to excite, passions to burn,
+desires to gratify. Nature had denied her none of the faculties that
+give beauty, and grace and dignity and sweetness to another. Even as she
+lay stretched on the floor of a dive in the heart of a Christian city,
+but remoter from influences that encourage the good and repress the bad
+in her nature than if she were standing in the darkest jungle of
+Africa--even there, degraded, ignorant, and infinitely wretched, she was
+a martyr to the very virtues, truth and constancy, of which she knew the
+least!
+
+Some such reflections as these were flitting through Mr. Dootleby's mind
+as he glanced down upon her, and then turned to his enraged antagonist,
+who was standing ever alert for a chance to recover his victim.
+
+"Look here," said Mr. Dootleby. "Let's come to terms about this affair.
+You can see for yourself that the girl is half dead. You don't want to
+kill her outright, I'm sure."
+
+"'Tain't no biznuss of yourn if I do," the old man savagely replied.
+
+"Maybe not. But cool off, now, and be reasonable. You'll be sorry enough
+for what you've done already, and if you were to do more you'd have to
+stand your trial for murder."
+
+"'Twont be for murderin' her w'en I gits in de jug. But I'll murder you
+if yer don't leave dis place right off."
+
+"I'm not going to leave till I take her with me."
+
+"Den you wont never leave alive."
+
+Pete whipped a knife from his pocket and rushed at Mr. Dootleby,
+intending to overwhelm him by a sudden and furious attack. The ivory
+cane again came into action. It struck the muscular part of Pete's arm
+just below the shoulder. The knife did not reach its destination, but it
+inflicted an ugly wound in Mr. Dootleby's hand. Without noticing this,
+he closed in on his foe, pouring all the resources of his powerful frame
+into a dozen fierce and well-directed blows. The spectators upon the
+benches, however indifferent while the brute had been maltreating a
+defenseless girl, were now seized with a panic. Two of the men slunk out
+into the street. The girls rushed to their rooms, threw on their coats
+and street dresses, and escaped also. The battle continued for several
+minutes, each man fighting, as he knew, for his life.
+
+Pete was a great human beast. He was far stronger than Mr. Dootleby, but
+not nearly so quick and dexterous. The blow on his right arm placed him
+at a great disadvantage. Mr. Dootleby knew he could not fight long.
+Every second drew heavily upon his vitality. But he made no useless
+expenditure of his strength. His blows were intelligently directed
+toward the accomplishment of a specific object in the disabling of his
+enemy, and each of them did its appointed work. At last exposing himself
+by a sudden lunge, Pete was thrown, and he did not rise. He was
+unconscious.
+
+So was Mr. Dootleby--almost. His head swam and he leaned heavily against
+the wall for support. The blood was dripping from several ugly wounds,
+but he revived as he heard Dick remark: "Dat was a beauterful mill. All
+right. Bein' a sportin' man myself, I t'ink I knows a good mill w'en I
+sees one. De di'mun' belt, ole man, is yourn. All right. Hello! W'y,
+where's de trophy gone?"
+
+Mr. Dootleby opened his one available eye, and saw that the only persons
+in the room were himself, his beaten enemy, and Dick.
+
+"What's this mean?" he cried. "You pledged your word on fair dealings."
+
+Dick called on all the saints to witness that he did not know where the
+girl had gone. "De whole crowd cleared out," he said, "w'en de hustlin'
+begun. But she can'ter gone fur. I reckon if you go out in de street
+you'll fin' her and de kid wot's helpin' her around somewheres. I'll
+sponge off Pete, an' try ter patch up wot's lef' of him. All right."
+
+Mr. Dootleby was not slow to act upon this suggestion. He bent over the
+still prostrate Pete and tried to ascertain if his pulse was beating. It
+not being immediately apparent whether it was or not, and Mr. Dootleby
+not caring about it a great deal anyhow, he caught up his hat and coat
+and hurried away.
+
+Sissy was watching for him from behind a tree across the street, and she
+came toward him running.
+
+"Maggie's in de alley, sir, yonder by de lamp, layin' dere an' moanin',
+an' I t'ink dey's sumpin' wrong wid her," said Sissy.
+
+She led him to the spot beyond which they had not been able to escape,
+where Maggie was lying with the light from the street lamp shining full
+in her face. Her dress was torn at the neck, for she had not been
+costumed as the others were, and the cold, wintry night-air was blowing
+on her bare throat and breast. Her big eyes had lost their dimness, and
+were blazing with a fire kindled by a wild imagination. Mr. Dootleby
+took off his hat and knelt upon the alley stones, and threw his arms
+around her shoulders, supporting her. She looked through him at some one
+not present but beyond.
+
+"I didn't do it, Swiggsy, an' he couldn't 'a' made me if he'd burned my
+eyes out like he said he was goin' to!" she whispered faintly. "But he
+used me rough, Swiggsy, an' I'm--just--a little--bit--tired."
+
+"Good God in Heaven!" murmured Mr. Dootleby, "look upon this wavering
+soul in Thy full compassion. She is tired, so very, very tired."
+
+"And, Swiggsy, let's go somewheres where he can't fin' me, cause I'm
+fearful of him. An' you'll get steady work, Swiggsy, tendin' bar, an'
+then--"
+
+She closed her eyes, and for several moments lay silent and still.
+
+"Swiggsy--"
+
+The sound was faint now, and Mr. Dootleby bent low to catch it.
+
+"I suspicion something ails me in my side, an' I'm falling, falling,
+falling---- Ketch me, Swiggsy, hold me--I'm honest wid you, don't you
+know it. Tell me so, and say it loud, so's I can hear. I'll be good to
+you when I get--rested."
+
+[Illustration: STARS OF THE NIGHT, ARE YOU WATCHING HERE?]
+
+The street is empty. Not a sound is heard. Not a footfall. Not a voice.
+The world is sleeping, dreaming of its own ambitions. Stars of the
+night, are you watching here?
+
+"You said you t'ought I was pretty, Swiggsy, an' it made me so glad an'
+happy, 'cause I wants you to think I'm pretty--ah! where are you going!
+Come back! come back! come back! Don't leave me all alone, please,
+please don't, for I'm falling again, fast, faster all the time, an' I'll
+soon fall--"
+
+She opened her eyes wide--wider than ever. She looked into Mr.
+Dootleby's face and smiled. She lifted her hand and dropped it heavily
+into his. Her head dropped on his shoulder. She had fallen--out of human
+sight!
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+THE HON. DOYLE O'MEAGHER.
+
+
+At this particular moment the Hon. Doyle O'Meagher is a busy man.
+Tammany Hall's nominating convention is shortly to be held, and Mr.
+O'Meagher is putting the finishing touches upon the ticket which he has
+decided that the convention shall adopt. The ticket, written down upon a
+sheet of paper, is before him, together with a bottle of whisky and a
+case of cigars, and the finishing touches consist of little pencil-marks
+placed opposite the candidates' names, indicating that they have visited
+Mr. O'Meagher and have duly paid over their several campaign
+assessments--a preliminary formality which Mr. O'Meagher enforces with
+strict impartiality. The amount of each assessment depends entirely upon
+Mr. O'Meagher's sense of the fitness of things. To dispute Mr.
+O'Meagher's sense in this particular is looked upon as treason and
+rebellion. In the case of the Hon. Thraxton Wimples, the intended
+candidate for the Supreme Court, the assessment is $20,000.
+
+Mr. Wimples is a little man of profound learning and ancient lineage.
+Mr. O'Meagher is a man of indifferent learning and no lineage to speak
+of. Mr. Wimples's grandfather had signed the Declaration of
+Independence, and had moved on three separate occasions that the
+Continental Congress do now adjourn, while no reason whatever existed,
+other than the one most obvious but least apt to occur to any one, for
+supposing that Mr. O'Meagher had ever had a grandfather at all. And yet,
+as Mr. Wimples, though on the threshold of great dignity and power,
+walks into Mr. O'Meagher's presence, he find himself all of a tremble,
+and glows and chills chase each other up and down his spinal column.
+
+"Ah, Mr. O'Meagher," he says, "good-morning! Good-morning! Happy to see
+you so--er--well. Charming day, so warm for the--er--season."
+
+"Yes," says Mr. O'Meagher, "so it be."
+
+"I received your notification of the high--er--honor, you propose to
+confer on me."
+
+"Yes," says Mr. O'Meagher, "you're the man for the place."
+
+"So kind of you to--er--say so. You mentioned that the--er--assessment
+was--"
+
+"Twenty thousand dollars," says Mr. O'Meagher, with great promptness.
+
+[Illustration: "JUST SO," SAYS MR. WIMPLES, "JUST SO."]
+
+"Just so," says Mr. Wimples, "just so."
+
+"And you've called to pay it," says Mr. O'Meagher, taking up his list
+and his pencil. "I've been expecting you."
+
+"Ah, yes, to be sure, of course. I was going to propose
+a--er--settlement."
+
+"A what?" says Mr. O'Meagher sharply.
+
+Mr. Wimples mops his brow. "The fact is," he says, "I don't happen to
+have so considerable a sum as $20,000 at the--er--moment, and I was
+thinking of suggesting that I just pay you, say, $10,000 down, and give
+you two--er--notes."
+
+"'Twont do," says Mr. O'Meagher, shaking his head and fetching his
+pencil down upon the table with a smart tap, "'twont do at all."
+
+"Eh? Indorsed, you know, by--"
+
+"Mr. Wimples, that $20,000 in hard cash must be in my hands by six
+o'clock to-night, or your name goes off the ticket."
+
+"O--er--Lud!" says Mr. Wimples, sadly.
+
+"By six P. M."
+
+"But, my dear Mr. O'Meagher--"
+
+"Or your name goes off the ticket."
+
+Mr. Wimples groaned, grasped the whisky bottle, poured out a copious
+draught, tossed it down his throat, bowed meekly, and withdrew. In the
+vestibule he met the Hon. Perfidius Ruse, the Mayor of the city, whose
+term of office was about to expire, and as to whose renomination there
+was going on a heated controversy. Mr. Ruse was a reformer. It was as a
+reformer that he had been elected two years before. At that time Mr.
+O'Meagher found himself menaced by a strange peril. It had been alleged
+by jealous enemies that he was corrupt, and they called loudly for
+reform. At first, Mr. O'Meagher experienced some difficulty in
+understanding what was meant by corrupt and what by reform. His mission
+in life, as he understood it, was to name the individuals who should
+hold the city's offices and to control their official acts in the
+interest of Tammany Hall, and he had great difficulty in comprehending
+how it could be anybody's business that he had grown rich performing his
+mission. But perceiving that a large and dangerous class of voters was
+clamoring for a reformer, he concluded to humor it if he could find a
+good safe reformer on whom he could rely. In this emergency he had
+produced the Hon. Perfidius Ruse.
+
+It cannot be said that Mr. O'Meagher regarded the Ruse experiment as
+entirely satisfactory. Mr. Ruse had certainly reformed several things,
+and with considerable adroitness and skill, but there were many who said
+that his reforms had all been made with an eye single to the glory of
+the Hon. Perfidius Ruse, and with a view to the establishment of a
+personal influence hostile to the man who made him. The time had now
+come for the test of strength. Concerning his ultimate intentions, the
+Hon. Doyle O'Meagher was cold, silent, and reserved.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Mayor?" said the crestfallen Mr. Wimples, as he came
+upon the reformer in the vestibule. "Going up to see the--er--Boss?"
+
+"I was thinking of it, yes. How's he feeling?"
+
+"Ugly. He's in a dev'lish uncompromising--er--humor. If you were going
+to ask anything of him I advise you to--er, not."
+
+"Thank you. I only intend to suggest some matters in the interest of
+reform."
+
+"I wish you well. But--er--go slow."
+
+Mr. O'Meagher did not rise to greet his distinguished visitor. He simply
+drew a chair close to his own, poured out a glass of whisky, and said,
+"Hello!"
+
+"I thought I'd just drop in, Mr. O'Meagher," said the Mayor, "to say a
+word or two about the situation. What are the probabilities?"
+
+"As regards which?"
+
+"H'm, well, the nominations?"
+
+[Illustration: "WHO CAN TELL?" EJACULATED MR. O'MEAGHER.]
+
+"Who can tell," ejaculated Mr. O'Meagher. "Who can tell? What is more
+uncertain, Mr. Ruse, than the action of a nominating convention?"
+
+"To be sure," responded Mr. Ruse. "What, indeed?" Whereupon each
+statesman looked at the other out of the corners of his eyes.
+
+"There's only one thing I care about," continued Mr. Ruse, "and that is
+reform. If my successor is a reformer, I shall be satisfied."
+
+"Make yourself easy," replied Mr. O'Meagher. "He'll be a reformer. I've
+been paying some attention during the last two years to the education of
+our people in the matter of reform. My success has been flattering. I
+think I can truthfully say now that Tammany Hall has a reformer ready
+for every salary paid by the city, and that there's no danger of our
+stock of reformers giving out as long as the salaries last."
+
+Mr. Ruse hesitated a moment, as if reflecting how he should take these
+observations. Finally he laughed in a feeble way and said, "Good, yes,
+very." Then he added, "But, speaking seriously, I do feel that my duty
+to the public requires me to exert all the influence I have for the
+protection of reform."
+
+"I feel the same way," said Mr. O'Meagher, "exactly the same way. I'm
+just boiling over with enthusiasm for reform."
+
+"Then our sympathies and desires are common. Now, if I could feel sure
+that I ought to run again in the interest of reform--"
+
+"You've done so much already," Mr. O'Meagher hastily put in, "you've
+sacrificed so heavily that I don't think it would be fair to ask it of
+you."
+
+"N-no," said the Mayor, dubiously, "I suppose it wouldn't, now, would
+it?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"And yet I don't like to run away from the call, so to speak, of duty."
+
+"Don't be worried about that."
+
+"But I am worried, O'Meagher. I can't help it. By every mail I am
+receiving hundreds of letters from the best citizens of New-York, urging
+me to let my name be used. Deputations wait on me constantly with the
+same request, and, as you know, they are going to hold a mass-meeting
+to-morrow night, and they threaten to nominate me, whether or no. What
+can I do? I tell them I don't want to run, that my private business has
+already suffered by neglect, but they answer imploring me not to desert
+the cause of reform just when it needs me most. It is very
+embarrassing."
+
+"Very," said Mr. O'Meagher. "It's astonishing how thoughtless people
+are. But they wouldn't be so hard on you if they knew how you were
+fixed."
+
+"That's just it. They don't know, and I don't want to appear selfish."
+
+Mr. O'Meagher coughed, not because he needed to cough, but for want of
+something better to do.
+
+"The Tammany ticket," Mr. Ruse continued, "will be hotly opposed this
+year, and I'm bound to say that I don't think it is sufficiently
+identified with reform. They tell me you are going to nominate Wimples
+for the Supreme Court. Wimples is a good lawyer, but he has no reform
+record. Neither has Colonel Bellows, whom you talk of for
+District-Attorney. McBoodle for Sheriff does not appeal to reformers.
+Bierbocker for Register might get the German vote, but how could
+reformers support a common butcher? I don't know whom you think of for
+my place, but it seems to me that there's only one way to save your
+ticket from defeat and that is to indorse the candidate for Mayor
+presented by the citizens' mass-meeting to-morrow night. That would make
+success certain. The public would praise your noble fidelity to reform,
+and you'd sweep the city! Think of it, Mr. O'Meagher! What a glorious,
+what a golden opportunity!"
+
+"My eyes are as wide open as the next man's for golden opportunities,
+Mr. Ruse," replied Mr. O'Meagher. "But the question is, who will be
+nominated."
+
+"Well, 'hem! of course I can't definitely say. I'm trying to get them to
+take some new man. But if they should insist on nominating me, I'm
+afraid I'd have to--h'm, what--what do you think I'd have to do?"
+
+"Well, being a pious man and a reformer, I should think you'd at least
+have to pray over it."
+
+The Hon. Perfidius Ruse gave a keen, quick glance at the Hon. Doyle
+O'Meagher, and slightly frowned.
+
+"I should certainly consider it with care," he said stiffly.
+
+"So should I."
+
+"Is that all you will say?"
+
+"No, I'll say more," and he picked up the sheet of paper on which he had
+written the names of the Tammany candidates. "Look here," he continued.
+"This is my list of nominees. The space for the head of the ticket is
+still blank. I have not told any one whom I mean to present for the
+Mayoralty, but I will promise you now to insert there the name of the
+man nominated by your Citizens' meeting to-morrow night."
+
+"Whoever he may be?"
+
+"Whoever he may be."
+
+"And I may rely on that?"
+
+[Illustration: "I SHOULD CERTAINLY CONSIDER IT WITH CARE," HE SAID
+STIFFLY.]
+
+"Did I ever tell you anything you couldn't rely on?"
+
+"No."
+
+"All right. Good-by."
+
+They shook hands, and Mr. Ruse departed wearing an expansive smile. As
+he left the room, Mr. O'Meagher smiled also and picked up his pen. "I
+may as well fill in the name now," he said softly, "and save time," and
+with great precision he proceeded to write: "For Mayor, the Hon. Doyle
+O'Meagher. Assessed in the sum of--" but there he stopped. "We'll
+consider that later," he said.
+
+The personal history of the Hon. Doyle O'Meagher strikingly proves how
+slight an influence is exerted in this young republic by social prestige
+and vulgar wealth, and how inevitably certain are the rewards of virtue,
+industry, and ability. I am credibly told that Mr. O'Meagher first
+opened his eyes in a little ten by twelve earth cabin in the County
+Kerry, Ireland, though I can not profess to have seen the cabin. Being
+from his earliest youth of a reflective disposition, he became
+impressed, when but a small lad, with the conviction that thirteen
+people, three pigs, seven chickens, and five ducks formed too numerous a
+population for a cabin of those dimensions. In the silent watches of the
+night, with his head on a duck and a pig on his stomach, he had
+frequently revolved this idea in his young but apt mind, and at last,
+though not in any spirit of petulance, he formed the resolution which
+gave shape and purpose to his later career.
+
+He had communicated to his father his peculiar views about the crowded
+condition of the cabin.
+
+"Begob, Doyley, me bye," the old man had replied, "Oi've bin thinkin' o'
+that. Whin the ould sow litters, Doyley, it's sore perplexhed we'll be
+fer shlapin' room. Divil a wan o' me knows how fer to sarcumvint the
+throuble widout we takes you, Doyley, an' the young pigs, an' shtrings
+ye all up o' nights ferninst the wall."
+
+Doyle waited developments with a heavy heart, and when they came and he
+found that it required all the fingers on both his hands wherewith to
+calculate their number, he took down his hat, dashed the unbidden tear
+from his eyes, and made the best of his way to Queenstown.
+
+The opportunity is not here afforded for an extended review of the
+stages of progress by which Mr. O'Meagher, having landed in New York,
+finally secured almost a sovereign influence in its municipal affairs,
+and yet they are too interesting to justify their entire omission. He
+first won a place in the hearts of the American people by discovering
+to them his wonderful fistic attainments. From small and unnoted rings,
+he steadily and grandly rose until the newspapers overflowed with the
+details of his battles with the eminent Mr. Muldoon, with Four-Fingered
+Jake, with the Canarsie Bantam, with Billy the Beat, and with other
+equally distinguished gentlemen of equally portentous titles, and at
+last none was to be found capable of withstanding the onslaught of the
+aroused Mr. O'Meagher. When he went forth in dress-array, belts and
+buckles and chains and plates of gold armored him from head to heel, and
+diamonds as large as pigeons' eggs blazed resplendently from every
+available nook and corner all over his muscular expanse.
+
+Mr. O'Meagher's retirement from the ring was rendered inevitable by the
+fact that no one would enter it with him, and he found himself compelled
+to employ his talents in other fields of labor. Reduced to this
+extremity, he resolved to go into politics, and as an earnest of this
+intention he fitted up a new and gorgeous saloon. It was a novelty in
+its way, with its tiled floors, its decorated walls, its costly and
+beautiful paintings, its rare tapestries, its statues in bronze and
+marble, its heavy, oaken bar, and its pyramid of the finest cut
+glass--and when he threw it open to the public he celebrated the
+occasion by formally accepting a Tammany nomination for Congress.
+
+In the halls of the National Legislature, Mr. O'Meagher soon let it be
+known that he cared not who made the country's laws, so long as a fair
+proportion of his constituents were supplied with places and pensions,
+and his aggressive and successful championship of this principle soon
+won for him a proud position in the councils of his party. He was a
+friend of the common people, and the commoner the people the friendlier
+he was, until, having clearly established his claims to leadership, in
+obedience to the summons of his organization, he gave himself up to the
+management of its destinies.
+
+It was as the Boss of Tammany Hall that Mr. Doyle O'Meagher's genius
+attained its largest and highest development. Notwithstanding the
+opposition of rival factions engaged in bitter competition with Tammany,
+Mr. O'Meagher contrived to let out the offices at larger commission
+rates than Tammany had ever received before. Under no previous Boss had
+Tammany's heelers enjoyed such vast opportunities for "business." It was
+all in vain that envious and less-gifted bosses sought to undermine and
+depose him. Steadily and courageously he pursued his policy of reducing
+the labor of self-government to individual citizens until he had placed
+their taxes at a maximum and their trouble at a minimum. They had but to
+pay, Mr. O'Meagher did all the piping and all the dancing too.
+
+He was in capital humor now as he dropped the pen with which he had
+written his own name as that of the Mayoralty candidate for whom he had
+finally decided to throw his important influence, and when a boy entered
+with the information that Major Tuff was below, the Hon. Doyle O'Meagher
+was actually whistling.
+
+"Tuff," he said. "Good, I'm wanting Tuff. Send Tuff up."
+
+Tuff entered. Tuff's hat was new and high and shiny. Tuff's hair was all
+aglow with bear's grease. Tuff's eyes were small and snappy. Tuff's nose
+was flat and wide and snubby. Tuff's cheeks were big and bony. Tuff's
+cigar was long and black. Tuff's lips were thick and extensive. Tuff's
+neck was huge and short. Tuff's coat was a heavy blue one that did for
+an overcoat, too. Tuff wore diamonds as big as his knuckles. Tuff's
+scarf was red. Tuff's waistcoat was yellow, and every color known to the
+spectroscope was employed to make up Tuff's copious trousers.
+
+"Well," said Tuff, "I'm on deck."
+
+"Thank you, Major. How are things looking?"
+
+"Dey couldn't be better. I got t'irty-six tenement houses wid at leas'
+two hundered woters to de house. Dey's two t'ousan' Eyetalians, five
+hunered niggers, more'n a t'ousan' Poles, and de res' is all kinds. An'
+every dern one of em's eddicated!"
+
+"Educated! Really, you don't mean it?"
+
+[Illustration: "WELL," SAID TUFF, "I'M ON DECK."]
+
+"Eddicated! You kin betcher boots. De performin' dogs in the circus aint
+a patch to dem free and intelligent Amerikin citerzens. I got 'em
+trained so dat at de menshun of de word 'reform' dey all busts out in
+one gran' roar er ent'oosiasm. I had eight hunered of 'em a-practisin'
+in de assembly rooms over Paddy Coogan's saloon las' night. I tole 'em
+de louder dey yelled when I said de word 'reform' de more beer dey'd get
+w'en de lectur was done. Some of 'em was disposed ter stick out for de
+beer fust, an' said dey could do deir bes' shoutin' w'en dey was loaded.
+But my princerple is work fust, den go ter de cashier. So I made 'em a
+speech.
+
+"I sez: 'Feller-citerzens: Dis is de lan' er de free an' de home er de
+brav,' an' den I give a motion wot means 'stamp de feet.' Dey all
+stamped like dey was clog-dancers. Den I cleared me t'roat an'
+perceeded: 'Dis is de haven of de oppressed, de pore an' de unforchernit
+from all shores.' I give de signal wot means cheers, an' dey yelled for
+two minits. 'Dis is our berloved Ameriky!' sez I, 'where no tyrant's
+heel is ever knowed,' sez I, 'where all men is ekal,' sez I, 'an' where
+we, feller-citerzens, un'er de gallorious banner of REFORM--' an' at dat
+word, dey all jes' got up on deir feet an' stamped, an' yelled, an'
+waved deir hats an' coats till you'd er t'ought dey was a Legislatur' of
+lunatics. Oh, I got 'em in good shape--doncher bodder about me."
+
+"Ahem," said Mr. O'Meagher thoughtfully, as he cracked his finger-joints
+and puffed on his cigar. "You've done well, Tuff, excellent. Ah, Tuff,
+there's going to be a meeting in the Cooper Union to-morrow night. The
+people that are getting it up--er, well, I'm afraid they're not very
+friendly to me, Tuff. The doors open at seven. Now, do you think the
+proceedings would be interesting enough to your friends for them to
+attend in such numbers as will fill the hall, Tuff?"
+
+"Say no more, Mr. O'Meagher, dey'll be dere."
+
+"In large numbers, Tuff?"
+
+"Dey'll jam de hall."
+
+"Early, Tuff?"
+
+"By half-past six."
+
+"Good. I think you'll find the policemen on duty there very good
+fellows. You might see me to-morrow morning, Tuff, and I'll have
+something for you."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE HON. DOYLE O'MEAGHER.
+
+(CONCLUDED.)
+
+
+All bedecked with light and all ablaze with color, the Cooper Union was
+fast filling up with the friends of Reform. So enormous had the crowds
+in Astor Place become that, although the hour was early, Colonel
+Sneekins had wisely concluded to wait no longer, but at once to let them
+in. They poured through the wide doorways in abundant streams, while
+Colonel Sneekins led the superb brass band of the 7th Regiment, done up
+in startling uniforms and carrying along with it a tremendous battery of
+horns and drums, to its place in the gallery.
+
+Colonel Machiavelli Sneekins sustained an important relation to the
+Reform movement, and at this Grand Rally of Non-Partisan Citizens in the
+Interest of Reform, he had, with great propriety, selected himself to be
+Master of Ceremonies. Colonel Sneekins was a non-partisan citizen. He
+looked upon partisanship as the curse of the Republic, and in his more
+enthusiastic moments had declared that if he could have his way about
+it, any man so hopelessly dead to the nobler impulses of the human heart
+as to confess himself a partisan should be declared guilty of a felony
+and confined for a proper period of years at hard labor. What the
+country called for, according to Colonel Sneekins, was Reform. The first
+step in bringing about the triumph of Reform was to put all the offices
+in the hands of Reformers. If the public wished to intoxicate its eyes
+with the spectacle of the kind of men who would then administer the
+Government, it had but to look upon him. He was a Reformer. As a
+Reformer he was in possession of a lucrative municipal office, wherein
+he was mightily prospering, and which for the honor and glory of Reform
+he was willing to retain.
+
+Colonel Sneekins was the leading spirit of this citizens' movement. He
+had prepared the call of the meeting. He had obtained the 1500
+signatures now appended to it, representing estimable business men who,
+in observing that useful maxim of trade, "We strive to please," esteemed
+it one of their functions to sign all the petitions that came along.
+Colonel Sneekins had hired the hall and the band; had made up from the
+City Directory a formidable list of Vice-Presidents and Secretaries; had
+secured the orators, and finally had arranged for the attendance of a
+sufficient audience. In perfecting these details he had had the valuable
+assistance of other distinguished Reformers and non-partisan citizens.
+Editor Hacker, of _The New York Daily Sting_, had boomed the movement
+with great zeal and effectiveness. General Divvy, the ex-Governor of
+South Carolina, who had grown wealthy reforming that State and had
+thereafter naturally come to be regarded as an authority on all matters
+connected with reform, had written an earnest letter commending the
+rally as one of the most important steps that had ever been taken in the
+direction of pure and frugal government. The Rev. Dr. Lillipad Froth,
+from his pulpit in the Memorial Church of the Sacred Vanities, had taken
+occasion to say that great results to the community might be expected
+from the success of this patriotic enterprise, and ex-Congressman Van
+Shyster, being interviewed by a reporter of _The Sting_, after
+expressing his unqualified opinion that all political parties were
+utterly corrupt and abandoned, whereof his opportunity of judging had
+certainly been excellent, since he had suffered numerous defeats as the
+candidate of each of them successively, emphatically declared that he
+saw no hope for the city except in the cause this meeting was called to
+foster.
+
+No definite purpose had been expressed in the published call as to what
+should be done at the Rally, but Colonel Sneekins's plans were fully
+matured. The Hon. Doyle O'Meagher, the Boss of Tammany Hall, had
+promised that his organization should indorse for the office of Mayor
+the nominee presented by the Reformers. As to the identity of their
+candidate there was but one mind among the Reformers. Who should he be
+but that champion of Reform, the Hon. Perfidius Ruse? Mr. Ruse was not
+an experiment. He had already served as the City's Chief Magistrate, and
+had filled many remunerative offices with Reformers. Being of a modest
+and retiring disposition, he was now holding aloof from the honors
+sought to be thrust upon him. He had begged his friends to take some new
+candidate, he had pleaded his well-known dislike of office and the
+pressing demands of his private affairs. But, nevertheless, zealous as
+he was in the Reform cause, he had consented to furnish a delegation of
+500 citizens from his morocco factories in Hoboken to swell the Grand
+Rally in the Cooper Union, and had given his friend, Colonel Sneekins,
+an ample check wherewith to procure portraits and pamphlets presenting
+to the public the features and the services of the Hon. Perfidius Ruse.
+It was Colonel Sneekins's intention totally to disregard Mr. Ruse's
+plea for rest from official cares, and as he now from behind the wings
+contemplated the great crowd that was surging into the Cooper Union, he
+rubbed his hands and gleamed his teeth with such intensity of emotion
+that the Rev. Dr. Lillipad Froth, who was standing near by, felt his
+flesh a-creeping.
+
+It was certainly an extraordinary crowd. It had assembled almost in an
+instant. Scarcely had the policemen taken their places at the doors of
+the Cooper Union when a bulky, variegated young man stepped up to one of
+them.
+
+"Hello!" he said.
+
+"Hello, Meejor," responded the officer.
+
+"When'll yer open de door?"
+
+"Air ye wantin' t' git in, Meejor?"
+
+"Doncher know I got a gang to-night?"
+
+"So ye have, Meejor, so ye have. Oi was hearin' about it, av coorse.
+It's the Tim Tuff Assowseashun, aint it?"
+
+"Now, looker yere!" said Tuff sharply, "Aincher got no orders 'bout dis
+meetin'?"
+
+"Oi have that, Meejor. Oi was towld that you an' some friends av yourn
+moight be a-wantin' seats, an' Oi was ter see that ye got 'em."
+
+[Illustration: HE RUBBED HIS HANDS AND GLEAMED HIS TEETH.]
+
+"Dat's all right, den. Me an' my frien's 'll be along in about ten
+minutes, an' dey'll be enough of us ter fill de hall, an' dere's one
+t'ing yer wants ter keep in yer head, and dat's dis--ef me an' my
+frien's don't get a chance ter jam dis house before anybody else is
+'lowed inside de door, de Hon'able Doyle O'Meagher 'll be wantin' ter
+know de reason why!"
+
+Having thus delivered himself Tuff sauntered down the Bowery, and
+presently from all points of the compass a tremendous rabble began to
+pour into Astor Place and to mass itself in front of the Cooper Union.
+Tuff himself reappeared in a few moments, and when Colonel Sneekins gave
+the signal for the doors to be opened Tuff and his friends took easy and
+complete possession of the house.
+
+Meanwhile the Hon. Perfidius Ruse stood in a little room at the rear of
+the stage receiving the invited guests of the occasion. Mr. Pickles, the
+well-known Broome Street grocer, assumed a look of intense morality and
+importance, as the Mayor asked him how he did and expressed his
+gratification at seeing the honored name of Pickles--a power in the
+commercial world--enrolled among the friends of reform. The appearance
+of General Divvy put the Mayor in quite a flutter, and when the General
+told him that he positively must consent to run again, and that he was
+the only hope of the Reformers, the Mayor was much affected.
+
+"I fear I am," he replied, with a mournful shake of the head, as much as
+to say what a commentary that was on the absence of virtue in public
+life.
+
+Editor Hacker was equally earnest in his appeals. He said the Mayor must
+come right out, and referred to a conversation he had had with the
+President only last week, in which the President had confidentially said
+he was as much in favor of Reform as ever. Dr. Punk, who stands at the
+very head of the medical profession, informed the Rev. Lillipad Froth
+that it was his deliberate opinion, should Mr. Ruse desert them in this
+crisis, all would be over. Something like dismay was created by the
+ominous remark of ex-Congressman Van Shyster that others might do as
+they pleased, but as for him, his mind was made up. At this critical
+juncture the Hon. Erastus Spiggott, the orator of the evening,
+opportunely arrived, and upon being told that Mr. Ruse was still
+hesitating, he boldly declared that the only thing to do was to take the
+bull by the horns. Fired by the cheers elicited by this observation, he
+proceeded to say that the occasion which had brought together the large
+and representative body of citizens assembled in the hall beyond, and
+waiting only for the opportunity to indorse the wise and safe and
+honorable administration of Mayor Ruse (loud cheers) and to place him
+again in nomination, would live in history. (Cries of "good! good!")
+That vast and intelligent audience was not there to record the edict of
+corrupt and selfish bosses, but as thoughtful, independent, and
+patriotic citizens, free from the shackles of partisanship (loud
+applause), they had come together to promote the honor and the
+prosperity of this imperial metropolis.
+
+Mr. Spiggott was entirely satisfied that among them there was no
+division of sentiment as to the course that should be pursued to secure
+this noble end. They knew as well as he, as well as any of the gentlemen
+about him now, that the Reform cause stood in peril of but one
+misfortune--the retirement of the great, unselfish, popular, and devoted
+man who had already led the Reformers to victory. (Rapturous applause.)
+He did not fail to appreciate the modesty that led Mr. Ruse to
+undervalue his magnificent services to the city. He could well
+understand his (Mr. Ruse's) desire to return to his counting-room and
+his fireside free of the burdens and anxieties incident to a great
+trust. But--and here Mr. Spiggott's bosom swelled and his eyes flashed
+with a noble fire--he was not here to-night to consider Mr. Ruse's
+feelings and wishes; he was here, as they all were, in the discharge of
+a public duty. (Cheers.) That duty required of Mr. Ruse an act of
+self-sacrifice. He must accept the nomination. He could not, he would
+not dare desert the Banner of Reform. (Cheers.)
+
+Mr. Spiggott paused, wiped his brow and his eyeglasses, and continued.
+He might say in this small and select company of Reformers what it might
+be imprudent to assert later in the evening, when he came to address the
+great assembly in the outer hall, that the outcome of this meeting was
+being keenly watched by the spoilsmen. They were a cunning and sagacious
+lot. The one thing they most dreaded was the very thing this meeting was
+going to do. He had the best reasons for knowing that Boss O'Meagher
+mightily desired to nominate a candidate of his own at the Tammany Hall
+convention. Who had been selected by this unprincipled partisan, this
+arrogant and odious dictator (loud and long applause), he did not know.
+But he was certain to be a partisan, a spoilsman, a tool of Tammany Hall
+and its corrupt boss. Mr. Ruse's nomination to-night would deal a deadly
+blow to that plot. Tammany Hall would not dare risk the defeat of its
+entire ticket by nominating a candidate against the Hon. Perfidius Ruse.
+(Immense enthusiasm.) Indeed, Mr. Spiggott had reason to believe that
+Boss O'Meagher, cunning trickster that he was, would seek to avail
+himself of Mr Ruse's popularity and would indorse the nominee of this
+meeting. Under these circumstances it was folly to think of permitting
+Mr. Ruse to retire. (Cheers.) It could not be done.
+
+[Illustration: "OF THIS IMPERIAL METROPOLIS."]
+
+Mr. Ruse was deeply affected by these remarks, and at their conclusion
+he touched his handkerchief to his eyes and said he did not think it
+would be right for him to resist any longer. Thereupon Colonel Sneekins,
+in a tone of voice that highly distressed the nerves of the Rev.
+Lillipad Froth, cried out "Hurrah!" and forthwith led the way from the
+little dressing-room in which they were assembled out upon the stage.
+
+The Reformers had been so busy bolstering up the shrinking nature of Mr.
+Ruse that they had given small heed to the enormous concourse of
+citizens in the hall. Indeed, Colonel Sneekins, having ascertained that
+it would be sufficient in point of numbers for the purposes of a "grand
+rally," had not bestowed a further thought upon it, so that when he and
+his vice-presidents and his distinguished guests finally got upon the
+stage and began to look about them, the spectacle that met their eyes
+was as unexpected as it was bewildering. From the reporters' tables to
+the remotest recesses of the gallery the hall was packed tight with a
+motley mob, in which the element of born cut-throats largely
+predominated. It was the kind of crowd that could only have been
+gathered from the three-cent lodging-houses in Chatham Street. A dense
+volume of tobacco smoke, produced from pipes and demoralized
+cigar-stumps, choked the room. The evening being rather warm, all
+surplus clothing had been disposed of, and so far as could be observed
+through the hazy atmosphere, the audience was attired only in shirts. In
+one sense it was a highly representative audience. It represented every
+nation and every clime on the face of the earth. Had it been selected
+for the purpose of showing the cosmopolitan character of the population
+in the tenement-house district surrounding Chatham Square, it could not
+have been more picturesque. Bristle-bearded Russians and Poles,
+heavy-bearded Italians, dark-visaged Hungarians, and every other manner
+of unwashed man had been drawn into this Grand Rally of Non-Partisan
+Citizens in the Interest of Reform.
+
+Colonel Sneekins looked aghast at General Divvy, and whispered hoarsely,
+"There's been a mistake!" Drawing Mr. Spiggott, Editor Hacker, and
+ex-Congressman Van Shyster about them, a hurried consultation took
+place. It was quickly decided that retreat was now impossible and that
+the meeting must go on. They were assisted in coming to this conclusion
+by the chorus of lively and altogether friendly apostrophes that came
+from the audience in cries of "Wot's de matter wid Reform? Oh, _it's_
+all right!"
+
+"Let's go right ahead," said Editor Hacker. "This is a democracy, and it
+is not for us to assume that even the humblest citizen lacks lofty
+aspirations."
+
+Colonel Sneekins thereupon advanced to the footlights, and was greatly
+reassured by the hearty applause which his appearance evoked.
+
+"Gentlemen!" he said, and immediately a storm of cheers arose, delaying
+for several minutes his further utterance. "It affords me pleasure to
+propose as your chairman to-night the Hon. Cockles V. Divvy."
+
+[Illustration: THE HON. COCKLES V. DIVVY.]
+
+General Divvy came forward, and as he bowed and smiled in answer to the
+wild welcome he received, the band played a few bars from "Captain
+Jinks." When quiet had been restored, the General said that this was the
+proudest moment of his life. He should not venture, however, to make a
+speech. The occasion was one that called for a power of eloquence he
+could never hope to attain. (Cheers.) He would, however, advert for one
+brief moment (more cheers) to the significance of this great assembly.
+He was rejoiced to see so representative a gathering of intelligent
+citizens, drawn from every walk of life, brought here to consider how
+best to fix and establish upon the government of the city the great
+principle of Reform!
+
+The roar of applause that greeted this declaration was simply deafening.
+For full five minutes the audience cheered and shouted, while Sneekins
+opened his lips and gleamed his teeth with such vigor as to compel the
+Rev. Dr. Lillipad Froth to take a more distant chair.
+
+General Divvy called upon Editor Hacker to read the resolutions, which
+Mr. Hacker, having procured them from Mr. Ruse a moment before, at once
+proceeded to do. The first resolution, being a declaration in favor of
+Reform, was instantly carried. The second, which indorsed Major Ruse's
+administration, was likewise put through with entire unanimity. The
+third declared that this meeting of non-partisan citizens, anxious to
+continue to the city the unexampled prosperity it had enjoyed for the
+past two years, hereby placed in nomination for a second term the Hon.
+Perfidius Ruse; whereupon, to the horror and dismay of the Reformers,
+from all parts of the hall came a deafening roar of protesting "noes!"
+
+[Illustration: EDITOR HACKER READS THE RESOLUTIONS.]
+
+In an instant confusion and uproar possessed the house. General Divvy
+pounded the desk before him frantically and screamed for order until he
+was black in the face. Above all the din arose the shrill shout of
+Colonel Sneekins, as he called upon the police to clear the room. In the
+body of the house men were shaking their fists and waving their hats and
+coats, and calling, "O'Meagher! O'Meagher! 'Rah fer O'Meagher!" So
+unbounded was their enthusiasm for O'Meagher, so unanimous and
+determined were they to listen to nothing but O'Meagher, and so fierce
+and bloodthirsty did their devotion to O'Meagher appear to make them,
+that General Divvy, warned by the sudden contact of a projected cabbage
+with his mallet, ceased at once to hammer and picked up his hat and
+coat. The Reformers about him accepted this as the signal of retreat,
+and they fled precipitately through the door at the rear of the stage.
+Of them all only four tarried in the wings, Ruse, Sneekins, Divvy, and
+Hacker; and as they grasped each other's hands in sorrow and sympathy,
+they saw the stalwart figure of Major Tuff mount the stage. Immediately
+the hall was quiet.
+
+"Gents!" said Tuff. "Fer reasons dat I don't see an' derefore can't
+explain, our leaders 'pear ter hev deserted us and ter hev left dis
+gran' rally of non-partisan citizens in de int'rust of Reform (cheers)
+in de lurch. Dis is werry unforchernit, but we, as Reformers, must hump
+ourselves ter meet de crisis. I nomernate fer Mayor of New York de Hon.
+Doyle O'Meagher! Long may he wave!"
+
+A cyclone of cheers swept the hall, and as it echoed and re-echoed
+around them, the four stranded Reformers betook themselves away.
+"O'Meagher said he would accept the nominee of this meeting as the
+candidate of Tammany Hall," said Mr. Ruse sadly, "and I guess he'll keep
+his word."
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+MR. GALLIVANT.
+
+
+Bright and gay was the smile of Mr. Juniper Gallivant. Merry and artless
+was the flash of his bright blue eyes. Brisk and chipper was the step at
+which his dainty feet bore him along Broadway. Warm and impulsive was
+the grasp of his hand.
+
+Mr. Gallivant was a young man, surely not over forty. He was a little
+fellow with just the slightest perceptible tendency toward stoutness. He
+could say more words in a minute than any other man in New York, and he,
+at least, always believed what he said.
+
+Most men, I suppose, believe in themselves, and largely for the reason
+that most men are but superficially acquainted with themselves. But Mr.
+Gallivant had been on terms of long and ardent intimacy with himself,
+and the implicit trust he placed in his own words was therefore as
+surprising as it was beautiful.
+
+Mr. Gallivant was born a gentleman and educated a lawyer. He had an
+office in the Equitable Building, and, during his periods of ill-luck,
+a large and paying clientage. For it was only when luck was against him
+that he consented to practice at his profession. When it was known that
+he was in distressed circumstances, clients flocked to him in large
+numbers. Other less eloquent attorneys retained him to try their cases
+for them. He had business in plenty.
+
+But when fortune favored him, Mr. Gallivant didn't bother with musty old
+law books. Not much. He spent all his time spending his money. He had
+the most novel and ingenious ideas on the subject of loafing. He loafed
+scientifically, and with great enthusiasm. He put his soul into it, and
+when Mr. Gallivant's soul got into anything it straightway began to hum.
+Mr. Gallivant's soul was in many respects similar to a Corliss engine.
+
+Just now, Mr. Gallivant was in very poor circumstances--a condition of
+things all the more hardly felt because it succeeded, and succeeded
+suddenly, upon a period of bewildering prosperity. Early in the year
+1888 it was observed that Mr. Gallivant's dark red mustaches were
+curling away at the ends with a lightness and vivacity that they only
+displayed when things were going well. The quality of the curl in the
+ends of his mustaches invariably indicated to his friends the state of
+the market. They could tell exactly whether stocks were up or down and
+how much so. The sensitive rhododendron is not more surely responsive to
+the temperature of its environment than was the curl in Mr. Gallivant's
+mustaches to the tale of the ticker.
+
+In no other way, mark you, did he reveal his interest in the Street and
+its doings. By not a single quaver was the cheeriness of his snatchy,
+racy, merry voice affected. By not the fraction of an inch nor a second
+was his gay little trot altered. But when the ends of his mustache stood
+out straight, his friends, no matter how slight was their acquaintance
+with financial matters, knew they were safe in concluding that the
+country was going to the dogs, while, on the other hand, when those same
+mustaches finished off in a sprightly little twist, the fact that we
+were living under a wise and beneficent dispensation was too clear for
+argument.
+
+Early in 1888, as I said before, Mr. Gallivant's mustaches began to
+curl. They became elastic. They twisted themselves this way and that in
+graceful good-humor. They twined themselves lovingly about his nose and
+danced in constant ecstasy. Mr. Gallivant's office in the Equitable
+Building saw less and less of him. He left his lodgings in Harlem and
+took a suite of large and beautiful apartments in a fashionable hotel.
+Every afternoon he drove a pair of superb black horses over the
+Boulevard and through the Park. All his friends were happy. They asked
+and it was given them. He lavished diamond buttons and scarf-pins among
+them as if he were a prince and they were pugilists. He got up a party
+and made a palace-car excursion to the Yellowstone Park. He purchased a
+stock-farm in California. He hired a steam yacht and cruised in the
+Baltic. From the middle of March until the end of September he used the
+world as if it were his.
+
+But then, a change came o'er the spirit of his red mustaches. They
+ceased to sport about his nose. They were distinctly less playful than
+they had been, and by degrees they became positively stiff. In the mean
+time, Mr. Gallivant had returned to his law office. He had also gone
+back to live in Harlem, and one night last December he shut himself in
+his room--a hall bed-chamber on the third floor, rear--sat himself upon
+the only chair at hand, stretched his legs in front of him, thrust his
+hands in his pockets, and murmured:
+
+"I feel curiously like writing an essay on the 'Vanity of Human Wishes'!
+
+"Let me see, let me see," he continued in a ruminating tone, "what's to
+be done?"
+
+[Illustration: "LET ME SEE--WHAT'S TO BE DONE?"]
+
+He ran his hands through his pockets and produced a handful of change.
+Inspired by this success he rose and went to the closet and continued
+his search through a choice collection of coats, waistcoats, and
+trowsers that hung upon its hooks. "Nine dollars and seventy-six cents!"
+he said, when he had counted the proceeds of his investigation. "Well,
+I've had a great variety of ups and downs in my short but checkered
+career, but I never thought the sum total of my cash assets would be
+expressed in nine dollars and seventy-six cents! After all, life is but
+an insubstantial pageant, so I think I'll take a pony of brandy and go
+to bed."
+
+The next day Mr. Gallivant was at his office bright and early. His face
+shone with its perennial radiance, but his mustache told a cheerless
+tale. Mr. Gallivant had a number of principles. That which led all the
+rest was his steadfast refusal to borrow money. He sat down to the
+contemplation of ways and means, therefore, without the usual recourse
+taken by impecunious gentlemen with a large circle of wealthy
+acquaintances to relieve temporary embarrassments. He drew his
+check-book from his desk and made a careful calculation. "There's the
+judgment and costs in the Gauber case," he said, "the interest of
+Robbins's mortgage, the $3000 paid to settle Riker _vs._ Buckmaster,
+and the money Hunt paid my client Frabsley. Deduct these from my balance
+in bank, and I have left of my own money the munificent sum of $2.17.
+There's no way out of it--I must draw on Thwicket!"
+
+It must be owned that in the privacy of his office this conclusion
+brought something very like a frown upon Mr. Gallivant's brow. "It'll
+ruin me!" he said. "It'll show Thwicket that I'm as dry as Mother
+Hubbard's pantry, and when a man loses credit with his broker he might
+as well shut up shop. But, gad! there's no other way. I must have that
+balance, positively must, can't wait an hour longer. I've got $380 with
+Thwicket--$380, all that remains of--well never mind, there's no use
+grumbling over what's gone. I had a royal good time while it lasted, so
+I'll just think of the good time and not of what it took to get it. But
+that $380! H'm, I'll step down and see Thwicket!"
+
+Mr. Gallivant slid into his overcoat, prinked up his scarlet tie, and
+walked breezily into Wall Street. He chanced to meet Thwicket on the
+street, and they greeted each other effusively.
+
+"Where under the sun have you been for the last month or so?" exclaimed
+the broker. "I haven't seen a thing of you."
+
+"Oh, I've been around," answered Mr. Gallivant, with a general wave of
+the hand.
+
+Mr. Thwicket's face assumed a reproachful look.
+
+"Oh, no," said Gallivant, responsively, "I haven't been doing business
+with anybody else. Fact is, old fellow, I think I've got a bit
+flustered. I don't seem able to get the hang of the market. Gad, I've
+lost a whole fortune since September--must have lost every dollar of a
+hundred thousand. Now I can't go on like that forever, you know. I give
+you my word of honor I couldn't stand another such loss. It would put me
+in a hole."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Thwicket; "come, walk down to the office and we'll talk
+it over. By the way, where are you living now? I dropped in at your
+hotel and they said you'd given up your rooms and gone into the country.
+Queer time o' year to go to the country?"
+
+"Um--well, dunno 'bout that. Found my rooms stuffy. Like country,
+sleighing, skating, ice yachting, don't you know. Fine air, healthy.
+Think I'll buy a place up the Hudson. Fact is, negotiating now."
+
+"Really? How's your stock farm?"
+
+"Oh, sold it long 'go. Got tired of it. Can't play with one toy forever,
+you know. How's the market?"
+
+"It looks to me a little queer to-day," replied the broker.
+
+"That's it! That's what I say. That's the reason I haven't been in
+lately. Found I was getting rattled. More I figured, further away I got
+from real conditions."
+
+"It's time to try again."
+
+"H'm; not so sure."
+
+"Luck must change."
+
+"Think so?"
+
+"Oh, I'm certain."
+
+"How's Hollyoke Central selling?"
+
+"It closed yesterday at 86-3/4."
+
+"Good time to buy."
+
+"I doubt that, Mr. Gallivant. It seems to be slowly going the wrong way
+for buying. But you might sell to advantage."
+
+"There, now, that shows you. I tell you I'm rattled. You see, the very
+first thing I suggest you discourage. Think I'd better hold off."
+
+They had now reached the broker's office, in which Mr. Gallivant was
+presently ensconced at ease.
+
+"You are right," said Thwicket, handing out a case of cigars, "in saying
+that the market is queer. Something very curious has got hold of it. As
+you know, I avoid giving advice to my customers, and I'm not going to
+advise you; but if you will notice the state of affairs with regard to
+Snapshot Consolidated, you will see something that ought to make you
+open your eyes."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Didn't you read the market reports in this morning's papers?"
+
+"Haven't looked at a market report for three weeks."
+
+"I guess that explains why you don't understand the situation, then.
+Well, Snapshot Consolidated opened at 42. At about noon it began to
+mount, and it rose peg by peg till it closed at 57-1/2. Now, what do you
+think of that?"
+
+"I think it's a warning for discreet men like me to keep away from
+Snapshot. I have no overweening desire to monkey with Mr. Gould,
+Thwicket." Mr. Gallivant jingled the remnant of six or seven dollars in
+his pocket and softly added, "He has more money than I."
+
+"You're your own best judge, of course. But if that stock opens this
+morning above the point at which it closed last night, there's going to
+be more fun to-day in Wall Street than we've had for many a year. It
+looks to me like a rock-ribbed corner."
+
+Mr. Juniper Gallivant bowed his head as if in deep reflection. As a
+matter of fact, he was fermenting with excitement. He looked at his
+watch. It was within fifteen minutes of the time for the Exchange to
+open. "A corner!" he softly exclaimed to himself. "A corner, ye gods!
+and my balance in the Chemical Bank is $2.17. A corner, and I not in
+it!"
+
+Mr. Gallivant's fingers began to itch viciously, and the perspiration
+broke out copiously under his thick red hair. By a great struggle he
+managed to suppress all outward signs of his emotion, while he continued
+to commune with his own mind. "It's no use," he thought. "I must give up
+all idea of laying in with a corner when I haven't got money enough to
+set up a decent champagne supper. No, I must draw that $380, and the
+question is, how to do it and keep my credit good. Ha! an idea strikes
+me!" He turned quietly to the broker and said aloud: "Give me a pen,
+Thwicket!"
+
+He took a blank check from his pocket-book--a check on the Chemical
+Bank, wherein $2.17 reposed peacefully to his credit.
+
+"I don't think you have very much money of mine here, Thwicket?" he
+continued, as he slowly wrote the date-line in the check.
+
+"Don't think we have. Robert, what is Mr. Gallivant's balance?"
+
+The clerk turned over his ledger and presently replied: "Mr. Gallivant
+has a credit of $382.22."
+
+[Illustration: "ROBERT, WHAT IS MR. GALLIVANT'S BALANCE?"]
+
+"I don't think we'll bother with Snapshot Consolidated, Thwicket.
+Truth is, I'm afraid of it. My wits haven't been working right here
+lately. But I'll just give you a check for $20,000, and you can buy me a
+nice little block of Michigan Border--say a hundred shares, just to see
+how the cat jumps, you know."
+
+Thwicket took the check, but with a troubled air. "My dear Gallivant,"
+he said, "why do a thing like that? I'm very glad to have another order
+from you, but I don't want to see a valuable customer like you lose any
+more money. Michigan Border was doing very well a month ago, but it is
+declining now, and for good reasons. Let's take a flyer in Snapshot!"
+
+"Hand me that check!" said Mr. Gallivant in a most decisive tone and
+with a profoundly irritated air. "Hand it back, Thwicket! Hand it right
+over, and draw me a check for my balance of $382.22. I'm going to cut
+the d--d Gordian knot and get out of this! No use talking, my head's all
+bemuddled. 'F I was to go into the Street to-day I'd lose my whole
+fortune. Now, don't argue with me, old man, I'm out of sorts, and the
+best thing for me to do is to stop right short till I get clear-headed
+again. Draw me that check. Let me have every penny I've got on your
+books. I'm going up to my place in the country and spend a month
+reading Greek plays. If anything 'll calm me, that will."
+
+The broker looked vastly disappointed, but smiled consentingly. He
+returned the $20,000 check, which Mr. Gallivant tore to pieces with a
+great show of nervousness and irritation, and in another moment,
+possessed of his precious $382.22, he departed gloomily.
+
+But a long and cheery smile, that reached nearly to the tips of his
+mustache and almost sufficed to give them a faint curl, spread itself
+over his face as he turned from Wall Street into Broadway. He caressed
+the check with his fingers and softly observed, "H'm, I flatter myself
+that was well done. I have the money, and Thwicket has an abiding
+confidence in my wealth,--but oh, ye gods! what would I give to be able
+to put my fine Italian hand into that Snapshot corner!"
+
+Mr. Gallivant returned to his office and endeavored to fasten his
+attention upon the records of a title search prepared by his clerk, but
+he found himself ever going over the figures, 57-1/2, 57-1/2, 57-1/2.
+
+"Heavens!" he said presently, "I can't stand this any longer. I must see
+the ticker. I must find out how it opened to-day. Gad, I'll go crazy if
+I sit here all day mumbling '57-1/2!'"
+
+He started up and had half put on his coat, when the office door was
+flung open and Thwicket rushed in breathless.
+
+"Seventy-two," he shouted wildly. "Opened at sixty-five! Leaped right up
+to 68, then to 70, then to 72. Now's your chance, old man. Say the word
+and say it quick. Never mind about the $20,000. We'll settle up when the
+day is over, and every second you lose now will cost you hundreds of
+dollars. It's sure to go to 160. Don't keep me waiting--say the word?"
+
+Mr. Gallivant jammed his hands deep into his pockets to prevent their
+betraying his excitement, and hemmed and hawed.
+
+"Do you really think it's worth while, Thwicket!"
+
+"Great guns, man! You make me--"
+
+"Now, don't be nervous, Thwicket. When I trust a man to spend my money
+for me I want him cool and calm."
+
+"But you're losing valuable time! It's jumping up every minute. The
+Exchange has gone wild! Everybody's in a furor. You can make a mint if
+you go right in."
+
+"All right, drive ahead. But use judgment, Thwicket. Remember I don't
+want to invest more than $20,000, and you should preserve your
+equanim--"
+
+[Illustration: "SEVENTY-TWO," HE SHOUTED WILDLY.]
+
+But Thwicket was gone, and when the door closed behind him Mr.
+Gallivant gave a leap from the floor where he stood to the sofa eight
+feet away! Then he leaped back. Then he picked up a pair of dumb-bells
+and swung them fiercely at the imminent risk of his head and the
+furniture of the room. Then finally he drew from his desk a bottle of
+brandy and took a long, strong pull.
+
+"Ah," he said, smacking his lips, "now I'll get ready and go to the
+street and watch the tumult."
+
+Disposing, as soon as he could, of the correspondence on his desk, he
+presently made his way to Thwicket's office. The broker was still at the
+Stock Exchange. He grabbed at the tapes and looked for Snapshot. There
+was nothing on them but Snapshot. "Snap. Col. 93," "Snap. Col. 96-3/8,"
+"Snap. Col."--even as he stood by the ticker and watched the machine
+roll out its stream of white paper--"Snap. Col. 108!"
+
+Mr. Gallivant's eyes blurred. He felt queer in his knees. The
+perspiration broke out fiercely all over his plump little body. "Why the
+mischief doesn't Thwicket come in?" he murmured. "Why don't he sell and
+get out of this? Ten, twenty, thirty--great guns! I've made $50,000
+already! It can't go on like this much longer. It'll break in half an
+hour, 'gad, I know it will--I feel it in my bones! If Thwicket doesn't
+sell inside of thirty minutes I'm a goner, and what's worse, he'll be a
+goner with me! What's this! 117! By the great horn spoon, I must get
+hold of Thwicket! Thwicket! Thwicket! My kingdom for Thwicket!"
+
+Mr. Gallivant dropped the tapes and rushed frantically into the street
+and across to the entrance of the Exchange. He dispatched a messenger
+across the floor to find his broker, but who could find which in that
+tumultuous mob? The Exchange floor was crowded with a crazy body of
+yelling men, their faces boiled into crimson, their eyes glowing with a
+fierce fire, their hats banged out of shape, their coats in many cases
+torn into shreds, jostling, tumbling, jumping, stretching all over each
+other in riotous confusion. Fat men were being squeezed into pancakes,
+little men were being covered out of sight, tall men were being
+clambered upon as if their manifest destiny were to serve as poles, and
+every man of them, big, short, thin, fat, lank, and heavy, was
+flourishing his arms in the air and howling at the top of his voice!
+
+Mr. Gallivant's messenger returned in a few moments with the report that
+Mr. Thwicket could not be found. Quivering with excitement, Mr.
+Gallivant started forth in further search. At the door of the Exchange
+he met his office-boy, who told him the broker was searching for him
+high and low--had been at the office and was now in the Savarin café.
+Thither Mr. Gallivant rushed as fast as his legs could carry him, only
+to learn that Thwicket had just gone out asking every man he met if he
+had seen Gallivant. The lawyer was in despair. He glanced at the
+ticker--"Snap. Col. 134-1/2!"
+
+"Heavens!" he shrieked, "will nobody seize that crazy Thwicket and hold
+him till I come!"
+
+He ran at full speed to the broker's office. Thwicket had left two
+minutes before, having learned that Gallivant was at the Savarin. He
+turned around again and started once more to dash forth, when he saw the
+broker coming along in reckless haste.
+
+In an instant Mr. Gallivant was all repose--all serenity and ease. He
+dropped quietly into a chair and picked up the morning paper. In rushed
+Thwicket, disheveled, frantic, breathless.
+
+"At last!" he cried. "It's 136. It'll break in another ten minutes!
+Hadn't I better get from under?"
+
+"Still excited, Thwicket?" answered Mr. Gallivant reproachfully. "My
+dear boy, I'm afraid you've not got a proper hold upon yourself. Yes,
+probably you'd better unload. Perhaps now's as good a moment as any. But
+be--"
+
+[Illustration: "YOU'VE DONE VERY WELL, THWICKET."]
+
+Thwicket did not wait for the rest. He fled. When he returned half an
+hour later his face was radiant, but his collar wilted. "Sold!" he
+cried, "at 148, and busted at 152!"
+
+By a quick, spontaneous motion, Mr. Gallivant's mustaches drew
+themselves in a loving curl around his nose, but for the rest he was
+merely cheery--gently cheery--as he always was.
+
+"You've done very well, Thwicket," he said commendingly. "You've quite
+justified my confidence. You're a knowing fellow, and I'll--er--what's
+the proceeds?"
+
+"A hundred and thirteen thousand--rather a fair day's work."
+
+"That it is. Send around your check for the hundred, and let the
+thirteen stay on account. By-by, I'll see you again in a day or two."
+
+Mr. Gallivant walked out into the street upon his usual ramble. "Strikes
+me," he said musingly, "that I ought to do something handsome for
+Thwicket now--I really ought. My profit is $113,000. I doubt if his will
+reach even $500. That doesn't look quite fair, seeing that he did the
+business all on his own money. The deuce of it is, though, that it's
+demoralizing to make presents to your brokers. After all, business is
+business!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+TULITZ.
+
+
+With the circumstances that brought Tulitz into trouble we have nothing
+to do. Indeed, whatever I may have known about them once I have long ago
+forgotten. I seem to remember, but very vaguely, that he stabbed
+somebody, though, at the same time, I find in my memory an impression
+that he forged somebody's name. This I distinctly recall, that the
+amount of bail in which he was held was $5000--a circumstance strongly
+confirmatory of the notion that his assault was upon life and not upon
+property. In this excellent country, where property rights are guarded
+with great zeal and care, and the surplus population is large, we charge
+more for the liberty of forgers than of murderers. Had Tulitz committed
+forgery, his bail bond would scarcely have been less than $10,000.
+Since, beyond all question, it was only $5000, I think I must be right
+in the idea that he stabbed a man.
+
+It was in default of that sum, $5000, that Tulitz, commonly called the
+Baron Tulitz, alias d'Ercevenne, commonly called the Marquis
+d'Ercevenne, was committed to the Tombs Prison to await the action of
+the Grand Jury. At this time Tulitz--I call him Tulitz without intending
+any partiality for that name over the alias of d'Ercevenne, but merely
+because Tulitz is a shorter word to write. I doubt if he had any
+preference between them himself, except in the way of business. He was
+just as likely, other things being equal, to present his card bearing
+the words "M. le Marquis d'Ercevenne," as his other card with the words
+upon it "Freiherr von Tulitz." It has been remarked frequently that when
+he was the Baron his tone and manner were exceedingly French, while when
+he was the Marquis he spoke with a distinct German accent. None of his
+acquaintances was able to account for this.
+
+But as I was saying, when Tulitz was sent to the Tombs he was in hard
+luck. Formerly he had whipped the social trout-stream with great
+success. As the Marquis he had composed some pretty odes, had led the
+German at Mrs. de Folly's assembly, had driven to Hempstead with the
+Coaching Club, and had been seen in Mrs. Castor's box at the opera. As
+the Baron Tulitz, he had attended the races, and had been a frequenter
+of all the great gaming resorts. The newspapers called him a "plunger,"
+and a story went the rounds, in which he was represented to have wrecked
+a pool-seller, who thereupon committed suicide. The Baron always denied
+this story, which the Marquis often repeated. Indeed the Marquis was
+often quoted to the Baron as an authority for it.
+
+But the tide had turned, and now Tulitz was on his back with never a
+friend to help him. "Fi' t'ousan' tollaire!" he exclaimed, as the
+Justice fixed his bail, blending both his French and his German accent
+with strict impartiality, "V'y you not make him den, dwenty, a huntret
+t'ousandt!"
+
+A penniless prisoner in the Tombs is not an object of much
+consideration, as Tulitz discovered to his profound disgust. For two
+days he paced his cell with the restless, incessant tread of a caged
+hyena. He disdainfully rejected the beef soup, the hunk of bread and the
+black coffee served to him more or less frequently, and for two days and
+nights he neither ate nor spoke. The Tombs cells are built of thick
+stone, entered through a heavy iron door, that is provided with a small
+grating. Tulitz's cell was on the second tier. Around this tier extends
+a narrow gallery, along which the guard walks every now and then, to
+see that all is as it should be. The guard annoyed Tulitz. Every time he
+passed he would peer in and give a sort of grunt. This became painfully
+exasperating to the Baron.
+
+[Illustration: "FI' TOUSANT TOLLAIRE! VY YOU NOT MAKE HIM A HUNTRET
+TOUSANT?"]
+
+Late in the afternoon of the second day of his imprisonment, Tulitz,
+desperate with hunger, rage, and despair, sat down upon the stool in his
+cell and glared viciously at the grating. The guard's face was there.
+
+"Ha!" cried Tulitz, in a shrill voice, "keep avay! You tink I von tam
+mouse, and you ze cat, hey? You sit outside ze cage viz your claw out
+and your tail stiff, ready to pounce on ze mouse. _Mon Dieu!_ How I
+hate!"
+
+The guard unlocked the iron door and stepped inside. "Don't make sech a
+racket over nawthin'," he said. "De warden says yer gotter do some
+eatin'."
+
+"I kill ze warden if he keep not his _mechant chute_!"
+
+"Wotcher goin' ter do? Starve?"
+
+"If I choose starve, how you prevent him, hey? How make you me eat?
+_Voilŕ, bęte!_" Tulitz drew himself to his full height, turned up his
+shirt-sleeves and bared his great, muscular arm.
+
+"Oh, all right," said the guard. "It's all one to me. Starve if yer
+wanter. I'm agreeable."
+
+"I vant notting, _rien, rien_!" said Tulitz. "I vant to be leave alone."
+
+"Dat aint much. Mos' people wat comes here is more graspin'. Mos' people
+wants ter git out."
+
+"Ha!" said Tulitz.
+
+"De warden said fer me ter come in here an' tell yer' he'd send fer
+anybody yer wanter see."
+
+"Zere is nopotty."
+
+"Aincher got no friends?"
+
+"Ven I haf money, I have friend--_beaucoup_, more friend as I know vat
+to do viz. I haf no money now."
+
+"Wot's your bail?"
+
+"Fi' tousant tollaire! Bah! Vat is fi' tousant tollaire? Many time I
+spend him viz no more care as I light my cigar. A bagatelle! But," and
+he added this with a curiously grim expression, "I haf no bagatelle
+to-day."
+
+The guard sidled up to Tulitz and whispered in his ear, "What'll yer
+gimme if I gitcher a bondsman?"
+
+"Ha!" said Tulitz, "you haf ze man?"
+
+"I knows a man," replied the guard reflectively, "who might do it on my
+recommend. Sometimes, w'en a man aint got no frien's, but kin lay aroun'
+'im an' scoop tergedder a couple er hundred dollars, I mention him ter
+my frien' wid a recommend, an' dat settles it, out he comes."
+
+"Two hundret tollaire!" cried Tulitz, almost piteously. "Ven I efer
+t'ink my liperty cost me two huntret tollaire and I haf not got him. Zis
+blow kill all zat is to me of my self-respect! _Je suis hors de
+moi-męme!_"
+
+"Why, you orter be able to raise dat much tin," said the guard.
+
+Tulitz jumped from his bed to the floor with a cry such as a wild beast
+might have given as it sprang from peril into safety. He demanded pencil
+and paper, and with them he scribbled a message. "Send for me zat note!"
+he said. "Bring me a _filet de b[oe]uf_, a _pâte de fois gras_, and a
+bottle of Burgundy, and bring him all quick! Corinne! _La belle_
+Corinne! _Chérie amie_, vot I haf svear I lofe and cherish! I haf not
+remember you, Corinne!"
+
+A throng of people, big and little, young and old, were waiting in the
+corridors of the warden's office the next morning, eager for the bell to
+strike the signal that would admit them into the prisons. They were
+mostly women. Here and there in the crowd was a little boy carrying a
+tin can with something in it good to eat, sent, doubtless, by his old
+mother to her scamp of a son. The little beggar has his first
+experiences of a prison administering to the comforts of his big,
+ruffianly brother, probably a great hero in his eyes.
+
+For the most part, the crowd is made up of young women. There, muffled
+closely, is the wife of a defaulter, who was caught in the act. Three
+days ago she held her head as high as any. Now it is bent low and hidden
+with shame. Yonder, terrified and broken-hearted, is the sister of a man
+who shot another. He is no criminal. There was a quarrel about a matter
+of money. The lie was given, a blow followed, and then a shot. Her
+brother a murderer! Her brother, all kindness, docility, and goodness,
+locked up in a place like this with thieves and hardened convicts! It
+was a fatal shot--ah, me, so very fatal, so widely fatal!
+
+Many of them, though, are laughing and joking with each other. They have
+got acquainted coming here to look after their husbands, lovers,
+brothers, fathers, and sons. They bow cheerily as they come in, and say
+what a fine day it is, and how they missed you yesterday, and they hope
+nothing was the matter at home. Among them are brazen jades who chatter
+saucily with the guards, and these are the best treated of all. They are
+asked no gruff, surly questions, but with a wink and a jest in they go.
+
+On the outer edge of the crowd, among those who waited till the first
+rush was over, stood a dark, wiry little woman with a face remarkable
+alike for its resolution and its innocence. She could not have been more
+than twenty-five years old. She looked as if she had seen much of the
+world, but had illy learned the lessons of her experience. This
+combination of strength and simplicity had wrought a curious effect upon
+her manner. There was no timidity about her, but much gentleness. She
+was modest and clothed with repose, and yet the outlines of her face
+plainly informed you that in the presence of a sufficient emergency she
+was quite prepared to go anywhere or do anything.
+
+"I want to see Monsieur Tulitz," she said to the entry clerk, when her
+opportunity came.
+
+He gave her a ticket without asking any questions, except the formal
+ones, and then turned her over to the matron.
+
+The matron of the Tombs has been there many years, and she knows how to
+read faces.
+
+"Your ticket says you are Madame Tulitz?" said the matron.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I must search you."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"It must be thorough."
+
+"Very well."
+
+[Illustration: "I WANT TO SEE MONSIEUR TULITZ," SHE SAID.]
+
+"Please take off your hat and let down your hair."
+
+She did as she was bidden, and a great mass of dark hair tumbled nearly
+to her feet. The matron immediately and with practiced dexterity twisted
+it up again. Then her shoes, dress, and corsets were removed, until the
+matron was enabled to tell that nothing could by any possibility be
+concealed about her.
+
+"It's all right," said the matron. "I'm sorry to trouble you so much,
+but I have to be very careful."
+
+"You needn't apologize. Now can I go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She adjusted her hat and proceeded through the long corridors out into
+the prison yard, and thence into the old prison where Tulitz was
+confined. The guard who had sent her Tulitz's letter led her to his
+cell, and brought a stool for her to sit upon outside his grated iron
+door.
+
+"My _ravissante_ Corinne!" cried Tulitz.
+
+She put her fingers through the bars, and he bent to kiss them, coming,
+as he did so, in contact with two little files of the hardest steel.
+
+"_Diable!_" he said.
+
+"I had them in my hat. I made them serve as the stems of these lilies."
+
+"Ze woman she make ze wily t'ing. How young and _charmante_ she seem
+for one so like ze fox! Ah, Corinne, my sweetest lofe--"
+
+"You don't mean that."
+
+"Not mean him! _Mon Dieu!_ How can you haf ze heart to say ze cruel
+word. Corinne, you are ze only frient I haf in ze whole bad worlt."
+
+"Yes, I know that. But not the only wife."
+
+"Why you torture me so, Corinne?"
+
+"I wont. We'll let it go. You need me, I suppose?"
+
+"You use all ze cold word, Corinne. I neet you! _Oui, oui_, I efer neet
+you. I neet you ven I stay from you ze longest. I neet you ven ze bad
+come into my heart and drive out ze good and tender, and leave only ze
+hard, and make me crazy and full of dream of fortune. Zen I am out of
+myself and den I neet you ze most, Corinne. Zat I haf been cruel and
+vicked, I know, but I am punish now. Now, I neet you in my despair, but
+if you come to speak bitter, I am sorry to haf send for you."
+
+"I'll not be bitter, Tulitz. I don't believe you love me, and I never
+will believe it again. So don't say tender things. They only make me
+sad. Tell me what--"
+
+"You do pelief I lofe you."
+
+"No."
+
+"_Chérie._"
+
+"Don't, Tulitz!"
+
+"You know I haf a so hot blood. It tingle viz lofe for you and I am
+sane. Zen I dream. I see some strange sight--power, money, ze people at
+my feet--ze people I hate, bah! I see zem all bend. Zen I am insane and
+my very lofe make me vorse. Ah, Corinne, if you see my heart, you vould
+not speak so cold. If I could preak zis iron door zat bar me from you
+and draw you close to me, Corinne, vere you could feel ze quick beat zat
+say, 'lofe! lofe! lofe!'--if I could take your hand and kees--"
+
+"Tulitz!"
+
+"My sveetheart!"
+
+"Hush, please, Tulitz. Don't say those things now. I can't stand them. I
+shall scream. Tulitz, I love you so!"
+
+"Ah, I know zat. You haf no dream zat rob you of your mind. And I shall
+haf no more soon. Ven ze trial come, and ze shury make me guilty, and ze
+shudge--"
+
+"No! no! You must escape."
+
+"Ze reech escape, little von. Ze poor nefer. Zat is law. Ha! ha! you
+know not law. Law is ze science by vich a man who has money do as he tam
+please and snap his finger--so! and shrug his shoulder--so! and say,
+'You not like it? Vat I care, Monsieur?' and by vich ze poor man, vedder
+he guilty or not, haf no single chance, not von, to escape. I haf not
+efen ze two huntret tollaire zat gif me my liberty till ze trial come."
+
+"Neither have I, Tulitz, and the only way I can get it is to part with
+something I love better than--never mind, you shall have the two hundred
+dollars."
+
+"You mean our ring, Corinne?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You shall not sell ze ring. Nefer!"
+
+"But I must. We will get it back."
+
+"No, I forbid! I stay here first." Corinne's face fairly glowed with
+tenderness.
+
+"Let me do as I think best, darling," she said. "The first thing is to
+get you out of this wretched place. Now tell me all about it."
+
+He told her all, or, at least, all he needed to tell, and she left him
+with the understanding that she should meet the guard in the City Hall
+Park two hours later and arrange about the bail-bond with a man whom he
+should present to her. She hurried up-town and collected in her lodgings
+half a dozen valuable pieces of jewelry. These she took to a pawnshop
+and upon them she realized something more than the sum necessary to
+obtain Tulitz's bondsman. At the appointed hour she was walking
+leisurely through the Park, and soon found herself approaching two men.
+One she recognized as the guard. The other was an elderly man dressed
+in a black suit of broadcloth which, in its time, had been very fine
+indeed. But it was made for him when he was younger and less corpulent
+than now, and he bulged it out in a way that was trying to the stitches
+and the buttons. His silk hat was shiny, but exceedingly worn, and the
+boots upon his feet, despite his creditable efforts to make them appear
+at all possible advantage, were in a rebellious humor, like a glum
+soldier in need of sleep. His hair was bushy and gray, and his mustache
+meant to be gray, too, but his habit of chewing the ends of his cigars
+had resulted in its taking on a yellow border.
+
+"Dis is the gen'l'man wot'll go on Mr. Tulitz's bond, mum," said the
+guard. "His name's Rivers."
+
+"Madam Tulitz, I am your humble and obedient servant. Colonel Rivers,
+Colonel Edward Lawrence Rivers, and most happy in this unfortunate
+emergency to serve you. I have read in the papers of M. Tulitz's
+disagreeable--er--situation. It is a gross outrage. The bail is $5000,
+this gentleman tells me. Infamous, perfectly infamous! The idea of
+requiring such a bond for so trivial an affair. When I was in Congress I
+introduced an Amendment to the Constitution providing that no bail
+should be demanded in excess of $500. It didn't get through; the
+capitalistic influence was too much for me. However, I'd just as lief,
+to tell the truth, go on M. Tulitz's bond for five thousand as for one.
+I know he'll be where he's wanted when the time comes, and if he isn't,
+the bail-bond will. They'll have that to console themselves with,
+anyway."
+
+[Illustration: "MADAME TULITZ, I AM YOUR HUMBLE AND OBEDIENT SERVANT."]
+
+"Where are we to go?" asked Corinne.
+
+"To the police court. I'll show you; but when we get there you mustn't
+ask me any questions. Ask anybody else but me. I'm always very ignorant
+in the police court--never know anything, except my answers to the
+surety examination. Those I always learn by heart. Now--" he turned to
+the guard, and said parenthetically, "All right, my boy," whereupon the
+guard disappeared. "Now, just take my arm, if you please; you needn't be
+afraid, ha! ha! I'm old, and wont hurt you. You see, we must be friends,
+old friends. Bless you, my child, I've known you from a baby, knew your
+father before you, dear old boy, and promised him on his dying bed I'd
+be a father to his--er--by the way, my dear, what's your name?"
+
+"Corinne. Do you want my maiden name?"
+
+"No, never mind that. I always supply a maiden name myself when I deal
+with ladies, on the ground, you see, that it's much better to keep real
+names out of bail-bonds, even where they don't signify. In fact, the
+less real you put in, anyhow, the better. My signature must be on as
+many as a thousand bail-bonds first and last, in this city, Boston,
+Chicago, San Francisco, and other places, and I've never yet experienced
+the slightest trouble. I think my good fortune is almost wholly due to
+the circumstance that I never repeat myself. I always tell a new story
+every time."
+
+"Do they know you at the place where we're going?"
+
+"I fervently hope they don't, my dear. It wouldn't do M. Tulitz any
+good, or me either, if they did. No, no, you must introduce me. I am
+your friend, your lifelong friend, Colonel Edward Lawrence Rivers. I am
+a retired merchant. Formerly I dealt in hides--perhaps you had better
+say in skins, my dear; on second thought, it might be more appropriate
+to say in skins, and then again it would be more accurate. I like to
+tell the truth when I can conveniently and without prejudice to the
+rights of the defendant. If I haven't dealt in skins as much as any
+other man on the face of the earth, then I don't know what a skin is.
+Ha! ha! my dear, I think that's pretty good for an old man whose wits
+are nearly given out with the work that has been imposed upon them. Let
+me say right here that the clerk of the court is a knowing fellow, and
+you want to mind your p's and q's. You want to be very confiding and
+affectionate in your manner toward me, and I'll do all the rest."
+
+"Is there any danger, sir? Will we be found out? Oh dear! I'm dreadfully
+nervous."
+
+"Well, now, you needn't be, my child, you needn't be. I've had a great
+deal of experience in delicate matters of this kind, and I guess we'll
+fetch your husband out all right. As for the danger, it's all mine, and
+as for getting found out, that will come in due time, probably; but when
+it comes we'll all of us endeavor to view it from a remote standpoint,
+where we can do so, I dare say, with comparative equanimity. So keep up
+your spirits, my dear, and trust to your old friend, the friend of your
+childhood, Colonel the Hon. Edward Lawrence Rivers, formerly a dealer in
+skins. Ah, here we are! Just take a look at my necktie, child. Is it
+tied all right? And is my diamond pin there? No? Well, where the
+mischief can it be? Ah, yes, here it is in my pocket. My jewel cases are
+all portable. There! Now, we're ready. Look timid, my child, but
+confident in the final triumph of your just and righteous cause. Come
+on."
+
+They entered the court-room. Seated in an inclosure in the custody of an
+officer was the Baron Tulitz. His sharp face lighted when he saw them
+approaching, and, as Corinne took her seat by his side, he pressed her
+hand. Presently his case was called, and his lawyer arose to offer bail.
+He presented Colonel Rivers. The old man was a spectacle of grave
+decorum. He answered the questions put to him about his residence, his
+family, his place of business and his property, which he conveniently
+located in Staten Island, Niagara County, Jersey City, and Morrisania.
+He was worth $300,000. He owed nothing. He displayed his deeds. He had
+never been a bondsman before. He didn't know Tulitz, but was willing to
+risk the bail to restore peace to the troubled mind of this poor little
+child, the orphan of his old friend and neighbor. Never was there a
+bondsman offered more unfamiliar with the forms and ceremonies necessary
+to the record of the recognizance. He had to be told where he should
+sign, and even then he started to put his name in the wrong place. But
+at last it was done, and Tulitz was free.
+
+Corinne's eyes were full of tears when the old man gently drew her arm
+within his and led her from the court-room, with Tulitz and his lawyer
+following. He walked with them as far as Broadway, and then he turned
+to say good-by. He kissed her hand gallantly, and called Tulitz aside.
+
+"Skip!" he said, "and be quick about it!"
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+MR. McCAFFERTY.
+
+
+An incident of the late municipal election has recently come within my
+knowledge, which I hasten to communicate to the public, in the hope that
+an investigation will be ordered by the Legislature, and, if the facts
+be as they are represented here (this being a faithful record of what I
+have been credibly told), in the further hope that the men who have
+tampered with the honor of Dennie McCafferty and his friend, The Croak,
+will speedily be brought to justice.
+
+Late one night toward the close of September Dennie was walking down
+Houston Street toward the Bowery, when he suddenly espied The Croak
+walking up Houston Street toward Broadway. As suddenly The Croak espied
+him, and both stopped short. They looked at one another long and
+intently, and then Dennie wheeled around and without a word led the way
+into a saloon near at hand.
+
+"Dice!" said he to the bartender. He rattled the box and threw. "Three
+fives!" he cried.
+
+[Illustration: DENNIE M'CAFFERTY.]
+
+The Croak handled the dice-box with great deliberation. Presently he
+rolled the ivories out. "Three sixes," he said slowly, "an' I'll take a
+pony er brandy."
+
+"That settles it!" cried Dennie joyously. "It's you, Croaker, sure pop.
+My eyes did not deceive me. I thought they had, Croaker. I thought I
+must be laboring under a mental strain. When I saw you coming up the
+street I says to myself, 'That's The Croak.' Then I took another look,
+and says, 'No, it can't be. The Croak's in Joliet doing three years for
+working the sawdust.' Then I looked again and I says, 'It must be The
+Croak. There's his cock-eye looking straight at me through the wooden
+Indian in front of the cigar-store across the street.' Then I looked
+once more, and says, 'But it can't be. Three years can't have passed
+since The Croak and I were dealing faro in old McGlory's.' Once again I
+looked, and I says, 'If it's The Croak, he'll chuck a bigger dice than
+mine and stick me for drinks, and he'll take a pony of brandy.' There's
+the dice, there's the pony, and there's The Croak. Drink hearty!"
+
+They lifted their glasses and poured down the liquor, and Dennie
+continued, "How'd you get out, Croaker?"
+
+"Served me term," said The Croak shortly.
+
+[Illustration: TOZIE MONKS, THE CROAK.]
+
+"What! Then is it three years? Well, well, how the snows and the
+blossoms come and go. We're growing old, Croaker. We're nearing the time
+when the fleeting show will have flet. And hanged if I can see that
+we're growing any wiser, or better, or richer--hey? Thirty cents! Ye
+gods, Croaker, that man says thirty cents! Thirty cents, and my entire
+capital is a lonely ten-cent piece that I kept for luck. Thirty cents,
+and my last collateral security hocked and the ticket lost! Croaker, I'm
+in despair."
+
+The Croak dived into his trowsers pocket, took out a small roll of
+bills, handed one to the bartender and another--a ten-dollar
+greenback--to Dennie.
+
+"Dear boy!" said Dennie, expanding into smiles. "What an uncommon
+comfort you are, Croaker. Virtues such as yours reconcile me to a
+further struggle with this cold and selfish world. It has used me pretty
+hard since I saw you last, Croaker. Not long after you left for
+the--er--West I met an elderly gentleman from Bumville, whom I thought I
+recognized as a Mr. Huckster. I spoke to him, but found myself in error.
+He said his name wasn't Huckster, of Bumville, but Bogle, of Bogle's
+Cross Roads. I apologized, left him, and at the corner whom should I see
+but Tommy, the Tick. Incidentally I mentioned to Tommy the curious
+circumstance of my having mistaken Mr. Bogle, of Bogle's Cross Roads,
+for Mr. Huckster, of Bumville.
+
+"'Bogle!' said Tommy. 'Bogle! Why, I know Bogle well. He's a great
+friend of my uncle's.' Whereupon Tommy hurried off after Bogle. I am not
+even yet informed as to what took place between Bogle and Tommy, further
+than that they struck up a warm and agreeable acquaintance; that they
+stopped in at a dozen places on their way up-town; that poor old Bogle
+got drunk and happy; that they went somewhere and took chances in a
+raffle, and that they got into a dispute over $2000 which Bogle said
+Tommy had helped to cheat him out of. A couple of Byrnes's malignant
+minions arrested Tommy, and not satisfied with that act of tyranny and
+oppression, they actually came to my lonely lodgings and arrested me.
+What for? you ask in blank amazement. Has an honest and industrious
+American citizen no rights? Must it ever be that the poor and
+downtrodden are sacrificed to glut the maw of that ten-fold tyrant at
+Police Headquarters? They charged me with larceny, with working the
+confidence game, and despite my protestations and the eloquence of my
+learned counsel, who cost me my last nickel, a hard-hearted and idiotic
+jury convicted me, and that sandy-haired old flint at the General
+Sessions gave me a year and six months in Sing Sing. Now, Croaker, when
+you live in a land where such outrages are committed upon a man simply
+because he is poor, you wonder what your fathers fought and bled and
+died for, don't you, Croaker?"
+
+"I dunno 'bout dat, Dennie, but 'f I cud talk like er you I'd bin an
+Eyetalian Prince by dis time, wid a title wot ud reach across dis room
+an' jewels ter match," and The Croak looked at his friend in undisguised
+admiration.
+
+But Dennie's humor was pensive. "Croaker," said he, drawing the
+ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and nodding suggestively to the
+bartender, "look out there in the street. See that banner stretched from
+house to house. It reads: 'Liberty and Equality! Labor Must Have the
+Fruits of Labor!' Now what infernal lies those are! There's no liberty
+here; and as for equality, that cop blinking in here through the window
+really believes he owns the town. That stuff about labor is all
+humbug--molasses for flies. They're going to have an election to choose
+a President shortly. What's an election, Croaker? It's political faro,
+that's all. The politicians run the bank. Honest fellows, like you and
+me, run up against it and get taken in. The crowd that does the most
+cheating gets the pot. Ah, Croaker, what are we coming to?" This
+thought was too much for Dennie. He threw back his head and solaced
+himself with brandy.
+
+"As I remarked a moment ago, Croaker," he said, "I have just returned
+from--er--up the river. You have just returned from--er--the West. Our
+bosoms are heaving with hopes for the future. We want to earn an honest
+living. But when we come to think of what there is left for us to do by
+which we can regain the proud position we once had in the community, we
+find ourselves enveloped in clouds."
+
+"I was t'inking er sumpin', Dennie," The Croak replied, reflectively,
+"jess when I caught sight er you. Your speakin' bout polertics makes me
+t'ink of it some more. W'y not get up a 'sociashun?"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A 'sociashun. Ev'rybody's workin' de perlitical racket now; w'y not
+take a hack at it, too?"
+
+"Anything, Croaker, anything to give me an honest penny. But I don't
+quite catch on."
+
+"Dey's two coveys runnin' fer Alderman over on de Eas' Side. One of
+'em's Boozy--you knows Boozy. He keeps a place in de Bowery. De udder's
+a Dutchman, name er Bockerheisen. Boozy's de County Democracy man,
+Bockerheisen's de Tammany. Less git up a 'sociashun. You'll be
+president an' do de talkin.' I'll be treasurer an' hol' de cash."
+
+"Croaker, you may not be eloquent, but you have a genius all your own. I
+begin dimly to perceive what you are driving at. I must think this over.
+Meet me here to-morrow at noon."
+
+The district in which the great fight between Boozy and Bockerheisen was
+to occur was close and doubtful. Great interests were at stake in the
+election. Colonel Boozy and Mr. Bockerheisen were personal enemies.
+Their saloons were not far apart as to distance, and each felt that his
+business, as well as his political future, depended on his success in
+this campaign. A third candidate, a Republican, was in the field, but
+small attention was paid to him. A few days after Dennie and The Croak
+had their chance meeting in Houston Street, Dennie walked into Colonel
+Boozy's saloon. Boozy stood by the bar in gorgeous array.
+
+"How are you, Colonel?" said Dennie.
+
+"It's McCafferty!" cried the Colonel, "an' as hearty as ever. As
+smilin', too, an' ready, I'm hopin', ter take a han' in the fight fer
+his ould frind."
+
+"I am that, Colonel. How's it going?"
+
+"Shmokin' hot, Dennie, an' divil a wan o' me knows whose end o' the
+poker is hottest."
+
+[Illustration: COLONEL BOOZY.]
+
+"It's your end, Colonel, that generates the heat, and Dutchy's end that
+does the burning."
+
+"There's poorer wit than yours, Dennie, out of the insane asylums. I'll
+shtow that away in me mind an' fire it off in the Boord the nexht time I
+make a speech. If I had your brains, lad, I'd a made more out av 'em
+than you have."
+
+"You've done well enough with your own," said Dennie. "They tell me it's
+been a good year for business in the Board, Colonel."
+
+"Not over-good, Dennie. The office aint what it was once. It useter be
+that ye cud make a nate pile in wan terrum, but now wid the assessmints
+an' the price of gettin' there, yer lucky if ye come out aven."
+
+"The trouble is that you fool away your money, Colonel. You ought not to
+hand over to every bummer that comes along. You should be discreet.
+There's a big floating vote in this district, and you can float still
+more into it if you go about it the right way."
+
+The Colonel looked curiously into Dennie's ingenuous blue eyes, and said
+with an indifferent air, "Ye mought be right, and then agin ye
+moughtn't."
+
+"Oh, certainly, we don't know as much before election as we do after."
+
+"Is yer mind workin', Dennie? Air ye figgerin' at somethin'?"
+
+"Oh, no; I happened to meet The Croak this morning--you know The Croak,
+he's in the green-goods line?"
+
+"Do I know him? Me name's kep' on his bail-bond as reg'lar as on the
+parish book."
+
+"Yes, of course; well, I met him, as I was saying, and, to make a long
+story short, I found that Bockerheisen had got hold of him, and they've
+packed a lot of tenement-houses with Poles and Italians and organized an
+association. There are about 600 of them. Dutchy keeps them in beer, and
+that's about all they want, you know."
+
+Colonel Boozy had been about to drink a glass of beer as Dennie began
+this communication. He had raised the glass to his lips, but it got no
+further. His eyes began to bulge and his nose to widen, his forehead to
+contract and his jaws to close, and when Dennie stopped and drained off
+his amber glass, the Alderman was standing stiff with stupefied rage. He
+recovered speech and motion shortly, however, and both came surging upon
+him in a flood. He fetched his heavy beer-glass down upon the bar with a
+furious blow, and a volley of oaths such as only a New York Alderman can
+utter shot forth like slugs from a Gatling gun. When this cyclone of
+rage had passed away he was left pensive.
+
+Dennie, who had remained cool and sympathetic during the exhibition, now
+observed: "It is as you say, Colonel, very wicked in Dutchy thus to seek
+to win by fraud what he never could get on his merits. It is also most
+ungrateful in The Croak. Well, I've told you what the facts are. You'll
+know how to manage them. So-long," and Dennie started for the street.
+
+But the Colonel detained him. "Don't be goin' yet, Dennie," he said. "I
+want ter talk this bizness over wid ye. Come intil the back room,
+Dennie."
+
+They adjourned into a little private room at the rear of the bar, and
+the Alderman drew from a closet a bottle of wine, a couple of glasses,
+and a box of cigars.
+
+"Dennie," he said nervously, "we must bate 'em. That Dootch pookah aint
+the fool he looks. Things is feelin' shaky, an' you mus' undo yer wits
+fer me an' set 'em a-warkin'. If the Dootchy kin hev a 'sosheashin, I
+kin, too. If he kin run in Poles an' Eyetalyans, I kin run in niggers
+an' Jerseymen."
+
+Dennie contemplated a knot-hole in the floor for several minutes. "No,
+Colonel," he said, at last, "that wont do. There's a limit to the
+number of repeaters that can be brought into the district. If we fetch
+too many, there'll be trouble. Dutchy has put up a job with the police,
+too, I'm told; they're all training with Tammany now. Besides, if you
+get up your gang of six or seven hundred, you don't make anything; you
+only offset his gang. You must buy The Croak; that'll be cheaper and
+more effective. Then you'll get your association and Dutchy will get
+nothing. You will be making him pay for your votes."
+
+Boozy grasped Dennie's hand admiringly. "It's a great head ye have,
+Dennie, wid a power o' brains in it an' a talent fer shpakin' 'em out.
+I'll l'ave the fixin' av it in your hands. Ye'll see The Croak, Dennie,
+an' get his figgers, an' harkee, Dennie, if ye air thrue to me, Dennie,
+ye'll be makin' a fri'nd, d'ye moind!"
+
+While Dennie was thus engaged with Boozy, The Croak was occupied in
+effecting a similar arrangement with Mr. Bockerheisen. In a few gloomy
+but well-chosen words, for The Croak, though a mournful, was yet a
+vigorous, talker, he explained to Bockerheisen that a wicked conspiracy
+had been entered into by Boozy and McCafferty to bring about his defeat
+by fraud, and he urged that Mr. Bockerheisen "get on to 'em" without
+delay.
+
+[Illustration: MR. BOCKERHEISEN.]
+
+"Dot I vill!" said the German savagely, "I giv you two huntered tolars
+for der names of der men vat dot Poozy mitout der law registers!"
+
+"I aint no copper!" cried The Croak, angrily. "Wot you wants ter do is
+ter get elected, doncher?"
+
+"Vell, how vas I get elected mit wotes vat vas for der udder mans cast,
+hey?"
+
+"You can't," said The Croak, "dey aint no doubt 'bout dat."
+
+"If dey vas cast for him, dey don't gount for me, hey?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Den I vill yust der bolice got und raise der debbil mit dot Poozy."
+
+"Hol' on!" the Croak replied. "If dey was ter make a mistake about de
+ballots, an' s'posen 'stead of deir bein' hisn dey happens to be yourn,
+den if dey're cast fer you dey wont count fer him, will dey?"
+
+Mr. Bockerheisen turned his head around and stared at The Croak in an
+evidently painful effort to grasp the idea.
+
+"If Boozy t'inks dey're his wotes--"
+
+"Yah," said Bockerheisen reflectively.
+
+"And pays all de heavy 'spences of uniforms an' beer--"
+
+"Yah," said Bockerheisen, with an affable smile.
+
+"But w'en dey comes to wote--"
+
+"Yah," said Bockerheisen, opening his eyes.
+
+"Deir ballots don't hev his tickets in 'em--"
+
+"Yah!" said Bockerheisen quickly.
+
+"But has yourn instead--"
+
+"Yah-ah!" said Bockerheisen, rubbing his hands.
+
+"Den an' in dat case who does dey count fer?"
+
+Mr. Bockerheisen leaned his head upon his hand, which was supported by
+the bar against which they were standing, slowly closed one eye, and
+murmured, "Yah-ah-ah."
+
+"I t'ought you'd see de p'int w'en I got it out right," said The Croak.
+
+"How you do somedings like dot?"
+
+"Dat aint fer me to say," The Croak diffidently remarked. "But dey do
+tell me dat dat McCafferty has a grudge agin Boozy, an if you wants me
+ter ask him ter drop in yere an hev a talk wid ye, I'll do it."
+
+Mr. Bockerheisen did not fail to express the satisfaction he would have
+in seeing Mr. McCafferty, and Mr. McCafferty did not fail to give him
+that happiness. The association sprang quickly into being, and its rolls
+soon showed a membership of nearly 700 voters. Two copies of the rolls
+were taken, one for submission to Alderman Boozy and one to Mr.
+Bockerheisen. This was in the nature of tangible evidence that the
+association was in actual existence. In further proof of this important
+fact, the association with banners representing it to be the Michael J.
+Boozy Campaign Club marched past the saloon of Mr. Bockerheisen every
+other night, and the next night, avoiding Mr. Bockerheisen's, it was led
+in gorgeous array past the saloon of Colonel Boozy, labeled the Karl
+Augustus Bockerheisen Club. As Mr. Bockerheisen looked out and saw
+Colonel Boozy's association, and realized that whereas Boozy was
+planting and McCafferty was watering, yet he was to gather the increase,
+a High German smile would come upon his poetic countenance, and he would
+bite his finger-nails rapturously. And, on the other hand, as Colonel
+Boozy heard the drums and fifes of the Bockerheisen Club, and saw its
+transparency glowing in the street, he would summon all his friends to
+the bar to take a drink with him. It is said that even before election
+day, however, the relations between Dennie and the Colonel on the one
+hand, and between The Croak and Bockerheisen, on the other, became
+painfully strained. It is said that Boozy was compelled to mortgage two
+of his houses to support Bockerheisen's club, and that Bockerheisen's
+wife had to borrow nearly $10,000 from her brother, a rich brewer,
+before Bockerheisen's wild anxiety to pay the expenses of Boozy's club
+was satisfied. Dennie acknowledged to the Colonel a couple of days
+before the election that he had found The Croak a hard man to deal with,
+and that it had been vastly more expensive to make the arrangement than
+he had supposed it would be. The Croak's manner, as I have said, was
+always subdued, if not actually sad, and in the presence of
+Bockerheisen, as the election drew near, he seemed to be so utterly
+woe-begone and discouraged that the German told his wife he hadn't the
+heart to quarrel with him about having let McCafferty cost so much
+money. Besides, as the Colonel remarked to Mrs. Boozy on the night
+before election, when she told him he had let that bad man, McCafferty,
+ruin him entirely, and as Bockerheisen said to Mrs. Bockerheisen when
+she warned him that that ugly-looking Croak would be calling for her
+watch and weddingring next--as they both remarked, "What is the
+difference if I get the votes of the association? Business will be good
+in the Board of Aldermen next year, and I can make it up."
+
+Who did get the votes of the association I'm sure I can't say. All I
+know is that the Republican candidate was elected, and a Central Office
+detective who haunts the Forty-second Street depot reported at
+Headquarters on Election Day night that he had seen Dennie McCafferty,
+wearing evening dress and a single glass in his left eye, and Tozie
+Monks, The Croak, dressed as Dennie's valet, board the six o'clock train
+for Chicago and the West.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+MR. MADDLEDOCK.
+
+
+Mr. Maddledock did not like to wait, and, least of all, for dinner.
+Wobbles knew that, and when he heard the soft gong of the clock in the
+lower hall beat seven times, and reflected that while four guests had
+been bidden to dinner only three had yet come, Wobbles was agitated.
+Mrs. Throcton, Mr. Maddledock's sister, and Miss Annie Throcton had
+arrived and were just coming downstairs from the dressing-room. Mr.
+Linden was in the parlor with Miss Maddledock, both looking as if all
+they asked was to be let alone. Mr. Maddledock was in the library
+walking up and down in a way that Wobbles could but look upon as
+ominous. Again, and for the fifth time in two minutes, Wobbles made a
+careful calculation upon his fingers, but to save his unhappy soul he
+could not bring five persons to tally with six chairs. And in the mean
+while, Mr. Maddledock's step in the library grew sharper in its sound
+and quicker in its motion.
+
+There was nothing vulgar about Mr. Maddledock. His tall, erect figure,
+his gray eyes, his clearly cut, correct features, his low voice, his
+utter want of passion, and his quiet, resolute habit of bending
+everything and everybody as it suited him to bend them, told upon people
+differently. Some said he was handsome and courtly, others insisted that
+he was sinister-looking and cruel. Which were right I shall not
+undertake to say. Whether it was a lion or a snake in him that
+fascinated, it is certainly true that he impressed every one who knew
+him. In some respects his influence was very singular. He seemed to
+throw out a strange devitalizing force that acted as well upon inanimate
+as upon animate things. The new buffet had not been in the dining-room
+six months before it looked as ancient as the Louis XIV. pier-glass in
+the upper hall. This subtle influence of Mr. Maddledock had wrought a
+curious effect upon the whole house. It oxydized the frescoes on the
+walls. It subdued the varied shades of color that streamed in from the
+stained-glass windows. It gave a deeper richness to the velvet carpets
+and mellowed the lace curtains that hung from the parlor casements into
+a creamy tint.
+
+[Illustration: "IN THE MORGUE," SAID MR. MADDLEDOCK, "WELL, THAT'S THE
+BEST PLACE FOR HIM."]
+
+Mr. Maddledock's figure was faultless. From head to heels he was
+adjusted with mathematical nicety. Every organ in his shapely body did
+its work silently, easily, accurately. Silver-gray hair covered his
+head, falling gracefully away from a parting in the middle of it. It
+never seemed to grow long, and yet it never looked as if it had been
+cut. Mr. Maddledock's eyes were his most striking feature. Absolutely
+unaffected by either glare or shadow, neither dilating nor contracting,
+they remained ever clear, large, gray, and cold. No mark or line in his
+face indicated care or any of the burdens that usually depress and
+trouble men. If such things were felt in his experience their force was
+spent long before they had contrived to mar his unruffled countenance.
+Though the house had tumbled before his eyes, by not a single vibration
+would his complacent voice have been intensified. He never suffered his
+feelings to escape his control. Occasionally, to be sure, he might curl
+his lip, or lift his eyebrows, or depress the corners of his mouth. When
+deeply moved he might go so far as to diffuse a nipping frost around
+him, but no angry words ever fell from his lips.
+
+Five, seven, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes had passed since the hall
+clock had sounded the hour and Wobbles's temperature had risen to the
+degree which borders on apoplexy. What might have happened is dreadful
+to conjecture had not Dinks, the housekeeper, come to his relief with
+the sagacious counsel that he wait no longer, but boldly inform Miss
+Emily that dinner was served. Wobbles was just on the point of acting
+upon this advice when the library call rang, and he hurried to respond.
+
+"You said this note was left here by a tall man, didn't you, Wobbles?"
+said Mr. Maddledock.
+
+"Yezzur," said Wobbles.
+
+"And he said he would call for an answer?"
+
+"Yezzur, at seven be the clock, zur."
+
+"But it's past seven, Wobbles?"
+
+"Yezzur, most 'arf an howr, most 'arf."
+
+"That will do, Wobbles--and yet, stay. Did you ask his name?"
+
+"Yezzur. Hi did, zur, and 'e says, sezee, 'Chops,' sezee, 'you need more
+salt,' sezee, 'go back to the gridiron,' sezee."
+
+"Well, that's curious," said Mr. Maddledock; "was he sober?"
+
+"'E 'med be in cups, zur, but they be quiet uns."
+
+"Yes--well, if he calls during dinner, Wobbles, you may show him into
+the office and stay with him, Wobbles, until I come."
+
+[Illustration: "'CHOPS,' SEZEE, 'YOU NEEDS MORE SALT!' SEZEE. 'GO BACK
+TO THE GRIDIRON,' SEZEE."]
+
+"Yezzur, hexackly, zur, I see, zur. Dinner is served, zur, but Mr.
+Torbert be not come. Shall I tell Miss Emily?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure. How absurd of Torbert! Why, it's quite late. When I go
+into the parlor, which will be in another minute, Wobbles you may
+announce dinner."
+
+Wobbles bowed himself away and Mr. Maddledock sat himself down. He
+picked up the note to which he had just referred, and read it through
+carefully. Then he rubbed his eyeglass, stroked his nose reflectively,
+crumpled the note in his hand, and tossed it into the grate fire before
+him. He rose and stood watching it burn. "Only two things are possible,"
+he said, quietly. "I must shoot him or pay him, and I don't feel
+entirely certain which I'd better do." Then he walked into the parlor.
+
+"You're almost as bad as Mr. Torbert, father," said Miss Maddledock.
+"I've been waiting long enough for you, and now we'll all go to dinner."
+
+"Torbert's late, is he?" said Mr. Maddledock, as if this were the first
+he had heard of it, bowing gravely to the others. "How's that, Linden?"
+
+"I'm sure I can't account for it at all, sir," answered the young man.
+"We took breakfast together, and at that hour he was in full possession
+of his faculties. His watch was doing its accustomed duty, and there was
+no sign of any such condition in or about him as would suggest the
+possibility of preposterous behavior like this."
+
+"Perhaps his business keeps him," said Miss Maddledock amiably.
+
+"Ho, ho," chuckled Mrs. Throcton, in her jolly way, "if he depended on
+that to keep him, he'd be ill kept, indeed."
+
+"Why, mamma," said Miss Throcton, reprovingly, "how can you?"
+
+"And why not, Nancy, my child? Bless me! how perfectly absurd to think
+of Torbert, all jewels and bangs, with a business. I'll leave it to Mr.
+Linden if he ever earned a penny in his life."
+
+"But that is not the test of having a business, dear Mrs. Throcton,"
+Linden replied. "I know some wonderfully busy men, whose earnings
+wouldn't keep a pug dog."
+
+"Now more than likely something's the matter with his clothes," remarked
+plump Miss Nancy, in tones of deep sympathy. "I've often been late
+because I couldn't get into mine."
+
+"While we speculate the dinner cools," said Miss Maddledock
+suggestively. "Father, will you give your arm to Mrs. Throcton? Mr.
+Linden, there stands Miss Nancy. I will go alone and mourn for Mr.
+Torbert."
+
+"Now, this is really too bad," said Linden, when they were seated at the
+table. "It is a form of social misconduct which goes right at the bottom
+of Torbert's character. When he comes I'll tell him the story of a
+friend of mine who never was late for dinner in his life, and who
+consequently--"
+
+"Died!" interrupted Mrs. Throcton. "I know he did. Any man who never was
+late for dinner in his life must in the nature of things have had a
+short time to live."
+
+"Come to think of it," said Linden, "he did die, and I never suspected
+why before. He was the last man in the world whom I should have thought
+the dread angel would want."
+
+"Oh, you never can tell," Mrs. Throcton cheerily declared. "It's all
+luck, pure luck. This man died because it isn't in fate for any man who
+is never late to dinner to live long, but still living is all luck. If
+the 'dread angel,' as you call him, happens to look your way and fancies
+you, why, off you go--plunk! like a frog in the pond."
+
+Mrs. Throcton had scarcely concluded this genial doctrine before the
+belated guest, all bows, smiles, and graceful attitudes, was rendering
+homage to Miss Maddledock.
+
+"Sir!" she said, "you will kindly observe that my aspect is severe. You
+are indicted for--for--what is he indicted for, Mr. Linden?"
+
+Linden was a lawyer, and he answered promptly: "For violating Section
+One of the Code of Prandial Procedure, which defines tardiness at dinner
+as a felony punishable by banishment from all social festivities at the
+house where offense is given, for a period of not less than two nor more
+than five years."
+
+"You hear the--the--what are you, Mr. Linden--something horrid, aren't
+you?"
+
+"He is, or his looks belie him," interjaculated Torbert.
+
+"The prosecutor, your Honor," replied Linden, "prepared, with regard to
+this prisoner, to be as horrid as I look."
+
+"May it please the Court," began Torbert, with mock gravity, "I find
+myself the victim of an unfortunate situation, and not a conscious and
+willing offender against the Prandial Code. Justice is all I ask. More I
+have no need for. Less I am confident your Honor never fails to render."
+
+"Now, Mr. Prosecutor, where's my judicial temperament gone that you
+compliment me upon so often?" demanded Miss Maddledock, turning sharply
+to the lawyer. "I had it a moment ago, together with a frown; where
+have they gone?"
+
+"They will return directly I call your Honor's attention to the flagrant
+nature of the prisoner's crime," said Linden--"a crime so utterly
+atrocious--"
+
+"True, you do well to remind me. Justice you called for, sir. Very well.
+Justice you shall have. Go on!"
+
+"Your Honor is most gracious. That part of the indictment which charges
+me with having an engagement to dine with your Honor at seven P. M. is
+admitted. I left my house in plenty of time, but--"
+
+Mrs. Throcton (_sotto voce_).--Does the prisoner live in Harlem?
+
+Miss Nancy.--Or in Hoboken?
+
+The Court (with great dignity)--If the prisoner is going to put his
+trust in the saving grace of the elevated cars or the tardy ferry, the
+Court would prefer not to delay its consommé listening to such trivial
+excuses. The Court's soup is growing cold.
+
+A roar of laughter greeted this observation, and Mr. Linden remarked,
+"The prosecutor feels it his duty to suggest that the prisoner enter a
+plea of guilty, and throw himself at once upon the Court's mercy."
+
+"The distinguished assistants to the prosecutor," said Torbert, turning
+with an extravagant bow toward Mrs. Throcton and Miss Nancy, "think to
+throw contempt upon the defense by associating it with Harlem and
+Hoboken. Let them beware. Let them not tempt me to extremities. There
+are insults which even my forbearing spirit will not meekly endure. Had
+they said Hackensack--"
+
+The Court--Well, what then?
+
+"Then, your Honor, I should have objected; and had your Honor ruled
+against me, I should have been reluctantly compelled to demand an
+exception! But let me come at once to my defense. My offense, if offense
+it is, was caused by the necessity which was imposed upon me of
+unharnessing a man."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Of unharnessing a man, please your Honor! A man coming north and
+a horse going east endeavored to cross the street at a given point,
+at one and the same moment. It proved an impossibility, and
+they--er--intersected."
+
+"Dreadful!" cried Miss Maddledock.
+
+"It so impressed me, else I had not dared to risk your Honor's
+displeasure by pausing to unharness the man."
+
+Mrs. Throcton, merry soul that she usually was, had grown quite serious
+when Torbert spoke of a collision and an accident. Her voice was
+earnest as she said, "Now, Mr. Torbert, stop your jesting right away and
+tell us what you mean."
+
+"It was as I have said, and all done in a second," Torbert replied. "You
+never can tell just how a thing like that is done, you know. The horse
+was a runaway. It must have come some distance, for it had broken away
+from the vehicle to which it had been attached, and its torn harness was
+held upon it by only one or two feeble straps. The man was a tall,
+queer-looking fellow, rather seedily dressed, and possibly not quite
+sober. He had been walking just ahead of me for several blocks. I can't
+say what it was about him that first attracted my attention. Possibly it
+was a peculiarity in his walk."
+
+Mr. Maddledock, who had not spoken a word since they sat down to dinner,
+now glanced up, and said, in an inquiring tone, "A peculiarity in his
+walk?"
+
+"Yes," answered Torbert, dropping into his seat and picking up his
+oyster fork, "and I am somewhat at a loss to describe it. I don't think
+he was lame, or wooden-legged, or afflicted with any hip trouble. As I
+recall the step now, it seems to me that it was merely a habit. I think
+he took a long and then a short step, long and short, long and short."
+
+[Illustration: "HE WAS AN ODD-LOOKING FELLOW," SAID TORBERT, "ODD AND
+BAD."]
+
+"Um," said Mr. Maddledock.
+
+"Just as he approached the crossing where the accident occurred he
+turned his head, and I don't think I ever saw a more Mephistophelean
+countenance. The only thing that broke the dark-angel shape of his face
+was his nose, and that, with slight alterations, would have made an
+excellent shepherd's crook."
+
+Mr. Maddledock took up his wine-glass and drained it at a single quaff.
+"A shepherd's crook," he repeated; "an odd nose, truly."
+
+"He was an odd-looking fellow all over," Torbert continued, "odd and
+bad. I never was more disagreeably impressed with a human face in my
+life. Well, when we reached the corner we both heard the clatter of the
+horse's hoofs on the cobbles and looked up. He was coming on at a
+fearful rate, and people were shouting at him in a way that must have
+increased his frenzy. Quite a crowd had collected, and this fellow and I
+were jostled forward upon the crossing. I shouted to the crowd not to
+push us, and pressed back with all my strength. He was just ahead of me.
+He had two means of escape--to hold back as I had done, or to dash
+forward. He hesitated, and that second's pause was fatal. The horse
+plunged forward, struck him squarely, knocked him heavily upon the
+stones, and left him there, covered with the remnants of its harness,
+which having become caught in his coat, somehow or another, were drawn
+off its back."
+
+[Illustration: THE HORSE PLUNGED FORWARD, STRUCK HIM SQUARELY, AND
+KNOCKED HIM HEAVILY UPON THE STONES.]
+
+"Terrible!" cried Miss Maddledock, "Was he much hurt?"
+
+Mr. Maddledock leaned forward and bent his ear to catch the answer.
+
+"I don't know how much, but certainly enough to make his recovery a
+matter of doubt."
+
+Mr. Maddledock slightly frowned. "A--matter--of--doubt?" he repeated,
+pausing with singular emphasis on each word.
+
+"Yes, of grave doubt," answered Torbert, "and dread too, for even if he
+gets well again, he must be maimed for life, and he was the sort of
+creature that ought not to have a deformity added to his general
+ugliness."
+
+Emily Maddledock had been leaning her chin upon her hand with a
+thoughtful look in her face for several minutes. As Torbert paused, she
+said: "Your description of that man brings a face to my mind that I saw
+recently somewhere. I can't seem to remember about it clearly, though
+the face is very distinct."
+
+"Indeed?" said Torbert. "Now, that's curious. If you've ever seen the
+beggar you ought to remember it. There's one other mark upon him that
+may serve to place him still more clearly before you. Directly over his
+left cheek-bone there is a long rectangular mole--"
+
+"Yes! yes!" cried Emily. "I remember. Why, father--"
+
+Mr. Maddledock had been sipping his wine. As Emily suddenly looked up
+and addressed him, he twirled the glass carelessly between his thumb and
+finger, remarking, as if this were the only feature of the story that at
+all impressed him, "A mole, did you say? What a monstrosity!"
+
+"Um, well, is it?" Torbert replied. "Can't say I'd thought of that."
+
+"Don't think of it!" sharply remarked Mrs. Throcton, as if annoyed at
+the interruption, "but go on."
+
+"Several of us sprang forward from among the crowd and set at work
+trying to free him from the confining straps. How in the world they
+contrived to get around him and to tie him up as they did is a mystery.
+We cut them loose, lifted him up, and found him quite unconscious.
+Somebody thoughtfully rang for an ambulance. Before it came we carried
+him into a drug store close by and the druggist plied him with
+restoratives. I supposed he was dead, but the drug man said he wasn't.
+He had shown no sign of life, however, when the ambulance arrived. They
+took him off, and I, having made myself somewhat more presentable than I
+was, called a carriage and am here."
+
+Then turning to Miss Maddledock he smilingly continued: "I now move,
+please your Honor, for the dismissal of the indictment against me on the
+ground that the evidence does not show any offense to have been
+committed."
+
+"I think you'll have to grant the motion, Emily, my dear," said Mr.
+Maddledock, fixing his gray eyes upon his daughter in a way that always
+riveted hers upon him and drew her mind after them to the complete
+exclusion of everything except what he intended to say. "Mr. Torbert's
+defense strikes me as all we could demand. You remarked a moment ago
+that his description suggested a face to your mind, but you couldn't
+remember where you saw it."
+
+"I know now," she said. "It was this very afternoon--"
+
+"Exactly," said her father, interrupting rather adroitly than quickly.
+"It was while we were standing together at the parlor window."
+
+Emily's face flushed, and had any one been looking at her intently he
+might have had his doubts whether or not that was the time. She did not
+answer, however, and before any one had begun the conversation anew,
+Wobbles entered with a card upon his tray which he delivered to Mr.
+Maddledock.
+
+"Since your Honor is so indulgent," said Mr. Maddledock, as he glanced
+at the scrawl upon the bit of cardboard and bowed to his daughter, "and
+with the approval of the prosecutor, I am constrained to ask the Court's
+consent to a further violation of the Prandial Code. I don't know
+whether the punishment for leaving the table before the dinner is
+concluded is greater or less than for a tardy appearance, but I fear I
+must risk it."
+
+"I suggest, in view of this prisoner's previous good character," said
+Linden, "that your Honor suspend the sentence."
+
+Mr. Maddledock bowed himself out and walked directly to a little room
+just off the hall which he used as a private office. A timid young man
+was waiting for him.
+
+"Well, sir?" said Mr. Maddledock.
+
+"I am an orderly, sir, if you please, at the Bellevue Hospital. A man
+was brought there, this evening, sir, pretty well done up by a runaway.
+After he'd been fixed a bit he asked me for his coat, and when I fetched
+it he took out this bundle of papers and put them under his pillow. The
+doctors didn't bother him much, for they saw he was a goner, and when
+he asked if he could live they told him no. He didn't say no more, but
+when we was alone he asked me to take out the papers from under his
+pillow. I did it, and he asked me if he died to fetch them here and give
+them to you in your own hands, and said you'd give me ten dollars for my
+trouble. So as soon as I was off duty I fetched 'em, and here they are,
+sir."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Maddledock, adjusting his eyeglasses and examining them
+slowly one by one. "Yes. They appear to be all here. Ten dollars, did he
+say? Well, here it is. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+"And the man? Wait a bit. What became of him?"
+
+"Oh, he's dead, sir. The horse done him up. He's dead and in the Morgue
+by this time. Good-night."
+
+The orderly went out, and Mr. Maddledock stood quietly with the bundle
+of papers in his hands until he heard the click of the vestibule door.
+Then he struck a match and fired them one by one, watching each until it
+was entirely consumed.
+
+"In the Morgue," he said, as the last pale flame flickered and died
+away. "Well, that's the best place for him. There's no doubt in my
+mind, not the least, but that that amiable horse saved me from being the
+central figure in a murder trial. What an odd world it is, to be sure!"
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+MR. WRANGLER.
+
+
+On your way to the Cortlandt Street Ferry, which is on everybody's way
+to everywhere, and on the left-hand side of the street when you turn out
+of Broadway, and not very far from the ferry-house itself, there is a
+little old, low brick building which has stood there a good many years
+and is going to stand a good many more if Billy Warlock knows himself,
+and he thinks he does. You may talk about progress all you please, but
+Billy will soon give you to understand that the only kind of progress
+which will take that house from him, or him from it, is the progress
+toward the stars, and that, while he hopes to take it in the Lord's good
+time, he isn't ready for just yet. Billy Warlock owns that house and
+lives in it and does business there, and the great big heart that thumps
+in Billy's great big body and gives strength to Billy's great big arm,
+loves every individual square inch of brick and earth and planking and
+plaster in that old house from cellar to scuttle. Part with it!
+Speculate on it! Sacrifice it to progress! Well, scarcely. Not if you
+were to offer him its weight in solid gold. Not if its neighbor on one
+side were a Mills Building and its neighbor on the other an Equitable.
+Not if you were to build an elevated railroad around it and run ten
+trains per minute, day and night. So long as Billy Warlock can keep
+himself above ground, so long will that old house keep him company, and
+so long will his forges blow fiery sparks in the cellar, while he
+hammers and hums and hums and hammers on the anvil by his side.
+
+It was just twelve years ago on Christmas Eve that Billy Warlock bought
+the smithy in the cellar of that little old house. Billy had been
+working for the man who owned it, and the man who owned it, being a
+little short of wind and a trifle weak in his legs, had decided to sell
+and retire. Billy had become the purchaser, and not without many qualms
+and doubts as to the wisdom of assuming such heavy responsibilities.
+Billy knew he was a good mechanic, and could put a tire on a wheel or a
+shoe on a horse as quickly and as well as the next man. But it took a
+good big pile of dollars, as Billy counted dollars, to get those forges,
+and before he turned them over to his late employer Billy scratched his
+head a good many times and did a power of thinking. But at last he let
+go the dollars, and laid his big fist on the biggest forge and blew a
+blast through the coals that made them glow brighter than ever they
+glowed before. For it was the master and not the man who sent the
+draught through them.
+
+He bade the men good-night and wished them a Merry Christmas, closed the
+doors, locked them tight, and looked his property over. It was worth
+being proud of, make no mistake. It was all any man need wish for. It
+was well stocked and in prime condition. The house, in the cellar of
+which his smithy stood, was mainly let in lodgings. On the first floor,
+raised just far enough above the street to give his customers a fair
+passage out, there was a saloon and eating-room. Back of these were
+Billy's own rooms, two nice big rooms where his mother took care of him
+and cooked his meals and washed his clothes and aired his bed as only
+good old mothers can. Over this floor were two others, let, as I have
+said, in lodgings--to whom, who knows? Who ever knows to whom lodgings
+are let in this big, crowded city?
+
+Billy finished his dinner and drew up his chair and one for his mother
+by the stove, and filled his huge mug with beer, and his huge pipe with
+tobacco, and talked it all over with his mother. She was a fine woman,
+was Billy's mother, and she drew a straight, steady rein over her big,
+burly, good-natured boy. She was Billy's best friend, and he knew it,
+and when she told him she would stand by and help him, and save for him
+and look out after him, Billy reached forth his brawny arm, and drew her
+over on his knee and danced her up and down, smoothing back her gray
+hair and kissing her old cheeks as if she were a baby.
+
+Then, when the clock struck nine, she got up to wash the dishes, and
+Billy took his lantern to go down among his forges again. Not that he
+had anything particular to do, though there never was a time when Billy
+couldn't find something, but the novelty of owning a business was strong
+with him, and he wanted to hammer just for the fun of hammering. He
+descended into the cellar through a side-door which opened from the back
+hall upon a short ladder. The street doors were barred and bolted. He
+set his lantern on the ladder steps and lit an oil lamp that hung over
+his anvil, picked up his iron and his hammer, thrust the one into the
+coals and laid the other on his anvil, and blew away. Oh, what an arm
+that was of Billy's! How it made the bellows bulge and the wind roar up
+the great chimney! How the black coals reddened and flamed and blazed!
+How the iron glowed and whitened with the heat, and when Billy drew
+his great hammer down upon it with a hoarse grunt accompanying each blow
+as if to give it effectiveness, how the sparks scampered about in a
+furious effort to escape!
+
+[Illustration: OH, WHAT AN ARM WAS THAT OF BILLY'S!]
+
+Billy was hammering and grunting at a great rate, and the forge fire was
+throwing upon the ceiling fantastic illuminations and causing a thousand
+still more fantastic shadows, when, wholly without preliminary warning
+or greeting, Billy felt a slight touch on his arm. It was a slight
+touch, as I said, but a cold one, a very cold one indeed. Billy turned
+swiftly around with his hammer in one hand and his red-hot iron in the
+other. Standing almost beside him, with the glare of the fire working a
+curiously weird effect upon one-half of him, while the other half was
+almost hidden in the dense shadow beyond, was a tall, spare, angular man
+with queer little snappy eyes that flashed like diamonds in the light of
+the forge. His hand was stretched out in a friendly way, and a bland
+smile stretched across his face, following the lines of his wide,
+extended lips.
+
+"Aha!" he said cheerily, "how d'ye do? But I forgot! You don't know me
+and I don't know you. Awkward, eh? But soon fixed, soon fixed. My name's
+Wrangler, and yours is--er--what by the way, is yours?"
+
+"Warlock," said Billy, laying down his iron and his hammer, and gazing
+amiably at the stranger--"Billy Warlock."
+
+"Warlock," Mr. Wrangler repeated. "Exactly. Well, then, Warlock,
+Wrangler. Wrangler, Warlock. And now the formalities have been observed.
+I don't know how it is with you, Warlock, but I'm a great stickler for
+the formalities. 'Pon my life, I consider them the web upon which the
+social fabric hangs together. They're not to be dispensed with upon any
+account whatever. While I was abroad recently, the American Minister and
+I were walking along the Mall together. 'Ah,' he suddenly said, 'My dear
+Wrangler, here comes the Prince. Of course you know him.' Now, it so
+happened that H. R. H. and I had never met. I didn't have time to reply,
+for just as I was about to speak the Prince stopped us, and, after
+greeting the Minister, utterly regardless of the formalities, he told me
+that he hoped he saw me well. I gave him a look, Warlock, my boy, that
+he will never forget, and coldly replying, 'Sir, I have not the pleasure
+of your acquaintance,' I walked on. That afternoon the Minister sent me
+an apology, but for which damme if I'd ever have spoken to him again."
+
+[Illustration: "AHA!" HE SAID CHEERILY, "HOW D'YE DO?"]
+
+During this speech, to which Billy listened with great attention and
+some little awe, he examined Mr. Wrangler carefully. Mr. Wrangler's
+clothes were harmoniously seedy. In the degree of their wornness his hat
+was a match for his coat, and his coat a match for his trowsers, and his
+trowsers a match for his boots. Although the weather was desperately
+cold, and a heavy Christmas snow had fallen, he had on neither overcoat
+nor overshoes. He did not appear to notice Billy's inspecting glances,
+but having caught his breath, he went cheerily on.
+
+"I am glad and proud to know you, Warlock, old fellow, and I want you to
+be glad and proud to know me. And you shall be; you shall be; 'gad you
+sha'n't be able to help it. And you'll find as you know me better that
+while you won't know any great good of me, you won't know any great
+harm."
+
+Billy contemplated Mr. Wrangler for a few moments more, and then amiably
+replied: "Well, that's all right. What more could a man ask?"
+
+"Precisely so," answered Mr. Wrangler, dusting off the anvil and sitting
+down upon it. "That, I take it, is quite enough. I have not broken in
+upon your privacy, Warlock, old fellow, without serious occasion. In
+fact, I'm troubled--sorely troubled."
+
+"I'm sorry for that," said Billy.
+
+"Of course you are, dear boy, and well you may be. The trouble I'm in is
+a sad one--sad and novel. Not that trouble in itself is a strange
+experience to me, for I've had my ups and downs. My life hasn't been one
+of unmixed gayety, I assure you, not by a long shot. But, you see, I
+have a habit of bowing to the inscrutable will of Providence. Some
+people experience a great deal of difficulty finding out what the
+inscrutable will of Providence is. That doesn't bother me in the least.
+Having ascertained what my own will is, I know the chances are ten to
+one that the Providential will is exactly the reverse. That is simple
+and direct enough, isn't it?"
+
+Billy was very much interested in this glib but melancholy stranger, and
+he resolved, if it came in his way, that he would do the man a favor. So
+he turned his hammer with the handle to the ground, sat himself upon the
+head of it, and remarked: "It's right enough, Mr. Wrangler, to make the
+Lord's will yours. I try to do my best in that line too. But still,
+there is a point, you know, where it comes hard."
+
+"True, dear boy, very true; and how much harder it is to find yourself
+in a situation which you did nothing to bring about, for which you are
+in no sense responsible, which is wholly in conflict with your own
+will, and to the best of your belief with the will of Providence also!
+This is my unparalleled situation at this particular moment, and it all
+comes of being the uncle of a little girl baby."
+
+"No?" said Billy inquiringly, "you don't mean it?"
+
+"I knew you'd be surprised," said Mr. Wrangler, edging up to the forge,
+which Billy had kept going at a gentle heat to warm their hands now and
+then. "It ought to be an occasion of unalloyed happiness to be the uncle
+of a little girl baby. But I was not intended for such a position. It
+was clearly a mistake to thrust me into it."
+
+"I don't scarcely see how you could help it," said Billy.
+
+"No, I couldn't, could I? It came upon me suddenly and without my
+knowing it. I had no time for preparation. My brother, who was one of
+the evils to which, under the will of Providence, I have bowed, called
+me to him recently, and without so much as a drop of brandy to break the
+force of the blow, he said: 'Cephas,' said he, 'you are the uncle of a
+little girl baby!'
+
+"Pale and for a moment speechless, I leaned against the wall and shook
+with emotion. 'Courage, old man!' said he, 'bear up! bear up!' At first
+I refused to believe him. 'It is false, Orlando,' I said, 'it can't be
+so.' But he shook his head sadly. 'It is true, Cephas,' he replied, 'and
+I guess I ought to know.' That argument was of course conclusive. It
+admitted of no reply. I only asked him how could he so have wronged me.
+He said nothing in defense of himself. He could say nothing. He simply
+bent his head and cried for pardon."
+
+"Well, well," said Billy, "this is queer. It seems to me like a big
+to-do over a very little matter."
+
+Mr. Wrangler looked up with an expression of dismay. "Little!" he cried.
+"Little! May I ask, Mr. Warlock, if you have ever been the uncle of a
+little girl baby?"
+
+"No," said Billy, "I never was."
+
+"Ah, well, that explains it. Then you can't know the bitterness of that
+hour. You can't put yourself in my place. I forgave him. I told him with
+a sob that it was all right. Then, in the name of our mother, he
+implored me to do him a favor. The infant was in California. He had left
+it there to--er--learn the language, I reckon. He bade me go and fetch
+it. At first I hesitated--all but refused. But who can withstand an
+appeal made in the name of his mother? I pressed his hand in silent
+acquiescence and took the next train West. I found the child and folded
+it to my heart. I bought it a milk bottle with a fancy nozzle, a bull's
+eye, and a rattle. It wept, and I dried its tears. Then I brought it
+back with me. Fancy my feelings, Warlock; picture to yourself my
+lacerated, bleeding heart, when upon reaching town this afternoon I
+learned that my brother was dead! Yes, Warlock, old man, dead and buried
+and cold in his grave, and another party living in his flat. It was all
+in vain that the tears streamed from my eyes--all in vain that I begged
+him at least to take the child. I called him brother, kinsman, royal
+Wrangler, and bade him remember that this was a matter of honor between
+him and me. I begged him to think of the situation he had placed me in,
+for I feared the laugh of callous cynics as much as the cry of the
+innocent child, but the ungrateful dead answered not."
+
+Mr. Wrangler paused and touched his handkerchief to his eyes, while
+Billy gazed at him in amazement, uncertain to what category of disease
+his case should be assigned. "I don't know as I ever heard a queerer
+tale than this," he said at length. "What did you do about it?"
+
+"I'm doing now," answered Mr. Wrangler. "It is on a special mission that
+I'm seeking you. Warlock, dear boy, you don't happen to have a bottle
+of paregoric with you, do you, now?"
+
+"Paregoric!" exclaimed Billy. "Why, is the child sick?"
+
+"Hanged if I know!" Mr. Wrangler replied, with evident sincerity. "I'm
+not what you'd call a connoisseur in infantile disorders, but I guess
+she's sick. Anyhow, something's the matter. It may be malaria, or
+chills, or measles, or whooping-cough, or Bright's disease. But whatever
+it is, it keeps her very wakeful at night. It disturbs her rest sadly.
+That might, perhaps, be overlooked; but as an intimate consequence it
+also disturbs mine. At first I supposed it was because she did not get
+enough nourishment, so, as she wouldn't drink any more milk from her
+bottle, I bought a syringe, and filling it with milk, I played it down
+the little darling's throat."
+
+"Great Scott!" cried Billy, "it's a wonder she didn't choke to death!"
+
+"Is it?" asked Mr. Wrangler innocently. "Well, to tell the truth, she
+did come dev'lish near it, and so I inferred that I hadn't correctly
+diagnosed the case. After she had got done coughing her spirits seemed
+more than ever depressed. I went to bed in the vain hope that her supply
+of tears would in time become exhausted. As the hours drew along and
+that hope died away, I concluded she must have headache. I had one, and
+I thought it only natural that she should, too. The question was, what
+remedy should I apply? In a happy moment paregoric occurred to me. I
+seemed indistinctly to remember that when I was a child paregoric did
+the business. How fortunate one is, dear boy, in such moments as that to
+have the memories of his boyhood to fall back on. I got up, dressed, and
+went out to hunt a drug-store. Unfortunately, the only two I came across
+were closed. I returned disconsolate, but as I entered I heard the sound
+of your hammer and saw the glimmer of the lantern on your ladder. I
+descended hither. I looked upon you and said: 'Here is a friend.'
+Warlock, old fellow, find me some paregoric!"
+
+"I don't know much about babies, Mr. Wrangler," said Billy, slowly and
+rather sternly, "for I never had one, and I never was throwed with 'em.
+But I think the chances is that you'll kill your'n before morning."
+
+Mr. Wrangler was standing in the shadows where Billy couldn't see him
+very well, but his snappy little eyes were shining in a way that Billy
+didn't like.
+
+"How old is the baby?" asked Billy.
+
+"I haven't an idea--not one," answered Mr. Wrangler, laughing merrily,
+as if his not knowing were a monstrous joke. "But she can walk and
+talk."
+
+"And you trying to feed her on milk in a bottle?" exclaimed Billy.
+"How'd you like to be fed on iron filings? I rather think they'd make a
+good diet for you!" Billy was indignant, and he fetched his hammer down
+on a log that lay near with a blow that split it through and through.
+Mr. Wrangler stepped back into the shadows still further, and his little
+eyes glowed in the darkness like a cat's.
+
+"Ha! ha!" he laughed; "good, very good. But you mustn't make fun of me,
+old fellow. It isn't fair, now, really."
+
+"Where is the child, anyhow?"
+
+"Upstairs."
+
+"Here, in this house?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Come on, then; take me to her, and let's see what the matter is."
+
+"That's a good fellow!" cried Mr. Wrangler. "As soon as I saw you I knew
+you would prove to be my deliverer. Come."
+
+The forge fire had now gone out, and directing Mr. Wrangler to stand on
+top of the ladder, Billy took the lantern, blew out the hanging lamp,
+and both ascended from the smithy into the hall of the house. Billy
+locked the door behind him and followed Mr. Wrangler upstairs into the
+third story. They paused before the hall bedroom and bent forward to
+listen. Not a sound broke the night's stillness, and softly Mr. Wrangler
+turned the key and opened the door. Billy moved noiselessly ahead and
+lit the dull gas.
+
+Upon the bed, with one hand under her cheek and the other one, small and
+dotted with dimples, resting lightly on her plump neck, lay as pretty a
+child as he had ever seen. Her eyes were closed, for she was sleeping
+heavily, as if repose had come to her only when her little frame was
+utterly worn out. A great mass of thick, tangled curls clustered on the
+pillow about her head. A dark line down her flushed cheek marked the
+course of the tears she had been shedding, and the pillow that supported
+her was still wet with them.
+
+Billy stooped down and kissed her parted lips and her white forehead,
+while Mr. Wrangler, leaning jauntily against the door, hummed in low
+strains a melodious lullaby.
+
+"Nothing ails this child," said Billy, when the sound of Mr. Wrangler's
+voice had died away. "Nothing at all."
+
+[Illustration: UPON THE BED LAY AS PRETTY A CHILD AS HE HAD EVER SEEN.]
+
+"Warlock, dear boy," replied Wrangler, "I think you told me you had
+never been an uncle. The man who has not drank the bitter waters of an
+uncle's experience for himself is--pardon me, but I must say it--wholly
+incompetent to speak as to the woes of childhood. How often have you
+wooed sleep amid the wailings of an infant voice? I'm disappointed in
+you, Warlock!"
+
+"Don't talk so loud, you'll waken her."
+
+"Spare us that. Let me have my hat and stick. I'll get that paregoric if
+I have to commit burglary!" and Mr. Wrangler started back as if fully
+prepared to carry out his threat.
+
+"Be quiet," said Billy, "and look here. My rooms are downstairs where I
+live with my mother. It's too cold in here for the child. That's one
+thing that ails her. I'll take her down with me, and when she's had her
+breakfast in the morning, you can come for her."
+
+Mr. Wrangler seized Billy's hand and shook it fervently. "Dear boy," he
+said, "you're the kind of a friend to have. Take her and give her a good
+night's rest."
+
+Billy leaned over the bed, lifted the soundly sleeping child tenderly in
+his big arms and, followed by Mr. Wrangler, he carried her down to his
+own room and deposited her upon the bed. Then he turned to Wrangler.
+
+"You'll come for her in the morning, you know?" he said.
+
+[Illustration: HE CARRIED HER DOWN TO HIS OWN ROOM.]
+
+"Certainly, old fellow. Good-night, I must get some sleep."
+
+"Good-night," said Billy, "and a Merry Christmas to you."
+
+Mr. Wrangler waved his hand with a grand farewell flourish, blew a kiss
+toward the little form upon the bed, and passed out into the hall. He
+waited there an instant, as if undecided what course to pursue. Then he
+ran upstairs to the hall room, hurriedly crowded his personal effects
+that lay scattered around the room into his valise, and ran down again
+into the street. The front door closed with a sharp bang behind him, and
+he quickly disappeared in the snowy night.
+
+Billy could not help confessing to a sense of relief when his curious
+new acquaintance left him. Not that he felt any definite fear of Mr.
+Wrangler. The human being had yet to be born of whom Billy Warlock was
+afraid. But there was a something about Mr. Wrangler that he didn't
+fancy. "It's them eyes," said Billy "and he don't make no noise when he
+walks." His own bed being occupied by the child, he piled a lot of
+blankets on the floor, stretched himself upon them, and was soon asleep.
+
+The Christmas sun was peeping obliquely into Billy's room and making,
+with the aid of his shaving-glass, all sorts of fantastic colors on the
+wall, when a slight tug at the blankets which covered him moved him to
+start, turn over, open his eyes, stare blankly before him, shut them,
+open them again, rub them desperately, and finally gaze with awakened
+consciousness up at the object which had disturbed his slumbers. She was
+leaning half over the bed, her little fat arms, shoulders, and throat
+all bare, her bright, tangled hair knotted in bewildering confusion all
+about her head, and her big blue eyes looking down upon him with a
+curious interest. How long she had been awake he could only conjecture,
+but evidently her patience had at last been exhausted, and she had set
+about premeditatedly to arouse him. Billy was charmed by the
+little-picture above him, and smiled a cheery greeting. She smiled too,
+right merrily, and said, "What's your name?"
+
+"Billy," said he. "What's yours?"
+
+The smile straightway faded from her face like the color from a withered
+blossom, and she glanced hurriedly and anxiously around the room.
+
+"Where's the black man!" she whispered.
+
+"The black man!" cried Billy. "What black man, my dear?"
+
+"Don't you know him? He's had me ever so long."
+
+Billy was puzzled. "A black man had you?" he repeated. "Why you don't
+mean your uncle, do you?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "that's him, and he says if I don't call him 'uncle'
+he'll cut off my big toe!"
+
+Billy Warlock jumped upon his feet like a shot. "The devil he did!" he
+cried. "I'll punch his head for that!"
+
+"And his knife has got six cutters in it!"
+
+"I guess he was only funning," said Billy. "He didn't mean it."
+
+"That's what he said," she insisted.
+
+"Yes, my dear, but he didn't mean it. He was joking."
+
+"That's what he said!" Her accent was very positive, and she added as if
+conning it over, "His knife had six cutters."
+
+Billy felt himself somewhat at a loss to deal with this well-formed
+impression, so he contented himself with the remark, "But you haven't
+told me what your name is yet?"
+
+She rose upon her knees in the bed and leaned over toward him. "My
+really name is Lotchen."
+
+"Lotchen what?"
+
+"That's all--just Lotchen."
+
+"Where's your mother, Lotchen?"
+
+"I don't know; do you?"
+
+"There's something queer about this business," said Billy to himself.
+"And if that Wrangler man don't make it plain he'll find hisself in
+trouble. What is your father's name, Lotchen?" he inquired aloud.
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"Your father. Haven't you a father?"
+
+"I don't know. The black man says he can turn me into a toothpick if he
+wants to."
+
+Billy doubled up his fist and looked at it grimly.
+
+"Well, he won't want to," he said. "Don't you be afraid. I'll take care
+of you."
+
+"Oh, will you?"
+
+"For a little while, anyhow."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Well, till you get your breakfast."
+
+"Where's he gone?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The black man."
+
+"He's upstairs in his room. You can go to him after breakfast."
+
+"I don't want to go. I'm afraid of his knife. I sit and hold on my big
+toe all day. Have you got a knife, too?" She looked at him with an
+expression he could not understand. Perhaps her natural trust in mankind
+had been somewhat shaken.
+
+"My knife wont hurt you," he said. Lotchen crawled to the edge of the
+bed, leaned over and put her two hands on his, and said, "Then let's you
+and me run away from the black man."
+
+Billy looked much amused. "No," he replied, "we won't do that, Lotchen;
+but I shouldn't wonder if he was to run away from us. Don't your uncle
+love you?"
+
+"He loves his nose better," she replied.
+
+"His which?"
+
+"His nose. He's all the time rubbing it up and down."
+
+"But don't he love you, too?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"'Cause I'm afraid of him."
+
+"When did you see him first, Lotchen?"
+
+"Oh, ever so long. He's had me, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know that. What's he been doing with you?"
+
+The expression on her face was so blank that Billy saw, whatever Mr.
+Wrangler might intend, she knew nothing more than that she was being
+"had" under circumstances that caused her constant fright. He did not
+question her further, but went into the kitchen where his mother was
+getting the griddle hot for the buckwheat cakes and the spider hot for
+the sausages, and he told her of Wrangler and the child. She went in to
+see Lotchen, and snuggled the little one up to her close and tight, and
+told her she should have a merry Christmas and she mustn't be afraid of
+anybody, for her Billy, that is, Billy's mother's Billy, could whip
+anybody on earth, she didn't care who he was, and nobody should frighten
+this dear little soul; and the old lady began now to express her ideas
+in that strange language which is hidden from the wise and prudent but
+revealed unto grandmammas and babes. "B'essings!" she said, "b'essings
+on 'e dear heart an' e' 'ittie body, wiv 'e 'ittie youn' nose, an' 'e
+ittie b'u' eyes, an' 'e ittie youn' cheeks, an' e' ittie youn' evysing,
+an' nobody s'all bozzer her at all, not 'e 'east ittie bit, 'tause s'e
+was a sweet ittie fwing, and Billy, wiz him big fist an' him date big
+arm, Billy dust take 'e b'ack mans an' all 'e uzzer mans wot bozzer zis
+ittie soul an' 'e frow 'em yite in 'e Norf Yiver, yite in, not carin'
+'tall bout 'e ice, but dus' frow 'em in an' yet 'em det out e' bes' way
+zay tan. B'ess ittie heart!"
+
+Then Lotchen smiled and put up her pretty face to be kissed, which she
+didn't have to do twice before it was kissed by them both, and Billy who
+hadn't slung hammers all his life for nothing, rolled up his
+shirt-sleeves and doubled up his fists, and sparred away at the air as
+if to suggest what would happen to any one who laid as much as his
+little finger on her.
+
+All through the breakfast Billy kept his eyes on that round, pretty
+face, and wondered what he should say and do when the "black man" came
+to get her. He began to grow moody and sullen as the buckwheat cakes
+disappeared, and when thirty of them had been disposed of Billy felt
+himself ready to meet Mr. Wrangler. He had some questions he desired to
+ask Mr. Wrangler, and the oftener he thought them over the more he felt
+his fingers itch to close themselves around Mr. Wrangler's long and
+scraggy neck. He waited an hour, two hours, but no Mr. Wrangler came,
+and at last Billy concluded to mount the stairs and to interview Mr.
+Wrangler in the hall bedroom.
+
+He told Lotchen to go into his room, where she had spent the night, and
+on her assuring him that she wasn't afraid, he locked her in and stowed
+the key away in his pocket. Then he shot upstairs to the hall bedroom.
+He knocked, but no answer came. He opened the door. The room was empty.
+The bed was just as he had left it the night before with the impression
+upon it of the little form he had carried away. It had evidently been
+without a tenant during the night. All that Christmas Day he waited and
+watched for Mr. Wrangler, but he waited and watched in vain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days afterward an express wagon drew up before the smithy, and a box
+was delivered to Billy marked with his name. It contained a liberal
+supply of child's clothing, which Lotchen recognized as hers. Little by
+little Billy and his mother drew from her fragments of her history. She
+remembered a big house by the water, and a little bed of
+lilies-of-the-valley under a couple of pear-trees. She remembered a
+colored man named Pete, but there was no response in her memory to the
+words "father" and "mother," and the only woman who appeared to be
+impressed on her mind was one who called her "Lassie" and gave her
+horrid stuff from a bottle in a wooden spoon.
+
+Days and weeks and years went on, and Billy Warlock's purse grew plumper
+and his heart grew lighter with each of them. His smithy in the cellar
+grew in dimensions and gradually he absorbed the little old house over
+it. The saloon disappeared, and the room it had occupied became a parlor
+for Lotchen. The lodgers went out one by one until the whole house was
+Billy's dwelling.
+
+One day when she was nearly fourteen years old, Billy received a letter
+that worried him a good deal. It was dated at the Newcastle Jail in
+Delaware. It read:
+
+
+MY DEAR WARLOCK:
+
+     It seems to be definitely settled about my being an error of
+     judgment. You can see by the enclosed newspaper clipping that I
+     ought not to have been involved in the scheme of the creation. You
+     needn't mention it to anybody else. I forget what name you knew me
+     by, but I think it was
+
+CEPHAS WRANGLER.
+
+
+
+The newspaper clipping contained these words:
+
+     Nothing, therefore, remains for the Court but to pronounce the
+     sentence which a jury, almost wholly of your own selection, has
+     adjudged your fitting doom. The crime you have committed is the
+     most dreadful known to the law. For it there is but one penalty,
+     the requisition of your life in forfeit for the one you have taken.
+     The sentence of the Court is that you be conducted hence to the
+     prison from which you came, and that you be confined there until
+     Friday, the 18th day of March, following, and that you then,
+     between the hours of 7 and 11 in the morning, be hanged by the neck
+     until you are dead, and may God have mercy on you!
+
+This is all that Billy Warlock knows or cares to know of the
+circumstances under which Lotchen became his child. He never made the
+slightest effort to discover more. It didn't interest him, and he didn't
+wish it to interest her. She was his child, and that was enough--at
+least, it was enough for several years. The precise moment at which it
+ceased to be enough is not fixed in Billy's mind, but last Christmas,
+when Lotchen found a gold watch in her stocking, and when she came and
+put her arms around his neck and kissed him, which she hadn't done very
+often of late, and when she whispered that she wished she had something
+to give him, Billy turned his eyes to the floor and stuck his big fists
+in his trowsers pockets, and did a power of thinking. He knew then, if
+he had not fully known it before, that for her to be his child was not
+enough. So he said very solemnly, "Are you sure you mean that, Lotchen?
+Now, don't answer without you know, for you might have something you
+wouldn't want to give me, and if I was to ask for it and you was to look
+hesitatin', I--well I don't know what I should do."
+
+"I don't have to think, Billy," Lotchen answered promptly, "for I've
+been thinking a great deal and wondering whether you--"
+
+She stopped there short, and her face--her pretty face, her dear, round,
+dimpled face, her truthful, honest, womanly face--got very red, and she
+jumped up and ran out of the room.
+
+After that last Christmas, Billy and Lotchen talked and walked with each
+other on a different footing from that on which their intercourse had
+previously been conducted. He said nothing to her, nor she to him, that
+referred to their interrupted conversation until October came, and then
+one day he said: "Lotchen, is my Christmas gift ready?" and he held out
+his hand to her--both hands--and smiled.
+
+"Yes, Billy," she answered.
+
+And on next Tuesday morning, Christmas morning, when the bells are
+ringing merrily and all the world is glad, Billy Warlock, as I said at
+the very beginning of my story, dressed in his big frock coat and the
+whitest of snowy neckties, will--but you know the rest, so what's the
+use of my telling it?
+
+
+
+
+MR. CINCH.
+
+
+In the construction of Mr. Cinch nature had been generous, not to say
+prodigal, of materials, but certainly a wiser discretion might have been
+exercised in using them. The centre of Mr. Cinch's gravity was much too
+far above his waist. All the rest of him appeared to have been fitted
+out at the expense of his legs, which, unable to endure so oppressive a
+burden, had spread.
+
+To say that the shape of his legs was a source of unhappiness to Mr.
+Cinch would be a feeble and inadequate expression of his feelings. "Them
+bow-legs" was a phrase into which he poured a degree of self-contempt
+altogether pitiful. They were, of course, homely to look at and not in
+the least serviceable. Unaided by his stout hickory stick, they could
+not transport Mr. Cinch across the room. But there was no evidence that
+their shape or size was due on their part to any motive of malice or of
+indolence, and it seemed quite unreasonable that he should feel toward
+them so harshly.
+
+His disgust for them did not, indeed, originate with himself. It is
+entirely probable that he would never have thought of despising them as
+he did but for Mrs. Cinch. That excellent lady, with all her many
+virtues, could never forgive those legs. Their degeneration, as she
+regarded it, had not begun when she married Mr. Cinch. He was then a
+slight young man and his legs were unexceptionable in size and shape.
+They had become bowed and insufficient within comparatively recent
+years, and she had never felt quite able to accept Mr. Cinch's
+assurances that he was not at fault in the matter.
+
+Let it not be thought that this excellent couple were wanting toward
+each other in those sweet graces which so beautify the marriage
+relation. They had lived and loved together nearly a quarter of a
+century, and had shared in those years their full measure of joys and
+sorrows. But Mrs. Cinch was not without her humors, and when she was
+entertaining an acid humor she could not get her husband's unfortunate
+legs out of her mind.
+
+No matter what may have been the subject that had originally vexed her,
+it was the invariable experience that those legs became the focus to
+which her excited wrath was drawn, and then, indeed, it must be owned,
+she was exceedingly hard to deal with. She would recall in bitter
+phrases the fact that he had married her with other and honester legs,
+and she would plainly intimate that in substituting these he had acted
+in an unfair and unmanly way.
+
+This was naturally distressing to Mr. Cinch. He keenly felt the
+injustice of the insinuation, but at the same time his mind was filled
+with a supreme loathing of his legs, and he was only deterred from going
+to a hospital and from having them straightway taken off by the
+reflection that an entirely legless husband was not likely to be more
+satisfactory, upon the whole, than one whose legs were bowed.
+
+It was from a domestic scene such as these sentences have indicated that
+Mr. Cinch issued one morning recently, and passing out through his
+hallway into the street as fast as he could wobble, he tumbled into his
+waiting coupé and hurried down to business. Mr. Cinch was the keeper of
+a livery-stable, an establishment held in much esteem by the public and
+the trade, and yielding an abundant revenue. His business was one of the
+largest of its kind in New York, a fact which, with many others equally
+important, was set forth in unmistakable phrases upon Mr. Cinch's
+business cards, copiously illustrated with cuts of prancing horses and
+handsome vehicles and of the extensive premises in which they were kept.
+
+The appearance of the coupé as it rolled into the stable fetched from
+the inner office Mr. Cinch's manager, a bald-headed young man, with red
+eyes and a hopeful soul, who dexterously assisted his employer to
+alight, and aided him into the main office and into the huge arm-chair,
+so placed as to command a fair view of the entire establishment. From
+this arm-chair, Mr. Cinch rarely moved throughout the live-long day.
+
+"Well, Bob," said Mr. Cinch, so soon as he had caught his breath, "how's
+things going?"
+
+"Fair to middlin', sir, fair to middlin'. The regulars is 'bout the
+same, but the casuals is light."
+
+"Well, a man can't always have things the way he wants 'em, Bob; ef he
+could there wouldn't be as much trouble as they is."
+
+"No, sir, that's very true, sir, nor so much fun, neither, come to think
+of it."
+
+"How do you make that out, Bob?"
+
+"Well, sir, ef everybody could have whatever they wanted, there wouldn't
+be much excitement going on. They'd get tired o' wanting before long
+fearful that the time 'ud come when they wouldn't be nothin' to want."
+
+Mr. Cinch was quite impressed with the force of this philosophy. Bob's
+views on men and things often entertained Mr. Cinch. He had a good deal
+of respect for Bob. Bob's circumstances had denied him many of those
+early advantages which are so useful in cultivating the habit of
+profound thought, and yet, to his greater credit, it must be said that
+he not infrequently performed a deal of subtle cogitation. In this he
+pleased Mr. Cinch, who was by no means all a man of beef and brawn. Mr.
+Cinch had read a considerable quantity of poetry and was a subscriber to
+a scientific periodical. He had a decided tendency toward occult
+speculation, and had reached that point in his orthodoxy where he
+believed there were a good many more things that we don't know than that
+we do.
+
+He had turned over Bob's remark once or twice in his mind, and was about
+to say something by way of rejoinder when the office door was opened and
+a young woman entered, observing that she wished to pay her bill.
+
+She was a tall, well-dressed, stoutly built young woman, with large,
+strong features, and an abundant supply of blonde hair, partially
+covered with a sombre brown bonnet. Her eyes were big and blue, and her
+voice quite pleasant to hear.
+
+"This way, miss," said Bob, from his high stool behind the desk. "What
+name, please?"
+
+"Frances Emiline Beeks."
+
+"Beeks, miss? Yes, miss. Let's see--BA to BE, Barker, Becker, Beech,
+Beeks! Frances Emiline Beeks. Eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents, if
+you please."
+
+"That seems like a good deal of money," observed Miss Beeks.
+
+"Well, now, it is, miss," said Bob. "But you use a kerridge a good deal,
+miss, mostly every day and sometimes oftener. You've called more this
+month than ever. Why don't you keep a hoss, miss? That ud be the
+cheapest."
+
+"It certainly would if my bills are to run up like this. However, I'm
+too busy now to talk about it. Let me have your pen while I fill out
+this check. There--is that right?"
+
+"Yes, miss, thank you. I think that sorrel would suit you nicely. He's
+only--"
+
+"Well, I'll think it over. Good-morning!"
+
+Miss Beeks went out and Mr. Cinch, who had been regarding her over his
+glasses, inquired, "Who's the young woman, Bob?"
+
+"I don't know, sir, hardly," said Bob, "but I think she's some kind of a
+doctor."
+
+"She seems to be makin' pretty good bills."
+
+"And they gets better all the time. Whatever she doctors, it's a good
+business, for she pays her bill the day after she gets it every time."
+
+"What makes you think she doctors?"
+
+"She said so, as near as I could make out. She come in here one day last
+month--it was when I had that staving big bile on my elbow, you
+remember?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I was settin' here huggin' that bile, and it was just thumpin'.
+Seemed to me 's if they was a whole bag o' carpet-tacks stuck in that
+arm. I was so used up I couldn't walk around, and so stuck full of pain
+I couldn't set still. Well, 's I said, she come in and ordered a coach,
+and while it was being fetched around she give me a look and she says,
+'What's the matter?' I says 'I got a bile.'
+
+"'A what?' says she.
+
+"'A bile,' says I.
+
+"'Oh, no,' says she.
+
+"'Well, if you don't think so,' says I, 'look there,' says I, and I
+prodooced the bile, which 'peared to me to be pretty good evidence.
+
+"She looked at it and then says, as cool as you please, 'Well, what of
+it?'
+
+[Illustration: "'A WHAT?' SAYS SHE. 'A BILE?' SAYS I.'"]
+
+"'Don't you call that a bile?' says I, 'and if you don't think it hurts
+you'd better.' You see, bein' nearly crazy with the hurts of it, and her
+so unconcernin', I thought she was workin' a guy on me. But she says,
+'I see what you call a bile, and maybe you think it hurts, but I know it
+don't. Why, what is it?' says she; 'it's nothing but a little lump of
+red flesh. It don't hurt. It can't hurt. How can it? Flesh don't live
+any more than wood or stone, and if it don't live, how can it feel? It's
+you that feels and hurts, and you have made yourself believe it's this
+little lump of red flesh, and you've gone and painted it and greased it
+and wrapped it up and fooled with it when there's nothing the matter
+with it, and everything the matter with you.' That's what she said,
+looking me dead in the eyes."
+
+Mr. Cinch had grown very much interested in Bob's account of this
+peculiar conversation. As Bob went on he had screwed around in his
+arm-chair, and had drawn his brow into a reflective knot.
+
+"I don't know as I understand what that means, Bob," he observed,
+cautiously.
+
+"It took me a good while to get it through me," replied the manager,
+"but I think I see what she was driving at. She means that a man's body
+is just like any other matter and don't make feelings, and that's it's
+his soul that does the feeling, and that when his soul feels bad he says
+he has a bile or the colic or the rheumatism, and begins to put on
+plasters and take pills when he ought not to do anything of the kind,
+but ought to talk to her and get her to cure his soul. That's the way
+she give it to me, anyhow. She talked here for half an hour. She said
+that it was silly to set your feelings down to this or that place in
+your body. She said she could talk to me awhile about the--er, let's
+see, gravity, no, yes, gravi--oh, I know! about the gravitation of the
+soul, and my feelings would get good and the bile go down."
+
+"Oh, rats!" remarked Mr. Cinch.
+
+"Well, I don't know, sir," replied Bob, doubtfully. "I don't know but
+what I think there is something in it?"
+
+"Stuff! Bob, how kin there be? Do you mean that she made out 'at she
+could cure anything by just talking to you?"
+
+"Not exactly; no sir. Her p'int is that what we call biles or malaria,
+or--"
+
+"Bow-legs, mebbe," put in Mr. Cinch both jocosely and ruefully.
+
+"Yes, sir, bow-legs."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Bow-legs, too--why not? Just as easy bow-legs as biles."
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"All such things, she says, is appearances. Our souls being sick, they
+look through our eyes in a sorter cock-eyed way and see something they
+call a bile or a pair of bow-legs. The bile and the bow-legs aint really
+there, you know; we only think so, which is just as bad as if they was
+there. If we was to go to her and get our souls well, we'd look out of
+our eyes straight and wouldn't see no bile or bow-legs. Neither would
+nobody else. This is the best explaining I can do, sir. I understands it
+pretty well, but I can't talk it. She's a daisy talker, though. She can
+talk like a dictionary."
+
+"Bob," said Mr. Cinch, solemnly, "do you mean to tell me that this young
+woman can talk me into believing that I aint got bow-legs?"
+
+Bob hesitated. He looked at Mr. Cinch long and seriously. Mr. Cinch took
+up his walking-stick and slowly lifted himself upon his feet.
+
+"Look at them legs, Bob. You can shove a prize punkin through 'em
+without touching. Can this young woman make me believe them legs is
+straight? If she can, Bob, if she can, she don't need to buy no hoss,
+nor pay no coach-hire any more."
+
+The responsibility of this awful moment was too much for Bob. "If I was
+you," he said discreetly, "I'd talk to her about it the next time she
+comes in."
+
+[Illustration: "LOOK AT THEM LEGS, BOB!"]
+
+Mr. Cinch made no reply, but he continued for several minutes to look
+ruefully down where he believed his legs to be, and then he resumed
+his chair. Bob returned to his accounts and a heavy tide of business
+flowed in to engage their attention. Business was always well done in
+Mr. Cinch's office, and it suffered that morning no more than on any
+other morning, and yet there was a certain influence in the room which
+seemed to be affecting both him and Bob. They talked together less than
+usual and in addressing others were short and sharp. When Bob got off
+his stool and said he was going to luncheon he broke a silence which
+might almost be called ominous.
+
+He was not long gone, but upon his return the office was empty. It was
+so unusual a circumstance for Mr. Cinch to go out that Bob wondered not
+a little what had happened. His wonderment increased as the afternoon
+drew along and Mr. Cinch did not return. Nobody could tell where or when
+he had gone or in what manner his departure had been effected. He had
+not made use of his coupé or any other vehicle. No scrap of writing
+could be found that threw the least light upon so startling a
+proceeding, nor did any one turn up with whom a message had been left.
+
+Evening approached and numerous misgivings entered Bob's mind. He knew
+that Mr. Cinch's domestic life was not without moments of bitterness,
+and he was satisfied that one of them had preceded his appearance at
+the office that morning. The vague suspicions that crept into his head
+were strengthened when, just before 6 o'clock, a messenger came from
+Mrs. Cinch loaded with inquiries. Mr. Cinch's life was as regular as the
+movements of the stars. He had gone home at 4:30 P.M. for twenty years.
+Bob was really alarmed. He made a careful search throughout the stables.
+That failing to give him the slightest clew, he went to see Mrs. Cinch.
+
+When he told that excellent woman that her husband had disappeared, she
+precipitately swooned away. The unhappy incident of the morning was
+still fresh in her repentant mind, and she could have no doubt that her
+over-worried lord had sought in the North River the peace of mind she
+had denied him in his home. Bob could not comfort her. He could only
+apply a wet towel to her heated temples and beg her to be calm. This he
+did with praiseworthy diligence during the greater part of the evening,
+and when he left it was with the understanding that, if the missing man
+were not seen or heard from by the next morning, he would notify the
+police and have them send out a general alarm.
+
+This, indeed, had to be done. Mr. Cinch had disappeared. His affairs
+were all right, his fortune untouched and no motive anywhere apparent
+why he should have taken so reckless a step. The police could get no
+trace of him. Fat and bow-legged men were encountered here, there and
+everywhere, were seized and sharply questioned, but from none of these
+incidents of the search was the slightest hope extracted. Two days
+passed, and still another, but the mystery continued to be dark and
+impenetrable and Mrs. Cinch was wrapped in an envelope of grief.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bob's story about Miss Beeks and her novel views had profoundly
+impressed Mr. Cinch, and being so constituted that when he got hold of
+an idea he had to give himself up to its consideration, Miss Beeks and
+the possible effect of her conversation upon his legs kept revolving
+before his eyes all the morning. He was not able to form any very
+definite idea of what she might be expected to do, but he thought it
+quite within the possibilities for her to improve the situation. The
+notion that in ailments of all kinds there was a large element of
+imagination had occurred to him frequently when listening to Mrs.
+Cinch's accounts of her numerous physical tribulations, and he was by no
+means sure that his legs were as bad as they had been represented. He
+thought it might well be that he had obtained an exaggerated notion of
+their deformity, and if Miss Beeks merely succeeded in convincing him of
+that the gain would be something. He picked up the address-book during
+the morning and ascertained that she lived in a large apartment-house in
+Broadway, distant from his stables less than a block. While Bob was at
+luncheon he got upon his feet, went to the door and looked down the
+street at the big flat. An irresistible desire to go and talk the matter
+over with Miss Beeks took possession of him, and almost before he knew
+it he was seated in a little reception-room waiting for the appearance
+of the remarkable young woman who professed to be able to talk away a
+boil.
+
+She did not keep him waiting long, and when she held out her hand and
+wished him "Good-morning," he was quite captivated with her cheery voice
+and smile.
+
+Mr. Cinch proceeded directly to business. First he took from his
+pocket-book one of his large and profusely illustrated business cards
+and delivered it with something of pride by way of introduction. Then he
+remarked that he had heard of her and of her way of doctoring and he
+thought he'd just drop around and see what she could do in his case.
+
+"Why, what ails you?" she asked. "You look very comfortable."
+
+"So I be," replied Mr. Cinch, much gratified, "but it's all along of my
+legs."
+
+"And what of them?"
+
+"Well you see, they're bowed, and--"
+
+"Don't say what I see, Mr. Cinch. We see with our minds and only through
+our eyes. My mind is healthy, and as I see your legs there's nothing the
+matter with them."
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"To be sure I do. At the same time if you say your legs are bowed, there
+is, of course, trouble somewhere."
+
+"Of course," assented Mr. Cinch.
+
+"The question is, where? Some people would say, in the legs. They would
+try to make you believe that your legs, mere combinations of flesh and
+blood, could go off by themselves and get bowed, or knock-kneed, or long
+or short, or slim or fat, or gouty, or palsied, or paralyzed, or
+rheumatic, or shriveled or anything else just as they wanted to and all
+of their own option, as though they were a living soul with a living
+will and not simply so many square inches of inanimate matter. Now, Mr.
+Cinch, that's all nonsense. Don't you believe a word of it!"
+
+[Illustration: "OUR BODIES ARE BUT GHOSTS," SAID THE SCIENTIST.]
+
+"Well, now," replied the old man slowly, "I never thought of it
+that-away. It don't seem as if they could go and get bowed all of
+themselves. But," and he looked down toward them dubiously, "they do
+'pear to be bowed, now, don't they?"
+
+"Maybe they do. We'll come to that presently. But first let me prove
+that, if they are bowed, they didn't do it. Suppose you were to have
+them cut off at your hips, would they go on and bow more?"
+
+"Why, no."
+
+"Of course not," said the Scientist, triumphantly. "That shows they
+didn't bow themselves. Then who did bow them? I'll tell you. You have
+done it, Mr. Cinch, you, yourself."
+
+"Mebbe I did, mebbe I did. I won't deny it. But this I will say--that I
+didn't go for to do it."
+
+"Perhaps not. But, consciously or unconsciously, your mind became--well,
+for want of a better word, sick. In that sick condition it began to look
+around for a place in your body to reflect its trouble upon. It chose
+your legs, and straightway your eyes, prompted by your diseased mind,
+began to tell you that your legs were bowed."
+
+"Well, really!" cried Mr. Cinch, "how very plain you make it."
+
+"It's plain enough to such as will see. Matter, Mr. Cinch, does not
+act. Matter has no will. It doesn't feel, or get tired, or wear out or
+do any of the things attributed to it by thoughtless people. Matter is
+inanimate and takes form only as the mind, the soul, the Vital Force,
+wills that it shall. It responds to the soul. Therefore, if your legs
+are bowed, your mind is at fault."
+
+"What a very uncomfortable thing your mind must be!" said Mr. Cinch.
+"It's 'most as well not to have none!"
+
+"Better," exclaimed the Scientist, earnestly, "if it is to be out of
+harmony with the Mind Universal. And now we come to the real point. The
+thing to cure is the thing that is sick. The bowness of your legs is the
+reflection of your bowed mind. Straighten your mind and your legs will
+be as straight as your walking-stick. Shut your eyes, Mr. Cinch, and
+think only of what I say. Nothing is real except the ideal. The
+corporeal realm of created being corresponds precisely to the condition
+of the ideal. Do you see the point?"
+
+"Sorter," replied Mr. Cinch, feebly, "but I b'lieve I could see it
+better if I was to open my eyes."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried the Scientist. "It is highly necessary to keep them
+shut and turned inwards."
+
+"I don't b'lieve I can come that, mum," Mr. Cinch rejoined,
+apologetically. "My eyes is getting a bit old."
+
+"Sink them far into your soul! Look there to find your bad and ugly
+ideals! Give me your hand, Mr. Cinch. Thus, with our hands clasped, will
+our spiritual understandings commune. Together we will pursue our
+investigations into the recesses of your ethereal nature, and with the
+clean new broom of inspired reason, will we sweep away the dusty cobwebs
+of bad ideals!"
+
+Mr. Cinch heaved a huge sigh! But he shut his eyes vigorously, and
+received into his big hard fist the Scientist's little white one, and
+murmured, "All right, mum; whip up lively."
+
+"Our bodies are but ghosts," said the Scientist, "combinations of
+symbols. The combinations change as the soul that they symbolize
+changes. I look at your body and it tells me of your soul. I see a soul
+full of doubt and darkness, and the doubt and darkness are symbolized in
+the curved and ugly form of your legs. Brush away the doubt! Dispel the
+darkness! Aspire toward the Life of the Spirit, and as your aspirations
+are tenacious they will draw your legs into the shape which, like the
+spirit it typifies, will be all beauty. Does your soul respond, Mr.
+Cinch?"
+
+"Well, mum, I dunno. I'm trying hard, but--"
+
+"Ah, there is unbelief there. I see it--a black mountain-cloud of
+unbelief. Faith, Mr. Cinch, is the ethical law of gravitation. You
+already feel its influence. It draws you to the Spiritual Center of
+Essence. Your soul still walks in the shadow, but toward the light. You
+are being drawn away from the doubt. Don't you feel yourself being
+drawn, Mr. Cinch?"
+
+"I b'lieve I do, mum; I really b'lieve I do. That left leg give a kinder
+twitch just as you spoke."
+
+"Of course it did! Of course it did! You are in the sea of Infinite
+Thought, floating, floating like a chip on the water. The evil ways of
+falsehood, doubt and unbelief are trying to beat you away from the
+Current of Truth,--but no! it shall not be! I will stand by to fight
+them back, and to urge on those other waves that will bear you into the
+current. One is approaching now--the Wave of Harmony. It touches you
+gently, lifts you on its crystal bosom, and, ere it leaves to do the
+same duty to another floating chip, it moves you many paces nearer to
+the current. And now, as you rest, another comes. Lo, it is intercepted
+by the discordant ripples of suspicion, and a struggle ensues! But,
+look! Oh, prythee look! From the white caps of conflict the wave,
+larger, purer than ever, emerges, and comes on apace. It is the Wave of
+Joy! It moves quickly! It takes you upon its sparkling crest! Whence the
+diamond lights of happiness flash! Merrily flash! It heaves you swiftly
+on! On! On! Ah! Yes! Nearer! Nearer still! One more impulse and you are
+there! It lifts its glittering form again! And NOW!--Oh, Mr. Cinch! you
+are in the Current! the CURRENT! Do you not feel its swift influence?
+The Current of Truth! Brightly, joyously, swiftly does this Spiritual
+Gulf Stream bear you toward the Great Central Calm! Ah!--ah!"
+
+The Scientist was evidently in a great state of excitement. Her voice
+had risen to a keen soprano key, and her eyes sparkled wildly. When she
+had finally succeeded in getting Mr. Cinch into the Current, she fell
+back in her chair, quite exhausted.
+
+Neither spoke for several minutes, and then Miss Beeks finally said:
+"Open your eyes, Mr. Cinch!" The old man looked at her with evident
+curiosity. "You talk beautiful," he said, earnestly, "and I really think
+I feel better!"
+
+[Illustration: "IT WAS A GOOD DEAL, MR. GROANER."]
+
+"Don't say 'feel,' Mr. Cinch. Cultivate thought and not sensation. I
+know you are better and that means, of course, that the supposititious
+curvature of your limbs, never real, is less apparent. You must put
+yourself under my treatment from this moment. The advantage gained
+already must not be lost. You must not go home, or to business, or out
+of this room until your mind is thoroughly healed. You must not get out
+of the Current until you are safely in the Calm Centre."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the fourth day after her husband's strange disappearance, and
+Mrs. Cinch was seated in the back parlor of her desolate house,
+receiving spiritual consolation from an elderly clerical gentleman. "Oh,
+sir," she was saying, "he was such a good man, so gentle and easy to get
+along with. He had no harsh words, no matter how much he had to bear.
+And I'm fearful it was a good deal, Mr. Groaner, I'm fearful it was a
+good deal."
+
+Mr. Groaner sighed with much feeling, and said she must not repine,
+adding in a comforting way that the world was full of sorrow.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Cinch, as though greatly consoled by that fact, "I know
+it. We all have our burdens and I s'pose we need 'em."
+
+"Indeed we do, Sister Cinch," Mr. Groaner replied, "but for our burdens
+we should grow vain and worldly."
+
+This disastrous result being in Mrs. Cinch's case rendered less menacing
+through the supposed death of her partner, the good man proceeded to
+show her the necessity of "bearing up," and of counting all things good,
+and of drawing from these mournful visitations the valuable lesson that
+earthly affections are empty and void. Much had been accomplished toward
+reconciling her to the unhappy situation when a familiar click was heard
+in the front door latch.
+
+Mrs. Cinch started.
+
+The click was repeated and then the door was flung open, and a heavy
+footfall sounded in the hallway.
+
+"William!" cried Mrs. Cinch. "It's William, Brother Groaner! Help me up!
+Help me to run and meet him! William, my dear, good, sweet, bow-legged
+old William! O, Brother Groaner, I shall go crazy with happiness! Hear
+his old feet, stuck on them dear bow-legs of his, making a sound that
+I'd know 'mong ten thousand! Come along, Brother Groaner, come long."
+
+They got into the hall with as much speed as possible, and there, coming
+toward them was Mr. Cinch, his round face lighted with a peaceful smile.
+He paused, and there was something in his manner and attitude that
+caused them to pause as well. He brought his pudgy feet closely together
+and straightened his figure to its loftiest possibility, as if to call
+attention to its perfect beauty.
+
+"Maria, my dear," he said, in deep, low tones, "I float in the Calm
+Centre of Infinite Truth."
+
+A look of profound alarm came upon Mrs. Cinch's face, and she glanced at
+the Rev. Mr. Groaner. He shook his head sadly.
+
+Mr. Cinch observed the dubious looks and he hastened to dispel them.
+
+"I am in harmony with the Universal Mind," he said. "Look at them legs!"
+
+They looked. "Yes, William," answered Mrs. Cinch, profoundly disturbed,
+"I see them legs, and dear, sweet, precious old legs they are, William,
+and if I ever said they wasn't, I told a story and goodness knows I've
+suffered enough for it in the last three days and nights. I love them
+cunning old legs, William, better'n all the rest of you put together,
+and I don't care where you're floating nor what you're in harmony with,
+I only just know you're back again with the same beautiful, chubby,
+round old legs you took away, and I'm downright crying happy, and the
+rounder they gets the more I'll love them!"
+
+And, unable longer to restrain herself, the good old lady rushed upon
+him and hugged him black and blue.
+
+Mr. Cinch may still be floating in the Calm Centre of Infinite Truth,
+or he may not. He may still be in harmony with the Universal Mind or he
+may not. He hasn't mentioned lately. But this is sure truth--that
+wherever he floats, Mrs. Cinch is floating with him, and whatever else
+he may be in harmony with he is certainly in harmony with her. He
+wobbles and toddles up and down just as he used to do, but never a word
+does he hear to the prejudice of his legs. And whether they be as
+crooked as a ram's horn or as straight as a rifle-barrel, he can't see
+them and she won't--so what's the odds, anyhow?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+GRANDMOTHER CRUNCHER.
+
+
+Tony Scollop's great point was enterprise. When he looked at anything it
+was always with the query running through his mind, how can this be
+turned to account? The beauty of utility was the beauty which Tony's
+eyes detected and which his heart valued.
+
+There may be a want of true and pure sentiment in this way of
+considering the world and its contents, but Tony's lot had been cast in
+a sphere where necessity encroaches upon sentiment. Bread was dear and
+babies cheap in the tenement where Tony was born, and his character was
+greatly affected by this circumstance.
+
+And yet Tony was not unmindful of the fact that sentiment is a powerful
+stimulant. As such, he prized it. His acute perception disclosed to him
+that people would pay freely to have their sentiments fed, and Tony was
+willing to do almost anything not specifically mentioned in the Criminal
+Code, for pay. It had been early impressed upon his mind that the
+profitable sentiments of a great proportion of mankind were reached
+through their curiosity. This lesson was first enforced upon Tony by a
+Monkey.
+
+The monkey was a particularly clever knave. He was in the retinue
+consisting, besides himself, of a woman, two babies, a hand-organ and a
+tin-cup, appertaining to a dusky Neapolitan who infested the tenement
+district in which Tony's boyhood was spent. That monkey had on several
+occasions seduced a penny from Tony's unwilling hand. Thereby he had
+earned Tony's respect and had caused Tony's reflections to dwell upon
+him. That monkey had a large place in the circumstances which led Tony
+to go into the dime-museum business.
+
+As a dime-museum manager, to which exalted station Tony finally arose
+and in which he was now engaged, he was a remarkable success. He seemed
+to have found just the field for his talents. They led him into a great
+variety of speculations, but from one and all he emerged plethoric with
+dimes. His museum had grown until it now occupied the three floors of
+one of the largest buildings in the Bowery.
+
+It was in the very height of his great career, when his enterprise was
+most conspicuous, his curiosities most numerous, his patronage most
+extensive, and his self-appreciation most complete and complacent, that
+he was called upon to face a singular emergency.
+
+A gentleman in Hoboken had boiled his mother-in-law. It is of no moment
+now why he had boiled his mother-in-law, though at the time the
+consideration of this question had filled columns upon columns of the
+daily newspapers. There had been a controversy between the gentleman and
+his mother-in-law, prolonged and distracting, and the long and short of
+a very painful conjunction of circumstances is that the gentleman had
+felt himself reduced to the necessity of doing something serious to his
+mother-in-law, and, thus moved, he had boiled her. It would have been
+wiser, doubtless, had he taken some other course, though that is a
+matter of judgment into which I refrain from going. The only fact
+needful to be mentioned here is that the event had taken up a vast
+amount of space in the papers, which had printed large maps of the room
+wherein the boiling had occurred, together with striking pictures of the
+gentleman, the mother-in-law, the kettle in which the boiling had been
+done, the cat which usually slept in the kettle, and other important
+accessories of the event.
+
+Among these was the gentleman's grand-mother, a venerable lady living in
+Wisconsin, who, upon being informed that her grandson was in jail for
+boiling his mother-in-law, had come on to Hoboken to comfort him. She
+was met at the depot by a considerable company of reporters, and by Mr.
+Tony Scollop, who, with an enterprise all his own, provided a coach for
+her, went with her to the jail, remained during the sad interview that
+took place with her unhappy grandson, and gave her a gorgeous bouquet
+with which to assuage her grief. He took her to a hotel, and did not
+leave her until she had signed a ten weeks' contract to appear in his
+dime museum. These, with many other facts illustrative of Tony's
+generosity and gentle sympathy, appeared in many of the newspapers the
+next day.
+
+Whatever may have been their general effect, there were bosoms in which
+they produced disagreeable sensations, and among these was the bosom of
+Billy O'Fake, the Wild Man from Borneo. Indeed Mr. O'Fake was positively
+angry when he saw that Grandmother Cruncher was to be exhibited from the
+same platform with himself. He stuck his pipe in his mouth, his hat on
+his head, and his feet on the footboard of his bed, and said
+emphatically that he be domned if he'd shtand the loikes av this
+gran'mother business any more at all. It had gone the laste bit too fur,
+an', bedad, he'd lay the hull matter before the Brotherhood and
+Sisterhood of Animated Frakes that blissid marnin'!
+
+The more Mr. O'Fake thought it over the more outraged his feelings
+became. At last, unable longer to contain himself, he strode from his
+room, descended into the Bowery, passed into East Broadway, and
+clambered aloft to the fifth story of a rickety flat. There he knocked
+loudly at a door and responded in something of violent haste to the
+invitation to enter.
+
+Seated in one corner of the room, over a small, red-hot stove, was a
+queer-looking little man. There was a tin plate on the stove from which
+the odor of melting cheese arose, and mingling with the odor of burning
+tobacco, contributed from the little man's pipe, burdened the atmosphere
+with dense and by no means delightful fumes. The little man had a fork
+in one hand and a mug of beer in the other and he was snatching the
+cheese from the plate, shoving it into his mouth and washing it down
+with the beer at a rate and with a disregard of heat and cold that were
+wonderful to observe.
+
+[Illustration: "SIT, IS IT? WHERE?" SAID BILLY.]
+
+He was anything but a pretty little man. His head was big and his body
+small and his legs very short and very thick. He sat upon a keg, the top
+of which he quite amply covered, but his feet came scarcely half-way
+to the floor. His gray eyes twinkled from holes sunk far into his head,
+and twinkled so brightly that you had to look at them, but so sharply
+that you wouldn't if you could have helped it. He peeked quickly at Mr.
+O'Fake, and cried in a shrill voice:
+
+"Hi! hi! Billy! Come in an' sit down!"
+
+"Sit, is it? Where?" said Billy.
+
+"Vhere?" repeated the queer little man. "If I vos to tell you vhere,
+Billy, your hingenuity vouldn't be drored out. Von o' the uses of
+hexperience, Billy, is to dror hout the hingenuity. You're lookin'
+summat doleful, Billy. Cheer hup, me boy, cheer hup! I'd like to inwite
+you to this 'ere feast, but there's honly von 'elp o' cheese left, an'
+honly von svaller of beer. But pull hout yer pipe an'--vot's on yer
+mind, Billy?"
+
+Mr. O'Fake was standing with his back against the door, his arms folded,
+his hat on the side of his head, and an ominous expression on his face.
+
+"Have ye seen the marnin' papers, Runty?" he inquired.
+
+"Papers, Billy, papers? Vot do I vant wid the papers. No, Billy, I shuns
+'em. No man can be a 'abitchual reader huv the papers, Billy, vidout
+comin' to a bad hend."
+
+Mr. O'Fake drew from his pocket a copy of "The Daily Bazoo," and
+pointing at a certain paragraph, said: "Rade thot, Runty!"
+
+The queer little man stuck his fork under the tin plate and flipped it
+off the stove upon the floor, heedless of Mr. O'Fake's wishes. "Hexcuse
+me, Billy," he said, "I never wiolate my princerples. I 'ave no use for
+papers an' I never reads 'em. Wot's it say?"
+
+"Bedad, I'll tell ye pwhat it says. It says outrage. It says another wan
+o' thim ould women has come bechune me an' me daily bread. It says that
+Tony Scollop's been and hired some ould hag av a gran'mother to shtep in
+an' discredit the perfession. I was a lad av tin years, sor, when I
+furst shtepped upon the boords av a doime moosaum in the well-known
+characther av the Son av the Cannibal King. From that day to this, sor,
+I have exhibited my charrums to the deloighted eyes av the populus fer
+tin cints per look. I have been a Zulu Chafetain, a Tattooed Grake, a
+Noted Malay Pirate, a Bushman from Australier, an' afther a public
+career which there ben't no better, I am to this day, sor, to this day a
+Wild Man from Barneo. Widout the natcheral advantages which a ginerous
+Heaven has besthowed upon you, sor, or upon my honored frind, Misther
+Kwang, the Chinaze Giant, or upon Maddlemerzelle Bristelli, the bearded
+Woman, or upon Ko-ko, the T'ree-Headed Girrul,--widout sich natcheral
+advantages, sor, for to raise me at wanst to the front rank av Frakes,
+my coorse has been wan av worruk, sor. That worruk has been done; my
+name as the greatest living Wild Man from Barneo is writ, sor, in
+letthers av goold upon fame's highest pin--er, pinister! There, sor, it
+is to-day, and shall I now--"
+
+"Billy," replied the queer little man, "you shall not. Your vords is
+werry booterful an' werry true. This 'ere bizness of bringin' in Nurse
+Connellys, an' Marie Wan Zandts, an' the huncles an' hants an' neffies
+an' nieces an' gran'mothers belonging to influential murderers an' Young
+Napoleons uv Finance an' sich, is a-puttin' the persitions uv
+legitermate Freaks in peril. I speaks as the Gran' Worthy Sublime an'
+Mighty Past High Master uv the Brother'ood an' Sister'ood uv Hanimated
+Freaks, an' I says hit vont' do! Our rights an' liberties is not thus to
+be er--is they, Billy?"
+
+"Sor, they air not. They--"
+
+"Vell, then, Billy, you shall come before the Brother'ood an' say so.
+You shall say it this werry mornin' vith your best langwidge. Vith that
+tongue o' yours, Billy, an' that 'ere himposin' presence, ef you honly
+ad' a crook in yer back or ef yer heye vos honly in the middle uv yer
+'ed, Billy, you'd be the leadin' Freak on herth!"
+
+[Illustration: "HEXCUSE ME, BILLY," HE SAID, "I NEVER WIOLATE MY
+PRINCERPLES."]
+
+With this genial and deserved tribute, which Mr. O'Fake received most
+graciously, the dwarf tumbled from his keg, which tumbled also in its
+turn, raked a heavy overcoat and a rough fur cap from a dark closet, and
+having got himself into them, he begged Billy to accompany him without
+delay.
+
+The Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Animated Freaks was and is one of the
+most important and distinguished of the labor organizations of New York.
+Its membership is composed, as its name implies, of the ladies and
+gentlemen actually engaged in the entertainment of the public by the
+exhibition of their interesting bodies. Its purposes are to encourage
+social pleasures among its members, and to protect them against the
+encroachments of domineering managers. Such an organization was made
+necessary by the continued aggressions of the managerial classes, who
+were led by their unbridled greed to resort to all kinds of unjust
+expedients whereby to grind down and trample under foot the poor and
+needy Freak. This sort of foul injustice went on from year to year,
+rendering the Freaks more and more dependent on the opulent and
+tyrannical managers, until the wrongs resultant from it cried to heaven
+for vengeance. At last, from the depths of their misery the Freaks arose
+and with one masterful effort they threw off their base shackles and
+declared themselves free.
+
+It was truly a majestic movement. The Brotherhood was firmly established
+in all parts of America and Great Britain, and it duly resolved that no
+one should hereafter be a Freak, or be tolerated in the society of
+Freaks, who was not a member of the Brotherhood in good standing. It
+resolved that no manager should employ any one claiming to be a Freak
+who was not thus rendered legitimate. It resolved to various purports,
+and in phrases most solemn the majesty of the manhood and womanhood of
+the freakly profession was vindicated.
+
+The managers, of course, retaliated in kind. They organized a trust.
+They classified the Freaks and rated them. The relations between labor
+and capital engaged in the museum industry became thereby greatly
+strained, but as yet no actual rupture had occurred. All hoped in the
+public interest to avert such a catastrophe, but each side felt that a
+fierce struggle was imminent.
+
+Only some such incident as had been supplied in the enterprising stroke
+of business accomplished by Tony Scollop was needed to fan the sparks of
+resentment into a flame. The flame was already burning in the bosom of
+Mr. Billy O'Fake, and when he and the dwarf reached the Brotherhood's
+headquarters they were ready to perform the functions of a torch.
+
+The Executive Council of the Brotherhood, District No. 6, F. I. M. X. T.
+S. Z., was about to hold a meeting. The Council was composed of seven
+eminent Freaks--Sim Boles, the Double-Jointed Wonder; Bony Perkins, the
+Ossified Man; Duffer Leech, the Man with the Phenomenal Skull; Miss
+Tilly Boles, the Beautiful Mermaid of the Southern Sea; Mrs. Smock, the
+Bearded Circassian Beauty; Mr. Billy O'Fake, the Wild Man from Borneo,
+and the President of the Brotherhood, Runty, the Dwarf. These ladies and
+gentlemen were the leaders, nay, the fathers and mothers of the
+organization, distinguished for their sagacity, resolution and prudence.
+
+The arrival of Mr. O'Fake and the Dwarf completed the council, which
+proceeded promptly to business. Runty took the chair, and in a few
+earnest and well-chosen words, he dispatched the Ossified Man for a
+pitcher of beer. The transaction of other routine business occupied the
+attention of the council for a brief while, but it soon gave way to the
+pressing business of the hour. This came in the shape of a resolution
+presented by Mr. O'Fake, in these words:
+
+     _Whereas_, Mr. T. Scollop, manager of the Universal Dime Museum of
+     Natural Wonders, has seen fit to involve our honorable profession
+     in disgrace by the employment for exhibition as an Animated Freak
+     of Grandmother Cruncher, so called; and,
+
+     _Whereas_, The said Grandmother Cruncher is not a member of this
+     Honorable Brotherhood, nor a Freak, but merely a person of vulgar
+     notoriety; and,
+
+     _Whereas_, The said employment by the said T. Scollop of the said
+     Female is in violation of Paragraph 13 of Article 210 of Section
+     306 of Chapter 194 of Book 8 of the Constitution and By-Laws of
+     this Honorable Brotherhood, therefore be it,
+
+     RESOLVED, That a committee of three members of this Council be
+     appointed by the Grand Worthy Sublime and Mighty Past High Master
+     to see the said T. Scollop and to inform him of the displeasure
+     which his course herein set forth has excited in this Council, and
+     to insist upon the immediate discharge of the said Cruncher.
+
+"Wid the Chair's permission," said Mr. O'Fake, when his resolutions had
+been read, "I will spake a worrud wid regard to the riserlooshuns. Sor,
+I hav no apolergy to make for thim riserlooshuns. They manes business.
+We are threatened, sor, wid a didly pur'l. It has not come upon us uv a
+sudden, sor, not to wanst. It is a repetition, sor, av an ould offince,
+an' I am here, sor, in this reshpicted prisence, sor, to say that the
+toime has come fer this Brotherhood to make its power filt!"
+
+Mr. O'Fake brought his clinched fist down upon the back of the Chair in
+front of him with a smart tap and looked proudly at the admiring faces
+of his fellow-members. Mr. O'Fake was eminent for his attainments as a
+speaker, and well he knew it. A murmur of applause broke out as he
+stopped, but he stilled it with a majestic wave of the hand.
+
+"Sor," he continued, "I am wan av those which belaves that the managers
+nades a lesson. They nades to be towld, sor, that Frakes is not dogs.
+They have gone on in their coorse--"
+
+At this point a shrill "Mr. Cheerman!" sounded out from the rear of the
+hall, and to the great indignation of Mr. O'Fake and to everybody else's
+surprise, Mr. Duffer Leech, the Man with the Phenomenal Skull, was
+observed to be standing with his arm lifted and his index finger
+extended towards the Chair.
+
+Mr. O'Fake was much too astonished at Mr. Leech's audacity to express
+himself. The Chair looked from one gentleman to the other in perplexity,
+mysteriously winking at Mr. Leech and nodding at Mr. O'Fake as if to
+call the attention of the one to the fact that the other was already
+addressing the council. These repeated gestures having produced no other
+effect than to draw another "Mr. Cheerman!" from Mr. Leech, the dwarf
+was moved to inquire, "Vell, Duffer, vot's hup?"
+
+"I wants to know wot's all dis talkin' about. I ain't got all day to sit
+here and listen to chin-moosic. Wot's de trouble?"
+
+It was easy to see that Duffer had been drinking. No man in his senses
+would have ventured so rudely to have checked the flow of Mr. O'Fake's
+oratory. Duffer had clearly been drinking, and the lion whose anger he
+had roused turned upon him quickly.
+
+"Phwat's the throuble!" he repeated, sarcastically. "I should say the
+throuble was plain enough. If the gintleman has any difficulty seein' it
+now, he won't long. It'll take the farm av snakes, sor, an' little rid
+divils wid long tails in doo toime!"
+
+Mr. O'Fake spoke with much dignity and great effect. In the roar of
+laughter which followed Duffer perceived he had been vanquished and in
+some confusion he sat down, while his victor proceeded:
+
+"The offince minshuned in me riserlooshuns is a blow at the daily brid
+av us all, sor. If any ould woman kin be placed in the froont rank av
+Frakes fer the rayson that her gran'son killed another ould woman, wull
+ye tell me, sor, phwat becomes av our janius an' harrud work? Sor, I am
+bould to say that yersilf, honored as ye are fer hevin' the biggest hid
+on the shmallest body in the world, had yer hid been as big as a base
+dhrum an' yer body as shmall as a marble, ye would be regarded as av no
+impartance in comparison wid this ould witch av a Gran'mother Cruncher."
+
+The impression produced by Mr. O'Fake's remarks was evidently deep and
+painful. He sat down amid silence which was presently broken by the
+shrill voice of Duffer.
+
+"Mr. Cheerman," said Duffer. "I rise to a p'int o' order."
+
+"Pint o' vot?" inquired the Chair.
+
+"Order, sir, order!" cried Duffer, who had long been a member of an East
+Side debating club.
+
+"Vell, I hunderstands you, Duffer, hall as far's you've vent. But it's
+wery himportant, me boy, vot you horders a pint of. If it's a pint of
+vhisky, vhy, all right; but if it's honly a pint of beer vhen there's
+seven hon'able ladies an' gents--"
+
+"I bigs the Chair's pardon," interrupted Mr. O'Fake, "but the Chair
+labors under a slight misaper--ahem!" Mr. O'Fake finished the word with
+a cough. It was a cough which he always kept ready for use in that way
+whenever needed. "The gintleman manes he objects to the persadin's."
+
+"He does, does 'e? Vell, if that's vot 'e means, 'e hexpresses hisself
+in a werry poor vay," answered the Chair, directing a look at Duffer
+which precipitated him at once into his seat.
+
+Mrs. Smock, the Circassian Beauty, said very decidedly that she didn't
+want any Grandmother Crunchers on the platform with her, and what was
+the use of having a Brotherhood if you didn't stop such things, which
+was debasing as everybody knew, and made her blood just boil every time
+it happened for she couldn't stand having her rights took away and
+wasn't going to. These energetic remarks decided the Chair to act.
+
+"Vell," he said, "it happears to be a go. The Chair happoints hisself
+an' Billy an' Sim Boles, an' the sooner ve sees Tony the sooner vill the
+band begin to play. If you don't think there'll be moosic as'll make
+your ears 'um, you don't know Tony Scollop."
+
+The Chair thereupon descended from its lofty place, and with
+characteristic promptness worked itself into its hat and coat. The
+occasion was felt by all to be somewhat solemn, and murmurs of advice
+arose to each of the committee as to the best method of proceeding. It
+was agreed that the other members of the council should remain in the
+headquarters until the committee's return.
+
+Runty considered himself something of a diplomat, and he let it be
+understood while on the way to Mr. Scollop's office that he would
+present the case. They found Mr. Scollop in an amiable humor and most
+happy to see them. There was a pause after the greetings, and to relieve
+it Mr. Scollop remarked again that it was a fine day.
+
+"So it is," rejoined Runty, "vich in combination with the natur' of hour
+business haccounts for hour smilin' faces."
+
+"That's right," said Tony. "Only if I was you I wouldn't smile in the
+sun. Three such smilin' faces as yours turned right up at him would
+produce a shadder, Runty. Now, what are you fellows up to? Some
+Brotherhood game, I'll bet a hat."
+
+"Wot a werry hactive mind!" cried Runty admiringly. "If you vos to guess
+again you'd hit the game itself an' save us playin' it."
+
+"No, you'd better lead off."
+
+"Vell, then, clubs is trumps, an' we have got a big von vith a knot on
+the hend for Gran'mother Cruncher--see?"
+
+Mr. Scollop smiled thoughtfully and said he saw. "I see a long ways," he
+added. "Cruncher is upstairs now, and the public is piling in head over
+heels to see her. Her portographs is selling like hot cakes and the more
+you kicks the more she'll be worth to me. Fact is, I wish you would
+raise a disturbance. There's nothin' like judicious advertisin' in this
+mooseum business. It would be worth a little something to have a nice,
+hard strike. Now, then, do you see?"
+
+Runty smiled in his turn and also said he saw. "If that's vot you vant,"
+he said, "you've got it. The strike is on, an' afore you gets through
+with Gran'mother Cruncher you'll have so much o' the same kind o'
+notoriety that you an' her'll make a team, an' you both orter grow rich
+by just hex'ibitin' of your two selves!"
+
+[Illustration: THERE STOOD THE NOBLE OLD LADY IN ALL HER PATHETIC
+BEAUTY.]
+
+"Capital!" cried Mr. Scollop in much excitement, ringing his bell
+vigorously. "This is the best thing 'ats happened to me in ten years.
+Hey, there, you, Dick! Rush around the corner an' get a canvas
+painted--make it big--fifteen by twenty feet, and great big black and
+red letters. Come now, be quick! Take down the words: 'Strike!' Make
+each letter two feet long! 'Our Freaks Fight Grandmother Cruncher! They
+Refuse To Exhibit Along With The Old Lady! Jealous Of Her Dazzling
+Beauty! Manager Scollop Stands Firm! Says He Will Be Loyal To
+Grandmother Cruncher Till The Heavens Fall! Not A Freak Left! But
+Grandmother Cruncher Remains Nobly At Her Post! Thousands Shake Her By
+The Hand! She Is Now Making A Speech To The Multitude! Hurry Up To Hear
+Her Thrilling Words! Come One! Come All! Only Ten Cents!'
+
+"There, got it down?" continued the Manager, breathlessly. "Got it all
+down? Then rush off, Dick! By the great horn spoon! Was there ever such
+a stroke of luck as this! Now, Runty, you fellows hurry up to your
+headquarters, so's to be there when the reporters come. Tell 'em the
+whole business. Tell 'em you'll never give in! Tell 'em it's a battle to
+the death! I'll send up a couple o' kegs o' beer and a lot o' cigars. Be
+lively, now."
+
+Mr. Scollop sprang from his chair and ran upstairs in frantic haste to
+give directions for rendering the exhibition-room as commodious as
+possible, leaving Runty and his fellow-committeemen in quite a state of
+mind.
+
+"Vell!" said the dwarf, drawing a prolonged breath and elevating his
+eyebrows with a curious expression of mingled surprise and dismay,
+"'ere's vot I calls a go!"
+
+Bony Perkins rubbed his ossified eyes with his ossified knuckles and
+observed that it looked as if somebody was going to get fooled.
+
+Mr. O'Fake arose majestically from his chair, and looked grimly at his
+colleagues. "Gintlemen," he said, "he'll be talkin' in another tone
+within a wake. Bedad, we'll tache him phwat he don't know. We'll send
+out an appale fer foonds, an' we'll give him all the fight he wants."
+
+Mr. O'Fake's hopeful tone was needed to brace up the drooping courage of
+his friends. They immediately returned to the council and briefly
+reported that their grievances had been ignored, and that the strike was
+on and would be general. Orders were at once issued and forwarded to
+every museum in New York directing all Freaks straightway to quit
+exhibiting and appeals were issued to the public and to all labor
+associations for financial aid. The headquarters were soon in a state of
+commotion. Mr. Scollop's kegs of beer had arrived and aided greatly in
+increasing the ardor of everybody's feelings. The Ossified Man
+surrounded himself with the Fat Woman, Little Bow-Legs and the Chinese
+Giant, and lectured them long and earnestly on the rights of labor and
+the tyranny of class rule. Mr. O'Fake delivered a full score of
+beautiful orations, and the entire Brotherhood agreed that its power
+should be exerted to the last extreme.
+
+[Illustration: THE OSSIFIED MAN LECTURED LONG AND EARNESTLY.]
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Scollop's museum was the scene of an even greater tumult.
+The enormous "Strike!" placard had been posted and had produced an
+immediate effect. Vast crowds of people, wild to see Grandmother
+Cruncher, besieged the ticket-office and packed the exhibition-room,
+where, upon the platform, elsewise deserted, stood that noble old lady
+in all her pathetic beauty. Mr. Scollop, in a condition of rapture
+scarcely possible of portrayal, stood all the afternoon in his private
+office opening wine for the gentlemen of the press and giving them the
+fullest information. He truly said he had nothing to conceal. He had
+made an honest man's contract and he would stand by it till he dropped
+in his tracks. He was not the man to desert a poor old woman in her
+sorrow at the bidding of an irresponsible clique of labor bosses. The
+Freaks did not want to strike, anyhow. They were nagged on to it by
+their leaders, who were not genuine Freaks at all, but professional
+agitators. Aside from his duty to Grandmother Cruncher, he was not going
+to have his business run by outsiders--not if he knew himself! There
+would be no abandonment of principle or position on his part, the public
+might depend on it.
+
+Mr. Scollop professed the deepest sorrow at the annoyance and vexation
+to which the public was exposed by the unfair conduct of the strikers,
+but he couldn't help it. It was not his fault. He knew he would have the
+sympathy of all fair-minded people. He would do his best to satisfy his
+patrons even under these trying circumstances. The museum was open now,
+as the reporters could easily see, and would be kept open. Grandmother
+Cruncher would exhibit and would be the great and permanent feature of
+his show hereafter, Brotherhood or no Brotherhood!
+
+These remarks, amplified and extended, appeared in the papers, together
+with interviews with the strikers and many thrilling incidents of the
+struggle. Public interest was aroused in the most general and intense
+degree, and Mr. Scollop's cashier made daily trips to the bank with a
+bushel-basket full of dimes. How long the contest would have continued
+and what the final result would have been are problems too deep for me.
+But at the end of the first week Grandmother Cruncher's rheumatism was
+too much for her and she was compelled to retire. Short as was her
+professional career, it gave her undying fame. In labor circles many
+ugly rumors are floating about concerning the management of the strike.
+It is broadly intimated that the whole thing was a "sell," and
+significant remark is made upon the fact that Runty, the Dwarf, shortly
+after the strike was ordered off, appeared upon the street scintillating
+under a new diamond pin. One of the leading daily journals editorially
+explained the matter by stating that the rheumatism story was a ruse,
+that public interest in Grandmother Cruncher began to wane, and that
+thereupon Manager Scollop "fixed the matter up" with the strikers. Tony,
+however, declares that the Brotherhood gave in, while Runty says it is
+stronger than ever and more than ever determined to protect the rights
+of its members. Where the exact truth lies it is far from me to say, but
+it may be pertinent to mention that Runty and Mr. O'Fake have started a
+saloon in the Bowery.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New
+York, by Lemuel Ely  Quigg
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