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Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Sixes and Sevens</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: O. Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 14, 2000 [eBook #2851]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 30, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Glynn Burleson and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIXES AND SEVENS ***</div> + +<h1>Sixes and Sevens</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by O. Henry</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. THE SLEUTHS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. WITCHES’ LOAVES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. THE PRIDE OF THE CITIES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. HOLDING UP A TRAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. ULYSSES AND THE DOGMAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. THE CHAMPION OF THE WEATHER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. AT ARMS WITH MORPHEUS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. A GHOST OF A CHANCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. JIMMY HAYES AND MURIEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. THE DOOR OF UNREST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. LET ME FEEL YOUR PULSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. OCTOBER AND JUNE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. THE CHURCH WITH AN OVERSHOT-WHEEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. NEW YORK BY CAMP FIRE LIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. THE LADY HIGHER UP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. THE GREATER CONEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI. LAW AND ORDER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII. TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN BURNEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII. THE CALIPH AND THE CAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV. THE DIAMOND OF KALI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV. THE DAY WE CELEBRATE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I.<br/> +THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS</h2> + +<p> +Inexorably Sam Galloway saddled his pony. He was going away from the Rancho +Altito at the end of a three-months’ visit. It is not to be expected that +a guest should put up with wheat coffee and biscuits yellow-streaked with +saleratus for longer than that. Nick Napoleon, the big Negro man cook, had +never been able to make good biscuits. Once before, when Nick was cooking at +the Willow Ranch, Sam had been forced to fly from his <i>cuisine</i>, after +only a six-weeks’ sojourn. +</p> + +<p> +On Sam’s face was an expression of sorrow, deepened with regret and +slightly tempered by the patient forgiveness of a connoisseur who cannot be +understood. But very firmly and inexorably he buckled his saddle-cinches, +looped his stake-rope and hung it to his saddle-horn, tied his slicker and coat +on the cantle, and looped his quirt on his right wrist. The Merrydews +(householders of the Rancho Altito), men, women, children, and servants, +vassals, visitors, employés, dogs, and casual callers were grouped in the +“gallery” of the ranch house, all with faces set to the tune of +melancholy and grief. For, as the coming of Sam Galloway to any ranch, camp, or +cabin between the rivers Frio or Bravo del Norte aroused joy, so his departure +caused mourning and distress. +</p> + +<p> +And then, during absolute silence, except for the bumping of a hind elbow of a +hound dog as he pursued a wicked flea, Sam tenderly and carefully tied his +guitar across his saddle on top of his slicker and coat. The guitar was in a +green duck bag; and if you catch the significance of it, it explains Sam. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Galloway was the Last of the Troubadours. Of course you know about the +troubadours. The encyclopædia says they flourished between the eleventh +and the thirteenth centuries. What they flourished doesn’t seem +clear—you may be pretty sure it wasn’t a sword: maybe it was a +fiddlebow, or a forkful of spaghetti, or a lady’s scarf. Anyhow, Sam +Galloway was one of ’em. +</p> + +<p> +Sam put on a martyred expression as he mounted his pony. But the expression on +his face was hilarious compared with the one on his pony’s. You see, a +pony gets to know his rider mighty well, and it is not unlikely that cow ponies +in pastures and at hitching racks had often guyed Sam’s pony for being +ridden by a guitar player instead of by a rollicking, cussing, all-wool cowboy. +No man is a hero to his saddle-horse. And even an escalator in a department +store might be excused for tripping up a troubadour. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, I know I’m one; and so are you. You remember the stories you memorize +and the card tricks you study and that little piece on the piano—how does +it go?—ti-tum-te-tum-ti-tum—those little Arabian Ten Minute +Entertainments that you furnish when you go up to call on your rich Aunt Jane. +You should know that <i>omnæ personæ in tres partes divisæ +sunt</i>. Namely: Barons, Troubadours, and Workers. Barons have no inclination +to read such folderol as this; and Workers have no time: so I know you must be +a Troubadour, and that you will understand Sam Galloway. Whether we sing, act, +dance, write, lecture, or paint, we are only troubadours; so let us make the +worst of it. +</p> + +<p> +The pony with the Dante Alighieri face, guided by the pressure of Sam’s +knees, bore that wandering minstrel sixteen miles southeastward. Nature was in +her most benignant mood. League after league of delicate, sweet flowerets made +fragrant the gently undulating prairie. The east wind tempered the spring +warmth; wool-white clouds flying in from the Mexican Gulf hindered the direct +rays of the April sun. Sam sang songs as he rode. Under his pony’s bridle +he had tucked some sprigs of chaparral to keep away the deer flies. Thus +crowned, the long-faced quadruped looked more Dantesque than before, and, +judging by his countenance, seemed to think of Beatrice. +</p> + +<p> +Straight as topography permitted, Sam rode to the sheep ranch of old man +Ellison. A visit to a sheep ranch seemed to him desirable just then. There had +been too many people, too much noise, argument, competition, confusion, at +Rancho Altito. He had never conferred upon old man Ellison the favour of +sojourning at his ranch; but he knew he would be welcome. The troubadour is his +own passport everywhere. The Workers in the castle let down the drawbridge to +him, and the Baron sets him at his left hand at table in the banquet hall. +There ladies smile upon him and applaud his songs and stories, while the +Workers bring boars’ heads and flagons. If the Baron nods once or twice +in his carved oaken chair, he does not do it maliciously. +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison welcomed the troubadour flatteringly. He had often heard +praises of Sam Galloway from other ranchmen who had been complimented by his +visits, but had never aspired to such an honour for his own humble barony. I +say barony because old man Ellison was the Last of the Barons. Of course, Mr. +Bulwer-Lytton lived too early to know him, or he wouldn’t have conferred +that sobriquet upon Warwick. In life it is the duty and the function of the +Baron to provide work for the Workers and lodging and shelter for the +Troubadours. +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison was a shrunken old man, with a short, yellow-white beard and a +face lined and seamed by past-and-gone smiles. His ranch was a little two-room +box house in a grove of hackberry trees in the lonesomest part of the sheep +country. His household consisted of a Kiowa Indian man cook, four hounds, a pet +sheep, and a half-tamed coyote chained to a fence-post. He owned 3,000 sheep, +which he ran on two sections of leased land and many thousands of acres neither +leased nor owned. Three or four times a year some one who spoke his language +would ride up to his gate and exchange a few bald ideas with him. Those were +red-letter days to old man Ellison. Then in what illuminated, embossed, and +gorgeously decorated capitals must have been written the day on which a +troubadour—a troubadour who, according to the encyclopædia, should +have flourished between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries—drew +rein at the gates of his baronial castle! +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison’s smiles came back and filled his wrinkles when he saw +Sam. He hurried out of the house in his shuffling, limping way to greet him. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Mr. Ellison,” called Sam cheerfully. “Thought +I’d drop over and see you a while. Notice you’ve had fine rains on +your range. They ought to make good grazing for your spring lambs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, well,” said old man Ellison. “I’m mighty +glad to see you, Sam. I never thought you’d take the trouble to ride over +to as out-of-the-way an old ranch as this. But you’re mighty welcome. +’Light. I’ve got a sack of new oats in the kitchen—shall I +bring out a feed for your hoss?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oats for him?” said Sam, derisively. “No, sir-ee. He’s +as fat as a pig now on grass. He don’t get rode enough to keep him in +condition. I’ll just turn him in the horse pasture with a drag rope on if +you don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +I am positive that never during the eleventh and thirteenth centuries did +Baron, Troubadour, and Worker amalgamate as harmoniously as their parallels did +that evening at old man Ellison’s sheep ranch. The Kiowa’s biscuits +were light and tasty and his coffee strong. Ineradicable hospitality and +appreciation glowed on old man Ellison’s weather-tanned face. As for the +troubadour, he said to himself that he had stumbled upon pleasant places +indeed. A well-cooked, abundant meal, a host whom his lightest attempt to +entertain seemed to delight far beyond the merits of the exertion, and the +reposeful atmosphere that his sensitive soul at that time craved united to +confer upon him a satisfaction and luxurious ease that he had seldom found on +his tours of the ranches. +</p> + +<p> +After the delectable supper, Sam untied the green duck bag and took out his +guitar. Not by way of payment, mind you—neither Sam Galloway nor any +other of the true troubadours are lineal descendants of the late Tommy Tucker. +You have read of Tommy Tucker in the works of the esteemed but often obscure +Mother Goose. Tommy Tucker sang for his supper. No true troubadour would do +that. He would have his supper, and then sing for Art’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Galloway’s repertoire comprised about fifty funny stories and between +thirty and forty songs. He by no means stopped there. He could talk through +twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up. And he never sat up when he +could lie down; and never stood when he could sit. I am strongly disposed to +linger with him, for I am drawing a portrait as well as a blunt pencil and a +tattered thesaurus will allow. +</p> + +<p> +I wish you could have seen him: he was small and tough and inactive beyond the +power of imagination to conceive. He wore an ultramarine-blue woollen shirt +laced down the front with a pearl-gray, exaggerated sort of shoestring, +indestructible brown duck clothes, inevitable high-heeled boots with Mexican +spurs, and a Mexican straw sombrero. +</p> + +<p> +That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged their chairs out under the +hackberry trees. They lighted cigarettes; and the troubadour gaily touched his +guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the weird, melancholy, minor-keyed +<i>canciones</i> that he had learned from the Mexican sheep herders and +<i>vaqueros</i>. One, in particular, charmed and soothed the soul of the lonely +baron. It was a favourite song of the sheep herders, beginning: +“<i>Huile, huile, palomita</i>,” which being translated means, +“Fly, fly, little dove.” Sam sang it for old man Ellison many times +that evening. +</p> + +<p> +The troubadour stayed on at the old man’s ranch. There was peace and +quiet and appreciation there, such as he had not found in the noisy camps of +the cattle kings. No audience in the world could have crowned the work of poet, +musician, or artist with more worshipful and unflagging approval than that +bestowed upon his efforts by old man Ellison. No visit by a royal personage to +a humble woodchopper or peasant could have been received with more flattering +thankfulness and joy. +</p> + +<p> +On a cool, canvas-covered cot in the shade of the hackberry trees Sam Galloway +passed the greater part of his time. There he rolled his brown paper +cigarettes, read such tedious literature as the ranch afforded, and added to +his repertoire of improvisations that he played so expertly on his guitar. To +him, as a slave ministering to a great lord, the Kiowa brought cool water from +the red jar hanging under the brush shelter, and food when he called for it. +The prairie zephyrs fanned him mildly; mocking-birds at morn and eve competed +with but scarce equalled the sweet melodies of his lyre; a perfumed stillness +seemed to fill all his world. While old man Ellison was pottering among his +flocks of sheep on his mile-an-hour pony, and while the Kiowa took his siesta +in the burning sunshine at the end of the kitchen, Sam would lie on his cot +thinking what a happy world he lived in, and how kind it is to the ones whose +mission in life it is to give entertainment and pleasure. Here he had food and +lodging as good as he had ever longed for; absolute immunity from care or +exertion or strife; an endless welcome, and a host whose delight at the +sixteenth repetition of a song or a story was as keen as at its initial giving. +Was there ever a troubadour of old who struck upon as royal a castle in his +wanderings? While he lay thus, meditating upon his blessings, little brown +cottontails would shyly frolic through the yard; a covey of white-topknotted +blue quail would run past, in single file, twenty yards away; a <i>paisano</i> +bird, out hunting for tarantulas, would hop upon the fence and salute him with +sweeping flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse pasture the pony +with the Dantesque face grew fat and almost smiling. The troubadour was at the +end of his wanderings. +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison was his own <i>vaciero</i>. That means that he supplied his +sheep camps with wood, water, and rations by his own labours instead of hiring +a <i>vaciero</i>. On small ranches it is often done. +</p> + +<p> +One morning he started for the camp of Incarnación Felipe de la Cruz y +Monte Piedras (one of his sheep herders) with the week’s usual rations of +brown beans, coffee, meal, and sugar. Two miles away on the trail from old Fort +Ewing he met, face to face, a terrible being called King James, mounted on a +fiery, prancing, Kentucky-bred horse. +</p> + +<p> +King James’s real name was James King; but people reversed it because it +seemed to fit him better, and also because it seemed to please his majesty. +King James was the biggest cattleman between the Alamo plaza in San Antone and +Bill Hopper’s saloon in Brownsville. Also he was the loudest and most +offensive bully and braggart and bad man in southwest Texas. And he always made +good whenever he bragged; and the more noise he made the more dangerous he was. +In the story papers it is always the quiet, mild-mannered man with light blue +eyes and a low voice who turns out to be really dangerous; but in real life and +in this story such is not the case. Give me my choice between assaulting a +large, loudmouthed rough-houser and an inoffensive stranger with blue eyes +sitting quietly in a corner, and you will see something doing in the corner +every time. +</p> + +<p> +King James, as I intended to say earlier, was a fierce, two-hundred-pound, +sunburned, blond man, as pink as an October strawberry, and with two horizontal +slits under shaggy red eyebrows for eyes. On that day he wore a flannel shirt +that was tan-coloured, with the exception of certain large areas which were +darkened by transudations due to the summer sun. There seemed to be other +clothing and garnishings about him, such as brown duck trousers stuffed into +immense boots, and red handkerchiefs and revolvers; and a shotgun laid across +his saddle and a leather belt with millions of cartridges shining in +it—but your mind skidded off such accessories; what held your gaze was +just the two little horizontal slits that he used for eyes. +</p> + +<p> +This was the man that old man Ellison met on the trail; and when you count up +in the baron’s favour that he was sixty-five and weighed ninety-eight +pounds and had heard of King James’s record and that he (the baron) had a +hankering for the <i>vita simplex</i> and had no gun with him and +wouldn’t have used it if he had, you can’t censure him if I tell +you that the smiles with which the troubadour had filled his wrinkles went out +of them and left them plain wrinkles again. But he was not the kind of baron +that flies from danger. He reined in the mile-an-hour pony (no difficult feat), +and saluted the formidable monarch. +</p> + +<p> +King James expressed himself with royal directness. “You’re that +old snoozer that’s running sheep on this range, ain’t you?” +said he. “What right have you got to do it? Do you own any land, or lease +any?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have two sections leased from the state,” said old man Ellison, +mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not by no means you haven’t,” said King James. “Your +lease expired yesterday; and I had a man at the land office on the minute to +take it up. You don’t control a foot of grass in Texas. You sheep men +have got to git. Your time’s up. It’s a cattle country, and there +ain’t any room in it for snoozers. This range you’ve got your sheep +on is mine. I’m putting up a wire fence, forty by sixty miles; and if +there’s a sheep inside of it when it’s done it’ll be a dead +one. I’ll give you a week to move yours away. If they ain’t gone by +then, I’ll send six men over here with Winchesters to make mutton out of +the whole lot. And if I find you here at the same time this is what +you’ll get.” +</p> + +<p> +King James patted the breech of his shot-gun warningly. +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison rode on to the camp of Incarnación. He sighed many +times, and the wrinkles in his face grew deeper. Rumours that the old order was +about to change had reached him before. The end of Free Grass was in sight. +Other troubles, too, had been accumulating upon his shoulders. His flocks were +decreasing instead of growing; the price of wool was declining at every clip; +even Bradshaw, the storekeeper at Frio City, at whose store he bought his ranch +supplies, was dunning him for his last six months’ bill and threatening +to cut him off. And so this last greatest calamity suddenly dealt out to him by +the terrible King James was a crusher. +</p> + +<p> +When the old man got back to the ranch at sunset he found Sam Galloway lying on +his cot, propped against a roll of blankets and wool sacks, fingering his +guitar. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Uncle Ben,” the troubadour called, cheerfully. “You +rolled in early this evening. I been trying a new twist on the Spanish Fandango +to-day. I just about got it. Here’s how she goes—listen.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s fine, that’s mighty fine,” said old man +Ellison, sitting on the kitchen step and rubbing his white, Scotch-terrier +whiskers. “I reckon you’ve got all the musicians beat east and +west, Sam, as far as the roads are cut out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sam, reflectively. “But I +certainly do get there on variations. I guess I can handle anything in five +flats about as well as any of ’em. But you look kind of fagged out, Uncle +Ben—ain’t you feeling right well this evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“Little tired; that’s all, Sam. If you ain’t played yourself +out, let’s have that Mexican piece that starts off with: ‘<i>Huile, +huile, palomita</i>.’ It seems that that song always kind of soothes and +comforts me after I’ve been riding far or anything bothers me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, <i>seguramente, señor</i>,” said Sam. +“I’ll hit her up for you as often as you like. And before I forget +about it, Uncle Ben, you want to jerk Bradshaw up about them last hams he sent +us. They’re just a little bit strong.” +</p> + +<p> +A man sixty-five years old, living on a sheep ranch and beset by a complication +of disasters, cannot successfully and continuously dissemble. Moreover, a +troubadour has eyes quick to see unhappiness in others around him—because +it disturbs his own ease. So, on the next day, Sam again questioned the old man +about his air of sadness and abstraction. Then old man Ellison told him the +story of King James’s threats and orders and that pale melancholy and red +ruin appeared to have marked him for their own. The troubadour took the news +thoughtfully. He had heard much about King James. +</p> + +<p> +On the third day of the seven days of grace allowed him by the autocrat of the +range, old man Ellison drove his buckboard to Frio City to fetch some necessary +supplies for the ranch. Bradshaw was hard but not implacable. He divided the +old man’s order by two, and let him have a little more time. One article +secured was a new, fine ham for the pleasure of the troubadour. +</p> + +<p> +Five miles out of Frio City on his way home the old man met King James riding +into town. His majesty could never look anything but fierce and menacing, but +to-day his slits of eyes appeared to be a little wider than they usually were. +</p> + +<p> +“Good day,” said the king, gruffly. “I’ve been wanting +to see you. I hear it said by a cowman from Sandy yesterday that you was from +Jackson County, Mississippi, originally. I want to know if that’s a +fact.” +</p> + +<p> +“Born there,” said old man Ellison, “and raised there till I +was twenty-one.” +</p> + +<p> +“This man says,” went on King James, “that he thinks you was +related to the Jackson County Reeveses. Was he right?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Caroline Reeves,” said the old man, “was my +half-sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was my aunt,” said King James. “I run away from home +when I was sixteen. Now, let’s re-talk over some things that we discussed +a few days ago. They call me a bad man; and they’re only half right. +There’s plenty of room in my pasture for your bunch of sheep and their +increase for a long time to come. Aunt Caroline used to cut out sheep in cake +dough and bake ’em for me. You keep your sheep where they are, and use +all the range you want. How’s your finances?” +</p> + +<p> +The old man related his woes in detail, dignifiedly, with restraint and +candour. +</p> + +<p> +“She used to smuggle extra grub into my school basket—I’m +speaking of Aunt Caroline,” said King James. “I’m going over +to Frio City to-day, and I’ll ride back by your ranch to-morrow. +I’ll draw $2,000 out of the bank there and bring it over to you; and +I’ll tell Bradshaw to let you have everything you want on credit. You are +bound to have heard the old saying at home, that the Jackson County Reeveses +and Kings would stick closer by each other than chestnut burrs. Well, I’m +a King yet whenever I run across a Reeves. So you look out for me along about +sundown to-morrow, and don’t worry about nothing. Shouldn’t wonder +if the dry spell don’t kill out the young grass.” +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison drove happily ranchward. Once more the smiles filled out his +wrinkles. Very suddenly, by the magic of kinship and the good that lies +somewhere in all hearts, his troubles had been removed. +</p> + +<p> +On reaching the ranch he found that Sam Galloway was not there. His guitar hung +by its buckskin string to a hackberry limb, moaning as the gulf breeze blew +across its masterless strings. +</p> + +<p> +The Kiowa endeavoured to explain. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam, he catch pony,” said he, “and say he ride to Frio City. +What for no can damn sabe. Say he come back to-night. Maybe so. That +all.” +</p> + +<p> +As the first stars came out the troubadour rode back to his haven. He pastured +his pony and went into the house, his spurs jingling martially. +</p> + +<p> +Old man Ellison sat at the kitchen table, having a tin cup of before-supper +coffee. He looked contented and pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Sam,” said he. “I’m darned glad to see ye back. +I don’t know how I managed to get along on this ranch, anyhow, before ye +dropped in to cheer things up. I’ll bet ye’ve been skylarking +around with some of them Frio City gals, now, that’s kept ye so +late.” +</p> + +<p> +And then old man Ellison took another look at Sam’s face and saw that the +minstrel had changed to the man of action. +</p> + +<p> +And while Sam is unbuckling from his waist old man Ellison’s six-shooter, +that the latter had left behind when he drove to town, we may well pause to +remark that anywhere and whenever a troubadour lays down the guitar and takes +up the sword trouble is sure to follow. It is not the expert thrust of Athos +nor the cold skill of Aramis nor the iron wrist of Porthos that we have to +fear—it is the Gascon’s fury—the wild and unacademic attack +of the troubadour—the sword of D’Artagnan. +</p> + +<p> +“I done it,” said Sam. “I went over to Frio City to do it. I +couldn’t let him put the skibunk on you, Uncle Ben. I met him in +Summers’s saloon. I knowed what to do. I said a few things to him that +nobody else heard. He reached for his gun first—half a dozen fellows saw +him do it—but I got mine unlimbered first. Three doses I gave +him—right around the lungs, and a saucer could have covered up all of +’em. He won’t bother you no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“This—is—King—James—you speak—of?” +asked old man Ellison, while he sipped his coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“You bet it was. And they took me before the county judge; and the +witnesses what saw him draw his gun first was all there. Well, of course, they +put me under $300 bond to appear before the court, but there was four or five +boys on the spot ready to sign the bail. He won’t bother you no more, +Uncle Ben. You ought to have seen how close them bullet holes was together. I +reckon playing a guitar as much as I do must kind of limber a fellow’s +trigger finger up a little, don’t you think, Uncle Ben?” +</p> + +<p> +Then there was a little silence in the castle except for the spluttering of a +venison steak that the Kiowa was cooking. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam,” said old man Ellison, stroking his white whiskers with a +tremulous hand, “would you mind getting the guitar and playing that +‘<i>Huile, huile, palomita</i>’ piece once or twice? It always +seems to be kind of soothing and comforting when a man’s tired and fagged +out.” +</p> + +<p> +There is no more to be said, except that the title of the story is wrong. It +should have been called “The Last of the Barons.” There never will +be an end to the troubadours; and now and then it does seem that the jingle of +their guitars will drown the sound of the muffled blows of the pickaxes and +trip hammers of all the Workers in the world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II.<br/> +THE SLEUTHS</h2> + +<p> +In The Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of +the flame of a candle that is blown out. All the agencies of +inquisition—the hounds of the trail, the sleuths of the city’s +labyrinths, the closet detectives of theory and induction—will be invoked +to the search. Most often the man’s face will be seen no more. Sometimes +he will reappear in Sheboygan or in the wilds of Terre Haute, calling himself +one of the synonyms of “Smith,” and without memory of events up to +a certain time, including his grocer’s bill. Sometimes it will be found, +after dragging the rivers, and polling the restaurants to see if he may be +waiting for a well-done sirloin, that he has moved next door. +</p> + +<p> +This snuffing out of a human being like the erasure of a chalk man from a +blackboard is one of the most impressive themes in dramaturgy. +</p> + +<p> +The case of Mary Snyder, in point, should not be without interest. +</p> + +<p> +A man of middle age, of the name of Meeks, came from the West to New York to +find his sister, Mrs. Mary Snyder, a widow, aged fifty-two, who had been living +for a year in a tenement house in a crowded neighbourhood. +</p> + +<p> +At her address he was told that Mary Snyder had moved away longer than a month +before. No one could tell him her new address. +</p> + +<p> +On coming out Mr. Meeks addressed a policeman who was standing on the corner, +and explained his dilemma. +</p> + +<p> +“My sister is very poor,” he said, “and I am anxious to find +her. I have recently made quite a lot of money in a lead mine, and I want her +to share my prosperity. There is no use in advertising her, because she cannot +read.” +</p> + +<p> +The policeman pulled his moustache and looked so thoughtful and mighty that +Meeks could almost feel the joyful tears of his sister Mary dropping upon his +bright blue tie. +</p> + +<p> +“You go down in the Canal Street neighbourhood,” said the +policeman, “and get a job drivin’ the biggest dray you can find. +There’s old women always gettin’ knocked over by drays down there. +You might see ’er among ’em. If you don’t want to do that you +better go ’round to headquarters and get ’em to put a fly cop onto +the dame.” +</p> + +<p> +At police headquarters, Meeks received ready assistance. A general alarm was +sent out, and copies of a photograph of Mary Snyder that her brother had were +distributed among the stations. In Mulberry Street the chief assigned Detective +Mullins to the case. +</p> + +<p> +The detective took Meeks aside and said: +</p> + +<p> +“This is not a very difficult case to unravel. Shave off your whiskers, +fill your pockets with good cigars, and meet me in the café of the Waldorf at +three o’clock this afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +Meeks obeyed. He found Mullins there. They had a bottle of wine, while the +detective asked questions concerning the missing woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Mullins, “New York is a big city, but we’ve +got the detective business systematized. There are two ways we can go about +finding your sister. We will try one of ’em first. You say she’s +fifty-two?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little past,” said Meeks. +</p> + +<p> +The detective conducted the Westerner to a branch advertising office of one of +the largest dailies. There he wrote the following “ad” and +submitted it to Meeks: +</p> + +<p> +“Wanted, at once—one hundred attractive chorus girls for a new +musical comedy. Apply all day at No. –––– +Broadway.” +</p> + +<p> +Meeks was indignant. +</p> + +<p> +“My sister,” said he, “is a poor, hard-working, elderly +woman. I do not see what aid an advertisement of this kind would be toward +finding her.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said the detective. “I guess you don’t +know New York. But if you’ve got a grouch against this scheme we’ll +try the other one. It’s a sure thing. But it’ll cost you +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind the expense,” said Meeks; “we’ll try +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The sleuth led him back to the Waldorf. “Engage a couple of bedrooms and +a parlour,” he advised, “and let’s go up.” +</p> + +<p> +This was done, and the two were shown to a superb suite on the fourth floor. +Meeks looked puzzled. The detective sank into a velvet armchair, and pulled out +his cigar case. +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot to suggest, old man,” he said, “that you should +have taken the rooms by the month. They wouldn’t have stuck you so much +for ’em. +</p> + +<p> +“By the month!” exclaimed Meeks. “What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’ll take time to work the game this way. I told you it would +cost you more. We’ll have to wait till spring. There’ll be a new +city directory out then. Very likely your sister’s name and address will +be in it.” +</p> + +<p> +Meeks rid himself of the city detective at once. On the next day some one +advised him to consult Shamrock Jolnes, New York’s famous private +detective, who demanded fabulous fees, but performed miracles in the way of +solving mysteries and crimes. +</p> + +<p> +After waiting for two hours in the anteroom of the great detective’s +apartment, Meeks was shown into his presence. Jolnes sat in a purple +dressing-gown at an inlaid ivory chess table, with a magazine before him, +trying to solve the mystery of “They.” The famous sleuth’s +thin, intellectual face, piercing eyes, and rate per word are too well known to +need description. +</p> + +<p> +Meeks set forth his errand. “My fee, if successful, will be $500,” +said Shamrock Jolnes. +</p> + +<p> +Meeks bowed his agreement to the price. +</p> + +<p> +“I will undertake your case, Mr. Meeks,” said Jolnes, finally. +“The disappearance of people in this city has always been an interesting +problem to me. I remember a case that I brought to a successful outcome a year +ago. A family bearing the name of Clark disappeared suddenly from a small flat +in which they were living. I watched the flat building for two months for a +clue. One day it struck me that a certain milkman and a grocer’s boy +always walked backward when they carried their wares upstairs. Following out by +induction the idea that this observation gave me, I at once located the missing +family. They had moved into the flat across the hall and changed their name to +Kralc.” +</p> + +<p> +Shamrock Jolnes and his client went to the tenement house where Mary Snyder had +lived, and the detective demanded to be shown the room in which she had lived. +It had been occupied by no tenant since her disappearance. +</p> + +<p> +The room was small, dingy, and poorly furnished. Meeks seated himself +dejectedly on a broken chair, while the great detective searched the walls and +floor and the few sticks of old, rickety furniture for a clue. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of half an hour Jolnes had collected a few seemingly unintelligible +articles—a cheap black hat pin, a piece torn off a theatre programme, and +the end of a small torn card on which was the word “left” and the +characters “C 12.” +</p> + +<p> +Shamrock Jolnes leaned against the mantel for ten minutes, with his head +resting upon his hand, and an absorbed look upon his intellectual face. At the +end of that time he exclaimed, with animation: +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Mr. Meeks; the problem is solved. I can take you directly to the +house where your sister is living. And you may have no fears concerning her +welfare, for she is amply provided with funds—for the present at +least.” +</p> + +<p> +Meeks felt joy and wonder in equal proportions. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you manage it?” he asked, with admiration in his tones. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps Jolnes’s only weakness was a professional pride in his wonderful +achievements in induction. He was ever ready to astound and charm his listeners +by describing his methods. +</p> + +<p> +“By elimination,” said Jolnes, spreading his clues upon a little +table, “I got rid of certain parts of the city to which Mrs. Snyder might +have removed. You see this hatpin? That eliminates Brooklyn. No woman attempts +to board a car at the Brooklyn Bridge without being sure that she carries a +hatpin with which to fight her way into a seat. And now I will demonstrate to +you that she could not have gone to Harlem. Behind this door are two hooks in +the wall. Upon one of these Mrs. Snyder has hung her bonnet, and upon the other +her shawl. You will observe that the bottom of the hanging shawl has gradually +made a soiled streak against the plastered wall. The mark is clean-cut, proving +that there is no fringe on the shawl. Now, was there ever a case where a +middle-aged woman, wearing a shawl, boarded a Harlem train without there being +a fringe on the shawl to catch in the gate and delay the passengers behind her? +So we eliminate Harlem. +</p> + +<p> +“Therefore I conclude that Mrs. Snyder has not moved very far away. On +this torn piece of card you see the word ‘Left,’ the letter +‘C,’ and the number ‘12.’ Now, I happen to know that +No. 12 Avenue C is a first-class boarding house, far beyond your sister’s +means—as we suppose. But then I find this piece of a theatre programme, +crumpled into an odd shape. What meaning does it convey. None to you, very +likely, Mr. Meeks; but it is eloquent to one whose habits and training take +cognizance of the smallest things. +</p> + +<p> +“You have told me that your sister was a scrub woman. She scrubbed the +floors of offices and hallways. Let us assume that she procured such work to +perform in a theatre. Where is valuable jewellery lost the oftenest, Mr. Meeks? +In the theatres, of course. Look at that piece of programme, Mr. Meeks. Observe +the round impression in it. It has been wrapped around a ring—perhaps a +ring of great value. Mrs. Snyder found the ring while at work in the theatre. +She hastily tore off a piece of a programme, wrapped the ring carefully, and +thrust it into her bosom. The next day she disposed of it, and, with her +increased means, looked about her for a more comfortable place in which to +live. When I reach thus far in the chain I see nothing impossible about No. 12 +Avenue C. It is there we will find your sister, Mr. Meeks.” +</p> + +<p> +Shamrock Jolnes concluded his convincing speech with the smile of a successful +artist. Meeks’s admiration was too great for words. Together they went to +No. 12 Avenue C. It was an old-fashioned brownstone house in a prosperous and +respectable neighbourhood. +</p> + +<p> +They rang the bell, and on inquiring were told that no Mrs. Snyder was known +there, and that not within six months had a new occupant come to the house. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the sidewalk again, Meeks examined the clues which he had +brought away from his sister’s old room. +</p> + +<p> +“I am no detective,” he remarked to Jolnes as he raised the piece +of theatre programme to his nose, “but it seems to me that instead of a +ring having been wrapped in this paper it was one of those round peppermint +drops. And this piece with the address on it looks to me like the end of a seat +coupon—No. 12, row C, left aisle.” +</p> + +<p> +Shamrock Jolnes had a far-away look in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you would do well to consult Juggins,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Juggins?” asked Meeks. +</p> + +<p> +“He is the leader,” said Jolnes, “of a new modern school of +detectives. Their methods are different from ours, but it is said that Juggins +has solved some extremely puzzling cases. I will take you to him.” +</p> + +<p> +They found the greater Juggins in his office. He was a small man with light +hair, deeply absorbed in reading one of the bourgeois works of Nathaniel +Hawthorne. +</p> + +<p> +The two great detectives of different schools shook hands with ceremony, and +Meeks was introduced. +</p> + +<p> +“State the facts,” said Juggins, going on with his reading. +</p> + +<p> +When Meeks ceased, the greater one closed his book and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Do I understand that your sister is fifty-two years of age, with a large +mole on the side of her nose, and that she is a very poor widow, making a +scanty living by scrubbing, and with a very homely face and figure?” +</p> + +<p> +“That describes her exactly,” admitted Meeks. Juggins rose and put +on his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“In fifteen minutes,” he said, “I will return, bringing you +her present address.” +</p> + +<p> +Shamrock Jolnes turned pale, but forced a smile. +</p> + +<p> +Within the specified time Juggins returned and consulted a little slip of paper +held in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister, Mary Snyder,” he announced calmly, “will be +found at No. 162 Chilton street. She is living in the back hall bedroom, five +flights up. The house is only four blocks from here,” he continued, +addressing Meeks. “Suppose you go and verify the statement and then +return here. Mr. Jolnes will await you, I dare say.” +</p> + +<p> +Meeks hurried away. In twenty minutes he was back again, with a beaming face. +</p> + +<p> +“She is there and well!” he cried. “Name your fee!” +</p> + +<p> +“Two dollars,” said Juggins. +</p> + +<p> +When Meeks had settled his bill and departed, Shamrock Jolnes stood with his +hat in his hand before Juggins. +</p> + +<p> +“If it would not be asking too much,” he stammered—“if +you would favour me so far—would you object to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not,” said Juggins pleasantly. “I will tell you +how I did it. You remember the description of Mrs. Snyder? Did you ever know a +woman like that who wasn’t paying weekly instalments on an enlarged +crayon portrait of herself? The biggest factory of that kind in the country is +just around the corner. I went there and got her address off the books. +That’s all.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III.<br/> +WITCHES’ LOAVES</h2> + +<p> +Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner (the one where you go +up three steps, and the bell tinkles when you open the door). +</p> + +<p> +Miss Martha was forty, her bank-book showed a credit of two thousand dollars, +and she possessed two false teeth and a sympathetic heart. Many people have +married whose chances to do so were much inferior to Miss Martha’s. +</p> + +<p> +Two or three times a week a customer came in in whom she began to take an +interest. He was a middle-aged man, wearing spectacles and a brown beard +trimmed to a careful point. +</p> + +<p> +He spoke English with a strong German accent. His clothes were worn and darned +in places, and wrinkled and baggy in others. But he looked neat, and had very +good manners. +</p> + +<p> +He always bought two loaves of stale bread. Fresh bread was five cents a loaf. +Stale ones were two for five. Never did he call for anything but stale bread. +</p> + +<p> +Once Miss Martha saw a red and brown stain on his fingers. She was sure then +that he was an artist and very poor. No doubt he lived in a garret, where he +painted pictures and ate stale bread and thought of the good things to eat in +Miss Martha’s bakery. +</p> + +<p> +Often when Miss Martha sat down to her chops and light rolls and jam and tea +she would sigh, and wish that the gentle-mannered artist might share her tasty +meal instead of eating his dry crust in that draughty attic. Miss +Martha’s heart, as you have been told, was a sympathetic one. +</p> + +<p> +In order to test her theory as to his occupation, she brought from her room one +day a painting that she had bought at a sale, and set it against the shelves +behind the bread counter. +</p> + +<p> +It was a Venetian scene. A splendid marble palazzio (so it said on the picture) +stood in the foreground—or rather forewater. For the rest there were +gondolas (with the lady trailing her hand in the water), clouds, sky, and +chiaro-oscuro in plenty. No artist could fail to notice it. +</p> + +<p> +Two days afterward the customer came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Two loafs of stale bread, if you blease. +</p> + +<p> +“You haf here a fine bicture, madame,” he said while she was +wrapping up the bread. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” says Miss Martha, revelling in her own cunning. “I do +so admire art and” (no, it would not do to say “artists” thus +early) “and paintings,” she substituted. “You think it is a +good picture?” +</p> + +<p> +“Der balance,” said the customer, “is not in good drawing. +Der bairspective of it is not true. Goot morning, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +He took his bread, bowed, and hurried out. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, he must be an artist. Miss Martha took the picture back to her room. +</p> + +<p> +How gentle and kindly his eyes shone behind his spectacles! What a broad brow +he had! To be able to judge perspective at a glance—and to live on stale +bread! But genius often has to struggle before it is recognized. +</p> + +<p> +What a thing it would be for art and perspective if genius were backed by two +thousand dollars in bank, a bakery, and a sympathetic heart to— But these +were day-dreams, Miss Martha. +</p> + +<p> +Often now when he came he would chat for a while across the showcase. He seemed +to crave Miss Martha’s cheerful words. +</p> + +<p> +He kept on buying stale bread. Never a cake, never a pie, never one of her +delicious Sally Lunns. +</p> + +<p> +She thought he began to look thinner and discouraged. Her heart ached to add +something good to eat to his meagre purchase, but her courage failed at the +act. She did not dare affront him. She knew the pride of artists. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Martha took to wearing her blue-dotted silk waist behind the counter. In +the back room she cooked a mysterious compound of quince seeds and borax. Ever +so many people use it for the complexion. +</p> + +<p> +One day the customer came in as usual, laid his nickel on the showcase, and +called for his stale loaves. While Miss Martha was reaching for them there was +a great tooting and clanging, and a fire-engine came lumbering past. +</p> + +<p> +The customer hurried to the door to look, as any one will. Suddenly inspired, +Miss Martha seized the opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +On the bottom shelf behind the counter was a pound of fresh butter that the +dairyman had left ten minutes before. With a bread knife Miss Martha made a +deep slash in each of the stale loaves, inserted a generous quantity of butter, +and pressed the loaves tight again. +</p> + +<p> +When the customer turned once more she was tying the paper around them. +</p> + +<p> +When he had gone, after an unusually pleasant little chat, Miss Martha smiled +to herself, but not without a slight fluttering of the heart. +</p> + +<p> +Had she been too bold? Would he take offense? But surely not. There was no +language of edibles. Butter was no emblem of unmaidenly forwardness. +</p> + +<p> +For a long time that day her mind dwelt on the subject. She imagined the scene +when he should discover her little deception. +</p> + +<p> +He would lay down his brushes and palette. There would stand his easel with the +picture he was painting in which the perspective was beyond criticism. +</p> + +<p> +He would prepare for his luncheon of dry bread and water. He would slice into a +loaf—ah! +</p> + +<p> +Miss Martha blushed. Would he think of the hand that placed it there as he ate? +Would he— +</p> + +<p> +The front door bell jangled viciously. Somebody was coming in, making a great +deal of noise. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Martha hurried to the front. Two men were there. One was a young man +smoking a pipe—a man she had never seen before. The other was her artist. +</p> + +<p> +His face was very red, his hat was on the back of his head, his hair was wildly +rumpled. He clinched his two fists and shook them ferociously at Miss Martha. +<i>At Miss Martha</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Dummkopf!</i>” he shouted with extreme loudness; and then +“<i>Tausendonfer!</i>” or something like it in German. +</p> + +<p> +The young man tried to draw him away. +</p> + +<p> +“I vill not go,” he said angrily, “else I shall told +her.” +</p> + +<p> +He made a bass drum of Miss Martha’s counter. +</p> + +<p> +“You haf shpoilt me,” he cried, his blue eyes blazing behind his +spectacles. “I vill tell you. You vas von <i>meddingsome old +cat!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Martha leaned weakly against the shelves and laid one hand on her +blue-dotted silk waist. The young man took the other by the collar. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” he said, “you’ve said enough.” He +dragged the angry one out at the door to the sidewalk, and then came back. +</p> + +<p> +“Guess you ought to be told, ma’am,” he said, “what the +row is about. That’s Blumberger. He’s an architectural draftsman. I +work in the same office with him. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s been working hard for three months drawing a plan for a new +city hall. It was a prize competition. He finished inking the lines yesterday. +You know, a draftsman always makes his drawing in pencil first. When it’s +done he rubs out the pencil lines with handfuls of stale bread crumbs. +That’s better than India rubber. +</p> + +<p> +“Blumberger’s been buying the bread here. Well, to-day—well, +you know, ma’am, that butter isn’t—well, Blumberger’s +plan isn’t good for anything now except to cut up into railroad +sandwiches.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Martha went into the back room. She took off the blue-dotted silk waist +and put on the old brown serge she used to wear. Then she poured the quince +seed and borax mixture out of the window into the ash can. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV.<br/> +THE PRIDE OF THE CITIES</h2> + +<p> +Said Mr. Kipling, “The cities are full of pride, challenging each to +each.” Even so. +</p> + +<p> +New York was empty. Two hundred thousand of its people were away for the +summer. Three million eight hundred thousand remained as caretakers and to pay +the bills of the absentees. But the two hundred thousand are an expensive lot. +</p> + +<p> +The New Yorker sat at a roof-garden table, ingesting solace through a straw. +His panama lay upon a chair. The July audience was scattered among vacant seats +as widely as outfielders when the champion batter steps to the plate. +Vaudeville happened at intervals. The breeze was cool from the bay; around and +above—everywhere except on the stage—were stars. Glimpses were to +be had of waiters, always disappearing, like startled chamois. Prudent visitors +who had ordered refreshments by ’phone in the morning were now being +served. The New Yorker was aware of certain drawbacks to his comfort, but +content beamed softly from his rimless eyeglasses. His family was out of town. +The drinks were warm; the ballet was suffering from lack of both tune and +talcum—but his family would not return until September. +</p> + +<p> +Then up into the garden stumbled the man from Topaz City, Nevada. The gloom of +the solitary sightseer enwrapped him. Bereft of joy through loneliness, he +stalked with a widower’s face through the halls of pleasure. Thirst for +human companionship possessed him as he panted in the metropolitan draught. +Straight to the New Yorker’s table he steered. +</p> + +<p> +The New Yorker, disarmed and made reckless by the lawless atmosphere of a roof +garden, decided upon utter abandonment of his life’s traditions. He +resolved to shatter with one rash, dare-devil, impulsive, hair-brained act the +conventions that had hitherto been woven into his existence. Carrying out this +radical and precipitous inspiration he nodded slightly to the stranger as he +drew nearer the table. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment found the man from Topaz City in the list of the New +Yorker’s closest friends. He took a chair at the table, he gathered two +others for his feet, he tossed his broad-brimmed hat upon a fourth, and told +his life’s history to his new-found pard. +</p> + +<p> +The New Yorker warmed a little, as an apartment-house furnace warms when the +strawberry season begins. A waiter who came within hail in an unguarded moment +was captured and paroled on an errand to the Doctor Wiley experimental station. +The ballet was now in the midst of a musical vagary, and danced upon the stage +programmed as Bolivian peasants, clothed in some portions of its anatomy as +Norwegian fisher maidens, in others as ladies-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette, +historically denuded in other portions so as to represent sea nymphs, and +presenting the <i>tout ensemble</i> of a social club of Central Park West +housemaids at a fish fry. +</p> + +<p> +“Been in the city long?” inquired the New Yorker, getting ready the +exact tip against the waiter’s coming with large change from the bill. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” said the man from Topaz City. “Four days. Never in +Topaz City, was you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I!” said the New Yorker. “I was never farther west than +Eighth Avenue. I had a brother who died on Ninth, but I met the cortege at +Eighth. There was a bunch of violets on the hearse, and the undertaker +mentioned the incident to avoid mistake. I cannot say that I am familiar with +the West.” +</p> + +<p> +“Topaz City,” said the man who occupied four chairs, “is one +of the finest towns in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“I presume that you have seen the sights of the metropolis,” said +the New Yorker, “Four days is not a sufficient length of time in which to +view even our most salient points of interest, but one can possibly form a +general impression. Our architectural supremacy is what generally strikes +visitors to our city most forcibly. Of course you have seen our Flatiron +Building. It is considered—” +</p> + +<p> +“Saw it,” said the man from Topaz City. “But you ought to +come out our way. It’s mountainous, you know, and the ladies all wear +short skirts for climbing and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” said the New Yorker, “but that isn’t +exactly the point. New York must be a wonderful revelation to a visitor from +the West. Now, as to our hotels—” +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” said the man from Topaz City, “that reminds +me—there were sixteen stage robbers shot last year within twenty miles +of—” +</p> + +<p> +“I was speaking of hotels,” said the New Yorker. “We lead +Europe in that respect. And as far as our leisure class is concerned we are +far—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” interrupted the man from Topaz City. +“There were twelve tramps in our jail when I left home. I guess New York +isn’t so—” +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon, you seem to misapprehend the idea. Of course, you visited +the Stock Exchange and Wall Street, where the—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said the man from Topaz City, as he lighted a +Pennsylvania stogie, “and I want to tell you that we’ve got the +finest town marshal west of the Rockies. Bill Rainer he took in five +pickpockets out of the crowd when Red Nose Thompson laid the cornerstone of his +new saloon. Topaz City don’t allow—” +</p> + +<p> +“Have another Rhine wine and seltzer,” suggested the New Yorker. +“I’ve never been West, as I said; but there can’t be any +place out there to compare with New York. As to the claims of Chicago +I—” +</p> + +<p> +“One man,” said the Topazite—“one man only has been +murdered and robbed in Topaz City in the last three—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know what Chicago is,” interposed the New Yorker. +“Have you been up Fifth Avenue to see the magnificent residences of our +mil—” +</p> + +<p> +“Seen ’em all. You ought to know Reub Stegall, the assessor of +Topaz. When old man Tilbury, that owns the only two-story house in town, tried +to swear his taxes from $6,000 down to $450.75, Reub buckled on his forty-five +and went down to see—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, but speaking of our great city—one of its greatest +features is our superb police department. There is no body of men in the world +that can equal it for—” +</p> + +<p> +“That waiter gets around like a Langley flying machine,” remarked +the man from Topaz City, thirstily. “We’ve got men in our town, +too, worth $400,000. There’s old Bill Withers and Colonel Metcalf +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen Broadway at night?” asked the New Yorker, +courteously. “There are few streets in the world that can compare with +it. When the electrics are shining and the pavements are alive with two +hurrying streams of elegantly clothed men and beautiful women attired in the +costliest costumes that wind in and out in a close maze of +expensively—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never knew but one case in Topaz City,” said the man from the +West. “Jim Bailey, our mayor, had his watch and chain and $235 in cash +taken from his pocket while—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s another matter,” said the New Yorker. “While +you are in our city you should avail yourself of every opportunity to see its +wonders. Our rapid transit system—” +</p> + +<p> +“If you was out in Topaz,” broke in the man from there, “I +could show you a whole cemetery full of people that got killed accidentally. +Talking about mangling folks up! why, when Berry Rogers turned loose that old +double-barrelled shot-gun of his loaded with slugs at anybody—” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, waiter!” called the New Yorker. “Two more of the same. +It is acknowledged by every one that our city is the centre of art, and +literature, and learning. Take, for instance, our after-dinner speakers. Where +else in the country would you find such wit and eloquence as emanate from Depew +and Ford, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“If you take the papers,” interrupted the Westerner, “you +must have read of Pete Webster’s daughter. The Websters live two blocks +north of the court-house in Topaz City. Miss Tillie Webster, she slept forty +days and nights without waking up. The doctors said that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pass the matches, please,” said the New Yorker. “Have you +observed the expedition with which new buildings are being run up in New York? +Improved inventions in steel framework and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I noticed,” said the Nevadian, “that the statistics of Topaz +City showed only one carpenter crushed by falling timbers last year and he was +caught in a cyclone.” +</p> + +<p> +“They abuse our sky line,” continued the New Yorker, “and it +is likely that we are not yet artistic in the construction of our buildings. +But I can safely assert that we lead in pictorial and decorative art. In some +of our houses can be found masterpieces in the way of paintings and sculpture. +One who has the entree to our best galleries will find—” +</p> + +<p> +“Back up,” exclaimed the man from Topaz City. “There was a +game last month in our town in which $90,000 changed hands on a pair +of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ta-romt-tara!” went the orchestra. The stage curtain, blushing +pink at the name “Asbestos” inscribed upon it, came down with a +slow midsummer movement. The audience trickled leisurely down the elevator and +stairs. +</p> + +<p> +On the sidewalk below, the New Yorker and the man from Topaz City shook hands +with alcoholic gravity. The elevated crashed raucously, surface cars hummed and +clanged, cabmen swore, newsboys shrieked, wheels clattered ear-piercingly. The +New Yorker conceived a happy thought, with which he aspired to clinch the +pre-eminence of his city. +</p> + +<p> +“You must admit,” said he, “that in the way of noise New York +is far ahead of any other—” +</p> + +<p> +“Back to the everglades!” said the man from Topaz City. “In +1900, when Sousa’s band and the repeating candidate were in our town you +couldn’t—” +</p> + +<p> +The rattle of an express wagon drowned the rest of the words. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V.<br/> +HOLDING UP A TRAIN</h2> + +<p class="footnote"> +<b>Note.</b> The man who told me these things was for several years an outlaw +in the Southwest and a follower of the pursuit he so frankly describes. His +description of the <i>modus operandi</i> should prove interesting, his counsel +of value to the potential passenger in some future “hold-up,” while +his estimate of the pleasures of train robbing will hardly induce any one to +adopt it as a profession. I give the story in almost exactly his own +words.<br/> +<span class="ind15">O. H.</span> +</p> + +<p> +Most people would say, if their opinion was asked for, that holding up a train +would be a hard job. Well, it isn’t; it’s easy. I have contributed +some to the uneasiness of railroads and the insomnia of express companies, and +the most trouble I ever had about a hold-up was in being swindled by +unscrupulous people while spending the money I got. The danger wasn’t +anything to speak of, and we didn’t mind the trouble. +</p> + +<p> +One man has come pretty near robbing a train by himself; two have succeeded a +few times; three can do it if they are hustlers, but five is about the right +number. The time to do it and the place depend upon several things. +</p> + +<p> +The first “stick-up” I was ever in happened in 1890. Maybe the way +I got into it will explain how most train robbers start in the business. Five +out of six Western outlaws are just cowboys out of a job and gone wrong. The +sixth is a tough from the East who dresses up like a bad man and plays some +low-down trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire fences and +“nesters” made five of them; a bad heart made the sixth. +</p> + +<p> +Jim S–––– and I were working on the 101 Ranch in +Colorado. The nesters had the cowman on the go. They had taken up the land and +elected officers who were hard to get along with. Jim and I rode into La Junta +one day, going south from a round-up. We were having a little fun without +malice toward anybody when a farmer administration cut in and tried to harvest +us. Jim shot a deputy marshal, and I kind of corroborated his side of the +argument. We skirmished up and down the main street, the boomers having bad +luck all the time. After a while we leaned forward and shoved for the ranch +down on the Ceriso. We were riding a couple of horses that couldn’t fly, +but they could catch birds. +</p> + +<p> +A few days after that, a gang of the La Junta boomers came to the ranch and +wanted us to go back with them. Naturally, we declined. We had the house on +them, and before we were done refusing, that old ’dobe was plumb full of +lead. When dark came we fagged ’em a batch of bullets and shoved out the +back door for the rocks. They sure smoked us as we went. We had to drift, which +we did, and rounded up down in Oklahoma. +</p> + +<p> +Well, there wasn’t anything we could get there, and, being mighty hard +up, we decided to transact a little business with the railroads. Jim and I +joined forces with Tom and Ike Moore—two brothers who had plenty of sand +they were willing to convert into dust. I can call their names, for both of +them are dead. Tom was shot while robbing a bank in Arkansas; Ike was killed +during the more dangerous pastime of attending a dance in the Creek Nation. +</p> + +<p> +We selected a place on the Santa Fé where there was a bridge across a deep +creek surrounded by heavy timber. All passenger trains took water at the tank +close to one end of the bridge. It was a quiet place, the nearest house being +five miles away. The day before it happened, we rested our horses and +“made medicine” as to how we should get about it. Our plans were +not at all elaborate, as none of us had ever engaged in a hold-up before. +</p> + +<p> +The Santa Fé flyer was due at the tank at 11.15 <span class="smallcaps">p. +m.</span> At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and +Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the +track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would +have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that +affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that +they felt the same way the first time. +</p> + +<p> +The engine had hardly stopped when I jumped on the running-board on one side, +while Jim mounted the other. As soon as the engineer and fireman saw our guns +they threw up their hands without being told, and begged us not to shoot, +saying they would do anything we wanted them to. +</p> + +<p> +“Hit the ground,” I ordered, and they both jumped off. We drove +them before us down the side of the train. While this was happening, Tom and +Ike had been blazing away, one on each side of the train, yelling like Apaches, +so as to keep the passengers herded in the cars. Some fellow stuck a little +twenty-two calibre out one of the coach windows and fired it straight up in the +air. I let drive and smashed the glass just over his head. That settled +everything like resistance from that direction. +</p> + +<p> +By this time all my nervousness was gone. I felt a kind of pleasant excitement +as if I were at a dance or a frolic of some sort. The lights were all out in +the coaches, and, as Tom and Ike gradually quit firing and yelling, it got to +be almost as still as a graveyard. I remember hearing a little bird chirping in +a bush at the side of the track, as if it were complaining at being waked up. +</p> + +<p> +I made the fireman get a lantern, and then I went to the express car and yelled +to the messenger to open up or get perforated. He slid the door back and stood +in it with his hands up. “Jump overboard, son,” I said, and he hit +the dirt like a lump of lead. There were two safes in the car—a big one +and a little one. By the way, I first located the messenger’s +arsenal—a double-barrelled shot-gun with buckshot cartridges and a +thirty-eight in a drawer. I drew the cartridges from the shot-gun, pocketed the +pistol, and called the messenger inside. I shoved my gun against his nose and +put him to work. He couldn’t open the big safe, but he did the little +one. There was only nine hundred dollars in it. That was mighty small winnings +for our trouble, so we decided to go through the passengers. We took our +prisoners to the smoking-car, and from there sent the engineer through the +train to light up the coaches. Beginning with the first one, we placed a man at +each door and ordered the passengers to stand between the seats with their +hands up. +</p> + +<p> +If you want to find out what cowards the majority of men are, all you have to +do is rob a passenger train. I don’t mean because they don’t +resist—I’ll tell you later on why they can’t do +that—but it makes a man feel sorry for them the way they lose their +heads. Big, burly drummers and farmers and ex-soldiers and high-collared dudes +and sports that, a few moments before, were filling the car with noise and +bragging, get so scared that their ears flop. +</p> + +<p> +There were very few people in the day coaches at that time of night, so we made +a slim haul until we got to the sleeper. The Pullman conductor met me at one +door while Jim was going round to the other one. He very politely informed me +that I could not go into that car, as it did not belong to the railroad +company, and, besides, the passengers had already been greatly disturbed by the +shouting and firing. Never in all my life have I met with a finer instance of +official dignity and reliance upon the power of Mr. Pullman’s great name. +I jabbed my six-shooter so hard against Mr. Conductor’s front that I +afterward found one of his vest buttons so firmly wedged in the end of the +barrel that I had to shoot it out. He just shut up like a weak-springed knife +and rolled down the car steps. +</p> + +<p> +I opened the door of the sleeper and stepped inside. A big, fat old man came +wabbling up to me, puffing and blowing. He had one coat-sleeve on and was +trying to put his vest on over that. I don’t know who he thought I was. +</p> + +<p> +“Young man, young man,” says he, “you must keep cool and not +get excited. Above everything, keep cool.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” says I. “Excitement’s just eating me +up.” And then I let out a yell and turned loose my forty-five through the +skylight. +</p> + +<p> +That old man tried to dive into one of the lower berths, but a screech came out +of it and a bare foot that took him in the bread-basket and landed him on the +floor. I saw Jim coming in the other door, and I hollered for everybody to +climb out and line up. +</p> + +<p> +They commenced to scramble down, and for a while we had a three-ringed circus. +The men looked as frightened and tame as a lot of rabbits in a deep snow. They +had on, on an average, about a quarter of a suit of clothes and one shoe +apiece. One chap was sitting on the floor of the aisle, looking as if he were +working a hard sum in arithmetic. He was trying, very solemn, to pull a +lady’s number two shoe on his number nine foot. +</p> + +<p> +The ladies didn’t stop to dress. They were so curious to see a real, live +train robber, bless ’em, that they just wrapped blankets and sheets +around themselves and came out, squeaky and fidgety looking. They always show +more curiosity and sand than the men do. +</p> + +<p> +We got them all lined up and pretty quiet, and I went through the bunch. I +found very little on them—I mean in the way of valuables. One man in the +line was a sight. He was one of those big, overgrown, solemn snoozers that sit +on the platform at lectures and look wise. Before crawling out he had managed +to put on his long, frock-tailed coat and his high silk hat. The rest of him +was nothing but pajamas and bunions. When I dug into that Prince Albert, I +expected to drag out at least a block of gold mine stock or an armful of +Government bonds, but all I found was a little boy’s French harp about +four inches long. What it was there for, I don’t know. I felt a little +mad because he had fooled me so. I stuck the harp up against his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can’t pay—play,” I says. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t play,” says he. +</p> + +<p> +“Then learn right off quick,” says I, letting him smell the end of +my gun-barrel. +</p> + +<p> +He caught hold of the harp, turned red as a beet, and commenced to blow. He +blew a dinky little tune I remembered hearing when I was a kid:<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Prettiest little gal in the country—oh!<br/> +Mammy and Daddy told me so. +</p> + +<p> +I made him keep on playing it all the time we were in the car. Now and then +he’d get weak and off the key, and I’d turn my gun on him and ask +what was the matter with that little gal, and whether he had any intention of +going back on her, which would make him start up again like sixty. I think that +old boy standing there in his silk hat and bare feet, playing his little French +harp, was the funniest sight I ever saw. One little red-headed woman in the +line broke out laughing at him. You could have heard her in the next car. +</p> + +<p> +Then Jim held them steady while I searched the berths. I grappled around in +those beds and filled a pillow-case with the strangest assortment of stuff you +ever saw. Now and then I’d come across a little pop-gun pistol, just +about right for plugging teeth with, which I’d throw out the window. When +I finished with the collection, I dumped the pillow-case load in the middle of +the aisle. There were a good many watches, bracelets, rings, and pocket-books, +with a sprinkling of false teeth, whiskey flasks, face-powder boxes, chocolate +caramels, and heads of hair of various colours and lengths. There were also +about a dozen ladies’ stockings into which jewellery, watches, and rolls +of bills had been stuffed and then wadded up tight and stuck under the +mattresses. I offered to return what I called the “scalps,” saying +that we were not Indians on the war-path, but none of the ladies seemed to know +to whom the hair belonged. +</p> + +<p> +One of the women—and a good-looker she was—wrapped in a striped +blanket, saw me pick up one of the stockings that was pretty chunky and heavy +about the toe, and she snapped out: +</p> + +<p> +“That’s mine, sir. You’re not in the business of robbing +women, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +Now, as this was our first hold-up, we hadn’t agreed upon any code of +ethics, so I hardly knew what to answer. But, anyway, I replied: “Well, +not as a specialty. If this contains your personal property you can have it +back.” +</p> + +<p> +“It just does,” she declared eagerly, and reached out her hand for +it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll excuse my taking a look at the contents,” I said, +holding the stocking up by the toe. Out dumped a big gent’s gold watch, +worth two hundred, a gent’s leather pocket-book that we afterward found +to contain six hundred dollars, a 32-calibre revolver; and the only thing of +the lot that could have been a lady’s personal property was a silver +bracelet worth about fifty cents. +</p> + +<p> +I said: “Madame, here’s your property,” and handed her the +bracelet. “Now,” I went on, “how can you expect us to act +square with you when you try to deceive us in this manner? I’m surprised +at such conduct.” +</p> + +<p> +The young woman flushed up as if she had been caught doing something dishonest. +Some other woman down the line called out: “The mean thing!” I +never knew whether she meant the other lady or me. +</p> + +<p> +When we finished our job we ordered everybody back to bed, told ’em good +night very politely at the door, and left. We rode forty miles before daylight +and then divided the stuff. Each one of us got $1,752.85 in money. We lumped +the jewellery around. Then we scattered, each man for himself. +</p> + +<p> +That was my first train robbery, and it was about as easily done as any of the +ones that followed. But that was the last and only time I ever went through the +passengers. I don’t like that part of the business. Afterward I stuck +strictly to the express car. During the next eight years I handled a good deal +of money. +</p> + +<p> +The best haul I made was just seven years after the first one. We found out +about a train that was going to bring out a lot of money to pay off the +soldiers at a Government post. We stuck that train up in broad daylight. Five +of us lay in the sand hills near a little station. Ten soldiers were guarding +the money on the train, but they might just as well have been at home on a +furlough. We didn’t even allow them to stick their heads out the windows +to see the fun. We had no trouble at all in getting the money, which was all in +gold. Of course, a big howl was raised at the time about the robbery. It was +Government stuff, and the Government got sarcastic and wanted to know what the +convoy of soldiers went along for. The only excuse given was that nobody was +expecting an attack among those bare sand hills in daytime. I don’t know +what the Government thought about the excuse, but I know that it was a good +one. The surprise—that is the keynote of the train-robbing business. The +papers published all kinds of stories about the loss, finally agreeing that it +was between nine thousand and ten thousand dollars. The Government sawed wood. +Here are the correct figures, printed for the first time—forty-eight +thousand dollars. If anybody will take the trouble to look over Uncle +Sam’s private accounts for that little debit to profit and loss, he will +find that I am right to a cent. +</p> + +<p> +By that time we were expert enough to know what to do. We rode due west twenty +miles, making a trail that a Broadway policeman could have followed, and then +we doubled back, hiding our tracks. On the second night after the hold-up, +while posses were scouring the country in every direction, Jim and I were +eating supper in the second story of a friend’s house in the town where +the alarm started from. Our friend pointed out to us, in an office across the +street, a printing press at work striking off handbills offering a reward for +our capture. +</p> + +<p> +I have been asked what we do with the money we get. Well, I never could account +for a tenth part of it after it was spent. It goes fast and freely. An outlaw +has to have a good many friends. A highly respected citizen may, and often +does, get along with very few, but a man on the dodge has got to have +“sidekickers.” With angry posses and reward-hungry officers cutting +out a hot trail for him, he must have a few places scattered about the country +where he can stop and feed himself and his horse and get a few hours’ +sleep without having to keep both eyes open. When he makes a haul he feels like +dropping some of the coin with these friends, and he does it liberally. +Sometimes I have, at the end of a hasty visit at one of these havens of refuge, +flung a handful of gold and bills into the laps of the kids playing on the +floor, without knowing whether my contribution was a hundred dollars or a +thousand. +</p> + +<p> +When old-timers make a big haul they generally go far away to one of the big +cities to spend their money. Green hands, however successful a hold-up they +make, nearly always give themselves away by showing too much money near the +place where they got it. +</p> + +<p> +I was in a job in ’94 where we got twenty thousand dollars. We followed +our favourite plan for a get-away—that is, doubled on our trail—and +laid low for a time near the scene of the train’s bad luck. One morning I +picked up a newspaper and read an article with big headlines stating that the +marshal, with eight deputies and a posse of thirty armed citizens, had the +train robbers surrounded in a mesquite thicket on the Cimarron, and that it was +a question of only a few hours when they would be dead men or prisoners. While +I was reading that article I was sitting at breakfast in one of the most +elegant private residences in Washington City, with a flunky in knee pants +standing behind my chair. Jim was sitting across the table talking to his +half-uncle, a retired naval officer, whose name you have often seen in the +accounts of doings in the capital. We had gone there and bought rattling +outfits of good clothes, and were resting from our labours among the nabobs. We +must have been killed in that mesquite thicket, for I can make an affidavit +that we didn’t surrender. +</p> + +<p> +Now I propose to tell why it is easy to hold up a train, and, then, why no one +should ever do it. +</p> + +<p> +In the first place, the attacking party has all the advantage. That is, of +course, supposing that they are old-timers with the necessary experience and +courage. They have the outside and are protected by the darkness, while the +others are in the light, hemmed into a small space, and exposed, the moment +they show a head at a window or door, to the aim of a man who is a dead shot +and who won’t hesitate to shoot. +</p> + +<p> +But, in my opinion, the main condition that makes train robbing easy is the +element of surprise in connection with the imagination of the passengers. If +you have ever seen a horse that has eaten loco weed you will understand what I +mean when I say that the passengers get locoed. That horse gets the awfullest +imagination on him in the world. You can’t coax him to cross a little +branch stream two feet wide. It looks as big to him as the Mississippi River. +That’s just the way with the passenger. He thinks there are a hundred men +yelling and shooting outside, when maybe there are only two or three. And the +muzzle of a forty-five looks like the entrance to a tunnel. The passenger is +all right, although he may do mean little tricks, like hiding a wad of money in +his shoe and forgetting to dig-up until you jostle his ribs some with the end +of your six-shooter; but there’s no harm in him. +</p> + +<p> +As to the train crew, we never had any more trouble with them than if they had +been so many sheep. I don’t mean that they are cowards; I mean that they +have got sense. They know they’re not up against a bluff. It’s the +same way with the officers. I’ve seen secret service men, marshals, and +railroad detectives fork over their change as meek as Moses. I saw one of the +bravest marshals I ever knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up along with +the rest while I was taking toll. He wasn’t afraid; he simply knew that +we had the drop on the whole outfit. Besides, many of those officers have +families and they feel that they oughtn’t to take chances; whereas death +has no terrors for the man who holds up a train. He expects to get killed some +day, and he generally does. My advice to you, if you should ever be in a +hold-up, is to line up with the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion +when it may be of some benefit to you. Another reason why officers are backward +about mixing things with a train robber is a financial one. Every time there is +a scrimmage and somebody gets killed, the officers lose money. If the train +robber gets away they swear out a warrant against John Doe et al. and travel +hundreds of miles and sign vouchers for thousands on the trail of the +fugitives, and the Government foots the bills. So, with them, it is a question +of mileage rather than courage. +</p> + +<p> +I will give one instance to support my statement that the surprise is the best +card in playing for a hold-up. +</p> + +<p> +Along in ’92 the Daltons were cutting out a hot trail for the officers +down in the Cherokee Nation, Those were their lucky days, and they got so +reckless and sandy, that they used to announce before hand what job they were +going to undertake. Once they gave it out that they were going to hold up the +M. K. & T. flyer on a certain night at the station of Pryor Creek, in +Indian Territory. +</p> + +<p> +That night the railroad company got fifteen deputy marshals in Muscogee and put +them on the train. Beside them they had fifty armed men hid in the depot at +Pryor Creek. +</p> + +<p> +When the Katy Flyer pulled in not a Dalton showed up. The next station was +Adair, six miles away. When the train reached there, and the deputies were +having a good time explaining what they would have done to the Dalton gang if +they had turned up, all at once it sounded like an army firing outside. The +conductor and brakeman came running into the car yelling, “Train +robbers!” +</p> + +<p> +Some of those deputies lit out of the door, hit the ground, and kept on +running. Some of them hid their Winchesters under the seats. Two of them made a +fight and were both killed. +</p> + +<p> +It took the Daltons just ten minutes to capture the train and whip the escort. +In twenty minutes more they robbed the express car of twenty-seven thousand +dollars and made a clean get-away. +</p> + +<p> +My opinion is that those deputies would have put up a stiff fight at Pryor +Creek, where they were expecting trouble, but they were taken by surprise and +“locoed” at Adair, just as the Daltons, who knew their business, +expected they would. +</p> + +<p> +I don’t think I ought to close without giving some deductions from my +experience of eight years “on the dodge.” It doesn’t pay to +rob trains. Leaving out the question of right and morals, which I don’t +think I ought to tackle, there is very little to envy in the life of an outlaw. +After a while money ceases to have any value in his eyes. He gets to looking +upon the railroads and express companies as his bankers, and his six-shooter as +a cheque book good for any amount. He throws away money right and left. Most of +the time he is on the jump, riding day and night, and he lives so hard between +times that he doesn’t enjoy the taste of high life when he gets it. He +knows that his time is bound to come to lose his life or liberty, and that the +accuracy of his aim, the speed of his horse, and the fidelity of his +“sider,” are all that postpone the inevitable. +</p> + +<p> +It isn’t that he loses any sleep over danger from the officers of the +law. In all my experience I never knew officers to attack a band of outlaws +unless they outnumbered them at least three to one. +</p> + +<p> +But the outlaw carries one thought constantly in his mind—and that is +what makes him so sore against life, more than anything else—he knows +where the marshals get their recruits of deputies. He knows that the majority +of these upholders of the law were once lawbreakers, horse thieves, rustlers, +highwaymen, and outlaws like himself, and that they gained their positions and +immunity by turning state’s evidence, by turning traitor and delivering +up their comrades to imprisonment and death. He knows that some +day—unless he is shot first—his Judas will set to work, the trap +will be laid, and he will be the surprised instead of a surpriser at a +stick-up. +</p> + +<p> +That is why the man who holds up trains picks his company with a thousand times +the care with which a careful girl chooses a sweetheart. That is why he raises +himself from his blanket of nights and listens to the tread of every +horse’s hoofs on the distant road. That is why he broods suspiciously for +days upon a jesting remark or an unusual movement of a tried comrade, or the +broken mutterings of his closest friend, sleeping by his side. +</p> + +<p> +And it is one of the reasons why the train-robbing profession is not so +pleasant a one as either of its collateral branches—politics or cornering +the market. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI.<br/> +ULYSSES AND THE DOGMAN</h2> + +<p> +Do you know the time of the dogmen? +</p> + +<p> +When the forefinger of twilight begins to smudge the clear-drawn lines of the +Big City there is inaugurated an hour devoted to one of the most melancholy +sights of urban life. +</p> + +<p> +Out from the towering flat crags and apartment peaks of the cliff dwellers of +New York steals an army of beings that were once men. Even yet they go upright +upon two limbs and retain human form and speech; but you will observe that they +are behind animals in progress. Each of these beings follows a dog, to which he +is fastened by an artificial ligament. +</p> + +<p> +These men are all victims to Circe. Not willingly do they become flunkeys to +Fido, bell boys to bull terriers, and toddlers after Towzer. Modern Circe, +instead of turning them into animals, has kindly left the difference of a +six-foot leash between them. Every one of those dogmen has been either cajoled, +bribed, or commanded by his own particular Circe to take the dear household pet +out for an airing. +</p> + +<p> +By their faces and manner you can tell that the dogmen are bound in a hopeless +enchantment. Never will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses to remove the +spell. +</p> + +<p> +The faces of some are stonily set. They are past the commiseration, the +curiosity, or the jeers of their fellow-beings. Years of matrimony, of +continuous compulsory canine constitutionals, have made them callous. They +unwind their beasts from lamp posts, or the ensnared legs of profane +pedestrians, with the stolidity of mandarins manipulating the strings of their +kites. +</p> + +<p> +Others, more recently reduced to the ranks of Rover’s retinue, take their +medicine sulkily and fiercely. They play the dog on the end of their line with +the pleasure felt by the girl out fishing when she catches a sea-robin on her +hook. They glare at you threateningly if you look at them, as if it would be +their delight to let slip the dogs of war. These are half-mutinous dogmen, not +quite Circe-ized, and you will do well not to kick their charges, should they +sniff around your ankles. +</p> + +<p> +Others of the tribe do not seem to feel so keenly. They are mostly unfresh +youths, with gold caps and drooping cigarettes, who do not harmonize with their +dogs. The animals they attend wear satin bows in their collars; and the young +men steer them so assiduously that you are tempted to the theory that some +personal advantage, contingent upon satisfactory service, waits upon the +execution of their duties. +</p> + +<p> +The dogs thus personally conducted are of many varieties; but they are one in +fatness, in pampered, diseased vileness of temper, in insolent, snarling +capriciousness of behaviour. They tug at the leash fractiously, they make +leisurely nasal inventory of every door step, railing, and post. They sit down +to rest when they choose; they wheeze like the winner of a Third Avenue +beefsteak-eating contest; they blunder clumsily into open cellars and coal +holes; they lead the dogmen a merry dance. +</p> + +<p> +These unfortunate dry nurses of dogdom, the cur cuddlers, mongrel managers, +Spitz stalkers, poodle pullers, Skye scrapers, dachshund dandlers, terrier +trailers and Pomeranian pushers of the cliff-dwelling Circes follow their +charges meekly. The doggies neither fear nor respect them. Masters of the house +these men whom they hold in leash may be, but they are not masters of them. +From cosey corner to fire escape, from divan to dumbwaiter, doggy’s snarl +easily drives this two-legged being who is commissioned to walk at the other +end of his string during his outing. +</p> + +<p> +One twilight the dogmen came forth as usual at their Circes’ pleading, +guerdon, or crack of the whip. One among them was a strong man, apparently of +too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expression was melancholic, his +manner depressed. He was leashed to a vile white dog, loathsomely fat, +fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractable toward his despised conductor. +</p> + +<p> +At a corner nearest to his apartment house the dogman turned down a side +street, hoping for fewer witnesses to his ignominy. The surfeited beast waddled +before him, panting with spleen and the labour of motion. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-coated, wide-brimmed man stood +like a Colossus blocking the sidewalk and declaring: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m a son of a gun!” +</p> + +<p> +“Jim Berry!” breathed the dogman, with exclamation points in his +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam Telfair,” cried Wide-Brim again, “you ding-basted old +willy-walloo, give us your hoof!” +</p> + +<p> +Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting of the West that is death to +the hand-shake microbe. +</p> + +<p> +“You old fat rascal!” continued Wide-Brim, with a wrinkled brown +smile; “it’s been five years since I seen you. I been in this town +a week, but you can’t find nobody in such a place. Well, you dinged old +married man, how are they coming?” +</p> + +<p> +Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough leaned against Jim’s +leg and chewed his trousers with a yeasty growl. +</p> + +<p> +“Get to work,” said Jim, “and explain this yard-wide +hydrophobia yearling you’ve throwed your lasso over. Are you the +pound-master of this burg? Do you call that a dog or what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I need a drink,” said the dogman, dejected at the reminder of his +old dog of the sea. “Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +Hard by was a café. ’Tis ever so in the big city. +</p> + +<p> +They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped and scrambled at the end of +his leash to get at the café cat. +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” said Jim to the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re fatter,” said Jim, “and you look subjugated. I +don’t know about the East agreeing with you. All the boys asked me to +hunt you up when I started. Sandy King, he went to the Klondike. Watson Burrel, +he married the oldest Peters girl. I made some money buying beeves, and I +bought a lot of wild land up on the Little Powder. Going to fence next fall. +Bill Rawlins, he’s gone to farming. You remember Bill, of course—he +was courting Marcella—excuse me, Sam—I mean the lady you married, +while she was teaching school at Prairie View. But you was the lucky man. How +is Missis Telfair?” +</p> + +<p> +“S-h-h-h!” said the dogman, signalling the waiter; “give it a +name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s well,” he continued, after his chaser. “She +refused to live anywhere but in New York, where she came from. We live in a +flat. Every evening at six I take that dog out for a walk. It’s +Marcella’s pet. There never were two animals on earth, Jim, that hated +one another like me and that dog does. His name’s Lovekins. Marcella +dresses for dinner while we’re out. We eat tabble dote. Ever try one of +them, Jim?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I never,” said Jim. “I seen the signs, but I thought +they said ‘table de hole.’ I thought it was French for pool tables. +How does it taste?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re going to be in the city for awhile we will—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir-ee. I’m starting for home this evening on the 7.25. Like +to stay longer, but I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll walk down to the ferry with you,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +The dog had bound a leg each of Jim and the chair together, and had sunk into a +comatose slumber. Jim stumbled, and the leash was slightly wrenched. The +shrieks of the awakened beast rang for a block around. +</p> + +<p> +“If that’s your dog,” said Jim, when they were on the street +again, “what’s to hinder you from running that habeas corpus +you’ve got around his neck over a limb and walking off and forgetting +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d never dare to,” said the dogman, awed at the bold +proposition. “He sleeps in the bed, I sleep on a lounge. He runs howling +to Marcella if I look at him. Some night, Jim, I’m going to get even with +that dog. I’ve made up my mind to do it. I’m going to creep over +with a knife and cut a hole in his mosquito bar so they can get in to him. See +if I don’t do it!” +</p> + +<p> +“You ain’t yourself, Sam Telfair. You ain’t what you was +once. I don’t know about these cities and flats over here. With my own +eyes I seen you stand off both the Tillotson boys in Prairie View with the +brass faucet out of a molasses barrel. And I seen you rope and tie the wildest +steer on Little Powder in 39 1-2.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did, didn’t I?” said the other, with a temporary gleam in +his eye. “But that was before I was dogmatized.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does Misses Telfair—” began Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” said the dogman. “Here’s another café.” +</p> + +<p> +They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at their feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought about you,” said Jim, “when I bought that wild +land. I wished you was out there to help me with the stock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Last Tuesday,” said the dogman, “he bit me on the ankle +because I asked for cream in my coffee. He always gets the cream.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d like Prairie View now,” said Jim. “The boys from +the round-ups for fifty miles around ride in there. One corner of my pasture is +in sixteen miles of the town. There’s a straight forty miles of wire on +one side of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You pass through the kitchen to get to the bedroom,” said the +dogman, “and you pass through the parlour to get to the bath room, and +you back out through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so you can turn +around and leave by the kitchen. And he snores and barks in his sleep, and I +have to smoke in the park on account of his asthma.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t Missis Telfair—” began Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up!” said the dogman. “What is it this time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be racking along down toward the ferry,” said the +other. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-headed, bench-legged +ton-and-a-half of soap-grease!” shouted the dogman, with a new note in +his voice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them, with an +angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian. +</p> + +<p> +At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swinging +doors. +</p> + +<p> +“Last chance,” said he. “Speak up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said the ranchman, “where I’ll +find the man I want to take charge of the Little Powder outfit. I want somebody +I know something about. Finest stretch of prairie and timber you ever squinted +your eye over, Sam. Now if you was—” +</p> + +<p> +“Speaking of hydrophobia,” said the dogman, “the other night +he chewed a piece out of my leg because I knocked a fly off of Marcella’s +arm. ‘It ought to be cauterized,’ says Marcella, and I was thinking +so myself. I telephones for the doctor, and when he comes Marcella says to me: +‘Help me hold the poor dear while the doctor fixes his mouth. Oh, I hope +he got no virus on any of his toofies when he bit you.’ Now what do you +think of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Does Missis Telfair—” began Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, drop it,” said the dogman. “Come again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” said the dogman. +</p> + +<p> +They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman stepped to the ticket window. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the swift landing of three or four heavy kicks was heard, the air was +rent by piercing canine shrieks, and a pained, outraged, lubberly, bow-legged +pudding of a dog ran frenziedly up the street alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Ticket to Denver,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it two,” shouted the ex-dogman, reaching for his inside +pocket. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII.<br/> +THE CHAMPION OF THE WEATHER</h2> + +<p> +If you should speak of the Kiowa Reservation to the average New Yorker he +probably wouldn’t know whether you were referring to a new political +dodge at Albany or a leitmotif from “Parsifal.” But out in the +Kiowa Reservation advices have been received concerning the existence of New +York. +</p> + +<p> +A party of us were on a hunting trip in the Reservation. Bud Kingsbury, our +guide, philosopher, and friend, was broiling antelope steaks in camp one night. +One of the party, a pinkish-haired young man in a correct hunting costume, +sauntered over to the fire to light a cigarette, and remarked carelessly to +Bud: +</p> + +<p> +“Nice night!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes,” said Bud, “as nice as any night could be that +ain’t received the Broadway stamp of approval.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, the young man was from New York, but the rest of us wondered how Bud +guessed it. So, when the steaks were done, we besought him to lay bare his +system of ratiocination. And as Bud was something of a Territorial talking +machine he made oration as follows: +</p> + +<p> +“How did I know he was from New York? Well, I figured it out as soon as +he sprung them two words on me. I was in New York myself a couple of years ago, +and I noticed some of the earmarks and hoof tracks of the Rancho +Manhattan.” +</p> + +<p> +“Found New York rather different from the Panhandle, didn’t you, +Bud?” asked one of the hunters. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say that I did,” answered Bud; “anyways, not +more than some. The main trail in that town which they call Broadway is plenty +travelled, but they’re about the same brand of bipeds that tramp around +in Cheyenne and Amarillo, At first I was sort of rattled by the crowds, but I +soon says to myself, ‘Here, now, Bud; they’re just plain folks like +you and Geronimo and Grover Cleveland and the Watson boys, so don’t get +all flustered up with consternation under your saddle blanket,’ and then +I feels calm and peaceful, like I was back in the Nation again at a ghost dance +or a green corn pow-wow. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d been saving up for a year to give this New York a whirl. I +knew a man named Summers that lived there, but I couldn’t find him; so I +played a lone hand at enjoying the intoxicating pleasures of the corn-fed +metropolis. +</p> + +<p> +“For a while I was so frivolous and locoed by the electric lights and the +noises of the phonographs and the second-story railroads that I forgot one of +the crying needs of my Western system of natural requirements. I never was no +hand to deny myself the pleasures of sociable vocal intercourse with friends +and strangers. Out in the Territories when I meet a man I never saw before, +inside of nine minutes I know his income, religion, size of collar, and his +wife’s temper, and how much he pays for clothes, alimony, and chewing +tobacco. It’s a gift with me not to be penurious with my conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“But this here New York was inaugurated on the idea of abstemiousness in +regard to the parts of speech. At the end of three weeks nobody in the city had +fired even a blank syllable in my direction except the waiter in the grub +emporium where I fed. And as his outpourings of syntax wasn’t nothing but +plagiarisms from the bill of fare, he never satisfied my yearnings, which was +to have somebody hit. If I stood next to a man at a bar he’d edge off and +give a Baldwin-Ziegler look as if he suspected me of having the North Pole +concealed on my person. I began to wish that I’d gone to Abilene or Waco +for my <i>paseado</i>; for the mayor of them places will drink with you, and +the first citizen you meet will tell you his middle name and ask you to take a +chance in a raffle for a music box. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, one day when I was particular hankering for to be gregarious with +something more loquacious than a lamp post, a fellow in a caffy says to me, +says he: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Nice day!’ +</p> + +<p> +“He was a kind of a manager of the place, and I reckon he’d seen me +in there a good many times. He had a face like a fish and an eye like Judas, +but I got up and put one arm around his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Pardner,’ I says, ‘sure it’s a nice day. +You’re the first gentleman in all New York to observe that the +intricacies of human speech might not be altogether wasted on William +Kingsbury. But don’t you think,’ says I, ‘that ’twas a +little cool early in the morning; and ain’t there a feeling of rain in +the air to-night? But along about noon it sure was gallupsious weather. +How’s all up to the house? You doing right well with the caffy, +now?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, that galoot just turns his back and walks off stiff, without +a word, after all my trying to be agreeable! I didn’t know what to make +of it. That night I finds a note from Summers, who’d been away from town, +giving the address of his camp. I goes up to his house and has a good, old-time +talk with his folks. And I tells Summers about the actions of this coyote in +the caffy, and desires interpretation. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh,’ says Summers, ‘he wasn’t intending to +strike up a conversation with you. That’s just the New York style. +He’d seen you was a regular customer and he spoke a word or two just to +show you he appreciated your custom. You oughtn’t to have followed it up. +That’s about as far as we care to go with a stranger. A word or so about +the weather may be ventured, but we don’t generally make it the basis of +an acquaintance.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Billy,’ says I, ‘the weather and its ramifications is +a solemn subject with me. Meteorology is one of my sore points. No man can open +up the question of temperature or humidity or the glad sunshine with me, and +then turn tail on it without its leading to a falling barometer. I’m +going down to see that man again and give him a lesson in the art of continuous +conversation. You say New York etiquette allows him two words and no answer. +Well, he’s going to turn himself into a weather bureau and finish what he +begun with me, besides indulging in neighbourly remarks on other +subjects.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Summers talked agin it, but I was irritated some and I went on the +street car back to that caffy. +</p> + +<p> +“The same fellow was there yet, walking round in a sort of back corral +where there was tables and chairs. A few people was sitting around having +drinks and sneering at one another. +</p> + +<p> +“I called that man to one side and herded him into a corner. I unbuttoned +enough to show him a thirty-eight I carried stuck under my vest. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Pardner,’ I says, ‘a brief space ago I was in here +and you seized the opportunity to say it was a nice day. When I attempted to +corroborate your weather signal, you turned your back and walked off. +Now,’ says I, ‘you frog-hearted, language-shy, stiff-necked cross +between a Spitzbergen sea cook and a muzzled oyster, you resume where you left +off in your discourse on the weather.’ +</p> + +<p> +“The fellow looks at me and tries to grin, but he sees I don’t and +he comes around serious. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Well,’ says he, eyeing the handle of my gun, ‘it was +rather a nice day; some warmish, though.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Particulars, you mealy-mouthed snoozer,’ I +says—‘let’s have the +specifications—expatiate—fill in the outlines. When you start +anything with me in short-hand it’s bound to turn out a storm +signal.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Looked like rain yesterday,’ says the man, ‘but it +cleared off fine in the forenoon. I hear the farmers are needing rain right +badly up-State.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘That’s the kind of a canter,’ says I. ‘Shake +the New York dust off your hoofs and be a real agreeable kind of a centaur. You +broke the ice, you know, and we’re getting better acquainted every +minute. Seems to me I asked you about your family?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘They’re all well, thanks,’ says he. +‘We—we have a new piano.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Now you’re coming it,’ I says. ‘This cold +reserve is breaking up at last. That little touch about the piano almost makes +us brothers. What’s the youngest kid’s name?’ I asks him. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thomas,’ says he. ‘He’s just getting well from +the measles.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I feel like I’d known you always,’ says I. ‘Now +there was just one more—are you doing right well with the caffy, +now?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Pretty well,’ he says. ‘I’m putting away a +little money.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Glad to hear it,’ says I. ‘Now go back to your work +and get civilized. Keep your hands off the weather unless you’re ready to +follow it up in a personal manner, It’s a subject that naturally belongs +to sociability and the forming of new ties, and I hate to see it handed out in +small change in a town like this.’ +</p> + +<p> +“So the next day I rolls up my blankets and hits the trail away from New +York City.” +</p> + +<p> +For many minutes after Bud ceased talking we lingered around the fire, and then +all hands began to disperse for bed. +</p> + +<p> +As I was unrolling my bedding I heard the pinkish-haired young man saying to +Bud, with something like anxiety in his voice: +</p> + +<p> +“As I say, Mr. Kingsbury, there is something really beautiful about this +night. The delightful breeze and the bright stars and the clear air unite in +making it wonderfully attractive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Bud, “it’s a nice night.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII.<br/> +MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN</h2> + +<p> +The burglar stepped inside the window quickly, and then he took his time. A +burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else. +</p> + +<p> +The house was a private residence. By its boarded front door and untrimmed +Boston ivy the burglar knew that the mistress of it was sitting on some +oceanside piazza telling a sympathetic man in a yachting cap that no one had +ever understood her sensitive, lonely heart. He knew by the light in the +third-story front windows, and by the lateness of the season, that the master +of the house had come home, and would soon extinguish his light and retire. For +it was September of the year and of the soul, in which season the house’s +good man comes to consider roof gardens and stenographers as vanities, and to +desire the return of his mate and the more durable blessings of decorum and the +moral excellencies. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar lighted a cigarette. The guarded glow of the match illuminated his +salient points for a moment. He belonged to the third type of burglars. +</p> + +<p> +This third type has not yet been recognized and accepted. The police have made +us familiar with the first and second. Their classification is simple. The +collar is the distinguishing mark. +</p> + +<p> +When a burglar is caught who does not wear a collar he is described as a +degenerate of the lowest type, singularly vicious and depraved, and is +suspected of being the desperate criminal who stole the handcuffs out of +Patrolman Hennessy’s pocket in 1878 and walked away to escape arrest. +</p> + +<p> +The other well-known type is the burglar who wears a collar. He is always +referred to as a Raffles in real life. He is invariably a gentleman by +daylight, breakfasting in a dress suit, and posing as a paperhanger, while +after dark he plies his nefarious occupation of burglary. His mother is an +extremely wealthy and respected resident of Ocean Grove, and when he is +conducted to his cell he asks at once for a nail file and the <i>Police +Gazette</i>. He always has a wife in every State in the Union and fiancées in +all the Territories, and the newspapers print his matrimonial gallery out of +their stock of cuts of the ladies who were cured by only one bottle after +having been given up by five doctors, experiencing great relief after the first +dose. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar wore a blue sweater. He was neither a Raffles nor one of the chefs +from Hell’s Kitchen. The police would have been baffled had they +attempted to classify him. They have not yet heard of the respectable, +unassuming burglar who is neither above nor below his station. +</p> + +<p> +This burglar of the third class began to prowl. He wore no masks, dark +lanterns, or gum shoes. He carried a 38-calibre revolver in his pocket, and he +chewed peppermint gum thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +The furniture of the house was swathed in its summer dust protectors. The +silver was far away in safe-deposit vaults. The burglar expected no remarkable +“haul.” His objective point was that dimly lighted room where the +master of the house should be sleeping heavily after whatever solace he had +sought to lighten the burden of his loneliness. A “touch” might be +made there to the extent of legitimate, fair professional profits—loose +money, a watch, a jewelled stick-pin—nothing exorbitant or beyond reason. +He had seen the window left open and had taken the chance. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar softly opened the door of the lighted room. The gas was turned low. +A man lay in the bed asleep. On the dresser lay many things in +confusion—a crumpled roll of bills, a watch, keys, three poker chips, +crushed cigars, a pink silk hair bow, and an unopened bottle of bromo-seltzer +for a bulwark in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar took three steps toward the dresser. The man in the bed suddenly +uttered a squeaky groan and opened his eyes. His right hand slid under his +pillow, but remained there. +</p> + +<p> +“Lay still,” said the burglar in conversational tone. Burglars of +the third type do not hiss. The citizen in the bed looked at the round end of +the burglar’s pistol and lay still. +</p> + +<p> +“Now hold up both your hands,” commanded the burglar. +</p> + +<p> +The citizen had a little, pointed, brown-and-gray beard, like that of a +painless dentist. He looked solid, esteemed, irritable, and disgusted. He sat +up in bed and raised his right hand above his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Up with the other one,” ordered the burglar. “You might be +amphibious and shoot with your left. You can count two, can’t you? Hurry +up, now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t raise the other one,” said the citizen, with a +contortion of his lineaments. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rheumatism in the shoulder.” +</p> + +<p> +“Inflammatory?” +</p> + +<p> +“Was. The inflammation has gone down.” The burglar stood for a +moment or two, holding his gun on the afflicted one. He glanced at the plunder +on the dresser and then, with a half-embarrassed air, back at the man in the +bed. Then he, too, made a sudden grimace. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t stand there making faces,” snapped the citizen, +bad-humouredly. “If you’ve come to burgle why don’t you do +it? There’s some stuff lying around.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Scuse me,” said the burglar, with a grin; “but it +just socked me one, too. It’s good for you that rheumatism and me happens +to be old pals. I got it in my left arm, too. Most anybody but me would have +popped you when you wouldn’t hoist that left claw of yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you had it?” inquired the citizen. +</p> + +<p> +“Four years. I guess that ain’t all. Once you’ve got it, +it’s you for a rheumatic life—that’s my judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ever try rattlesnake oil?” asked the citizen, interestedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Gallons,” said the burglar. “If all the snakes I’ve +used the oil of was strung out in a row they’d reach eight times as far +as Saturn, and the rattles could be heard at Valparaiso, Indiana, and +back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some use Chiselum’s Pills,” remarked the citizen. +</p> + +<p> +“Fudge!” said the burglar. “Took ’em five months. No +good. I had some relief the year I tried Finkelham’s Extract, Balm of +Gilead poultices and Potts’s Pain Pulverizer; but I think it was the +buckeye I carried in my pocket what done the trick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is yours worse in the morning or at night?” asked the citizen. +</p> + +<p> +“Night,” said the burglar; “just when I’m busiest. Say, +take down that arm of yours—I guess you won’t—Say! did you +ever try Blickerstaff’s Blood Builder?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never did. Does yours come in paroxysms or is it a steady pain?” +</p> + +<p> +The burglar sat down on the foot of the bed and rested his gun on his crossed +knee. +</p> + +<p> +“It jumps,” said he. “It strikes me when I ain’t +looking for it. I had to give up second-story work because I got stuck +sometimes half-way up. Tell you what—I don’t believe the +bloomin’ doctors know what is good for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Same here. I’ve spent a thousand dollars without getting any +relief. Yours swell any?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of mornings. And when it’s goin’ to rain—great +Christopher!” +</p> + +<p> +“Me, too,” said the citizen. “I can tell when a streak of +humidity the size of a table-cloth starts from Florida on its way to New York. +And if I pass a theatre where there’s an ‘East Lynne’ matinee +going on, the moisture starts my left arm jumping like a toothache.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s undiluted—hades!” said the burglar. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re dead right,” said the citizen. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar looked down at his pistol and thrust it into his pocket with an +awkward attempt at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, old man,” he said, constrainedly, “ever try +opodeldoc?” +</p> + +<p> +“Slop!” said the citizen angrily. “Might as well rub on +restaurant butter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” concurred the burglar. “It’s a salve suitable +for little Minnie when the kitty scratches her finger. I’ll tell you +what! We’re up against it. I only find one thing that eases her up. Hey? +Little old sanitary, ameliorating, lest-we-forget Booze. Say—this +job’s off—’scuse me—get on your clothes and let’s +go out and have some. ’Scuse the liberty, but—ouch! There she goes +again!” +</p> + +<p> +“For a week,” said the citizen. “I haven’t been able to +dress myself without help. I’m afraid Thomas is in bed, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Climb out,” said the burglar, “I’ll help you get into +your duds.” +</p> + +<p> +The conventional returned as a tidal wave and flooded the citizen. He stroked +his brown-and-gray beard. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very unusual—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s your shirt,” said the burglar, “fall out. I +knew a man who said Omberry’s Ointment fixed him in two weeks so he could +use both hands in tying his four-in-hand.” +</p> + +<p> +As they were going out the door the citizen turned and started back. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Liked to forgot my money,” he explained; “laid it on +the dresser last night.” +</p> + +<p> +The burglar caught him by the right sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” he said bluffly. “I ask you. Leave it alone. +I’ve got the price. Ever try witch hazel and oil of wintergreen?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX.<br/> +AT ARMS WITH MORPHEUS</h2> + +<p> +I never could quite understand how Tom Hopkins came to make that blunder, for +he had been through a whole term at a medical college—before he inherited +his aunt’s fortune—and had been considered strong in therapeutics. +</p> + +<p> +We had been making a call together that evening, and afterward Tom ran up to my +rooms for a pipe and a chat before going on to his own luxurious apartments. I +had stepped into the other room for a moment when I heard Tom sing out: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Billy, I’m going to take about four grains of quinine, if you +don’t mind— I’m feeling all blue and shivery. Guess I’m +taking cold.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” I called back. “The bottle is on the second +shelf. Take it in a spoonful of that elixir of eucalyptus. It knocks the bitter +out.” +</p> + +<p> +After I came back we sat by the fire and got our briars going. In about eight +minutes Tom sank back into a gentle collapse. +</p> + +<p> +I went straight to the medicine cabinet and looked. +</p> + +<p> +“You unmitigated hayseed!” I growled. “See what money will do +for a man’s brains!” +</p> + +<p> +There stood the morphine bottle with the stopple out, just as Tom had left it. +</p> + +<p> +I routed out another young M.D. who roomed on the floor above, and sent him for +old Doctor Gales, two squares away. Tom Hopkins has too much money to be +attended by rising young practitioners alone. +</p> + +<p> +When Gales came we put Tom through as expensive a course of treatment as the +resources of the profession permit. After the more drastic remedies we gave him +citrate of caffeine in frequent doses and strong coffee, and walked him up and +down the floor between two of us. Old Gales pinched him and slapped his face +and worked hard for the big check he could see in the distance. The young M.D. +from the next floor gave Tom a most hearty, rousing kick, and then apologized +to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t help it,” he said. “I never kicked a +millionaire before in my life. I may never have another opportunity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Doctor Gales, after a couple of hours, +“he’ll do. But keep him awake for another hour. You can do that by +talking to him and shaking him up occasionally. When his pulse and respiration +are normal then let him sleep. I’ll leave him with you now.” +</p> + +<p> +I was left alone with Tom, whom we had laid on a couch. He lay very still, and +his eyes were half closed. I began my work of keeping him awake. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, old man,” I said, “you’ve had a narrow squeak, +but we’ve pulled you through. When you were attending lectures, Tom, +didn’t any of the professors ever casually remark that m-o-r-p-h-i-a +never spells ‘quinia,’ especially in four-grain doses? But I +won’t pile it up on you until you get on your feet. But you ought to have +been a druggist, Tom; you’re splendidly qualified to fill +prescriptions.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom looked at me with a faint and foolish smile. +</p> + +<p> +“B’ly,” he murmured, “I feel jus’ like a +hum’n bird flyin’ around a jolly lot of most ’shpensive +roses. Don’ bozzer me. Goin’ sleep now.” +</p> + +<p> +And he went to sleep in two seconds. I shook him by the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Tom,” I said, severely, “this won’t do. The big +doctor said you must stay awake for at least an hour. Open your eyes. +You’re not entirely safe yet, you know. Wake up.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Hopkins weighs one hundred and ninety-eight. He gave me another somnolent +grin, and fell into deeper slumber. I would have made him move about, but I +might as well have tried to make Cleopatra’s needle waltz around the room +with me. Tom’s breathing became stertorous, and that, in connection with +morphia poisoning, means danger. +</p> + +<p> +Then I began to think. I could not rouse his body; I must strive to excite his +mind. “Make him angry,” was an idea that suggested itself. +“Good!” I thought; but how? There was not a joint in Tom’s +armour. Dear old fellow! He was good nature itself, and a gallant gentleman, +fine and true and clean as sunlight. He came from somewhere down South, where +they still have ideals and a code. New York had charmed, but had not spoiled, +him. He had that old-fashioned chivalrous reverence for women, +that—Eureka!—there was my idea! I worked the thing up for a minute +or two in my imagination. I chuckled to myself at the thought of springing a +thing like that on old Tom Hopkins. Then I took him by the shoulder and shook +him till his ears flopped. He opened his eyes lazily. I assumed an expression +of scorn and contempt, and pointed my finger within two inches of his nose. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to me, Hopkins,” I said, in cutting and distinct tones, +“you and I have been good friends, but I want you to understand that in +the future my doors are closed against any man who acts as much like a +scoundrel as you have.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom looked the least bit interested. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Billy?” he muttered, composedly. +“Don’t your clothes fit you?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were in your place,” I went on, “which, thank God, I am +not, I think I would be afraid to close my eyes. How about that girl you left +waiting for you down among those lonesome Southern pines—the girl that +you’ve forgotten since you came into your confounded money? Oh, I know +what I’m talking about. While you were a poor medical student she was +good enough for you. But now, since you are a millionaire, it’s +different. I wonder what she thinks of the performances of that peculiar class +of people which she has been taught to worship—the Southern gentlemen? +I’m sorry, Hopkins, that I was forced to speak about these matters, but +you’ve covered it up so well and played your part so nicely that I would +have sworn you were above such unmanly tricks.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Tom. I could scarcely keep from laughing outright to see him struggling +against the effects of the opiate. He was distinctly angry, and I didn’t +blame him. Tom had a Southern temper. His eyes were open now, and they showed a +gleam or two of fire. But the drug still clouded his mind and bound his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“C-c-confound you,” he stammered, “I’ll s-smash +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to rise from the couch. With all his size he was very weak now. I +thrust him back with one arm. He lay there glaring like a lion in a trap. +</p> + +<p> +“That will hold you for a while, you old loony,” I said to myself. +I got up and lit my pipe, for I was needing a smoke. I walked around a bit, +congratulating myself on my brilliant idea. +</p> + +<p> +I heard a snore. I looked around. Tom was asleep again. I walked over and +punched him on the jaw. He looked at me as pleasant and ungrudging as an idiot. +I chewed my pipe and gave it to him hard. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to recover yourself and get out of my rooms as soon as you +can,” I said, insultingly. “I’ve told you what I think of +you. If you have any honour or honesty left you will think twice before you +attempt again to associate with gentlemen. She’s a poor girl, isn’t +she?” I sneered. “Somewhat too plain and unfashionable for us since +we got our money. Be ashamed to walk on Fifth Avenue with her, wouldn’t +you? Hopkins, you’re forty-seven times worse than a cad. Who cares for +your money? I don’t. I’ll bet that girl don’t. Perhaps if you +didn’t have it you’d be more of a man. As it is you’ve made a +cur of yourself, and”—I thought that quite +dramatic—“perhaps broken a faithful heart.” (Old Tom Hopkins +breaking a faithful heart!) “Let me be rid of you as soon as +possible.” +</p> + +<p> +I turned my back on Tom, and winked at myself in a mirror. I heard him moving, +and I turned again quickly. I didn’t want a hundred and ninety-eight +pounds falling on me from the rear. But Tom had only turned partly over, and +laid one arm across his face. He spoke a few words rather more distinctly than +before. +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t have—talked this way—to you, Billy, even if +I’d heard people—lyin’ ’bout you. But jus’ +soon’s I can s-stand up—I’ll break your neck—don’ +f’get it.” +</p> + +<p> +I did feel a little ashamed then. But it was to save Tom. In the morning, when +I explained it, we would have a good laugh over it together. +</p> + +<p> +In about twenty minutes Tom dropped into a sound, easy slumber. I felt his +pulse, listened to his respiration, and let him sleep. Everything was normal, +and Tom was safe. I went into the other room and tumbled into bed. +</p> + +<p> +I found Tom up and dressed when I awoke the next morning. He was entirely +himself again with the exception of shaky nerves and a tongue like a white-oak +chip. +</p> + +<p> +“What an idiot I was,” he said, thoughtfully. “I remember +thinking that quinine bottle looked queer while I was taking the dose. Have +much trouble in bringing me ’round?” +</p> + +<p> +I told him no. His memory seemed bad about the entire affair. I concluded that +he had no recollection of my efforts to keep him awake, and decided not to +enlighten him. Some other time, I thought, when he was feeling better, we would +have some fun over it. +</p> + +<p> +When Tom was ready to go he stopped, with the door open, and shook my hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Much obliged, old fellow,” he said, quietly, “for taking so +much trouble with me—and for what you said. I’m going down now to +telegraph to the little girl.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X.<br/> +A GHOST OF A CHANCE</h2> + +<p> +“Actually, a <i>hod</i>!” repeated Mrs. Kinsolving, pathetically. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bellamy Bellmore arched a sympathetic eyebrow. Thus she expressed +condolence and a generous amount of apparent surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy her telling everywhere,” recapitulated Mrs. Kinsolving, +“that she saw a ghost in the apartment she occupied here—our +choicest guest-room—a ghost, carrying a hod on its shoulder—the +ghost of an old man in overalls, smoking a pipe and carrying a hod! The very +absurdity of the thing shows her malicious intent. There never was a Kinsolving +that carried a hod. Every one knows that Mr. Kinsolving’s father +accumulated his money by large building contracts, but he never worked a day +with his own hands. He had this house built from his own plans; but—oh, a +hod! Why need she have been so cruel and malicious?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is really too bad,” murmured Mrs. Bellmore, with an approving +glance of her fine eyes about the vast chamber done in lilac and old gold. +“And it was in this room she saw it! Oh, no, I’m not afraid of +ghosts. Don’t have the least fear on my account. I’m glad you put +me in here. I think family ghosts so interesting! But, really, the story does +sound a little inconsistent. I should have expected something better from Mrs. +Fischer-Suympkins. Don’t they carry bricks in hods? Why should a ghost +bring bricks into a villa built of marble and stone? I’m so sorry, but it +makes me think that age is beginning to tell upon Mrs. +Fischer-Suympkins.” +</p> + +<p> +“This house,” continued Mrs. Kinsolving, “was built upon the +site of an old one used by the family during the Revolution. There +wouldn’t be anything strange in its having a ghost. And there was a +Captain Kinsolving who fought in General Greene’s army, though +we’ve never been able to secure any papers to vouch for it. If there is +to be a family ghost, why couldn’t it have been his, instead of a +bricklayer’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“The ghost of a Revolutionary ancestor wouldn’t be a bad +idea,” agreed Mrs. Bellmore; “but you know how arbitrary and +inconsiderate ghosts can be. Maybe, like love, they are ‘engendered in +the eye.’ One advantage of those who see ghosts is that their stories +can’t be disproved. By a spiteful eye, a Revolutionary knapsack might +easily be construed to be a hod. Dear Mrs. Kinsolving, think no more of it. I +am sure it was a knapsack.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she told everybody!” mourned Mrs. Kinsolving, inconsolable. +“She insisted upon the details. There is the pipe. And how are you going +to get out of the overalls?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shan’t get into them,” said Mrs. Bellmore, with a prettily +suppressed yawn; “too stiff and wrinkly. Is that you, Felice? Prepare my +bath, please. Do you dine at seven at Clifftop, Mrs. Kinsolving? So kind of you +to run in for a chat before dinner! I love those little touches of informality +with a guest. They give such a home flavour to a visit. So sorry; I must be +dressing. I am so indolent I always postpone it until the last moment.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins had been the first large plum that the Kinsolvings had +drawn from the social pie. For a long time, the pie itself had been out of +reach on a top shelf. But the purse and the pursuit had at last lowered it. +Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins was the heliograph of the smart society parading corps. +The glitter of her wit and actions passed along the line, transmitting whatever +was latest and most daring in the game of peep-show. Formerly, her fame and +leadership had been secure enough not to need the support of such artifices as +handing around live frogs for favours at a cotillon. But, now, these things +were necessary to the holding of her throne. Beside, middle age had come to +preside, incongruous, at her capers. The sensational papers had cut her space +from a page to two columns. Her wit developed a sting; her manners became more +rough and inconsiderate, as if she felt the royal necessity of establishing her +autocracy by scorning the conventionalities that bound lesser potentates. +</p> + +<p> +To some pressure at the command of the Kinsolvings, she had yielded so far as +to honour their house by her presence, for an evening and night. She had her +revenge upon her hostess by relating, with grim enjoyment and sarcastic humour, +her story of the vision carrying the hod. To that lady, in raptures at having +penetrated thus far toward the coveted inner circle, the result came as a +crushing disappointment. Everybody either sympathized or laughed, and there was +little to choose between the two modes of expression. +</p> + +<p> +But, later on, Mrs. Kinsolving’s hopes and spirits were revived by the +capture of a second and greater prize. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bellamy Bellmore had accepted an invitation to visit at Clifftop, and +would remain for three days. Mrs. Bellmore was one of the younger matrons, +whose beauty, descent, and wealth gave her a reserved seat in the holy of +holies that required no strenuous bolstering. She was generous enough thus to +give Mrs. Kinsolving the accolade that was so poignantly desired; and, at the +same time, she thought how much it would please Terence. Perhaps it would end +by solving him. +</p> + +<p> +Terence was Mrs. Kinsolving’s son, aged twenty-nine, quite good-looking +enough, and with two or three attractive and mysterious traits. For one, he was +very devoted to his mother, and that was sufficiently odd to deserve notice. +For others, he talked so little that it was irritating, and he seemed either +very shy or very deep. Terence interested Mrs. Bellmore, because she was not +sure which it was. She intended to study him a little longer, unless she forgot +the matter. If he was only shy, she would abandon him, for shyness is a bore. +If he was deep, she would also abandon him, for depth is precarious. +</p> + +<p> +On the afternoon of the third day of her visit, Terence hunted up Mrs. +Bellmore, and found her in a nook actually looking at an album. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so good of you,” said he, “to come down here and +retrieve the day for us. I suppose you have heard that Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins +scuttled the ship before she left. She knocked a whole plank out of the bottom +with a hod. My mother is grieving herself ill about it. Can’t you manage +to see a ghost for us while you are here, Mrs. Bellmore—a bang-up, swell +ghost, with a coronet on his head and a cheque book under his arm?” +</p> + +<p> +“That was a naughty old lady, Terence,” said Mrs. Bellmore, +“to tell such stories. Perhaps you gave her too much supper. Your mother +doesn’t really take it seriously, does she?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she does,” answered Terence. “One would think every +brick in the hod had dropped on her. It’s a good mammy, and I don’t +like to see her worried. It’s to be hoped that the ghost belongs to the +hod-carriers’ union, and will go out on a strike. If he doesn’t, +there will be no peace in this family.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sleeping in the ghost-chamber,” said Mrs. Bellmore, +pensively. “But it’s so nice I wouldn’t change it, even if I +were afraid, which I’m not. It wouldn’t do for me to submit a +counter story of a desirable, aristocratic shade, would it? I would do so, with +pleasure, but it seems to me it would be too obviously an antidote for the +other narrative to be effective.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said Terence, running two fingers thoughtfully into his +crisp, brown hair; “that would never do. How would it work to see the +same ghost again, minus the overalls, and have gold bricks in the hod? That +would elevate the spectre from degrading toil to a financial plane. Don’t +you think that would be respectable enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“There was an ancestor who fought against the Britishers, wasn’t +there? Your mother said something to that effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe so; one of those old chaps in raglan vests and golf trousers. +I don’t care a continental for a Continental, myself. But the mother has +set her heart on pomp and heraldry and pyrotechnics, and I want her to be +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a good boy, Terence,” said Mrs. Bellmore, sweeping her +silks close to one side of her, “not to beat your mother. Sit here by me, +and let’s look at the album, just as people used to do twenty years ago. +Now, tell me about every one of them. Who is this tall, dignified gentleman +leaning against the horizon, with one arm on the Corinthian column?” +</p> + +<p> +“That old chap with the big feet?” inquired Terence, craning his +neck. “That’s great-uncle O’Brannigan. He used to keep a +rathskeller on the Bowery.” +</p> + +<p> +“I asked you to sit down, Terence. If you are not going to amuse, or +obey, me, I shall report in the morning that I saw a ghost wearing an apron and +carrying schooners of beer. Now, that is better. To be shy, at your age, +Terence, is a thing that you should blush to acknowledge.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At breakfast on the last morning of her visit, Mrs. Bellmore startled and +entranced every one present by announcing positively that she had seen the +ghost. +</p> + +<p> +“Did it have a—a—a—?” Mrs. Kinsolving, in her +suspense and agitation, could not bring out the word. +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed—far from it.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a chorus of questions from others at the table. “Weren’t +you frightened?” “What did it do?” “How did it +look?” “How was it dressed?” “Did it say +anything?” “Didn’t you scream?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try to answer everything at once,” said Mrs. Bellmore, +heroically, “although I’m frightfully hungry. Something awakened +me—I’m not sure whether it was a noise or a touch—and there +stood the phantom. I never burn a light at night, so the room was quite dark, +but I saw it plainly. I wasn’t dreaming. It was a tall man, all misty +white from head to foot. It wore the full dress of the old Colonial +days—powdered hair, baggy coat skirts, lace ruffles, and a sword. It +looked intangible and luminous in the dark, and moved without a sound. Yes, I +was a little frightened at first—or startled, I should say. It was the +first ghost I had ever seen. No, it didn’t say anything. I didn’t +scream. I raised up on my elbow, and then it glided silently away, and +disappeared when it reached the door.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kinsolving was in the seventh heaven. “The description is that of +Captain Kinsolving, of General Greene’s army, one of our +ancestors,” she said, in a voice that trembled with pride and relief. +“I really think I must apologize for our ghostly relative, Mrs. Bellmore. +I am afraid he must have badly disturbed your rest.” +</p> + +<p> +Terence sent a smile of pleased congratulation toward his mother. Attainment +was Mrs. Kinsolving’s, at last, and he loved to see her happy. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I ought to be ashamed to confess,” said Mrs. Bellmore, +who was now enjoying her breakfast, “that I wasn’t very much +disturbed. I presume it would have been the customary thing to scream and +faint, and have all of you running about in picturesque costumes. But, after +the first alarm was over, I really couldn’t work myself up to a panic. +The ghost retired from the stage quietly and peacefully, after doing its little +turn, and I went to sleep again.” +</p> + +<p> +Nearly all listened, politely accepted Mrs. Bellmore’s story as a made-up +affair, charitably offered as an offset to the unkind vision seen by Mrs. +Fischer-Suympkins. But one or two present perceived that her assertions bore +the genuine stamp of her own convictions. Truth and candour seemed to attend +upon every word. Even a scoffer at ghosts—if he were very +observant—would have been forced to admit that she had, at least in a +very vivid dream, been honestly aware of the weird visitor.’ +</p> + +<p> +Soon Mrs. Bellmore’s maid was packing. In two hours the auto would come +to convey her to the station. As Terence was strolling upon the east piazza, +Mrs. Bellmore came up to him, with a confidential sparkle in her eye. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t wish to tell the others all of it,” she said, +“but I will tell you. In a way, I think you should be held responsible. +Can you guess in what manner that ghost awakened me last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rattled chains,” suggested Terence, after some thought, “or +groaned? They usually do one or the other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you happen to know,” continued Mrs. Bellmore, with sudden +irrelevancy, “if I resemble any one of the female relatives of your +restless ancestor, Captain Kinsolving?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think so,” said Terence, with an extremely puzzled +air. “Never heard of any of them being noted beauties.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, why,” said Mrs. Bellmore, looking the young man gravely in +the eye, “should that ghost have kissed me, as I’m sure it +did?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens!” exclaimed Terence, in wide-eyed amazement; “you +don’t mean that, Mrs. Bellmore! Did he actually kiss you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said <i>it</i>,” corrected Mrs. Bellmore. “I hope the +impersonal pronoun is correctly used.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did you say I was responsible?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are the only living male relative of the ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. ‘Unto the third and fourth generation.’ But, +seriously, did he—did it—how do you—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Know? How does any one know? I was asleep, and that is what awakened me, +I’m almost certain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Almost?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I awoke just as—oh, can’t you understand what I mean? +When anything arouses you suddenly, you are not positive whether you dreamed, +or—and yet you know that— Dear me, Terence, must I dissect the most +elementary sensations in order to accommodate your extremely practical +intelligence?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, about kissing ghosts, you know,” said Terence, humbly, +“I require the most primary instruction. I never kissed a ghost. Is +it—is it—?” +</p> + +<p> +“The sensation,” said Mrs. Bellmore, with deliberate, but slightly +smiling, emphasis, “since you are seeking instruction, is a mingling of +the material and the spiritual.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Terence, suddenly growing serious, “it was +a dream or some kind of an hallucination. Nobody believes in spirits, these +days. If you told the tale out of kindness of heart, Mrs. Bellmore, I +can’t express how grateful I am to you. It has made my mother supremely +happy. That Revolutionary ancestor was a stunning idea.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bellmore sighed. “The usual fate of ghost-seers is mine,” she +said, resignedly. “My privileged encounter with a spirit is attributed to +lobster salad or mendacity. Well, I have, at least, one memory left from the +wreck—a kiss from the unseen world. Was Captain Kinsolving a very brave +man, do you know, Terence?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was licked at Yorktown, I believe,” said Terence, reflecting. +“They say he skedaddled with his company, after the first battle +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought he must have been timid,” said Mrs. Bellmore, absently. +“He might have had another.” +</p> + +<p> +“Another battle?” asked Terence, dully. +</p> + +<p> +“What else could I mean? I must go and get ready now; the auto will be +here in an hour. I’ve enjoyed Clifftop immensely. Such a lovely morning, +isn’t it, Terence?” +</p> + +<p> +On her way to the station, Mrs. Bellmore took from her bag a silk handkerchief, +and looked at it with a little peculiar smile. Then she tied it in several very +hard knots, and threw it, at a convenient moment, over the edge of the cliff +along which the road ran. +</p> + +<p> +In his room, Terence was giving some directions to his man, Brooks. “Have +this stuff done up in a parcel,” he said, “and ship it to the +address on that card.” +</p> + +<p> +The card was that of a New York costumer. The “stuff” was a +gentleman’s costume of the days of ’76, made of white satin, with +silver buckles, white silk stockings, and white kid shoes. A powdered wig and a +sword completed the dress. +</p> + +<p> +“And look about, Brooks,” added Terence, a little anxiously, +“for a silk handkerchief with my initials in one corner. I must have +dropped it somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a month later when Mrs. Bellmore and one or two others of the smart +crowd were making up a list of names for a coaching trip through the Catskills. +Mrs. Bellmore looked over the list for a final censoring. The name of Terence +Kinsolving was there. Mrs. Bellmore ran her prohibitive pencil lightly through +the name. +</p> + +<p> +“Too shy!” she murmured, sweetly, in explanation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI.<br/> +JIMMY HAYES AND MURIEL</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +Supper was over, and there had fallen upon the camp the silence that +accompanies the rolling of corn-husk cigarettes. The water hole shone from the +dark earth like a patch of fallen sky. Coyotes yelped. Dull thumps indicated +the rocking-horse movements of the hobbled ponies as they moved to fresh grass. +A half-troop of the Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers were distributed about +the fire. +</p> + +<p> +A well-known sound—the fluttering and scraping of chaparral against +wooden stirrups—came from the thick brush above the camp. The rangers +listened cautiously. They heard a loud and cheerful voice call out +reassuringly: +</p> + +<p> +“Brace up, Muriel, old girl, we’re ’most there now! Been a +long ride for ye, ain’t it, ye old antediluvian handful of animated +carpet-tacks? Hey, now, quit a tryin’ to kiss me! Don’t hold on to +my neck so tight—this here paint hoss ain’t any too shore-footed, +let me tell ye. He’s liable to dump us both off if we don’t watch +out.” +</p> + +<p> +Two minutes of waiting brought a tired “paint” pony single-footing +into camp. A gangling youth of twenty lolled in the saddle. Of the +“Muriel” whom he had been addressing, nothing was to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi, fellows!” shouted the rider cheerfully. “This +here’s a letter fer Lieutenant Manning.” +</p> + +<p> +He dismounted, unsaddled, dropped the coils of his stake-rope, and got his +hobbles from the saddle-horn. While Lieutenant Manning, in command, was reading +the letter, the newcomer, rubbed solicitously at some dried mud in the loops of +the hobbles, showing a consideration for the forelegs of his mount. +</p> + +<p> +“Boys,” said the lieutenant, waving his hand to the rangers, +“this is Mr. James Hayes. He’s a new member of the company. Captain +McLean sends him down from El Paso. The boys will see that you have some +supper, Hayes, as soon as you get your pony hobbled.” +</p> + +<p> +The recruit was received cordially by the rangers. Still, they observed him +shrewdly and with suspended judgment. Picking a comrade on the border is done +with ten times the care and discretion with which a girl chooses a sweetheart. +On your “side-kicker’s” nerve, loyalty, aim, and coolness +your own life may depend many times. +</p> + +<p> +After a hearty supper Hayes joined the smokers about the fire. His appearance +did not settle all the questions in the minds of his brother rangers. They saw +simply a loose, lank youth with tow-coloured, sun-burned hair and a +berry-brown, ingenuous face that wore a quizzical, good-natured smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Fellows,” said the new ranger, “I’m goin’ to +interduce to you a lady friend of mine. Ain’t ever heard anybody call her +a beauty, but you’ll all admit she’s got some fine points about +her. Come along, Muriel!” +</p> + +<p> +He held open the front of his blue flannel shirt. Out of it crawled a horned +frog. A bright red ribbon was tied jauntily around its spiky neck. It crawled +to its owner’s knee and sat there, motionless. +</p> + +<p> +“This here Muriel,” said Hayes, with an oratorical wave of his +hand, “has got qualities. She never talks back, she always stays at home, +and she’s satisfied with one red dress for every day and Sunday, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at that blame insect!” said one of the rangers with a grin. +“I’ve seen plenty of them horny frogs, but I never knew anybody to +have one for a side-partner. Does the blame thing know you from anybody +else?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take it over there and see,” said Hayes. +</p> + +<p> +The stumpy little lizard known as the horned frog is harmless. He has the +hideousness of the prehistoric monsters whose reduced descendant he is, but he +is gentler than the dove. +</p> + +<p> +The ranger took Muriel from Hayes’s knee and went back to his seat on a +roll of blankets. The captive twisted and clawed and struggled vigorously in +his hand. After holding it for a moment or two, the ranger set it upon the +ground. Awkwardly, but swiftly the frog worked its four oddly moving legs until +it stopped close by Hayes’s foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dang my hide!” said the other ranger. “The little cuss +knows you. Never thought them insects had that much sense!” +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Jimmy Hayes became a favourite in the ranger camp. He had an endless store of +good-nature, and a mild, perennial quality of humour that is well adapted to +camp life. He was never without his horned frog. In the bosom of his shirt +during rides, on his knee or shoulder in camp, under his blankets at night, the +ugly little beast never left him. +</p> + +<p> +Jimmy was a humourist of a type that prevails in the rural South and West. +Unskilled in originating methods of amusing or in witty conceptions, he had hit +upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently. It had seemed to Jimmy a very +funny thing to have about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a tame +horned frog with a red ribbon around its neck. As it was a happy idea, why not +perpetuate it? +</p> + +<p> +The sentiments existing between Jimmy and the frog cannot be exactly +determined. The capability of the horned frog for lasting affection is a +subject upon which we have had no symposiums. It is easier to guess +Jimmy’s feelings. Muriel was his <i>chef d’œuvre</i> of wit, +and as such he cherished her. He caught flies for her, and shielded her from +sudden northers. Yet his care was half selfish, and when the time came she +repaid him a thousand fold. Other Muriels have thus overbalanced the light +attentions of other Jimmies. +</p> + +<p> +Not at once did Jimmy Hayes attain full brotherhood with his comrades. They +loved him for his simplicity and drollness, but there hung above him a great +sword of suspended judgment. To make merry in camp is not all of a +ranger’s life. There are horse-thieves to trail, desperate criminals to +run down, bravos to battle with, bandits to rout out of the chaparral, peace +and order to be compelled at the muzzle of a six-shooter. Jimmy had been +“’most generally a cow-puncher,” he said; he was +inexperienced in ranger methods of warfare. Therefore the rangers speculated +apart and solemnly as to how he would stand fire. For, let it be known, the +honour and pride of each ranger company is the individual bravery of its +members. +</p> + +<p> +For two months the border was quiet. The rangers lolled, listless, in camp. And +then—bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the +frontier—Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and +cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the +Texas side. There were indications that Jimmy Hayes would soon have the +opportunity to show his mettle. The rangers patrolled with alacrity, but +Saldar’s men were mounted like Lochinvar, and were hard to catch. +</p> + +<p> +One evening, about sundown, the rangers halted for supper after a long ride. +Their horses stood panting, with their saddles on. The men were frying bacon +and boiling coffee. Suddenly, out of the brush, Sebastiano Saldar and his gang +dashed upon them with blazing six-shooters and high-voiced yells. It was a neat +surprise. The rangers swore in annoyed tones, and got their Winchesters busy; +but the attack was only a spectacular dash of the purest Mexican type. After +the florid demonstration the raiders galloped away, yelling, down the river. +The rangers mounted and pursued; but in less than two miles the fagged ponies +laboured so that Lieutenant Manning gave the word to abandon the chase and +return to the camp. +</p> + +<p> +Then it was discovered that Jimmy Hayes was missing. Some one remembered having +seen him run for his pony when the attack began, but no one had set eyes on him +since. Morning came, but no Jimmy. They searched the country around, on the +theory that he had been killed or wounded, but without success. Then they +followed after Saldar’s gang, but it seemed to have disappeared. Manning +concluded that the wily Mexican had recrossed the river after his theatric +farewell. And, indeed, no further depredations from him were reported. +</p> + +<p> +This gave the rangers time to nurse a soreness they had. As has been said, the +pride and honour of the company is the individual bravery of its members. And +now they believed that Jimmy Hayes had turned coward at the whiz of Mexican +bullets. There was no other deduction. Buck Davis pointed out that not a shot +was fired by Saldar’s gang after Jimmy was seen running for his horse. +There was no way for him to have been shot. No, he had fled from his first +fight, and afterward he would not return, aware that the scorn of his comrades +would be a worse thing to face than the muzzles of many rifles. +</p> + +<p> +So Manning’s detachment of McLean’s company, Frontier Battalion, +was gloomy. It was the first blot on its escutcheon. Never before in the +history of the service had a ranger shown the white feather. All of them had +liked Jimmy Hayes, and that made it worse. +</p> + +<p> +Days, weeks, and months went by, and still that little cloud of unforgotten +cowardice hung above the camp. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Nearly a year afterward—after many camping grounds and many hundreds of +miles guarded and defended—Lieutenant Manning, with almost the same +detachment of men, was sent to a point only a few miles below their old camp on +the river to look after some smuggling there. One afternoon, while they were +riding through a dense mesquite flat, they came upon a patch of open hog-wallow +prairie. There they rode upon the scene of an unwritten tragedy. +</p> + +<p> +In a big hog-wallow lay the skeletons of three Mexicans. Their clothing alone +served to identify them. The largest of the figures had once been Sebastiano +Saldar. His great, costly sombrero, heavy with gold ornamentation—a hat +famous all along the Rio Grande—lay there pierced by three bullets. Along +the ridge of the hog-wallow rested the rusting Winchesters of the +Mexicans—all pointing in the same direction. +</p> + +<p> +The rangers rode in that direction for fifty yards. There, in a little +depression of the ground, with his rifle still bearing upon the three, lay +another skeleton. It had been a battle of extermination. There was nothing to +identify the solitary defender. His clothing—such as the elements had +left distinguishable—seemed to be of the kind that any ranchman or cowboy +might have worn. +</p> + +<p> +“Some cow-puncher,” said Manning, “that they caught out +alone. Good boy! He put up a dandy scrap before they got him. So that’s +why we didn’t hear from Don Sebastiano any more!” +</p> + +<p> +And then, from beneath the weather-beaten rags of the dead man, there wriggled +out a horned frog with a faded red ribbon around its neck, and sat upon the +shoulder of its long quiet master. Mutely it told the story of the untried +youth and the swift “paint” pony—how they had outstripped all +their comrades that day in the pursuit of the Mexican raiders, and how the boy +had gone down upholding the honour of the company. +</p> + +<p> +The ranger troop herded close, and a simultaneous wild yell arose from their +lips. The outburst was at once a dirge, an apology, an epitaph, and a +pæan of triumph. A strange requiem, you may say, over the body of a +fallen, comrade; but if Jimmy Hayes could have heard it he would have +understood. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII.<br/> +THE DOOR OF UNREST</h2> + +<p> +I sat an hour by sun, in the editor’s room of the Montopolis <i>Weekly +Bugle</i>. I was the editor. +</p> + +<p> +The saffron rays of the declining sunlight filtered through the cornstalks in +Micajah Widdup’s garden-patch, and cast an amber glory upon my paste-pot. +I sat at the editorial desk in my non-rotary revolving chair, and prepared my +editorial against the oligarchies. The room, with its one window, was already a +prey to the twilight. One by one, with my trenchant sentences, I lopped off the +heads of the political hydra, while I listened, full of kindly peace, to the +home-coming cow-bells and wondered what Mrs. Flanagan was going to have for +supper. +</p> + +<p> +Then in from the dusky, quiet street there drifted and perched himself upon a +corner of my desk old Father Time’s younger brother. His face was +beardless and as gnarled as an English walnut. I never saw clothes such as he +wore. They would have reduced Joseph’s coat to a monochrome. But the +colours were not the dyer’s. Stains and patches and the work of sun and +rust were responsible for the diversity. On his coarse shoes was the dust, +conceivably, of a thousand leagues. I can describe him no further, except to +say that he was little and weird and old—old I began to estimate in +centuries when I saw him. Yes, and I remember that there was an odour, a faint +odour like aloes, or possibly like myrrh or leather; and I thought of museums. +</p> + +<p> +And then I reached for a pad and pencil, for business is business, and visits +of the oldest inhabitants are sacred and honourable, requiring to be +chronicled. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to see you, sir,” I said. “I would offer you a +chair, but—you see, sir,” I went on, “I have lived in +Montopolis only three weeks, and I have not met many of our citizens.” I +turned a doubtful eye upon his dust-stained shoes, and concluded with a +newspaper phrase, “I suppose that you reside in our midst?” +</p> + +<p> +My visitor fumbled in his raiment, drew forth a soiled card, and handed it to +me. Upon it was written, in plain but unsteadily formed characters, the name +“Michob Ader.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you called, Mr. Ader,” I said. “As one of our +older citizens, you must view with pride the recent growth and enterprise of +Montopolis. Among other improvements, I think I can promise that the town will +now be provided with a live, enterprising newspa—” +</p> + +<p> +“Do ye know the name on that card?” asked my caller, interrupting +me. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not a familiar one to me,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +Again he visited the depths of his ancient vestments. This time he brought out +a torn leaf of some book or journal, brown and flimsy with age. The heading of +the page was the <i>Turkish Spy</i> in old-style type; the printing upon it was +this: +</p> + +<p> +“There is a man come to Paris in this year 1643 who pretends to have +lived these sixteen hundred years. He says of himself that he was a shoemaker +in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion; that his name is Michob Ader; and +that when Jesus, the Christian Messias, was condemned by Pontius Pilate, the +Roman president, he paused to rest while bearing his cross to the place of +crucifixion before the door of Michob Ader. The shoemaker struck Jesus with his +fist, saying: ‘Go; why tarriest thou?’ The Messias answered him: +‘I indeed am going; but thou shalt tarry until I come’; thereby +condemning him to live until the day of judgment. He lives forever, but at the +end of every hundred years he falls into a fit or trance, on recovering from +which he finds himself in the same state of youth in which he was when Jesus +suffered, being then about thirty years of age. +</p> + +<p> +“Such is the story of the Wandering Jew, as told by Michob Ader, who +relates—” Here the printing ended. +</p> + +<p> +I must have muttered aloud something to myself about the Wandering Jew, for the +old man spake up, bitterly and loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a lie,” said he, “like nine tenths of what ye +call history. ’Tis a Gentile I am, and no Jew. I am after footing it out +of Jerusalem, my son; but if that makes me a Jew, then everything that comes +out of a bottle is babies’ milk. Ye have my name on the card ye hold; and +ye have read the bit of paper they call the <i>Turkish Spy</i> that printed the +news when I stepped into their office on the 12th day of June, in the year +1643, just as I have called upon ye to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +I laid down my pencil and pad. Clearly it would not do. Here was an item for +the local column of the <i>Bugle</i> that—but it would not do. Still, +fragments of the impossible “personal” began to flit through my +conventionalized brain. “Uncle Michob is as spry on his legs as a young +chap of only a thousand or so.” “Our venerable caller relates with +pride that George Wash—no, Ptolemy the Great—once dandled him on +his knee at his father’s house.” “Uncle Michob says that our +wet spring was nothing in comparison with the dampness that ruined the crops +around Mount Ararat when he was a boy—” But no, no—it would +not do. +</p> + +<p> +I was trying to think of some conversational subject with which to interest my +visitor, and was hesitating between walking matches and the Pliocene age, when +the old man suddenly began to weep poignantly and distressfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheer up, Mr. Ader,” I said, a little awkwardly; “this +matter may blow over in a few hundred years more. There has already been a +decided reaction in favour of Judas Iscariot and Colonel Burr and the +celebrated violinist, Signor Nero. This is the age of whitewash. You must not +allow yourself to become down-hearted.” +</p> + +<p> +Unknowingly, I had struck a chord. The old man blinked belligerently through +his senile tears. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis time,” he said, “that the liars be doin’ +justice to somebody. Yer historians are no more than a pack of old women +gabblin’ at a wake. A finer man than the Imperor Nero niver wore sandals. +Man, I was at the burnin’ of Rome. I knowed the Imperor well, for in them +days I was a well-known char-acter. In thim days they had rayspect for a man +that lived forever. +</p> + +<p> +“But ’twas of the Imperor Nero I was goin’ to tell ye. I +struck into Rome, up the Appian Way, on the night of July the 16th, the year +64. I had just stepped down by way of Siberia and Afghanistan; and one foot of +me had a frost-bite, and the other a blister burned by the sand of the desert; +and I was feelin’ a bit blue from doin’ patrol duty from the North +Pole down to the Last Chance corner in Patagonia, and bein’ miscalled a +Jew in the bargain. Well, I’m tellin’ ye I was passin’ the +Circus Maximus, and it was dark as pitch over the way, and then I heard +somebody sing out, ‘Is that you, Michob?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Over ag’inst the wall, hid out amongst a pile of barrels and old +dry-goods boxes, was the Imperor Nero wid his togy wrapped around his toes, +smokin’ a long, black segar. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Have one, Michob?’ says he. +</p> + +<p> +“‘None of the weeds for me,’ says I—‘nayther pipe +nor segar. What’s the use,’ says I, ‘of smokin’ when +ye’ve not got the ghost of a chance of killin’ yeself by +doin’ it?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘True for ye, Michob Ader, my perpetual Jew,’ says the +Imperor; ‘ye’re not always wandering. Sure, ’tis danger gives +the spice of our pleasures—next to their bein’ forbidden.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And for what,’ says I, ‘do ye smoke be night in dark +places widout even a cinturion in plain clothes to attend ye?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Have ye ever heard, Michob,’ says the Imperor, ‘of +predestinarianism?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’ve had the cousin of it,’ says I. ‘I’ve +been on the trot with pedestrianism for many a year, and more to come, as ye +well know.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The longer word,’ says me friend Nero, ‘is the +tachin’ of this new sect of people they call the Christians. ’Tis +them that’s raysponsible for me smokin’ be night in holes and +corners of the dark.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And then I sets down and takes off a shoe and rubs me foot that is +frosted, and the Imperor tells me about it. It seems that since I passed that +way before, the Imperor had mandamused the Impress wid a divorce suit, and +Misses Poppæa, a cilibrated lady, was ingaged, widout riferences, as +housekeeper at the palace. ‘All in one day,’ says the Imperor, +‘she puts up new lace windy-curtains in the palace and joins the +anti-tobacco society, and whin I feels the need of a smoke I must be after +sneakin’ out to these piles of lumber in the dark.’ So there in the +dark me and the Imperor sat, and I told him of me travels. And when they say +the Imperor was an incindiary, they lie. ’Twas that night the fire +started that burnt the city. ’Tis my opinion that it began from a stump +of segar that he threw down among the boxes. And ’tis a lie that he +fiddled. He did all he could for six days to stop it, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +And now I detected a new flavour to Mr. Michob Ader. It had not been myrrh or +balm or hyssop that I had smelled. The emanation was the odour of bad +whiskey—and, worse still, of low comedy—the sort that small +humorists manufacture by clothing the grave and reverend things of legend and +history in the vulgar, topical frippery that passes for a certain kind of wit. +Michob Ader as an impostor, claiming nineteen hundred years, and playing his +part with the decency of respectable lunacy, I could endure; but as a tedious +wag, cheapening his egregious story with song-book levity, his importance as an +entertainer grew less. +</p> + +<p> +And then, as if he suspected my thoughts, he suddenly shifted his key. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll excuse me, sir,” he whined, “but sometimes I +get a little mixed in my head. I am a very old man; and it is hard to remember +everything.” +</p> + +<p> +I knew that he was right, and that I should not try to reconcile him with Roman +history; so I asked for news concerning other ancients with whom he had walked +familiar. +</p> + +<p> +Above my desk hung an engraving of Raphael’s cherubs. You could yet make +out their forms, though the dust blurred their outlines strangely. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye calls them ‘cher-rubs’,” cackled the old man. +“Babes, ye fancy they are, with wings. And there’s one wid legs and +a bow and arrow that ye call Cupid—I know where they was found. The +great-great-great-grandfather of thim all was a billy-goat. Bein’ an +editor, sir, do ye happen to know where Solomon’s Temple stood?” +</p> + +<p> +I fancied that it was in—in Persia? Well, I did not know. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis not in history nor in the Bible where it was. But I saw it, +meself. The first pictures of cher-rubs and cupids was sculptured upon thim +walls and pillars. Two of the biggest, sir, stood in the adytum to form the +baldachin over the Ark. But the wings of thim sculptures was intindid for +horns. And the faces was the faces of goats. Ten thousand goats there was in +and about the temple. And your cher-rubs was billy-goats in the days of King +Solomon, but the painters misconstrued the horns into wings. +</p> + +<p> +“And I knew Tamerlane, the lame Timour, sir, very well. I saw him at +Keghut and at Zaranj. He was a little man no larger than yerself, with hair the +colour of an amber pipe stem. They buried him at Samarkand. I was at the wake, +sir. Oh, he was a fine-built man in his coffin, six feet long, with black +whiskers to his face. And I see ’em throw turnips at the Imperor +Vispacian in Africa. All over the world I have tramped, sir, without the body +of me findin’ any rest. ’Twas so commanded. I saw Jerusalem +destroyed, and Pompeii go up in the fireworks; and I was at the coronation of +Charlemagne and the lynchin’ of Joan of Arc. And everywhere I go there +comes storms and revolutions and plagues and fires. ’Twas so commanded. +Ye have heard of the Wandering Jew. ’Tis all so, except that divil a bit +am I a Jew. But history lies, as I have told ye. Are ye quite sure, sir, that +ye haven’t a drop of whiskey convenient? Ye well know that I have many +miles of walking before me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have none,” said I, “and, if you please, I am about to +leave for my supper.” +</p> + +<p> +I pushed my chair back creakingly. This ancient landlubber was becoming as +great an affliction as any cross-bowed mariner. He shook a musty effluvium from +his piebald clothes, overturned my inkstand, and went on with his insufferable +nonsense. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t mind it so much,” he complained, “if it +wasn’t for the work I must do on Good Fridays. Ye know about Pontius +Pilate, sir, of course. His body, whin he killed himself, was pitched into a +lake on the Alps mountains. Now, listen to the job that ’tis mine to +perform on the night of ivery Good Friday. The ould divil goes down in the pool +and drags up Pontius, and the water is bilin’ and spewin’ like a +wash pot. And the ould divil sets the body on top of a throne on the rocks, and +thin comes me share of the job. Oh, sir, ye would pity me thin—ye would +pray for the poor Wandering Jew that niver was a Jew if ye could see the horror +of the thing that I must do. ’Tis I that must fetch a bowl of water and +kneel down before it till it washes its hands. I declare to ye that Pontius +Pilate, a man dead two hundred years, dragged up with the lake slime +coverin’ him and fishes wrigglin’ inside of him widout eyes, and in +the discomposition of the body, sits there, sir, and washes his hands in the +bowl I hold for him on Good Fridays. ’Twas so commanded.” +</p> + +<p> +Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the +<i>Bugle’s</i> local column. There might have been employment here for +the alienist or for those who circulate the pledge; but I had had enough of it. +I got up, and repeated that I must go. +</p> + +<p> +At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk, and burst again into +distressful weeping. Whatever it was about, I said to myself that his grief was +genuine. +</p> + +<p> +“Come now, Mr. Ader,” I said, soothingly; “what is the +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs: +</p> + +<p> +“Because I would not … let the poor Christ … rest … +upon the step.” +</p> + +<p> +His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable answer; yet the effect of it +upon him scarcely merited disrespect. But I knew nothing that might assuage it; +and I told him once more that both of us should be leaving the office at once. +</p> + +<p> +Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishevelled desk, and permitted me +to half lift him to the floor. The gale of his grief had blown away his words; +his freshet of tears had soaked away the crust of his grief. Reminiscence died +in him—at least, the coherent part of it. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas me that did it,” he muttered, as I led him toward the +door—“me, the shoemaker of Jerusalem.” +</p> + +<p> +I got him to the sidewalk, and in the augmented light I saw that his face was +seared and lined and warped by a sadness almost incredibly the product of a +single lifetime. +</p> + +<p> +And then high up in the firmamental darkness we heard the clamant cries of some +great, passing birds. My Wandering Jew lifted his hand, with side-tilted head. +</p> + +<p> +“The Seven Whistlers!” he said, as one introduces well-known +friends. +</p> + +<p> +“Wild geese,” said I; “but I confess that their number is +beyond me.” +</p> + +<p> +“They follow me everywhere,” he said. “’Twas so +commanded. What ye hear is the souls of the seven Jews that helped with the +Crucifixion. Sometimes they’re plovers and sometimes geese, but +ye’ll find them always flyin’ where I go.” +</p> + +<p> +I stood, uncertain how to take my leave. I looked down the street, shuffled my +feet, looked back again—and felt my hair rise. The old man had +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw him footing it away through +the darkness. But he walked so swiftly and silently and contrary to the gait +promised by his age that my composure was not all restored, though I knew not +why. +</p> + +<p> +That night I was foolish enough to take down some dust-covered volumes from my +modest shelves. I searched “Hermippus Redivvus” and +“Salathiel” and the “Pepys Collection” in vain. And +then in a book called “The Citizen of the World,” and in one two +centuries old, I came upon what I desired. Michob Ader had indeed come to Paris +in the year 1643, and related to the <i>Turkish Spy</i> an extraordinary story. +He claimed to be the Wandering Jew, and that— +</p> + +<p> +But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had not been light that day. +</p> + +<p> +Judge Hoover was the <i>Bugle’s</i> candidate for congress. Having to +confer with him, I sought his home early the next morning; and we walked +together down town through a little street with which I was unfamiliar. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?” I asked him, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes,” said the judge. “And that reminds me of my shoes +he has for mending. Here is his shop now.” +</p> + +<p> +Judge Hoover stepped into a dingy, small shop. I looked up at the sign, and saw +“Mike O’Bader, Boot and Shoe Maker,” on it. Some wild geese +passed above, honking clearly. I scratched my ear and frowned, and then trailed +into the shop. +</p> + +<p> +There sat my Wandering Jew on his shoemaker’s bench, trimming a +half-sole. He was drabbled with dew, grass-stained, unkempt, and miserable; and +on his face was still the unexplained wretchedness, the problematic sorrow, the +esoteric woe, that had been written there by nothing less, it seemed, than the +stylus of the centuries. +</p> + +<p> +Judge Hoover inquired kindly concerning his shoes. The old shoemaker looked up, +and spoke sanely enough. He had been ill, he said, for a few days. The next day +the shoes would be ready. He looked at me, and I could see that I had no place +in his memory. So out we went, and on our way. +</p> + +<p> +“Old Mike,” remarked the candidate, “has been on one of his +sprees. He gets crazy drunk regularly once a month. But he’s a good +shoemaker.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is his history?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey,” epitomized Judge Hoover. “That explains +him.” +</p> + +<p> +I was silent, but I did not accept the explanation. And so, when I had the +chance, I asked old man Sellers, who browsed daily on my exchanges. +</p> + +<p> +“Mike O’Bader,” said he, “was makin’ shoes in +Montopolis when I come here goin’ on fifteen year ago. I guess +whiskey’s his trouble. Once a month he gets off the track, and stays so a +week. He’s got a rigmarole somethin’ about his bein’ a Jew +pedler that he tells ev’rybody. Nobody won’t listen to him any +more. When he’s sober he ain’t sich a fool—he’s got a +sight of books in the back room of his shop that he reads. I guess you can lay +all his trouble to whiskey.” +</p> + +<p> +But again I would not. Not yet was my Wandering Jew rightly construed for me. I +trust that women may not be allowed a title to all the curiosity in the world. +So when Montopolis’s oldest inhabitant (some ninety score years younger +than Michob Ader) dropped in to acquire promulgation in print, I siphoned his +perpetual trickle of reminiscence in the direction of the uninterpreted maker +of shoes. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Abner was the Complete History of Montopolis, bound in butternut. +</p> + +<p> +“O’Bader,” he quavered, “come here in ’69. He was +the first shoemaker in the place. Folks generally considers him crazy at times +now. But he don’t harm nobody. I s’pose drinkin’ upset his +mind—yes, drinkin’ very likely done it. It’s a powerful bad +thing, drinkin’. I’m an old, old man, sir, and I never see no good +in drinkin’.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt disappointment. I was willing to admit drink in the case of my +shoemaker, but I preferred it as a recourse instead of a cause. Why had he +pitched upon his perpetual, strange note of the Wandering Jew? Why his +unutterable grief during his aberration? I could not yet accept whiskey as an +explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Mike O’Bader ever have a great loss or trouble of any +kind?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Lemme see! About thirty year ago there was somethin’ of the kind, +I recollect. Montopolis, sir, in them days used to be a mighty strict place. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mike O’Bader had a daughter then—a right pretty girl. +She was too gay a sort for Montopolis, so one day she slips off to another town +and runs away with a circus. It was two years before she comes back, all fixed +up in fine clothes and rings and jewellery, to see Mike. He wouldn’t have +nothin’ to do with her, so she stays around town awhile, anyway. I reckon +the men folks wouldn’t have raised no objections, but the women egged +’em on to order her to leave town. But she had plenty of spunk, and told +’em to mind their own business. +</p> + +<p> +“So one night they decided to run her away. A crowd of men and women +drove her out of her house, and chased her with sticks and stones. She run to +her father’s door, callin’ for help. Mike opens it, and when he +sees who it is he hits her with his fist and knocks her down and shuts the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“And then the crowd kept on chunkin’ her till she run clear out of +town. And the next day they finds her drowned dead in Hunter’s mill pond. +I mind it all now. That was thirty year ago.” +</p> + +<p> +I leaned back in my non-rotary revolving chair and nodded gently, like a +mandarin, at my paste-pot. +</p> + +<p> +“When old Mike has a spell,” went on Uncle Abner, tepidly +garrulous, “he thinks he’s the Wanderin’ Jew.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is,” said I, nodding away. +</p> + +<p> +And Uncle Abner cackled insinuatingly at the editor’s remark, for he was +expecting at least a “stickful” in the “Personal Notes” +of the <i>Bugle</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII.<br/> +THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES</h2> + +<p> +When Major Pendleton Talbot, of Mobile, sir, and his daughter, Miss Lydia +Talbot, came to Washington to reside, they selected for a boarding place a +house that stood fifty yards back from one of the quietest avenues. It was an +old-fashioned brick building, with a portico upheld by tall white pillars. The +yard was shaded by stately locusts and elms, and a catalpa tree in season +rained its pink and white blossoms upon the grass. Rows of high box bushes +lined the fence and walks. It was the Southern style and aspect of the place +that pleased the eyes of the Talbots. +</p> + +<p> +In this pleasant, private boarding house they engaged rooms, including a study +for Major Talbot, who was adding the finishing chapters to his book, +“Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Alabama Army, Bench, and Bar.” +</p> + +<p> +Major Talbot was of the old, old South. The present day had little interest or +excellence in his eyes. His mind lived in that period before the Civil War, +when the Talbots owned thousands of acres of fine cotton land and the slaves to +till them; when the family mansion was the scene of princely hospitality, and +drew its guests from the aristocracy of the South. Out of that period he had +brought all its old pride and scruples of honour, an antiquated and punctilious +politeness, and (you would think) its wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +Such clothes were surely never made within fifty years. The major was tall, but +whenever he made that wonderful, archaic genuflexion he called a bow, the +corners of his frock coat swept the floor. That garment was a surprise even to +Washington, which has long ago ceased to shy at the frocks and broadbrimmed +hats of Southern congressmen. One of the boarders christened it a “Father +Hubbard,” and it certainly was high in the waist and full in the skirt. +</p> + +<p> +But the major, with all his queer clothes, his immense area of plaited, +ravelling shirt bosom, and the little black string tie with the bow always +slipping on one side, both was smiled at and liked in Mrs. Vardeman’s +select boarding house. Some of the young department clerks would often +“string him,” as they called it, getting him started upon the +subject dearest to him—the traditions and history of his beloved +Southland. During his talks he would quote freely from the “Anecdotes and +Reminiscences.” But they were very careful not to let him see their +designs, for in spite of his sixty-eight years, he could make the boldest of +them uncomfortable under the steady regard of his piercing gray eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Lydia was a plump, little old maid of thirty-five, with smoothly drawn, +tightly twisted hair that made her look still older. Old fashioned, too, she +was; but ante-bellum glory did not radiate from her as it did from the major. +She possessed a thrifty common sense; and it was she who handled the finances +of the family, and met all comers when there were bills to pay. The major +regarded board bills and wash bills as contemptible nuisances. They kept coming +in so persistently and so often. Why, the major wanted to know, could they not +be filed and paid in a lump sum at some convenient period—say when the +“Anecdotes and Reminiscences” had been published and paid for? Miss +Lydia would calmly go on with her sewing and say, “We’ll pay as we +go as long as the money lasts, and then perhaps they’ll have to lump +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Most of Mrs. Vardeman’s boarders were away during the day, being nearly +all department clerks and business men; but there was one of them who was about +the house a great deal from morning to night. This was a young man named Henry +Hopkins Hargraves—every one in the house addressed him by his full +name—who was engaged at one of the popular vaudeville theatres. +Vaudeville has risen to such a respectable plane in the last few years, and Mr. +Hargraves was such a modest and well-mannered person, that Mrs. Vardeman could +find no objection to enrolling him upon her list of boarders. +</p> + +<p> +At the theatre Hargraves was known as an all-round dialect comedian, having a +large repertoire of German, Irish, Swede, and black-face specialties. But Mr. +Hargraves was ambitious, and often spoke of his great desire to succeed in +legitimate comedy. +</p> + +<p> +This young man appeared to conceive a strong fancy for Major Talbot. Whenever +that gentleman would begin his Southern reminiscences, or repeat some of the +liveliest of the anecdotes, Hargraves could always be found, the most attentive +among his listeners. +</p> + +<p> +For a time the major showed an inclination to discourage the advances of the +“play actor,” as he privately termed him; but soon the young +man’s agreeable manner and indubitable appreciation of the old +gentleman’s stories completely won him over. +</p> + +<p> +It was not long before the two were like old chums. The major set apart each +afternoon to read to him the manuscript of his book. During the anecdotes +Hargraves never failed to laugh at exactly the right point. The major was moved +to declare to Miss Lydia one day that young Hargraves possessed remarkable +perception and a gratifying respect for the old regime. And when it came to +talking of those old days—if Major Talbot liked to talk, Mr. Hargraves +was entranced to listen. +</p> + +<p> +Like almost all old people who talk of the past, the major loved to linger over +details. In describing the splendid, almost royal, days of the old planters, he +would hesitate until he had recalled the name of the Negro who held his horse, +or the exact date of certain minor happenings, or the number of bales of cotton +raised in such a year; but Hargraves never grew impatient or lost interest. On +the contrary, he would advance questions on a variety of subjects connected +with the life of that time, and he never failed to extract ready replies. +</p> + +<p> +The fox hunts, the ’possum suppers, the hoe downs and jubilees in the +Negro quarters, the banquets in the plantation-house hall, when invitations +went for fifty miles around; the occasional feuds with the neighbouring gentry; +the major’s duel with Rathbone Culbertson about Kitty Chalmers, who +afterward married a Thwaite of South Carolina; and private yacht races for +fabulous sums on Mobile Bay; the quaint beliefs, improvident habits, and loyal +virtues of the old slaves—all these were subjects that held both the +major and Hargraves absorbed for hours at a time. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes, at night, when the young man would be coming upstairs to his room +after his turn at the theatre was over, the major would appear at the door of +his study and beckon archly to him. Going in, Hargraves would find a little +table set with a decanter, sugar bowl, fruit, and a big bunch of fresh green +mint. +</p> + +<p> +“It occurred to me,” the major would begin—he was always +ceremonious—“that perhaps you might have found your duties at +the—at your place of occupation—sufficiently arduous to enable you, +Mr. Hargraves, to appreciate what the poet might well have had in his mind when +he wrote, ‘tired Nature’s sweet restorer,’—one of our +Southern juleps.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it. He took rank among +artists when he began, and he never varied the process. With what delicacy he +bruised the mint; with what exquisite nicety he estimated the ingredients; with +what solicitous care he capped the compound with the scarlet fruit glowing +against the dark green fringe! And then the hospitality and grace with which he +offered it, after the selected oat straws had been plunged into its tinkling +depths! +</p> + +<p> +After about four months in Washington, Miss Lydia discovered one morning that +they were almost without money. The “Anecdotes and Reminiscences” +was completed, but publishers had not jumped at the collected gems of Alabama +sense and wit. The rental of a small house which they still owned in Mobile was +two months in arrears. Their board money for the month would be due in three +days. Miss Lydia called her father to a consultation. +</p> + +<p> +“No money?” said he with a surprised look. “It is quite +annoying to be called on so frequently for these petty sums. Really, +I—” +</p> + +<p> +The major searched his pockets. He found only a two-dollar bill, which he +returned to his vest pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“I must attend to this at once, Lydia,” he said. “Kindly get +me my umbrella and I will go down town immediately. The congressman from our +district, General Fulghum, assured me some days ago that he would use his +influence to get my book published at an early date. I will go to his hotel at +once and see what arrangement has been made.” +</p> + +<p> +With a sad little smile Miss Lydia watched him button his “Father +Hubbard” and depart, pausing at the door, as he always did, to bow +profoundly. +</p> + +<p> +That evening, at dark, he returned. It seemed that Congressman Fulghum had seen +the publisher who had the major’s manuscript for reading. That person had +said that if the anecdotes, etc., were carefully pruned down about one half, in +order to eliminate the sectional and class prejudice with which the book was +dyed from end to end, he might consider its publication. +</p> + +<p> +The major was in a white heat of anger, but regained his equanimity, according +to his code of manners, as soon as he was in Miss Lydia’s presence. +</p> + +<p> +“We must have money,” said Miss Lydia, with a little wrinkle above +her nose. “Give me the two dollars, and I will telegraph to Uncle Ralph +for some to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The major drew a small envelope from his upper vest pocket and tossed it on the +table. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it was injudicious,” he said mildly, “but the sum +was so merely nominal that I bought tickets to the theatre to-night. It’s +a new war drama, Lydia. I thought you would be pleased to witness its first +production in Washington. I am told that the South has very fair treatment in +the play. I confess I should like to see the performance myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Lydia threw up her hands in silent despair. +</p> + +<p> +Still, as the tickets were bought, they might as well be used. So that evening, +as they sat in the theatre listening to the lively overture, even Miss Lydia +was minded to relegate their troubles, for the hour, to second place. The +major, in spotless linen, with his extraordinary coat showing only where it was +closely buttoned, and his white hair smoothly roached, looked really fine and +distinguished. The curtain went up on the first act of “A Magnolia +Flower,” revealing a typical Southern plantation scene. Major Talbot +betrayed some interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, see!” exclaimed Miss Lydia, nudging his arm, and pointing to +her programme. +</p> + +<p> +The major put on his glasses and read the line in the cast of characters that +her finger indicated. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Col. Webster Calhoun . . . . H. Hopkins Hargraves. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s our Mr. Hargraves,” said Miss Lydia. “It must be +his first appearance in what he calls ‘the legitimate.’ I’m +so glad for him.” +</p> + +<p> +Not until the second act did Col. Webster Calhoun appear upon the stage. When +he made his entry Major Talbot gave an audible sniff, glared at him, and seemed +to freeze solid. Miss Lydia uttered a little, ambiguous squeak and crumpled her +programme in her hand. For Colonel Calhoun was made up as nearly resembling +Major Talbot as one pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the +ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, ravelling shirt +front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly +duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the +major’s supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, +empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the +garment could have been designed from no other pattern. From then on, the major +and Miss Lydia sat bewitched, and saw the counterfeit presentment of a haughty +Talbot “dragged,” as the major afterward expressed it, +“through the slanderous mire of a corrupt stage.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hargraves had used his opportunities well. He had caught the major’s +little idiosyncrasies of speech, accent, and intonation and his pompous +courtliness to perfection—exaggerating all to the purposes of the stage. +When he performed that marvellous bow that the major fondly imagined to be the +pink of all salutations, the audience sent forth a sudden round of hearty +applause. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Lydia sat immovable, not daring to glance toward her father. Sometimes her +hand next to him would be laid against her cheek, as if to conceal the smile +which, in spite of her disapproval, she could not entirely suppress. +</p> + +<p> +The culmination of Hargraves’s audacious imitation took place in the +third act. The scene is where Colonel Calhoun entertains a few of the +neighbouring planters in his “den.” +</p> + +<p> +Standing at a table in the centre of the stage, with his friends grouped about +him, he delivers that inimitable, rambling, character monologue so famous in +“A Magnolia Flower,” at the same time that he deftly makes juleps +for the party. +</p> + +<p> +Major Talbot, sitting quietly, but white with indignation, heard his best +stories retold, his pet theories and hobbies advanced and expanded, and the +dream of the “Anecdotes and Reminiscences” served, exaggerated and +garbled. His favourite narrative—that of his duel with Rathbone +Culbertson—was not omitted, and it was delivered with more fire, egotism, +and gusto than the major himself put into it. +</p> + +<p> +The monologue concluded with a quaint, delicious, witty little lecture on the +art of concocting a julep, illustrated by the act. Here Major Talbot’s +delicate but showy science was reproduced to a hair’s breadth—from +his dainty handling of the fragrant weed—“the one-thousandth part +of a grain too much pressure, gentlemen, and you extract the bitterness, +instead of the aroma, of this heaven-bestowed plant”—to his +solicitous selection of the oaten straws. +</p> + +<p> +At the close of the scene the audience raised a tumultuous roar of +appreciation. The portrayal of the type was so exact, so sure and thorough, +that the leading characters in the play were forgotten. After repeated calls, +Hargraves came before the curtain and bowed, his rather boyish face bright and +flushed with the knowledge of success. +</p> + +<p> +At last Miss Lydia turned and looked at the major. His thin nostrils were +working like the gills of a fish. He laid both shaking hands upon the arms of +his chair to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“We will go, Lydia,” he said chokingly. “This is an +abominable—desecration.” +</p> + +<p> +Before he could rise, she pulled him back into his seat. “We will stay it +out,” she declared. “Do you want to advertise the copy by +exhibiting the original coat?” So they remained to the end. +</p> + +<p> +Hargraves’s success must have kept him up late that night, for neither at +the breakfast nor at the dinner table did he appear. +</p> + +<p> +About three in the afternoon he tapped at the door of Major Talbot’s +study. The major opened it, and Hargraves walked in with his hands full of the +morning papers—too full of his triumph to notice anything unusual in the +major’s demeanour. +</p> + +<p> +“I put it all over ’em last night, major,” he began +exultantly. “I had my inning, and, I think, scored. Here’s what the +<i>Post</i> says: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +His conception and portrayal of the old-time Southern colonel, with his absurd +grandiloquence, his eccentric garb, his quaint idioms and phrases, his +moth-eaten pride of family, and his really kind heart, fastidious sense of +honour, and lovable simplicity, is the best delineation of a character role on +the boards to-day. The coat worn by Colonel Calhoun is itself nothing less than +an evolution of genius. Mr. Hargraves has captured his public. +</p> + +<p> +“How does that sound, major, for a first nighter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had the honour”—the major’s voice sounded ominously +frigid—“of witnessing your very remarkable performance, sir, last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +Hargraves looked disconcerted. +</p> + +<p> +“You were there? I didn’t know you ever—I didn’t know +you cared for the theatre. Oh, I say, Major Talbot,” he exclaimed +frankly, “don’t you be offended. I admit I did get a lot of +pointers from you that helped me out wonderfully in the part. But it’s a +type, you know—not individual. The way the audience caught on shows that. +Half the patrons of that theatre are Southerners. They recognized it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hargraves,” said the major, who had remained standing, +“you have put upon me an unpardonable insult. You have burlesqued my +person, grossly betrayed my confidence, and misused my hospitality. If I +thought you possessed the faintest conception of what is the sign manual of a +gentleman, or what is due one, I would call you out, sir, old as I am. I will +ask you to leave the room, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The actor appeared to be slightly bewildered, and seemed hardly to take in the +full meaning of the old gentleman’s words. +</p> + +<p> +“I am truly sorry you took offence,” he said regretfully. “Up +here we don’t look at things just as you people do. I know men who would +buy out half the house to have their personality put on the stage so the public +would recognize it.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are not from Alabama, sir,” said the major haughtily. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not. I have a pretty good memory, major; let me quote a few +lines from your book. In response to a toast at a banquet given +in—Milledgeville, I believe—you uttered, and intend to have +printed, these words: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The Northern man is utterly without sentiment or warmth except in so far as the +feelings may be turned to his own commercial profit. He will suffer without +resentment any imputation cast upon the honour of himself or his loved ones +that does not bear with it the consequence of pecuniary loss. In his charity, +he gives with a liberal hand; but it must be heralded with the trumpet and +chronicled in brass. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think that picture is fairer than the one you saw of Colonel +Calhoun last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“The description,” said the major frowning, “is—not +without grounds. Some exag—latitude must be allowed in public +speaking.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in public acting,” replied Hargraves. +</p> + +<p> +“That is not the point,” persisted the major, unrelenting. +“It was a personal caricature. I positively decline to overlook it, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Major Talbot,” said Hargraves, with a winning smile, “I wish +you would understand me. I want you to know that I never dreamed of insulting +you. In my profession, all life belongs to me. I take what I want, and what I +can, and return it over the footlights. Now, if you will, let’s let it go +at that. I came in to see you about something else. We’ve been pretty +good friends for some months, and I’m going to take the risk of offending +you again. I know you are hard up for money—never mind how I found out; a +boarding house is no place to keep such matters secret—and I want you to +let me help you out of the pinch. I’ve been there often enough myself. +I’ve been getting a fair salary all the season, and I’ve saved some +money. You’re welcome to a couple hundred—or even more—until +you get—” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” commanded the major, with his arm outstretched. “It +seems that my book didn’t lie, after all. You think your money salve will +heal all the hurts of honour. Under no circumstances would I accept a loan from +a casual acquaintance; and as to you, sir, I would starve before I would +consider your insulting offer of a financial adjustment of the circumstances we +have discussed. I beg to repeat my request relative to your quitting the +apartment.” +</p> + +<p> +Hargraves took his departure without another word. He also left the house the +same day, moving, as Mrs. Vardeman explained at the supper table, nearer the +vicinity of the down-town theatre, where “A Magnolia Flower” was +booked for a week’s run. +</p> + +<p> +Critical was the situation with Major Talbot and Miss Lydia. There was no one +in Washington to whom the major’s scruples allowed him to apply for a +loan. Miss Lydia wrote a letter to Uncle Ralph, but it was doubtful whether +that relative’s constricted affairs would permit him to furnish help. The +major was forced to make an apologetic address to Mrs. Vardeman regarding the +delayed payment for board, referring to “delinquent rentals” and +“delayed remittances” in a rather confused strain. +</p> + +<p> +Deliverance came from an entirely unexpected source. +</p> + +<p> +Late one afternoon the door maid came up and announced an old coloured man who +wanted to see Major Talbot. The major asked that he be sent up to his study. +Soon an old darkey appeared in the doorway, with his hat in hand, bowing, and +scraping with one clumsy foot. He was quite decently dressed in a baggy suit of +black. His big, coarse shoes shone with a metallic lustre suggestive of stove +polish. His bushy wool was gray—almost white. After middle life, it is +difficult to estimate the age of a Negro. This one might have seen as many +years as had Major Talbot. +</p> + +<p> +“I be bound you don’t know me, Mars’ Pendleton,” were +his first words. +</p> + +<p> +The major rose and came forward at the old, familiar style of address. It was +one of the old plantation darkeys without a doubt; but they had been widely +scattered, and he could not recall the voice or face. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe I do,” he said kindly—“unless +you will assist my memory.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you ’member Cindy’s Mose, Mars’ Pendleton, +what ’migrated ’mediately after de war?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a moment,” said the major, rubbing his forehead with the tips +of his fingers. He loved to recall everything connected with those beloved +days. “Cindy’s Mose,” he reflected. “You worked among +the horses—breaking the colts. Yes, I remember now. After the surrender, +you took the name of—don’t prompt me—Mitchell, and went to +the West—to Nebraska.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yassir, yassir,”—the old man’s face stretched with a +delighted grin—“dat’s him, dat’s it. Newbraska. +Dat’s me—Mose Mitchell. Old Uncle Mose Mitchell, dey calls me now. +Old mars’, your pa, gimme a pah of dem mule colts when I lef’ fur +to staht me goin’ with. You ’member dem colts, Mars’ +Pendleton?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t seem to recall the colts,” said the major. +“You know I was married the first year of the war and living at the old +Follinsbee place. But sit down, sit down, Uncle Mose. I’m glad to see +you. I hope you have prospered.” +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Mose took a chair and laid his hat carefully on the floor beside it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yassir; of late I done mouty famous. When I first got to Newbraska, dey +folks come all roun’ me to see dem mule colts. Dey ain’t see no +mules like dem in Newbraska. I sold dem mules for three hundred dollars. +Yassir—three hundred. +</p> + +<p> +“Den I open a blacksmith shop, suh, and made some money and bought some +lan’. Me and my old ’oman done raised up seb’m chillun, and +all doin’ well ’cept two of ’em what died. Fo’ year ago +a railroad come along and staht a town slam ag’inst my lan’, and, +suh, Mars’ Pendleton, Uncle Mose am worth leb’m thousand dollars in +money, property, and lan’.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to hear it,” said the major heartily. “Glad +to hear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And dat little baby of yo’n, Mars’ Pendleton—one what +you name Miss Lyddy—I be bound dat little tad done growed up tell nobody +wouldn’t know her.” +</p> + +<p> +The major stepped to the door and called: “Lydia, dear, will you +come?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Lydia, looking quite grown up and a little worried, came in from her room. +</p> + +<p> +“Dar, now! What’d I tell you? I knowed dat baby done be plum growed +up. You don’t ’member Uncle Mose, child?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is Aunt Cindy’s Mose, Lydia,” explained the major. +“He left Sunnymead for the West when you were two years old.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Miss Lydia, “I can hardly be expected to +remember you, Uncle Mose, at that age. And, as you say, I’m ‘plum +growed up,’ and was a blessed long time ago. But I’m glad to see +you, even if I can’t remember you.” +</p> + +<p> +And she was. And so was the major. Something alive and tangible had come to +link them with the happy past. The three sat and talked over the olden times, +the major and Uncle Mose correcting or prompting each other as they reviewed +the plantation scenes and days. +</p> + +<p> +The major inquired what the old man was doing so far from his home. +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle Mose am a delicate,” he explained, “to de grand +Baptis’ convention in dis city. I never preached none, but bein’ a +residin’ elder in de church, and able fur to pay my own expenses, dey +sent me along.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how did you know we were in Washington?” inquired Miss Lydia. +</p> + +<p> +“Dey’s a cullud man works in de hotel whar I stops, what comes from +Mobile. He told me he seen Mars’ Pendleton comin’ outen dish here +house one mawnin’. +</p> + +<p> +“What I come fur,” continued Uncle Mose, reaching into his +pocket—“besides de sight of home folks—was to pay Mars’ +Pendleton what I owes him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Owe me?” said the major, in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Yassir—three hundred dollars.” He handed the major a roll of +bills. “When I lef’ old mars’ says: ‘Take dem mule +colts, Mose, and, if it be so you gits able, pay fur ’em’. +Yassir—dem was his words. De war had done lef’ old mars’ +po’ hisself. Old mars’ bein’ ’long ago dead, de debt +descends to Mars’ Pendleton. Three hundred dollars. Uncle Mose is plenty +able to pay now. When dat railroad buy my lan’ I laid off to pay fur dem +mules. Count de money, Mars’ Pendleton. Dat’s what I sold dem mules +fur. Yassir.” +</p> + +<p> +Tears were in Major Talbot’s eyes. He took Uncle Mose’s hand and +laid his other upon his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, faithful, old servitor,” he said in an unsteady voice, +“I don’t mind saying to you that ‘Mars’ +Pendleton’ spent his last dollar in the world a week ago. We will accept +this money, Uncle Mose, since, in a way, it is a sort of payment, as well as a +token of the loyalty and devotion of the old regime. Lydia, my dear, take the +money. You are better fitted than I to manage its expenditure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take it, honey,” said Uncle Mose. “Hit belongs to you. +Hit’s Talbot money.” +</p> + +<p> +After Uncle Mose had gone, Miss Lydia had a good cry—for joy; and the +major turned his face to a corner, and smoked his clay pipe volcanically. +</p> + +<p> +The succeeding days saw the Talbots restored to peace and ease. Miss +Lydia’s face lost its worried look. The major appeared in a new frock +coat, in which he looked like a wax figure personifying the memory of his +golden age. Another publisher who read the manuscript of the “Anecdotes +and Reminiscences” thought that, with a little retouching and toning down +of the high lights, he could make a really bright and salable volume of it. +Altogether, the situation was comfortable, and not without the touch of hope +that is often sweeter than arrived blessings. +</p> + +<p> +One day, about a week after their piece of good luck, a maid brought a letter +for Miss Lydia to her room. The postmark showed that it was from New York. Not +knowing any one there, Miss Lydia, in a mild flutter of wonder, sat down by her +table and opened the letter with her scissors. This was what she read: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<span class="smallcaps">Dear Miss Talbot</span>:<br/><br/> + I thought you might be glad to learn of my good fortune. I have received and +accepted an offer of two hundred dollars per week by a New York stock company +to play Colonel Calhoun in “A Magnolia Flower.”<br/> + There is something else I wanted you to know. I guess you’d better not +tell Major Talbot. I was anxious to make him some amends for the great help he +was to me in studying the part, and for the bad humour he was in about it. He +refused to let me, so I did it anyhow. I could easily spare the three hundred. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Sincerely yours,<br/> + <span class="smallcaps">H. Hopkins Hargraves,</span> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +P.S. How did I play Uncle Mose? +</p> + +<p> +Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia’s door open and +stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress. +</p> + +<p> +“The <i>Mobile Chronicle</i> came,” she said promptly. +“It’s on the table in your study.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV.<br/> +LET ME FEEL YOUR PULSE</h2> + +<p> +So I went to a doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“How long has it been since you took any alcohol into your system?” +he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Turning my head sidewise, I answered, “Oh, quite awhile.” +</p> + +<p> +He was a young doctor, somewhere between twenty and forty. He wore heliotrope +socks, but he looked like Napoleon. I liked him immensely. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said he, “I am going to show you the effect of alcohol +upon your circulation.” I think it was “circulation” he said; +though it may have been “advertising.” +</p> + +<p> +He bared my left arm to the elbow, brought out a bottle of whiskey, and gave me +a drink. He began to look more like Napoleon. I began to like him better. +</p> + +<p> +Then he put a tight compress on my upper arm, stopped my pulse with his +fingers, and squeezed a rubber bulb connected with an apparatus on a stand that +looked like a thermometer. The mercury jumped up and down without seeming to +stop anywhere; but the doctor said it registered two hundred and thirty-seven +or one hundred and sixty-five or some such number. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said he, “you see what alcohol does to the +blood-pressure.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s marvellous,” said I, “but do you think it a +sufficient test? Have one on me, and let’s try the other arm.” But, +no! +</p> + +<p> +Then he grasped my hand. I thought I was doomed and he was saying good-bye. But +all he wanted to do was to jab a needle into the end of a finger and compare +the red drop with a lot of fifty-cent poker chips that he had fastened to a +card. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the hæmoglobin test,” he explained. “The +colour of your blood is wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said I, “I know it should be blue; but this is a +country of mix-ups. Some of my ancestors were cavaliers; but they got thick +with some people on Nantucket Island, so—” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean,” said the doctor, “that the shade of red is too +light.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said I, “it’s a case of matching instead of +matches.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor then pounded me severely in the region of the chest. When he did +that I don’t know whether he reminded me most of Napoleon or Battling or +Lord Nelson. Then he looked grave and mentioned a string of grievances that the +flesh is heir to—mostly ending in “itis.” I immediately paid +him fifteen dollars on account. +</p> + +<p> +“Is or are it or some or any of them necessarily fatal?” I asked. I +thought my connection with the matter justified my manifesting a certain amount +of interest. +</p> + +<p> +“All of them,” he answered cheerfully. “But their progress +may be arrested. With care and proper continuous treatment you may live to be +eighty-five or ninety.” +</p> + +<p> +I began to think of the doctor’s bill. “Eighty-five would be +sufficient, I am sure,” was my comment. I paid him ten dollars more on +account. +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing to do,” he said, with renewed animation, “is +to find a sanitarium where you will get a complete rest for a while, and allow +your nerves to get into a better condition. I myself will go with you and +select a suitable one.” +</p> + +<p> +So he took me to a mad-house in the Catskills. It was on a bare mountain +frequented only by infrequent frequenters. You could see nothing but stones and +boulders, some patches of snow, and scattered pine trees. The young physician +in charge was most agreeable. He gave me a stimulant without applying a +compress to the arm. It was luncheon time, and we were invited to partake. +There were about twenty inmates at little tables in the dining room. The young +physician in charge came to our table and said: “It is a custom with our +guests not to regard themselves as patients, but merely as tired ladies and +gentlemen taking a rest. Whatever slight maladies they may have are never +alluded to in conversation.” +</p> + +<p> +My doctor called loudly to a waitress to bring some phosphoglycerate of lime +hash, dog-bread, bromo-seltzer pancakes, and nux vomica tea for my repast. Then +a sound arose like a sudden wind storm among pine trees. It was produced by +every guest in the room whispering loudly, +“Neurasthenia!”—except one man with a nose, whom I distinctly +heard say, “Chronic alcoholism.” I hope to meet him again. The +physician in charge turned and walked away. +</p> + +<p> +An hour or so after luncheon he conducted us to the workshop—say fifty +yards from the house. Thither the guests had been conducted by the physician in +charge’s understudy and sponge-holder—a man with feet and a blue +sweater. He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face; but the Armour +Packing Company would have been delighted with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” said the physician in charge, “our guests find +relaxation from past mental worries by devoting themselves to physical +labour—recreation, in reality.” +</p> + +<p> +There were turning-lathes, carpenters’ outfits, clay-modelling tools, +spinning-wheels, weaving-frames, treadmills, bass drums, +enlarged-crayon-portrait apparatuses, blacksmith forges, and everything, +seemingly, that could interest the paying lunatic guests of a first-rate +sanitarium. +</p> + +<p> +“The lady making mud pies in the corner,” whispered the physician +in charge, “is no other than—Lula Lulington, the authoress of the +novel entitled ‘Why Love Loves.’ What she is doing now is simply to +rest her mind after performing that piece of work.” +</p> + +<p> +I had seen the book. “Why doesn’t she do it by writing another one +instead?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +As you see, I wasn’t as far gone as they thought I was. +</p> + +<p> +“The gentleman pouring water through the funnel,” continued the +physician in charge, “is a Wall Street broker broken down from +overwork.” +</p> + +<p> +I buttoned my coat. +</p> + +<p> +Others he pointed out were architects playing with Noah’s arks, ministers +reading Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution,” lawyers sawing wood, +tired-out society ladies talking Ibsen to the blue-sweatered sponge-holder, a +neurotic millionaire lying asleep on the floor, and a prominent artist drawing +a little red wagon around the room. +</p> + +<p> +“You look pretty strong,” said the physician in charge to me. +“I think the best mental relaxation for you would be throwing small +boulders over the mountainside and then bringing them up again.” +</p> + +<p> +I was a hundred yards away before my doctor overtook me. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The matter is,” said I, “that there are no aeroplanes handy. +So I am going to merrily and hastily jog the foot-pathway to yon station and +catch the first unlimited-soft-coal express back to town.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the doctor, “perhaps you are right. This seems +hardly the suitable place for you. But what you need is rest—absolute +rest and exercise.” +</p> + +<p> +That night I went to a hotel in the city, and said to the clerk: “What I +need is absolute rest and exercise. Can you give me a room with one of those +tall folding beds in it, and a relay of bellboys to work it up and down while I +rest?” +</p> + +<p> +The clerk rubbed a speck off one of his finger nails and glanced sidewise at a +tall man in a white hat sitting in the lobby. That man came over and asked me +politely if I had seen the shrubbery at the west entrance. I had not, so he +showed it to me and then looked me over. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you had ’em,” he said, not unkindly, “but I +guess you’re all right. You’d better go see a doctor, old +man.” +</p> + +<p> +A week afterward my doctor tested my blood pressure again without the +preliminary stimulant. He looked to me a little less like Napoleon. And his +socks were of a shade of tan that did not appeal to me. +</p> + +<p> +“What you need,” he decided, “is sea air and +companionship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would a mermaid—” I began; but he slipped on his +professional manner. +</p> + +<p> +“I myself,” he said, “will take you to the Hotel Bonair off +the coast of Long Island and see that you get in good shape. It is a quiet, +comfortable resort where you will soon recuperate.” +</p> + +<p> +The Hotel Bonair proved to be a nine-hundred-room fashionable hostelry on an +island off the main shore. Everybody who did not dress for dinner was shoved +into a side dining-room and given only a terrapin and champagne table +d’hôte. The bay was a great stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. +The <i>Corsair</i> anchored there the day we arrived. I saw Mr. Morgan standing +on deck eating a cheese sandwich and gazing longingly at the hotel. Still, it +was a very inexpensive place. Nobody could afford to pay their prices. When you +went away you simply left your baggage, stole a skiff, and beat it for the +mainland in the night. +</p> + +<p> +When I had been there one day I got a pad of monogrammed telegraph blanks at +the clerk’s desk and began to wire to all my friends for get-away money. +My doctor and I played one game of croquet on the golf links and went to sleep +on the lawn. +</p> + +<p> +When we got back to town a thought seemed to occur to him suddenly. “By +the way,” he asked, “how do you feel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Relieved of very much,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +Now a consulting physician is different. He isn’t exactly sure whether he +is to be paid or not, and this uncertainty insures you either the most careful +or the most careless attention. My doctor took me to see a consulting +physician. He made a poor guess and gave me careful attention. I liked him +immensely. He put me through some coördination exercises. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a pain in the back of your head?” he asked. I told him I +had not. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut your eyes,” he ordered, “put your feet close together, +and jump backward as far as you can.” +</p> + +<p> +I always was a good backward jumper with my eyes shut, so I obeyed. My head +struck the edge of the bathroom door, which had been left open and was only +three feet away. The doctor was very sorry. He had overlooked the fact that the +door was open. He closed it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now touch your nose with your right forefinger,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is it?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“On your face,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean my right forefinger,” I explained. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, excuse me,” said he. He reopened the bathroom door, and I took +my finger out of the crack of it. After I had performed the marvellous +digito-nasal feat I said: +</p> + +<p> +“I do not wish to deceive you as to symptoms, Doctor; I really have +something like a pain in the back of my head.” He ignored the symptom and +examined my heart carefully with a latest-popular-air-penny-in-the-slot +ear-trumpet. I felt like a ballad. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” he said, “gallop like a horse for about five minutes +around the room.” +</p> + +<p> +I gave the best imitation I could of a disqualified Percheron being led out of +Madison Square Garden. Then, without dropping in a penny, he listened to my +chest again. +</p> + +<p> +“No glanders in our family, Doc,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +The consulting physician held up his forefinger within three inches of my nose. +“Look at my finger,” he commanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever try Pears’—” I began; but he went on with +his test rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now look across the bay. At my finger. Across the bay. At my finger. At +my finger. Across the bay. Across the bay. At my finger. Across the bay.” +This for about three minutes. +</p> + +<p> +He explained that this was a test of the action of the brain. It seemed easy to +me. I never once mistook his finger for the bay. I’ll bet that if he had +used the phrases: “Gaze, as it were, unpreoccupied, outward—or +rather laterally—in the direction of the horizon, underlaid, so to speak, +with the adjacent fluid inlet,” and “Now, returning—or +rather, in a manner, withdrawing your attention, bestow it upon my upraised +digit”—I’ll bet, I say, that Henry James himself could have +passed the examination. +</p> + +<p> +After asking me if I had ever had a grand uncle with curvature of the spine or +a cousin with swelled ankles, the two doctors retired to the bathroom and sat +on the edge of the bath tub for their consultation. I ate an apple, and gazed +first at my finger and then across the bay. +</p> + +<p> +The doctors came out looking grave. More: they looked tombstones and +Tennessee-papers-please-copy. They wrote out a diet list to which I was to be +restricted. It had everything that I had ever heard of to eat on it, except +snails. And I never eat a snail unless it overtakes me and bites me first. +</p> + +<p> +“You must follow this diet strictly,” said the doctors. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d follow it a mile if I could get one-tenth of what’s on +it,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Of next importance,” they went on, “is outdoor air and +exercise. And here is a prescription that will be of great benefit to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Then all of us took something. They took their hats, and I took my departure. +</p> + +<p> +I went to a druggist and showed him the prescription. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be $2.87 for an ounce bottle,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you give me a piece of your wrapping cord?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +I made a hole in the prescription, ran the cord through it, tied it around my +neck, and tucked it inside. All of us have a little superstition, and mine runs +to a confidence in amulets. +</p> + +<p> +Of course there was nothing the matter with me, but I was very ill. I +couldn’t work, sleep, eat, or bowl. The only way I could get any sympathy +was to go without shaving for four days. Even then somebody would say: +“Old man, you look as hardy as a pine knot. Been up for a jaunt in the +Maine woods, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Then, suddenly, I remembered that I must have outdoor air and exercise. So I +went down South to John’s. John is an approximate relative by verdict of +a preacher standing with a little book in his hands in a bower of +chrysanthemums while a hundred thousand people looked on. John has a country +house seven miles from Pineville. It is at an altitude and on the Blue Ridge +Mountains in a state too dignified to be dragged into this controversy. John is +mica, which is more valuable and clearer than gold. +</p> + +<p> +He met me at Pineville, and we took the trolley car to his home. It is a big, +neighbourless cottage on a hill surrounded by a hundred mountains. We got off +at his little private station, where John’s family and Amaryllis met and +greeted us. Amaryllis looked at me a trifle anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +A rabbit came bounding across the hill between us and the house. I threw down +my suit-case and pursued it hotfoot. After I had run twenty yards and seen it +disappear, I sat down on the grass and wept disconsolately. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t catch a rabbit any more,” I sobbed. “I’m +of no further use in the world. I may as well be dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what is it—what is it, Brother John?” I heard Amaryllis +say. +</p> + +<p> +“Nerves a little unstrung,” said John, in his calm way. +“Don’t worry. Get up, you rabbit-chaser, and come on to the house +before the biscuits get cold.” It was about twilight, and the mountains +came up nobly to Miss Murfree’s descriptions of them. +</p> + +<p> +Soon after dinner I announced that I believed I could sleep for a year or two, +including legal holidays. So I was shown to a room as big and cool as a flower +garden, where there was a bed as broad as a lawn. Soon afterward the remainder +of the household retired, and then there fell upon the land a silence. +</p> + +<p> +I had not heard a silence before in years. It was absolute. I raised myself on +my elbow and listened to it. Sleep! I thought that if I only could hear a star +twinkle or a blade of grass sharpen itself I could compose myself to rest. I +thought once that I heard a sound like the sail of a catboat flapping as it +veered about in a breeze, but I decided that it was probably only a tack in the +carpet. Still I listened. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly some belated little bird alighted upon the window-sill, and, in what +he no doubt considered sleepy tones, enunciated the noise generally translated +as “cheep!” +</p> + +<p> +I leaped into the air. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey! what’s the matter down there?” called John from his +room above mine. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing,” I answered, “except that I accidentally bumped +my head against the ceiling.” +</p> + +<p> +The next morning I went out on the porch and looked at the mountains. There +were forty-seven of them in sight. I shuddered, went into the big hall sitting +room of the house, selected “Pancoast’s Family Practice of +Medicine” from a bookcase, and began to read. John came in, took the book +away from me, and led me outside. He has a farm of three hundred acres +furnished with the usual complement of barns, mules, peasantry, and harrows +with three front teeth broken off. I had seen such things in my childhood, and +my heart began to sink. +</p> + +<p> +Then John spoke of alfalfa, and I brightened at once. “Oh, yes,” +said I, “wasn’t she in the chorus of—let’s +see—” +</p> + +<p> +“Green, you know,” said John, “and tender, and you plow it +under after the first season.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said I, “and the grass grows over her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right,” said John. “You know something about farming, after +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know something of some farmers,” said I, “and a sure +scythe will mow them down some day.” +</p> + +<p> +On the way back to the house a beautiful and inexplicable creature walked +across our path. I stopped irresistibly fascinated, gazing at it. John waited +patiently, smoking his cigarette. He is a modern farmer. After ten minutes he +said: “Are you going to stand there looking at that chicken all day? +Breakfast is nearly ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“A chicken?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“A White Orpington hen, if you want to particularize.” +</p> + +<p> +“A White Orpington hen?” I repeated, with intense interest. The +fowl walked slowly away with graceful dignity, and I followed like a child +after the Pied Piper. Five minutes more were allowed me by John, and then he +took me by the sleeve and conducted me to breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +After I had been there a week I began to grow alarmed. I was sleeping and +eating well and actually beginning to enjoy life. For a man in my desperate +condition that would never do. So I sneaked down to the trolley-car station, +took the car for Pineville, and went to see one of the best physicians in town. +By this time I knew exactly what to do when I needed medical treatment. I hung +my hat on the back of a chair, and said rapidly: +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor, I have cirrhosis of the heart, indurated arteries, neurasthenia, +neuritis, acute indigestion, and convalescence. I am going to live on a strict +diet. I shall also take a tepid bath at night and a cold one in the morning. I +shall endeavour to be cheerful, and fix my mind on pleasant subjects. In the +way of drugs I intend to take a phosphorous pill three times a day, preferably +after meals, and a tonic composed of the tinctures of gentian, cinchona, +calisaya, and cardamon compound. Into each teaspoonful of this I shall mix +tincture of nux vomica, beginning with one drop and increasing it a drop each +day until the maximum dose is reached. I shall drop this with a +medicine-dropper, which can be procured at a trifling cost at any pharmacy. +Good morning.” +</p> + +<p> +I took my hat and walked out. After I had closed the door I remembered +something that I had forgotten to say. I opened it again. The doctor had not +moved from where he had been sitting, but he gave a slightly nervous start when +he saw me again. +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot to mention,” said I, “that I shall also take +absolute rest and exercise.” +</p> + +<p> +After this consultation I felt much better. The reëstablishing in my mind +of the fact that I was hopelessly ill gave me so much satisfaction that I +almost became gloomy again. There is nothing more alarming to a neurasthenic +than to feel himself growing well and cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +John looked after me carefully. After I had evinced so much interest in his +White Orpington chicken he tried his best to divert my mind, and was particular +to lock his hen house of nights. Gradually the tonic mountain air, the +wholesome food, and the daily walks among the hills so alleviated my malady +that I became utterly wretched and despondent. I heard of a country doctor who +lived in the mountains nearby. I went to see him and told him the whole story. +He was a gray-bearded man with clear, blue, wrinkled eyes, in a home-made suit +of gray jeans. +</p> + +<p> +In order to save time I diagnosed my case, touched my nose with my right +forefinger, struck myself below the knee to make my foot kick, sounded my +chest, stuck out my tongue, and asked him the price of cemetery lots in +Pineville. +</p> + +<p> +He lit his pipe and looked at me for about three minutes. +“Brother,” he said, after a while, “you are in a mighty bad +way. There’s a chance for you to pull through, but it’s a mighty +slim one.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can it be?” I asked eagerly. “I have taken arsenic and +gold, phosphorus, exercise, nux vomica, hydrotherapeutic baths, rest, +excitement, codein, and aromatic spirits of ammonia. Is there anything left in +the pharmacopœia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Somewhere in these mountains,” said the doctor, +“there’s a plant growing—a flowering plant that’ll cure +you, and it’s about the only thing that will. It’s of a kind +that’s as old as the world; but of late it’s powerful scarce and +hard to find. You and I will have to hunt it up. I’m not engaged in +active practice now: I’m getting along in years; but I’ll take your +case. You’ll have to come every day in the afternoon and help me hunt for +this plant till we find it. The city doctors may know a lot about new +scientific things, but they don’t know much about the cures that nature +carries around in her saddlebags.” +</p> + +<p> +So every day the old doctor and I hunted the cure-all plant among the mountains +and valleys of the Blue Ridge. Together we toiled up steep heights so slippery +with fallen autumn leaves that we had to catch every sapling and branch within +our reach to save us from falling. We waded through gorges and chasms, +breast-deep with laurel and ferns; we followed the banks of mountain streams +for miles; we wound our way like Indians through brakes of pine—road +side, hill side, river side, mountain side we explored in our search for the +miraculous plant. +</p> + +<p> +As the old doctor said, it must have grown scarce and hard to find. But we +followed our quest. Day by day we plumbed the valleys, scaled the heights, and +tramped the plateaus in search of the miraculous plant. Mountain-bred, he never +seemed to tire. I often reached home too fatigued to do anything except fall +into bed and sleep until morning. This we kept up for a month. +</p> + +<p> +One evening after I had returned from a six-mile tramp with the old doctor, +Amaryllis and I took a little walk under the trees near the road. We looked at +the mountains drawing their royal-purple robes around them for their +night’s repose. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you’re well again,” she said. “When you +first came you frightened me. I thought you were really ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well again!” I almost shrieked. “Do you know that I have +only one chance in a thousand to live?” +</p> + +<p> +Amaryllis looked at me in surprise. “Why,” said she, “you are +as strong as one of the plough-mules, you sleep ten or twelve hours every +night, and you are eating us out of house and home. What more do you +want?” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you,” said I, “that unless we find the +magic—that is, the plant we are looking for—in time, nothing can +save me. The doctor tells me so.” +</p> + +<p> +“What doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Tatum—the old doctor who lives halfway up Black Oak +Mountain. Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have known him since I was able to talk. And is that where you go +every day—is it he who takes you on these long walks and climbs that have +brought back your health and strength? God bless the old doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +Just then the old doctor himself drove slowly down the road in his rickety old +buggy. I waved my hand at him and shouted that I would be on hand the next day +at the usual time. He stopped his horse and called to Amaryllis to come out to +him. They talked for five minutes while I waited. Then the old doctor drove on. +</p> + +<p> +When we got to the house Amaryllis lugged out an encyclopædia and sought +a word in it. “The doctor said,” she told me, “that you +needn’t call any more as a patient, but he’d be glad to see you any +time as a friend. And then he told me to look up my name in the +encyclopædia and tell you what it means. It seems to be the name of a +genus of flowering plants, and also the name of a country girl in Theocritus +and Virgil. What do you suppose the doctor meant by that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what he meant,” said I. “I know now.” +</p> + +<p> +A word to a brother who may have come under the spell of the unquiet Lady +Neurasthenia. +</p> + +<p> +The formula was true. Even though gropingly at times, the physicians of the +walled cities had put their fingers upon the specific medicament. +</p> + +<p> +And so for the exercise one is referred to good Doctor Tatum on Black Oak +Mountain—take the road to your right at the Methodist meeting house in +the pine-grove. +</p> + +<p> +Absolute rest and exercise! +</p> + +<p> +What rest more remedial than to sit with Amaryllis in the shade, and, with a +sixth sense, read the wordless Theocritan idyl of the gold-bannered blue +mountains marching orderly into the dormitories of the night? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV.<br/> +OCTOBER AND JUNE</h2> + +<p> +The Captain gazed gloomily at his sword that hung upon the wall. In the closet +near by was stored his faded uniform, stained and worn by weather and service. +What a long, long time it seemed since those old days of war’s alarms! +</p> + +<p> +And now, veteran that he was of his country’s strenuous times, he had +been reduced to abject surrender by a woman’s soft eyes and smiling lips. +As he sat in his quiet room he held in his hand the letter he had just received +from her—the letter that had caused him to wear that look of gloom. He +re-read the fatal paragraph that had destroyed his hope. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In declining the honour you have done me in asking me to be your wife, I feel +that I ought to speak frankly. The reason I have for so doing is the great +difference between our ages. I like you very, very much, but I am sure that our +marriage would not be a happy one. I am sorry to have to refer to this, but I +believe that you will appreciate my honesty in giving you the true reason. +</p> + +<p> +The Captain sighed, and leaned his head upon his hand. Yes, there were many +years between their ages. But he was strong and rugged, he had position and +wealth. Would not his love, his tender care, and the advantages he could bestow +upon her make her forget the question of age? Besides, he was almost sure that +she cared for him. +</p> + +<p> +The Captain was a man of prompt action. In the field he had been distinguished +for his decisiveness and energy. He would see her and plead his cause again in +person. Age!—what was it to come between him and the one he loved? +</p> + +<p> +In two hours he stood ready, in light marching order, for his greatest battle. +He took the train for the old Southern town in Tennessee where she lived. +</p> + +<p> +Theodora Deming was on the steps of the handsome, porticoed old mansion, +enjoying the summer twilight, when the Captain entered the gate and came up the +gravelled walk. She met him with a smile that was free from embarrassment. As +the Captain stood on the step below her, the difference in their ages did not +appear so great. He was tall and straight and clear-eyed and browned. She was +in the bloom of lovely womanhood. +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t expecting you,” said Theodora; “but now that +you’ve come you may sit on the step. Didn’t you get my +letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” said the Captain; “and that’s why I came. I +say, now, Theo, reconsider your answer, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Theodora smiled softly upon him. He carried his years well. She was really fond +of his strength, his wholesome looks, his manliness—perhaps, if— +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” she said, shaking her head, positively; “it’s +out of the question. I like you a whole lot, but marrying won’t do. My +age and yours are—but don’t make me say it again—I told you +in my letter.” +</p> + +<p> +The Captain flushed a little through the bronze on his face. He was silent for +a while, gazing sadly into the twilight. Beyond a line of woods that he could +see was a field where the boys in blue had once bivouacked on their march +toward the sea. How long ago it seemed now! Truly, Fate and Father Time had +tricked him sorely. Just a few years interposed between himself and happiness! +</p> + +<p> +Theodora’s hand crept down and rested in the clasp of his firm, brown +one. She felt, at least, that sentiment that is akin to love. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take it so hard, please,” she said, gently. +“It’s all for the best. I’ve reasoned it out very wisely all +by myself. Some day you’ll be glad I didn’t marry you. It would be +very nice and lovely for a while—but, just think! In only a few short +years what different tastes we would have! One of us would want to sit by the +fireside and read, and maybe nurse neuralgia or rheumatism of evenings, while +the other would be crazy for balls and theatres and late suppers. No, my dear +friend. While it isn’t exactly January and May, it’s a clear case +of October and pretty early in June.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d always do what you wanted me to do, Theo. If you wanted +to—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you wouldn’t. You think now that you would, but you +wouldn’t. Please don’t ask me any more.” +</p> + +<p> +The Captain had lost his battle. But he was a gallant warrior, and when he rose +to make his final adieu his mouth was grimly set and his shoulders were +squared. +</p> + +<p> +He took the train for the North that night. On the next evening he was back in +his room, where his sword was hanging against the wall. He was dressing for +dinner, tying his white tie into a very careful bow. And at the same time he +was indulging in a pensive soliloquy. +</p> + +<p> +“’Pon my honour, I believe Theo was right, after all. Nobody can +deny that she’s a peach, but she must be twenty-eight, at the very +kindest calculation.” +</p> + +<p> +For you see, the Captain was only nineteen, and his sword had never been drawn +except on the parade ground at Chattanooga, which was as near as he ever got to +the Spanish-American War. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI.<br/> +THE CHURCH WITH AN OVERSHOT-WHEEL</h2> + +<p> +Lakelands is not to be found in the catalogues of fashionable summer resorts. +It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a little +tributary of the Clinch River. Lakelands proper is a contented village of two +dozen houses situated on a forlorn, narrow-gauge railroad line. You wonder +whether the railroad lost itself in the pine woods and ran into Lakelands from +fright and loneliness, or whether Lakelands got lost and huddled itself along +the railroad to wait for the cars to carry it home. +</p> + +<p> +You wonder again why it was named Lakelands. There are no lakes, and the lands +about are too poor to be worth mentioning. +</p> + +<p> +Half a mile from the village stands the Eagle House, a big, roomy old mansion +run by Josiah Rankin for the accommodation of visitors who desire the mountain +air at inexpensive rates. The Eagle House is delightfully mismanaged. It is +full of ancient instead of modern improvements, and it is altogether as +comfortably neglected and pleasingly disarranged as your own home. But you are +furnished with clean rooms and good and abundant fare: yourself and the piny +woods must do the rest. Nature has provided a mineral spring, grape-vine +swings, and croquet—even the wickets are wooden. You have Art to thank +only for the fiddle-and-guitar music twice a week at the hop in the rustic +pavilion. +</p> + +<p> +The patrons of the Eagle House are those who seek recreation as a necessity, as +well as a pleasure. They are busy people, who may be likened to clocks that +need a fortnight’s winding to insure a year’s running of their +wheels. You will find students there from the lower towns, now and then an +artist, or a geologist absorbed in construing the ancient strata of the hills. +A few quiet families spend the summers there; and often one or two tired +members of that patient sisterhood known to Lakelands as +“schoolmarms.” +</p> + +<p> +A quarter of a mile from the Eagle House was what would have been described to +its guests as “an object of interest” in the catalogue, had the +Eagle House issued a catalogue. This was an old, old mill that was no longer a +mill. In the words of Josiah Rankin, it was “the only church in the +United States, sah, with an overshot-wheel; and the only mill in the world, +sah, with pews and a pipe organ.” The guests of the Eagle House attended +the old mill church each Sabbath, and heard the preacher liken the purified +Christian to bolted flour ground to usefulness between the millstones of +experience and suffering. +</p> + +<p> +Every year about the beginning of autumn there came to the Eagle House one +Abram Strong, who remained for a time an honoured and beloved guest. In +Lakelands he was called “Father Abram,” because his hair was so +white, his face so strong and kind and florid, his laugh so merry, and his +black clothes and broad hat so priestly in appearance. Even new guests after +three or four days’ acquaintance gave him this familiar title. +</p> + +<p> +Father Abram came a long way to Lakelands. He lived in a big, roaring town in +the Northwest where he owned mills, not little mills with pews and an organ in +them, but great, ugly, mountain-like mills that the freight trains crawled +around all day like ants around an ant-heap. And now you must be told about +Father Abram and the mill that was a church, for their stories run together. +</p> + +<p> +In the days when the church was a mill, Mr. Strong was the miller. There was no +jollier, dustier, busier, happier miller in all the land than he. He lived in a +little cottage across the road from the mill. His hand was heavy, but his toll +was light, and the mountaineers brought their grain to him across many weary +miles of rocky roads. +</p> + +<p> +The delight of the miller’s life was his little daughter, Aglaia. That +was a brave name, truly, for a flaxen-haired toddler; but the mountaineers love +sonorous and stately names. The mother had encountered it somewhere in a book, +and the deed was done. In her babyhood Aglaia herself repudiated the name, as +far as common use went, and persisted in calling herself “Dums.” +The miller and his wife often tried to coax from Aglaia the source of this +mysterious name, but without results. At last they arrived at a theory. In the +little garden behind the cottage was a bed of rhododendrons in which the child +took a peculiar delight and interest. It may have been that she perceived in +“Dums” a kinship to the formidable name of her favourite flowers. +</p> + +<p> +When Aglaia was four years old she and her father used to go through a little +performance in the mill every afternoon, that never failed to come off, the +weather permitting. When supper was ready her mother would brush her hair and +put on a clean apron and send her across to the mill to bring her father home. +When the miller saw her coming in the mill door he would come forward, all +white with the flour dust, and wave his hand and sing an old miller’s +song that was familiar in those parts and ran something like this: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The wheel goes round,<br/> +The grist is ground,<br/> + The dusty miller’s merry.<br/> +He sings all day,<br/> +His work is play,<br/> + While thinking of his dearie.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Aglaia would run to him laughing, and call: +</p> + +<p> +“Da-da, come take Dums home;” and the miller would swing her to his +shoulder and march over to supper, singing the miller’s song. Every +evening this would take place. +</p> + +<p> +One day, only a week after her fourth birthday, Aglaia disappeared. When last +seen she was plucking wild flowers by the side of the road in front of the +cottage. A little while later her mother went out to see that she did not stray +too far away, and she was already gone. +</p> + +<p> +Of course every effort was made to find her. The neighbours gathered and +searched the woods and the mountains for miles around. They dragged every foot +of the mill race and the creek for a long distance below the dam. Never a trace +of her did they find. A night or two before there had been a family of +wanderers camped in a grove near by. It was conjectured that they might have +stolen the child; but when their wagon was overtaken and searched she could not +be found. +</p> + +<p> +The miller remained at the mill for nearly two years; and then his hope of +finding her died out. He and his wife moved to the Northwest. In a few years he +was the owner of a modern mill in one of the important milling cities in that +region. Mrs. Strong never recovered from the shock caused by the loss of +Aglaia, and two years after they moved away the miller was left to bear his +sorrow alone. +</p> + +<p> +When Abram Strong became prosperous he paid a visit to Lakelands and the old +mill. The scene was a sad one for him, but he was a strong man, and always +appeared cheery and kindly. It was then that he was inspired to convert the old +mill into a church. Lakelands was too poor to build one; and the still poorer +mountaineers could not assist. There was no place of worship nearer than twenty +miles. +</p> + +<p> +The miller altered the appearance of the mill as little as possible. The big +overshot-wheel was left in its place. The young people who came to the church +used to cut their initials in its soft and slowly decaying wood. The dam was +partly destroyed, and the clear mountain stream rippled unchecked down its +rocky bed. Inside the mill the changes were greater. The shafts and millstones +and belts and pulleys were, of course, all removed. There were two rows of +benches with aisles between, and a little raised platform and pulpit at one +end. On three sides overhead was a gallery containing seats, and reached by a +stairway inside. There was also an organ—a real pipe organ—in the +gallery, that was the pride of the congregation of the Old Mill Church. Miss +Phœbe Summers was the organist. The Lakelands boys proudly took turns at +pumping it for her at each Sunday’s service. The Rev. Mr. Banbridge was +the preacher, and rode down from Squirrel Gap on his old white horse without +ever missing a service. And Abram Strong paid for everything. He paid the +preacher five hundred dollars a year; and Miss Phœbe two hundred dollars. +</p> + +<p> +Thus, in memory of Aglaia, the old mill was converted into a blessing for the +community in which she had once lived. It seemed that the brief life of the +child had brought about more good than the three score years and ten of many. +But Abram Strong set up yet another monument to her memory. +</p> + +<p> +Out from his mills in the Northwest came the “Aglaia” flour, made +from the hardest and finest wheat that could be raised. The country soon found +out that the “Aglaia” flour had two prices. One was the highest +market price, and the other was—nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Wherever there happened a calamity that left people destitute—a fire, a +flood, a tornado, a strike, or a famine, there would go hurrying a generous +consignment of the “Aglaia” at its “nothing” price. It +was given away cautiously and judiciously, but it was freely given, and not a +penny could the hungry ones pay for it. There got to be a saying that whenever +there was a disastrous fire in the poor districts of a city the fire +chief’s buggy reached the scene first, next the “Aglaia” +flour wagon, and then the fire engines. +</p> + +<p> +So this was Abram Strong’s other monument to Aglaia. Perhaps to a poet +the theme may seem too utilitarian for beauty; but to some the fancy will seem +sweet and fine that the pure, white, virgin flour, flying on its mission of +love and charity, might be likened to the spirit of the lost child whose memory +it signalized. +</p> + +<p> +There came a year that brought hard times to the Cumberlands. Grain crops +everywhere were light, and there were no local crops at all. Mountain floods +had done much damage to property. Even game in the woods was so scarce that the +hunters brought hardly enough home to keep their folk alive. Especially about +Lakelands was the rigour felt. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as Abram Strong heard of this his messages flew; and the little +narrow-gauge cars began to unload “Aglaia” flour there. The +miller’s orders were to store the flour in the gallery of the Old Mill +Church; and that every one who attended the church was to carry home a sack of +it. +</p> + +<p> +Two weeks after that Abram Strong came for his yearly visit to the Eagle House, +and became “Father Abram” again. +</p> + +<p> +That season the Eagle House had fewer guests than usual. Among them was Rose +Chester. Miss Chester came to Lakelands from Atlanta, where she worked in a +department store. This was the first vacation outing of her life. The wife of +the store manager had once spent a summer at the Eagle House. She had taken a +fancy to Rose, and had persuaded her to go there for her three weeks’ +holiday. The manager’s wife gave her a letter to Mrs. Rankin, who gladly +received her in her own charge and care. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Chester was not very strong. She was about twenty, and pale and delicate +from an indoor life. But one week of Lakelands gave her a brightness and spirit +that changed her wonderfully. The time was early September when the Cumberlands +are at their greatest beauty. The mountain foliage was growing brilliant with +autumnal colours; one breathed aerial champagne, the nights were deliciously +cool, causing one to snuggle cosily under the warm blankets of the Eagle House. +</p> + +<p> +Father Abram and Miss Chester became great friends. The old miller learned her +story from Mrs. Rankin, and his interest went out quickly to the slender lonely +girl who was making her own way in the world. +</p> + +<p> +The mountain country was new to Miss Chester. She had lived many years in the +warm, flat town of Atlanta; and the grandeur and variety of the Cumberlands +delighted her. She was determined to enjoy every moment of her stay. Her little +hoard of savings had been estimated so carefully in connection with her +expenses that she knew almost to a penny what her very small surplus would be +when she returned to work. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Chester was fortunate in gaining Father Abram for a friend and companion. +He knew every road and peak and slope of the mountains near Lakelands. Through +him she became acquainted with the solemn delight of the shadowy, tilted aisles +of the pine forests, the dignity of the bare crags, the crystal, tonic +mornings, the dreamy, golden afternoons full of mysterious sadness. So her +health improved, and her spirits grew light. She had a laugh as genial and +hearty in its feminine way as the famous laugh of Father Abram. Both of them +were natural optimists; and both knew how to present a serene and cheerful face +to the world. +</p> + +<p> +One day Miss Chester learned from one of the guests the history of Father +Abram’s lost child. Quickly she hurried away and found the miller seated +on his favourite rustic bench near the chalybeate spring. He was surprised when +his little friend slipped her hand into his, and looked at him with tears in +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Father Abram,” she said, “I’m so sorry! I +didn’t know until to-day about your little daughter. You will find her +yet some day—Oh, I hope you will.” +</p> + +<p> +The miller looked down at her with his strong, ready smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Miss Rose,” he said, in his usual cheery tones. +“But I do not expect to find Aglaia. For a few years I hoped that she had +been stolen by vagrants, and that she still lived; but I have lost that hope. I +believe that she was drowned.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can understand,” said Miss Chester, “how the doubt must +have made it so hard to bear. And yet you are so cheerful and so ready to make +other people’s burdens light. Good Father Abram!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Miss Rose!” mimicked the miller, smiling. “Who thinks +of others more than you do?” +</p> + +<p> +A whimsical mood seemed to strike Miss Chester. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Father Abram,” she cried, “wouldn’t it be grand if +I should prove to be your daughter? Wouldn’t it be romantic? And +wouldn’t you like to have me for a daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I would,” said the miller, heartily. “If Aglaia had +lived I could wish for nothing better than for her to have grown up to be just +such a little woman as you are. Maybe you are Aglaia,” he continued, +falling in with her playful mood; “can’t you remember when we lived +at the mill?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Chester fell swiftly into serious meditation. Her large eyes were fixed +vaguely upon something in the distance. Father Abram was amused at her quick +return to seriousness. She sat thus for a long time before she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said at length, with a long sigh, “I can’t +remember anything at all about a mill. I don’t think that I ever saw a +flour mill in my life until I saw your funny little church. And if I were your +little girl I would remember it, wouldn’t I? I’m so sorry, Father +Abram.” +</p> + +<p> +“So am I,” said Father Abram, humouring her. “But if you +cannot remember that you are my little girl, Miss Rose, surely you can +recollect being some one else’s. You remember your own parents, of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; I remember them very well—especially my father. He +wasn’t a bit like you, Father Abram. Oh, I was only making believe: Come, +now, you’ve rested long enough. You promised to show me the pool where +you can see the trout playing, this afternoon. I never saw a trout.” +</p> + +<p> +Late one afternoon Father Abram set out for the old mill alone. He often went +to sit and think of the old days when he lived in the cottage across the road. +Time had smoothed away the sharpness of his grief until he no longer found the +memory of those times painful. But whenever Abram Strong sat in the melancholy +September afternoons on the spot where “Dums” used to run in every +day with her yellow curls flying, the smile that Lakelands always saw upon his +face was not there. +</p> + +<p> +The miller made his way slowly up the winding, steep road. The trees crowded so +close to the edge of it that he walked in their shade, with his hat in his +hand. Squirrels ran playfully upon the old rail fence at his right. Quails were +calling to their young broods in the wheat stubble. The low sun sent a torrent +of pale gold up the ravine that opened to the west. Early September!—it +was within a few days only of the anniversary of Aglaia’s disappearance. +</p> + +<p> +The old overshot-wheel, half covered with mountain ivy, caught patches of the +warm sunlight filtering through the trees. The cottage across the road was +still standing, but it would doubtless go down before the next winter’s +mountain blasts. It was overrun with morning glory and wild gourd vines, and +the door hung by one hinge. +</p> + +<p> +Father Abram pushed open the mill door, and entered softly. And then he stood +still, wondering. He heard the sound of some one within, weeping inconsolably. +He looked, and saw Miss Chester sitting in a dim pew, with her head bowed upon +an open letter that her hands held. +</p> + +<p> +Father Abram went to her, and laid one of his strong hands firmly upon hers. +She looked up, breathed his name, and tried to speak further. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, Miss Rose,” said the miller, kindly. “Don’t +try to talk yet. There’s nothing as good for you as a nice, quiet little +cry when you are feeling blue.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed that the old miller, who had known so much sorrow himself, was a +magician in driving it away from others. Miss Chester’s sobs grew easier. +Presently she took her little plain-bordered handkerchief and wiped away a drop +or two that had fallen from her eyes upon Father Abram’s big hand. Then +she looked up and smiled through her tears. Miss Chester could always smile +before her tears had dried, just as Father Abram could smile through his own +grief. In that way the two were very much alike. +</p> + +<p> +The miller asked her no questions; but by and by Miss Chester began to tell +him. +</p> + +<p> +It was the old story that always seems so big and important to the young, and +that brings reminiscent smiles to their elders. Love was the theme, as may be +supposed. There was a young man in Atlanta, full of all goodness and the +graces, who had discovered that Miss Chester also possessed these qualities +above all other people in Atlanta or anywhere else from Greenland to Patagonia. +She showed Father Abram the letter over which she had been weeping. It was a +manly, tender letter, a little superlative and urgent, after the style of love +letters written by young men full of goodness and the graces. He proposed for +Miss Chester’s hand in marriage at once. Life, he said, since her +departure for a three-weeks’ visit, was not to be endured. He begged for +an immediate answer; and if it were favourable he promised to fly, ignoring the +narrow-gauge railroad, at once to Lakelands. +</p> + +<p> +“And now where does the trouble come in?” asked the miller when he +had read the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot marry him,” said Miss Chester. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want to marry him?” asked Father Abram. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I love him,” she answered, “but—” Down went +her head and she sobbed again. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Miss Rose,” said the miller; “you can give me your +confidence. I do not question you, but I think you can trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do trust you,” said the girl. “I will tell you why I must +refuse Ralph. I am nobody; I haven’t even a name; the name I call myself +is a lie. Ralph is a noble man. I love him with all my heart, but I can never +be his.” +</p> + +<p> +“What talk is this?” said Father Abram. “You said that you +remember your parents. Why do you say you have no name? I do not +understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do remember them,” said Miss Chester. “I remember them too +well. My first recollections are of our life somewhere in the far South. We +moved many times to different towns and states. I have picked cotton, and +worked in factories, and have often gone without enough food and clothes. My +mother was sometimes good to me; my father was always cruel, and beat me. I +think they were both idle and unsettled. +</p> + +<p> +“One night when we were living in a little town on a river near Atlanta +they had a great quarrel. It was while they were abusing and taunting each +other that I learned—oh, Father Abram, I learned that I didn’t even +have the right to be—don’t you understand? I had no right even to a +name; I was nobody. +</p> + +<p> +“I ran away that night. I walked to Atlanta and found work. I gave myself +the name of Rose Chester, and have earned my own living ever since. Now you +know why I cannot marry Ralph—and, oh, I can never tell him why.” +</p> + +<p> +Better than any sympathy, more helpful than pity, was Father Abram’s +depreciation of her woes. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, dear, dear! is that all?” he said. “Fie, fie! I thought +something was in the way. If this perfect young man is a man at all he will not +care a pinch of bran for your family tree. Dear Miss Rose, take my word for it, +it is yourself he cares for. Tell him frankly, just as you have told me, and +I’ll warrant that he will laugh at your story, and think all the more of +you for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never tell him,” said Miss Chester, sadly. “And I +shall never marry him nor any one else. I have not the right.” +</p> + +<p> +But they saw a long shadow come bobbing up the sunlit road. And then came a +shorter one bobbing by its side; and presently two strange figures approached +the church. The long shadow was made by Miss Phœbe Summers, the organist, +come to practise. Tommy Teague, aged twelve, was responsible for the shorter +shadow. It was Tommy’s day to pump the organ for Miss Phœbe, and +his bare toes proudly spurned the dust of the road. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Phœbe, in her lilac-spray chintz dress, with her accurate little +curls hanging over each ear, courtesied low to Father Abram, and shook her +curls ceremoniously at Miss Chester. Then she and her assistant climbed the +steep stairway to the organ loft. +</p> + +<p> +In the gathering shadows below, Father Abram and Miss Chester lingered. They +were silent; and it is likely that they were busy with their memories. Miss +Chester sat, leaning her head on her hand, with her eyes fixed far away. Father +Abram stood in the next pew, looking thoughtfully out of the door at the road +and the ruined cottage. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the scene was transformed for him back almost a score of years into +the past. For, as Tommy pumped away, Miss Phœbe struck a low bass note on +the organ and held it to test the volume of air that it contained. The church +ceased to exist, so far as Father Abram was concerned. The deep, booming +vibration that shook the little frame building was no note from an organ, but +the humming of the mill machinery. He felt sure that the old overshot-wheel was +turning; that he was back again, a dusty, merry miller in the old mountain +mill. And now evening was come, and soon would come Aglaia with flying colours, +toddling across the road to take him home to supper. Father Abram’s eyes +were fixed upon the broken door of the cottage. +</p> + +<p> +And then came another wonder. In the gallery overhead the sacks of flour were +stacked in long rows. Perhaps a mouse had been at one of them; anyway the jar +of the deep organ note shook down between the cracks of the gallery floor a +stream of flour, covering Father Abram from head to foot with the white dust. +And then the old miller stepped into the aisle, and waved his arms and began to +sing the miller’s song: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The wheel goes round,<br/> +The grist is ground,<br/> + The dusty miller’s merry.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +—and then the rest of the miracle happened. Miss Chester was leaning +forward from her pew, as pale as the flour itself, her wide-open eyes staring +at Father Abram like one in a waking dream. When he began the song she +stretched out her arms to him; her lips moved; she called to him in dreamy +tones: “Da-da, come take Dums home!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Phœbe released the low key of the organ. But her work had been well +done. The note that she struck had beaten down the doors of a closed memory; +and Father Abram held his lost Aglaia close in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +When you visit Lakelands they will tell you more of this story. They will tell +you how the lines of it were afterward traced, and the history of the +miller’s daughter revealed after the gipsy wanderers had stolen her on +that September day, attracted by her childish beauty. But you should wait until +you sit comfortably on the shaded porch of the Eagle House, and then you can +have the story at your ease. It seems best that our part of it should close +while Miss Phœbe’s deep bass note was yet reverberating softly. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, to my mind, the finest thing of it all happened while Father Abram and +his daughter were walking back to the Eagle House in the long twilight, almost +too glad to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” she said, somewhat timidly and doubtfully, “have +you a great deal of money?” +</p> + +<p> +“A great deal?” said the miller. “Well, that depends. There +is plenty unless you want to buy the moon or something equally +expensive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would it cost very, very much,” asked Aglaia, who had always +counted her dimes so carefully, “to send a telegram to Atlanta?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Father Abram, with a little sigh, “I see. You want +to ask Ralph to come.” +</p> + +<p> +Aglaia looked up at him with a tender smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to ask him to wait,” she said. “I have just found my +father, and I want it to be just we two for a while. I want to tell him he will +have to wait.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII.<br/> +NEW YORK BY CAMP FIRE LIGHT</h2> + +<p> +Away out in the Creek Nation we learned things about New York. +</p> + +<p> +We were on a hunting trip, and were camped one night on the bank of a little +stream. Bud Kingsbury was our skilled hunter and guide, and it was from his +lips that we had explanations of Manhattan and the queer folks that inhabit it. +Bud had once spent a month in the metropolis, and a week or two at other times, +and he was pleased to discourse to us of what he had seen. +</p> + +<p> +Fifty yards away from our camp was pitched the teepee of a wandering family of +Indians that had come up and settled there for the night. An old, old Indian +woman was trying to build a fire under an iron pot hung upon three sticks. +</p> + +<p> +Bud went over to her assistance, and soon had her fire going. When he came back +we complimented him playfully upon his gallantry. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Bud, “don’t mention it. It’s a way I +have. Whenever I see a lady trying to cook things in a pot and having trouble I +always go to the rescue. I done the same thing once in a high-toned house in. +New York City. Heap big society teepee on Fifth Avenue. That Injun lady kind of +recalled it to my mind. Yes, I endeavours to be polite and help the ladies +out.” +</p> + +<p> +The camp demanded the particulars. +</p> + +<p> +“I was manager of the Triangle B Ranch in the Panhandle,” said Bud. +“It was owned at that time by old man Sterling, of New York. He wanted to +sell out, and he wrote for me to come on to New York and explain the ranch to +the syndicate that wanted to buy. So I sends to Fort Worth and has a forty +dollar suit of clothes made, and hits the trail for the big village. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, when I got there, old man Sterling and his outfit certainly laid +themselves out to be agreeable. We had business and pleasure so mixed up that +you couldn’t tell whether it was a treat or a trade half the time. We had +trolley rides, and cigars, and theatre round-ups, and rubber parties.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rubber parties?” said a listener, inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said Bud. “Didn’t you never attend ’em? +You walk around and try to look at the tops of the skyscrapers. Well, we sold +the ranch, and old man Sterling asks me ’round to his house to take grub +on the night before I started back. It wasn’t any high-collared +affair—just me and the old man and his wife and daughter. But they was a +fine-haired outfit all right, and the lilies of the field wasn’t in it. +They made my Fort Worth clothes carpenter look like a dealer in horse blankets +and gee strings. And then the table was all pompous with flowers, and there was +a whole kit of tools laid out beside everybody’s plate. You’d have +thought you was fixed out to burglarize a restaurant before you could get your +grub. But I’d been in New York over a week then, and I was getting on to +stylish ways. I kind of trailed behind and watched the others use the hardware +supplies, and then I tackled the chuck with the same weapons. It ain’t +much trouble to travel with the high-flyers after you find out their gait. I +got along fine. I was feeling cool and agreeable, and pretty soon I was talking +away fluent as you please, all about the ranch and the West, and telling +’em how the Indians eat grasshopper stew and snakes, and you never saw +people so interested. +</p> + +<p> +“But the real joy of that feast was that Miss Sterling. Just a little +trick she was, not bigger than two bits’ worth of chewing plug; but she +had a way about her that seemed to say she was the people, and you believed it. +And yet, she never put on any airs, and she smiled at me the same as if I was a +millionaire while I was telling about a Creek dog feast and listened like it +was news from home. +</p> + +<p> +“By and by, after we had eat oysters and some watery soup and truck that +never was in my repertory, a Methodist preacher brings in a kind of camp stove +arrangement, all silver, on long legs, with a lamp under it. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Sterling lights up and begins to do some cooking right on the +supper table. I wondered why old man Sterling didn’t hire a cook, with +all the money he had. Pretty soon she dished out some cheesy tasting truck that +she said was rabbit, but I swear there had never been a Molly cotton tail in a +mile of it. +</p> + +<p> +“The last thing on the programme was lemonade. It was brought around in +little flat glass bowls and set by your plate. I was pretty thirsty, and I +picked up mine and took a big swig of it. Right there was where the little lady +had made a mistake. She had put in the lemon all right, but she’d forgot +the sugar. The best housekeepers slip up sometimes. I thought maybe Miss +Sterling was just learning to keep house and cook—that rabbit would +surely make you think so—and I says to myself, ‘Little lady, sugar +or no sugar I’ll stand by you,’ and I raises up my bowl again and +drinks the last drop of the lemonade. And then all the balance of ’em +picks up their bowls and does the same. And then I gives Miss Sterling the +laugh proper, just to carry it off like a joke, so she wouldn’t feel bad +about the mistake. +</p> + +<p> +“After we all went into the sitting room she sat down and talked to me +quite awhile. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It was so kind of you, Mr. Kingsbury,’ says she, ‘to +bring my blunder off so nicely. It was so stupid of me to forget the +sugar.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Never you mind,’ says I, ‘some lucky man will throw +his rope over a mighty elegant little housekeeper some day, not far from +here.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘If you mean me, Mr. Kingsbury,’ says she, laughing out +loud, ‘I hope he will be as lenient with my poor housekeeping as you have +been.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Don’t mention it,’ says I. ‘Anything to oblige +the ladies.’” +</p> + +<p> +Bud ceased his reminiscences. And then some one asked him what he considered +the most striking and prominent trait of New Yorkers. +</p> + +<p> +“The most visible and peculiar trait of New York folks,” answered +Bud, “is New York. Most of ’em has New York on the brain. They have +heard of other places, such as Waco, and Paris, and Hot Springs, and London; +but they don’t believe in ’em. They think that town is all Merino. +Now to show you how much they care for their village I’ll tell you about +one of ’em that strayed out as far as the Triangle B while I was working +there. +</p> + +<p> +“This New Yorker come out there looking for a job on the ranch. He said +he was a good horseback rider, and there was pieces of tanbark hanging on his +clothes yet from his riding school. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, for a while they put him to keeping books in the ranch store, for +he was a devil at figures. But he got tired of that, and asked for something +more in the line of activity. The boys on the ranch liked him all right, but he +made us tired shouting New York all the time. Every night he’d tell us +about East River and J. P. Morgan and the Eden Musee and Hetty Green and +Central Park till we used to throw tin plates and branding irons at him. +</p> + +<p> +“One day this chap gets on a pitching pony, and the pony kind of sidled +up his back and went to eating grass while the New Yorker was coming down. +</p> + +<p> +“He come down on his head on a chunk of mesquit wood, and he didn’t +show any designs toward getting up again. We laid him out in a tent, and he +begun to look pretty dead. So Gideon Pease saddles up and burns the wind for +old Doc Sleeper’s residence in Dogtown, thirty miles away. +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor comes over and he investigates the patient. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Boys,’ says he, ‘you might as well go to playing +seven-up for his saddle and clothes, for his head’s fractured and if he +lives ten minutes it will be a remarkable case of longevity.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Of course we didn’t gamble for the poor rooster’s +saddle—that was one of Doc’s jokes. But we stood around feeling +solemn, and all of us forgive him for having talked us to death about New York. +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw anybody about to hand in his checks act more peaceful than +this fellow. His eyes were fixed ’way up in the air, and he was using +rambling words to himself all about sweet music and beautiful streets and +white-robed forms, and he was smiling like dying was a pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“‘He’s about gone now,’ said Doc. ‘Whenever they +begin to think they see heaven it’s all off.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Blamed if that New York man didn’t sit right up when he heard the +Doc say that. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Say,’ says he, kind of disappointed, ‘was that +heaven? Confound it all, I thought it was Broadway. Some of you fellows get my +clothes. I’m going to get up.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll be blamed,” concluded Bud, “if he +wasn’t on the train with a ticket for New York in his pocket four days +afterward!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII.<br/> +THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES</h2> + +<p> +I am so fortunate as to count Shamrock Jolnes, the great New York detective, +among my muster of friends. Jolnes is what is called the “inside +man” of the city detective force. He is an expert in the use of the +typewriter, and it is his duty, whenever there is a “murder +mystery” to be solved, to sit at a desk telephone at headquarters and +take down the messages of “cranks” who ’phone in their +confessions to having committed the crime. +</p> + +<p> +But on certain “off” days when confessions are coming in slowly and +three or four newspapers have run to earth as many different guilty persons, +Jolnes will knock about the town with me, exhibiting, to my great delight and +instruction, his marvellous powers of observation and deduction. +</p> + +<p> +The other day I dropped in at Headquarters and found the great detective gazing +thoughtfully at a string that was tied tightly around his little finger. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Whatsup,” he said, without turning his head. +“I’m glad to notice that you’ve had your house fitted up with +electric lights at last.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you please tell me,” I said, in surprise, “how you knew +that? I am sure that I never mentioned the fact to any one, and the wiring was +a rush order not completed until this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing easier,” said Jolnes, genially. “As you came in I +caught the odour of the cigar you are smoking. I know an expensive cigar; and I +know that not more than three men in New York can afford to smoke cigars and +pay gas bills too at the present time. That was an easy one. But I am working +just now on a little problem of my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why have you that string on your finger?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the problem,” said Jolnes. “My wife tied that +on this morning to remind me of something I was to send up to the house. Sit +down, Whatsup, and excuse me for a few moments.” +</p> + +<p> +The distinguished detective went to a wall telephone, and stood with the +receiver to his ear for probably ten minutes. +</p> + +<p> +“Were you listening to a confession?” I asked, when he had returned +to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” said Jolnes, with a smile, “it might be called +something of the sort. To be frank with you, Whatsup, I’ve cut out the +dope. I’ve been increasing the quantity for so long that morphine +doesn’t have much effect on me any more. I’ve got to have something +more powerful. That telephone I just went to is connected with a room in the +Waldorf where there’s an author’s reading in progress. Now, to get +at the solution of this string.” +</p> + +<p> +After five minutes of silent pondering, Jolnes looked at me, with a smile, and +nodded his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful man!” I exclaimed; “already?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite simple,” he said, holding up his finger. “You +see that knot? That is to prevent my forgetting. It is, therefore, a +forget-me-knot. A forget-me-not is a flower. It was a sack of flour that I was +to send home!” +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful!” I could not help crying out in admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose we go out for a ramble,” suggested Jolnes. +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one case of importance on hand just now. Old man McCarty, +one hundred and four years old, died from eating too many bananas. The evidence +points so strongly to the Mafia that the police have surrounded the Second +Avenue Katzenjammer Gambrinus Club No. 2, and the capture of the assassin is +only the matter of a few hours. The detective force has not yet been called on +for assistance.” +</p> + +<p> +Jolnes and I went out and up the street toward the corner, where we were to +catch a surface car. +</p> + +<p> +Half-way up the block we met Rheingelder, an acquaintance of ours, who held a +City Hall position. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Rheingelder,” said Jolnes, halting. +</p> + +<p> +“Nice breakfast that was you had this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Always on the lookout for the detective’s remarkable feats of deduction, +I saw Jolnes’s eye flash for an instant upon a long yellow splash on the +shirt bosom and a smaller one upon the chin of Rheingelder—both +undoubtedly made by the yolk of an egg. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dot is some of your detectiveness,” said Rheingelder, shaking +all over with a smile. “Vell, I pet you trinks und cigars all round dot +you cannot tell vot I haf eaten for breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done,” said Jolnes. “Sausage, pumpernickel and +coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +Rheingelder admitted the correctness of the surmise and paid the bet. When we +had proceeded on our way I said to Jolnes: +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you looked at the egg spilled on his chin and shirt +front.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” said Jolnes. “That is where I began my deduction. +Rheingelder is a very economical, saving man. Yesterday eggs dropped in the +market to twenty-eight cents per dozen. To-day they are quoted at forty-two. +Rheingelder ate eggs yesterday, and to-day he went back to his usual fare. A +little thing like this isn’t anything, Whatsup; it belongs to the primary +arithmetic class.” +</p> + +<p> +When we boarded the street car we found the seats all +occupied—principally by ladies. Jolnes and I stood on the rear platform. +</p> + +<p> +About the middle of the car there sat an elderly man with a short, gray beard, +who looked to be the typical, well-dressed New Yorker. At successive corners +other ladies climbed aboard, and soon three or four of them were standing over +the man, clinging to straps and glaring meaningly at the man who occupied the +coveted seat. But he resolutely retained his place. +</p> + +<p> +“We New Yorkers,” I remarked to Jolnes, “have about lost our +manners, as far as the exercise of them in public goes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps so,” said Jolnes, lightly; “but the man you +evidently refer to happens to be a very chivalrous and courteous gentleman from +Old Virginia. He is spending a few days in New York with his wife and two +daughters, and he leaves for the South to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know him, then?” I said, in amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw him before we stepped on the car,” declared the +detective, smilingly. +</p> + +<p> +“By the gold tooth of the Witch of Endor!” I cried, “if you +can construe all that from his appearance you are dealing in nothing else than +black art.” +</p> + +<p> +“The habit of observation—nothing more,” said Jolnes. +“If the old gentleman gets off the car before we do, I think I can +demonstrate to you the accuracy of my deduction.” +</p> + +<p> +Three blocks farther along the gentleman rose to leave the car. Jolnes +addressed him at the door: +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, sir, but are you not Colonel Hunter, of Norfolk, +Virginia?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, suh,” was the extremely courteous answer. “My name, suh, +is Ellison—Major Winfield R. Ellison, from Fairfax County, in the same +state. I know a good many people, suh, in Norfolk—the Goodriches, the +Tollivers, and the Crabtrees, suh, but I never had the pleasure of meeting +yo’ friend, Colonel Hunter. I am happy to say, suh, that I am going back +to Virginia to-night, after having spent a week in yo’ city with my wife +and three daughters. I shall be in Norfolk in about ten days, and if you will +give me yo’ name, suh, I will take pleasure in looking up Colonel Hunter +and telling him that you inquired after him, suh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Jolnes; “tell him that Reynolds sent his +regards, if you will be so kind.” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced at the great New York detective and saw that a look of intense +chagrin had come upon his clear-cut features. Failure in the slightest point +always galled Shamrock Jolnes. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you say your <i>three</i> daughters?” he asked of the Virginia +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, suh, my three daughters, all as fine girls as there are in Fairfax +County,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +With that Major Ellison stopped the car and began to descend the step. +</p> + +<p> +Shamrock Jolnes clutched his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, sir,” he begged, in an urbane voice in which I alone +detected the anxiety—“am I not right in believing that one of the +young ladies is an <i>adopted</i> daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are, suh,” admitted the major, from the ground, “but how +the devil you knew it, suh, is mo’ than I can tell.” +</p> + +<p> +“And mo’ than I can tell, too,” I said, as the car went on. +</p> + +<p> +Jolnes was restored to his calm, observant serenity by having wrested victory +from his apparent failure; so after we got off the car he invited me into a +café, promising to reveal the process of his latest wonderful feat. +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place,” he began after we were comfortably seated, +“I knew the gentleman was no New Yorker because he was flushed and uneasy +and restless on account of the ladies that were standing, although he did not +rise and give them his seat. I decided from his appearance that he was a +Southerner rather than a Westerner. +</p> + +<p> +“Next I began to figure out his reason for not relinquishing his seat to +a lady when he evidently felt strongly, but not overpoweringly, impelled to do +so. I very quickly decided upon that. I noticed that one of his eyes had +received a severe jab in one corner, which was red and inflamed, and that all +over his face were tiny round marks about the size of the end of an uncut lead +pencil. Also upon both of his patent leather shoes were a number of deep +imprints shaped like ovals cut off square at one end. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, there is only one district in New York City where a man is bound to +receive scars and wounds and indentations of that sort—and that is along +the sidewalks of Twenty-third Street and a portion of Sixth Avenue south of +there. I knew from the imprints of trampling French heels on his feet and the +marks of countless jabs in the face from umbrellas and parasols carried by +women in the shopping district that he had been in conflict with the amazonian +troops. And as he was a man of intelligent appearance, I knew he would not have +braved such dangers unless he had been dragged thither by his own women folk. +Therefore, when he got on the car his anger at the treatment he had received +was sufficient to make him keep his seat in spite of his traditions of Southern +chivalry.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all very well,” I said, “but why did you insist upon +daughters—and especially two daughters? Why couldn’t a wife alone +have taken him shopping?” +</p> + +<p> +“There had to be daughters,” said Jolnes, calmly. “If he had +only a wife, and she near his own age, he could have bluffed her into going +alone. If he had a young wife she would prefer to go alone. So there you +are.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll admit that,” I said; “but, now, why two +daughters? And how, in the name of all the prophets, did you guess that one was +adopted when he told you he had three?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say guess,” said Jolnes, with a touch of pride in his +air; “there is no such word in the lexicon of ratiocination. In Major +Ellison’s buttonhole there was a carnation and a rosebud backed by a +geranium leaf. No woman ever combined a carnation and a rosebud into a +boutonniere. Close your eyes, Whatsup, and give the logic of your imagination a +chance. Cannot you see the lovely Adele fastening the carnation to the lapel so +that papa may be gay upon the street? And then the romping Edith May dancing up +with sisterly jealousy to add her rosebud to the adornment?” +</p> + +<p> +“And then,” I cried, beginning to feel enthusiasm, “when he +declared that he had three daughters—” +</p> + +<p> +“I could see,” said Jolnes, “one in the background who added +no flower; and I knew that she must be—” +</p> + +<p> +“Adopted!” I broke in. “I give you every credit; but how did +you know he was leaving for the South to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“In his breast pocket,” said the great detective, “something +large and oval made a protuberance. Good liquor is scarce on trains, and it is +a long journey from New York to Fairfax County.” +</p> + +<p> +“Again, I must bow to you,” I said. “And tell me this, so +that my last shred of doubt will be cleared away; why did you decide that he +was from Virginia?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was very faint, I admit,” answered Shamrock Jolnes, “but +no trained observer could have failed to detect the odour of mint in the +car.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX.<br/> +THE LADY HIGHER UP</h2> + +<p> +New York City, they said, was deserted; and that accounted, doubtless, for the +sounds carrying so far in the tranquil summer air. The breeze was +south-by-southwest; the hour was midnight; the theme was a bit of feminine +gossip by wireless mythology. Three hundred and sixty-five feet above the +heated asphalt the tiptoeing symbolic deity on Manhattan pointed her +vacillating arrow straight, for the time, in the direction of her exalted +sister on Liberty Island. The lights of the great Garden were out; the benches +in the Square were filled with sleepers in postures so strange that beside them +the writhing figures in Dore’s illustrations of the Inferno would have +straightened into tailor’s dummies. The statue of Diana on the tower of +the Garden—its constancy shown by its weathercock ways, its innocence by +the coating of gold that it has acquired, its devotion to style by its single, +graceful flying scarf, its candour and artlessness by its habit of ever drawing +the long bow, its metropolitanism by its posture of swift flight to catch a +Harlem train—remained poised with its arrow pointed across the upper bay. +Had that arrow sped truly and horizontally it would have passed fifty feet +above the head of the heroic matron whose duty it is to offer a cast-ironical +welcome to the oppressed of other lands. +</p> + +<p> +Seaward this lady gazed, and the furrows between steamship lines began to cut +steerage rates. The translators, too, have put an extra burden upon her. +“Liberty Lighting the World” (as her creator christened her) would +have had a no more responsible duty, except for the size of it, than that of an +electrician or a Standard Oil magnate. But to “enlighten” the world +(as our learned civic guardians “Englished” it) requires abler +qualities. And so poor Liberty, instead of having a sinecure as a mere +illuminator, must be converted into a Chautauqua schoolma’am, with the +oceans for her field instead of the placid, classic lake. With a fireless torch +and an empty head must she dispel the shadows of the world and teach it its A, +B, C’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there, Mrs. Liberty!” called a clear, rollicking soprano voice +through the still, midnight air. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Miss Diana? Excuse my not turning my head. I’m not as +flighty and whirly-whirly as some. And ’tis so hoarse I am I can hardly +talk on account of the peanut-hulls left on the stairs in me throat by that +last boatload of tourists from Marietta, Ohio. ’Tis after being a fine +evening, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t mind my asking,” came the bell-like tones of +the golden statue, “I’d like to know where you got that City Hall +brogue. I didn’t know that Liberty was necessarily Irish.” +</p> + +<p> +“If ye’d studied the history of art in its foreign complications +ye’d not need to ask,” replied the offshore statue. “If ye +wasn’t so light-headed and giddy ye’d know that I was made by a +Dago and presented to the American people on behalf of the French Government +for the purpose of welcomin’ Irish immigrants into the Dutch city of New +York. ’Tis that I’ve been doing night and day since I was erected. +Ye must know, Miss Diana, that ’tis with statues the same as with +people—’tis not their makers nor the purposes for which they were +created that influence the operations of their tongues at all—it’s +the associations with which they become associated, I’m telling +ye.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re dead right,” agreed Diana. “I notice it on +myself. If any of the old guys from Olympus were to come along and hand me any +hot air in the ancient Greek I couldn’t tell it from a conversation +between a Coney Island car conductor and a five-cent fare.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m right glad ye’ve made up your mind to be sociable, Miss +Diana,” said Mrs. Liberty. “’Tis a lonesome life I have down +here. Is there anything doin’ up in the city, Miss Diana, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, la, la, la!—no,” said Diana. “Notice that +‘la, la, la,’ Aunt Liberty? Got that from ‘Paris by +Night’ on the roof garden under me. You’ll hear that ‘la, la, +la’ at the Café McCann now, along with ‘garsong.’ The +bohemian crowd there have become tired of ‘garsong’ since +O’Rafferty, the head waiter, punched three of them for calling him it. +Oh, no; the town’s strickly on the bum these nights. Everybody’s +away. Saw a downtown merchant on a roof garden this evening with his +stenographer. Show was so dull he went to sleep. A waiter biting on a dime tip +to see if it was good half woke him up. He looks around and sees his little +pothooks perpetrator. ‘H’m!’ says he, ‘will you take a +letter, Miss De St. Montmorency?’ ‘Sure, in a minute,’ says +she, ‘if you’ll make it an X.’ +</p> + +<p> +“That was the best thing happened on the roof. So you see how dull it is. +La, la, la!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis fine ye have it up there in society, Miss Diana. Ye have the +cat show and the horse show and the military tournaments where the privates +look grand as generals and the generals try to look grand as floor-walkers. And +ye have the Sportsmen’s Show, where the girl that measures 36, 19, 45 +cooks breakfast food in a birch-bark wigwam on the banks of the Grand Canal of +Venice conducted by one of the Vanderbilts, Bernard McFadden, and the Reverends +Dowie and Duss. And ye have the French ball, where the original Cohens and the +Robert Emmet-Sangerbund Society dance the Highland fling one with another. And +ye have the grand O’Ryan ball, which is the most beautiful pageant in the +world, where the French students vie with the Tyrolean warblers in doin’ +the cake walk. Ye have the best job for a statue in the whole town, Miss Diana. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis weary work,” sighed the island statue, +“disseminatin’ the science of liberty in New York Bay. Sometimes +when I take a peep down at Ellis Island and see the gang of immigrants +I’m supposed to light up, ’tis tempted I am to blow out the gas and +let the coroner write out their naturalization papers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, it’s a shame, ain’t it, to give you the worst end of +it?” came the sympathetic antiphony of the steeplechase goddess. +“It must be awfully lonesome down there with so much water around you. I +don’t see how you ever keep your hair in curl. And that Mother Hubbard +you are wearing went out ten years ago. I think those sculptor guys ought to be +held for damages for putting iron or marble clothes on a lady. That’s +where Mr. St. Gaudens was wise. I’m always a little ahead of the styles; +but they’re coming my way pretty fast. Excuse my back a moment—I +caught a puff of wind from the north—shouldn’t wonder if things had +loosened up in Esopus. There, now! it’s in the West—I should think +that gold plank would have calmed the air out in that direction. What were you +saying, Mrs. Liberty?” +</p> + +<p> +“A fine chat I’ve had with ye, Miss Diana, ma’am, but I see +one of them European steamers a-sailin’ up the Narrows, and I must be +attendin’ to me duties. ’Tis me job to extend aloft the torch of +Liberty to welcome all them that survive the kicks that the steerage stewards +give ’em while landin.’ Sure ’tis a great country ye can come +to for $8.50, and the doctor waitin’ to send ye back home free if he sees +yer eyes red from cryin’ for it.” +</p> + +<p> +The golden statue veered in the changing breeze, menacing many points on the +horizon with its aureate arrow. +</p> + +<p> +“So long, Aunt Liberty,” sweetly called Diana of the Tower. +“Some night, when the wind’s right. I’ll call you up again. +But—say! you haven’t got such a fierce kick coming about your job. +I’ve kept a pretty good watch on the island of Manhattan since I’ve +been up here. That’s a pretty sick-looking bunch of liberty chasers they +dump down at your end of it; but they don’t all stay that way. Every +little while up here I see guys signing checks and voting the right ticket, and +encouraging the arts and taking a bath every morning, that was shoved ashore by +a dock labourer born in the United States who never earned over forty dollars a +month. Don’t run down your job, Aunt Liberty; you’re all right, all +right.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX.<br/> +THE GREATER CONEY</h2> + +<p> +“Next Sunday,” said Dennis Carnahan, “I’ll be after +going down to see the new Coney Island that’s risen like a phoenix bird +from the ashes of the old resort. I’m going with Norah Flynn, and +we’ll fall victims to all the dry goods deceptions, from the red-flannel +eruption of Mount Vesuvius to the pink silk ribbons on the race-suicide +problems in the incubator kiosk. +</p> + +<p> +“Was I there before? I was. I was there last Tuesday. Did I see the +sights? I did not. +</p> + +<p> +“Last Monday I amalgamated myself with the Bricklayers’ Union, and +in accordance with the rules I was ordered to quit work the same day on account +of a sympathy strike with the Lady Salmon Canners’ Lodge No.2, of Tacoma, +Washington. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas disturbed I was in mind and proclivities by losing me job, +bein’ already harassed in me soul on account of havin’ quarrelled +with Norah Flynn a week before by reason of hard words spoken at the Dairymen +and Street-Sprinkler Drivers’ semi-annual ball, caused by jealousy and +prickly heat and that divil, Andy Coghlin. +</p> + +<p> +“So, I says, it will be Coney for Tuesday; and if the chutes and the +short change and the green-corn silk between the teeth don’t create +diversions and get me feeling better, then I don’t know at all. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye will have heard that Coney has received moral reconstruction. The old +Bowery, where they used to take your tintype by force and give ye knockout +drops before having your palm read, is now called the Wall Street of the +island. The wienerwurst stands are required by law to keep a news ticker in +’em; and the doughnuts are examined every four years by a retired +steamboat inspector. The nigger man’s head that was used by the old +patrons to throw baseballs at is now illegal; and, by order of the Police +Commissioner the image of a man drivin’ an automobile has been +substituted. I hear that the old immoral amusements have been suppressed. +People who used to go down from New York to sit in the sand and dabble in the +surf now give up their quarters to squeeze through turnstiles and see +imitations of city fires and floods painted on canvas. The reprehensible and +degradin’ resorts that disgraced old Coney are said to be wiped out. The +wipin’-out process consists of raisin’ the price from 10 cents to +25 cents, and hirin’ a blonde named Maudie to sell tickets instead of +Micky, the Bowery Bite. That’s what they say—I don’t know. +</p> + +<p> +“But to Coney I goes a-Tuesday. I gets off the ‘L’ and starts +for the glitterin’ show. ’Twas a fine sight. The Babylonian towers +and the Hindoo roof gardens was blazin’ with thousands of electric +lights, and the streets was thick with people. ’Tis a true thing they say +that Coney levels all rank. I see millionaires eatin’ popcorn and +trampin’ along with the crowd; and I see eight-dollar-a-week +clothin’-store clerks in red automobiles fightin’ one another for +who’d squeeze the horn when they come to a corner. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I made a mistake,’ I says to myself. ’Twas not Coney +I needed. When a man’s sad ’tis not scenes of hilarity he wants. +’Twould be far better for him to meditate in a graveyard or to attend +services at the Paradise Roof Gardens. ’Tis no consolation when a +man’s lost his sweetheart to order hot corn and have the waiter bring him +the powdered sugar cruet instead of salt and then conceal himself, or to have +Zozookum, the gipsy palmist, tell him that he has three children and to look +out for another serious calamity; price twenty-five cents. +</p> + +<p> +“I walked far away down on the beach, to the ruins of an old pavilion +near one corner of this new private park, Dreamland. A year ago that old +pavilion was standin’ up straight and the old-style waiters was +slammin’ a week’s supply of clam chowder down in front of you for a +nickel and callin’ you ‘cully’ friendly, and vice was +rampant, and you got back to New York with enough change to take a car at the +bridge. Now they tell me that they serve Welsh rabbits on Surf Avenue, and you +get the right change back in the movin’-picture joints. +</p> + +<p> +“I sat down at one side of the old pavilion and looked at the surf +spreadin’ itself on the beach, and thought about the time me and Norah +Flynn sat on that spot last summer. ’Twas before reform struck the +island; and we was happy. We had tintypes and chowder in the ribald dives, and +the Egyptian Sorceress of the Nile told Norah out of her hand, while I was +waitin’ in the door, that ’twould be the luck of her to marry a +red-headed gossoon with two crooked legs, and I was overrunnin’ with joy +on account of the allusion. And ’twas there that Norah Flynn put her two +hands in mine a year before and we talked of flats and the things she could +cook and the love business that goes with such episodes. And that was Coney as +we loved it, and as the hand of Satan was upon it, friendly and noisy and your +money’s worth, with no fence around the ocean and not too many electric +lights to show the sleeve of a black serge coat against a white shirtwaist. +</p> + +<p> +“I sat with my back to the parks where they had the moon and the dreams +and the steeples corralled, and longed for the old Coney. There wasn’t +many people on the beach. Lots of them was feedin’ pennies into the slot +machines to see the ‘Interrupted Courtship’ in the movin’ +pictures; and a good many was takin’ the sea air in the Canals of Venice +and some was breathin’ the smoke of the sea battle by actual warships in +a tank filled with real water. A few was down on the sands enjoyin’ the +moonlight and the water. And the heart of me was heavy for the new morals of +the old island, while the bands behind me played and the sea pounded on the +bass drum in front. +</p> + +<p> +“And directly I got up and walked along the old pavilion, and there on +the other side of, half in the dark, was a slip of a girl sittin’ on the +tumble-down timbers, and unless I’m a liar she was cryin’ by +herself there, all alone. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Is it trouble you are in, now, Miss,’ says I; ‘and +what’s to be done about it?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Tis none of your business at all, Denny Carnahan,’ +says she, sittin’ up straight. And it was the voice of no other than +Norah Flynn. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Then it’s not,’ says I, ‘and we’re after +having a pleasant evening, Miss Flynn. Have ye seen the sights of this new +Coney Island, then? I presume ye have come here for that purpose,’ says +I. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I have,’ says she. ‘Me mother and Uncle Tim they are +waiting beyond. ’Tis an elegant evening I’ve had. I’ve seen +all the attractions that be.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Right ye are,’ says I to Norah; and I don’t know when +I’ve been that amused. After disportin’ me-self among the most +laughable moral improvements of the revised shell games I took meself to the +shore for the benefit of the cool air. ‘And did ye observe the Durbar, +Miss Flynn?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I did,’ says she, reflectin’; ‘but ’tis +not safe, I’m thinkin’, to ride down them slantin’ things +into the water.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘How did ye fancy the shoot the chutes?’ I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“‘True, then, I’m afraid of guns,’ says Norah. +‘They make such noise in my ears. But Uncle Tim, he shot them, he did, +and won cigars. ’Tis a fine time we had this day, Mr. Carnahan.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’m glad you’ve enjoyed yerself,’ I says. +‘I suppose you’ve had a roarin’ fine time seein’ the +sights. And how did the incubators and the helter-skelter and the midgets suit +the taste of ye?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I—I wasn’t hungry,’ says Norah, faint. +‘But mother ate a quantity of all of ’em. I’m that pleased +with the fine things in the new Coney Island,’ says she, ‘that +it’s the happiest day I’ve seen in a long time, at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Did you see Venice?’ says I. +</p> + +<p> +“‘We did,’ says she. ‘She was a beauty. She was all +dressed in red, she was, with—’ +</p> + +<p> +“I listened no more to Norah Flynn. I stepped up and I gathered her in my +arms. +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Tis a story-teller ye are, Norah Flynn’, says I. +‘Ye’ve seen no more of the greater Coney Island than I have meself. +Come, now, tell the truth—ye came to sit by the old pavilion by the waves +where you sat last summer and made Dennis Carnahan a happy man. Speak up, and +tell the truth.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Norah stuck her nose against me vest. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I despise it, Denny,’ she says, half cryin’. +‘Mother and Uncle Tim went to see the shows, but I came down here to +think of you. I couldn’t bear the lights and the crowd. Are you +forgivin’ me, Denny, for the words we had?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Twas me fault,’ says I. ‘I came here for the +same reason meself. Look at the lights, Norah,’ I says, turning my back +to the sea—‘ain’t they pretty?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘They are,’ says Norah, with her eyes shinin’; +‘and do ye hear the bands playin’? Oh, Denny, I think I’d +like to see it all.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The old Coney is gone, darlin’,’ I says to her. +‘Everything moves. When a man’s glad it’s not scenes of +sadness he wants. ’Tis a greater Coney we have here, but we +couldn’t see it till we got in the humour for it. Next Sunday, Norah +darlin’, we’ll see the new place from end to end.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>XXI.<br/> +LAW AND ORDER</h2> + +<p> +I found myself in Texas recently, revisiting old places and vistas. At a sheep +ranch where I had sojourned many years ago, I stopped for a week. And, as all +visitors do, I heartily plunged into the business at hand, which happened to be +that of dipping the sheep. +</p> + +<p> +Now, this process is so different from ordinary human baptism that it deserves +a word of itself. A vast iron cauldron with half the fires of Avernus beneath +it is partly filled with water that soon boils furiously. Into that is cast +concentrated lye, lime, and sulphur, which is allowed to stew and fume until +the witches’ broth is strong enough to scorch the third arm of Palladino +herself. +</p> + +<p> +Then this concentrated brew is mixed in a long, deep vat with cubic gallons of +hot water, and the sheep are caught by their hind legs and flung into the +compound. After being thoroughly ducked by means of a forked pole in the hands +of a gentleman detailed for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an +incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of their constitutions may +decree. If you ever caught an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs +and felt the 750 volts of kicking that he can send though your arm seventeen +times before you can hurl him into the vat, you will, of course, hope that he +may die instead of dry. +</p> + +<p> +But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched ourselves +on the bank of the nearby <i>charco</i> after the dipping, glad for the welcome +inanition and pure contact with the earth after our muscle-racking labours. The +flock was a small one, and we finished at three in the afternoon; so Bud +brought from the <i>morral</i> on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a +big hunk of bread and some side bacon. Mr. Mills, the ranch owner and my old +friend, rode away to the ranch with his force of Mexican <i>trabajadores</i>. +</p> + +<p> +While the bacon was frizzling nicely, there was the sound of horses’ +hoofs behind us. Bud’s six-shooter lay in its scabbard ten feet away from +his hand. He paid not the slightest heed to the approaching horseman. This +attitude of a Texas ranchman was so different from the old-time custom that I +marvelled. Instinctively I turned to inspect the possible foe that menaced us +in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed in black, who might have been a lawyer or +a parson or an undertaker, trotting peaceably along the road by the +<i>arroyo</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled sarcastically and sorrowfully. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been away too long,” said he. “You don’t +need to look around any more when anybody gallops up behind you in this state, +unless something hits you in the back; and even then it’s liable to be +only a bunch of tracts or a petition to sign against the trusts. I never looked +at that <i>hombre</i> that rode by; but I’ll bet a quart of sheep dip +that he’s some double-dyed son of a popgun out rounding up prohibition +votes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Times have changed, Bud,” said I, oracularly. “Law and order +is the rule now in the South and the Southwest.” +</p> + +<p> +I caught a cold gleam from Bud’s pale blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that I—” I began, hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you don’t,” said Bud warmly. “You know +better. You’ve lived here before. Law and order, you say? Twenty years +ago we had ’em here. We only had two or three laws, such as against +murder before witnesses, and being caught stealing horses, and voting the +Republican ticket. But how is it now? All we get is orders; and the laws go out +of the state. Them legislators set up there at Austin and don’t do +nothing but make laws against kerosene oil and schoolbooks being brought into +the state. I reckon they was afraid some man would go home some evening after +work and light up and get an education and go to work and make laws to repeal +aforesaid laws. Me, I’m for the old days when law and order meant what +they said. A law was a law, and a order was a order.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going on,” continued Bud, “while this coffee is +boiling, to describe to you a case of genuine law and order that I knew of once +in the times when cases was decided in the chambers of a six-shooter instead of +a supreme court. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve heard of old Ben Kirkman, the cattle king? His ranch run +from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. In them days, as you know, there was cattle +barons and cattle kings. The difference was this: when a cattleman went to San +Antone and bought beer for the newspaper reporters and only give them the +number of cattle he actually owned, they wrote him up for a baron. When he +bought ’em champagne wine and added in the amount of cattle he had stole, +they called him a king. +</p> + +<p> +“Luke Summers was one of his range bosses. And down to the king’s +ranch comes one day a bunch of these Oriental people from New York or Kansas +City or thereabouts. Luke was detailed with a squad to ride about with +’em, and see that the rattlesnakes got fair warning when they was coming, +and drive the deer out of their way. Among the bunch was a black-eyed girl that +wore a number two shoe. That’s all I noticed about her. But Luke must +have seen more, for he married her one day before the <i>caballard</i> started +back, and went over on Canada Verde and set up a ranch of his own. I’m +skipping over the sentimental stuff on purpose, because I never saw or wanted +to see any of it. And Luke takes me along with him because we was old friends +and I handled cattle to suit him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m skipping over much what followed, because I never saw or +wanted to see any of it—but three years afterward there was a boy kid +stumbling and blubbering around the galleries and floors of Luke’s ranch. +I never had no use for kids; but it seems they did. And I’m skipping over +much what followed until one day out to the ranch drives in hacks and +buckboards a lot of Mrs. Summers’s friends from the East—a sister +or so and two or three men. One looked like an uncle to somebody; and one +looked like nothing; and the other one had on corkscrew pants and spoke in a +tone of voice. I never liked a man who spoke in a tone of voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m skipping over much what followed; but one afternoon when I +rides up to the ranch house to get some orders about a drove of beeves that was +to be shipped, I hears something like a popgun go off. I waits at the hitching +rack, not wishing to intrude on private affairs. In a little while Luke comes +out and gives some orders to some of his Mexican hands, and they go and hitch +up sundry and divers vehicles; and mighty soon out comes one of the sisters or +so and some of the two or three men. But two of the two or three men carries +between ’em the corkscrew man who spoke in a tone of voice, and lays him +flat down in one of the wagons. And they all might have been seen wending their +way away. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Bud,’ says Luke to me, ‘I want you to fix up a little +and go up to San Antone with me.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Let me get on my Mexican spurs,’ says I, ‘and +I’m your company.’ +</p> + +<p> +“One of the sisters or so seems to have stayed at the ranch with Mrs. +Summers and the kid. We rides to Encinal and catches the International, and +hits San Antone in the morning. After breakfast Luke steers me straight to the +office of a lawyer. They go in a room and talk and then come out. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, there won’t be any trouble, Mr. Summers,’ says +the lawyer. ‘I’ll acquaint Judge Simmons with the facts to-day; and +the matter will be put through as promptly as possible. Law and order reigns in +this state as swift and sure as any in the country.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’ll wait for the decree if it won’t take over half +an hour,’ says Luke. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Tut, tut,’ says the lawyer man. ‘Law must take its +course. Come back day after to-morrow at half-past nine.’ +</p> + +<p> +“At that time me and Luke shows up, and the lawyer hands him a folded +document. And Luke writes him out a check. +</p> + +<p> +“On the sidewalk Luke holds up the paper to me and puts a finger the size +of a kitchen door latch on it and says: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Decree of ab-so-lute divorce with cus-to-dy of the child.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Skipping over much what has happened of which I know +nothing,’ says I, ‘it looks to me like a split. Couldn’t the +lawyer man have made it a strike for you?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Bud,’ says he, in a pained style, ‘that child is the +one thing I have to live for. <i>She</i> may go; but the boy is +mine!—think of it—I have cus-to-dy of the child.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘All right,’ says I. ‘If it’s the law, +let’s abide by it. But I think,’ says I, ‘that Judge Simmons +might have used exemplary clemency, or whatever is the legal term, in our +case.’ +</p> + +<p> +“You see, I wasn’t inveigled much into the desirableness of having +infants around a ranch, except the kind that feed themselves and sell for so +much on the hoof when they grow up. But Luke was struck with that sort of +parental foolishness that I never could understand. All the way riding from the +station back to the ranch, he kept pulling that decree out of his pocket and +laying his finger on the back of it and reading off to me the sum and substance +of it. ‘Cus-to-dy of the child, Bud,’ says he. ‘Don’t +forget it—cus-to-dy of the child.’ +</p> + +<p> +“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, +<i>nolle prossed</i>, and remanded for trial. Mrs. Summers and the kid was +gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone +she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and +the youngster. +</p> + +<p> +“Luke takes out his decree once more and reads off its emoluments. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It ain’t possible, Bud,’ says he, ‘for this to +be. It’s contrary to law and order. It’s wrote as plain as day +here—“Cus-to-dy of the child.”’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘There is what you might call a human leaning,’ says I, +‘toward smashing ’em both—not to mention the child.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Judge Simmons,’ goes on Luke, ‘is a incorporated +officer of the law. She can’t take the boy away. He belongs to me by +statutes passed and approved by the state of Texas.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And he’s removed from the jurisdiction of mundane +mandamuses,’ says I, ‘by the unearthly statutes of female +partiality. Let us praise the Lord and be thankful for whatever small +mercies—’ I begins; but I see Luke don’t listen to me. Tired +as he was, he calls for a fresh horse and starts back again for the station. +</p> + +<p> +“He come back two weeks afterward, not saying much. +</p> + +<p> +“‘We can’t get the trail,’ says he; ‘but +we’ve done all the telegraphing that the wires’ll stand, and +we’ve got these city rangers they call detectives on the lookout. In the +meantime, Bud,’ says he, ‘we’ll round up them cows on Brush +Creek, and wait for the law to take its course.’” +</p> + +<p> +“And after that we never alluded to allusions, as you might say. +</p> + +<p> +“Skipping over much what happened in the next twelve years, Luke was made +sheriff of Mojada County. He made me his office deputy. Now, don’t get in +your mind no wrong apparitions of a office deputy doing sums in a book or +mashing letters in a cider press. In them days his job was to watch the back +windows so nobody didn’t plug the sheriff in the rear while he was adding +up mileage at his desk in front. And in them days I had qualifications for the +job. And there was law and order in Mojada County, and schoolbooks, and all the +whiskey you wanted, and the Government built its own battleships instead of +collecting nickels from the school children to do it with. And, as I say, there +was law and order instead of enactments and restrictions such as disfigure our +umpire state to-day. We had our office at Bildad, the county seat, from which +we emerged forth on necessary occasions to soothe whatever fracases and unrest +that might occur in our jurisdiction. +</p> + +<p> +“Skipping over much what happened while me and Luke was sheriff, I want +to give you an idea of how the law was respected in them days. Luke was what +you would call one of the most conscious men in the world. He never knew much +book law, but he had the inner emoluments of justice and mercy inculcated into +his system. If a respectable citizen shot a Mexican or held up a train and +cleaned out the safe in the express car, and Luke ever got hold of him, +he’d give the guilty party such a reprimand and a cussin’ out that +he’d probable never do it again. But once let somebody steal a horse +(unless it was a Spanish pony), or cut a wire fence, or otherwise impair the +peace and indignity of Mojada County, Luke and me would be on ’em with +habeas corpuses and smokeless powder and all the modern inventions of equity +and etiquette. +</p> + +<p> +“We certainly had our county on a basis of lawfulness. I’ve known +persons of Eastern classification with little spotted caps and buttoned-up +shoes to get off the train at Bildad and eat sandwiches at the railroad station +without being shot at or even roped and drug about by the citizens of the town. +</p> + +<p> +“Luke had his own ideas of legality and justice. He was kind of training +me to succeed him when he went out of office. He was always looking ahead to +the time when he’d quit sheriffing. What he wanted to do was to build a +yellow house with lattice-work under the porch and have hens scratching in the +yard. The one main thing in his mind seemed to be the yard. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Bud,’ he says to me, ‘by instinct and sentiment +I’m a contractor. I want to be a contractor. That’s what I’ll +be when I get out of office.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘What kind of a contractor?’ says I. ‘It sounds like a +kind of a business to me. You ain’t going to haul cement or establish +branches or work on a railroad, are you?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘You don’t understand,’ says Luke. ‘I’m +tired of space and horizons and territory and distances and things like that. +What I want is reasonable contraction. I want a yard with a fence around it +that you can go out and set on after supper and listen to +whip-poor-wills,’ says Luke. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the kind of a man he was. He was home-like, although +he’d had bad luck in such investments. But he never talked about them +times on the ranch. It seemed like he’d forgotten about it. I wondered +how, with his ideas of yards and chickens and notions of lattice-work, +he’d seemed to have got out of his mind that kid of his that had been +taken away from him, unlawful, in spite of his decree of court. But he +wasn’t a man you could ask about such things as he didn’t refer to +in his own conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon he’d put all his emotions and ideas into being sheriff. +I’ve read in books about men that was disappointed in these poetic and +fine-haired and high-collared affairs with ladies renouncing truck of that kind +and wrapping themselves up into some occupation like painting pictures, or +herding sheep, or science, or teaching school—something to make ’em +forget. Well, I guess that was the way with Luke. But, as he couldn’t +paint pictures, he took it out in rounding up horse thieves and in making +Mojada County a safe place to sleep in if you was well armed and not afraid of +requisitions or tarantulas. +</p> + +<p> +“One day there passes through Bildad a bunch of these money investors +from the East, and they stopped off there, Bildad being the dinner station on +the I. & G. N. They was just coming back from Mexico looking after mines +and such. There was five of ’em—four solid parties, with gold watch +chains, that would grade up over two hundred pounds on the hoof, and one kid +about seventeen or eighteen. +</p> + +<p> +“This youngster had on one of them cowboy suits such as tenderfoots bring +West with ’em; and you could see he was aching to wing a couple of +Indians or bag a grizzly or two with the little pearl-handled gun he had +buckled around his waist. +</p> + +<p> +“I walked down to the depot to keep an eye on the outfit and see that +they didn’t locate any land or scare the cow ponies hitched in front of +Murchison’s store or act otherwise unseemly. Luke was away after a gang +of cattle thieves down on the Frio, and I always looked after the law and order +when he wasn’t there. +</p> + +<p> +“After dinner this boy comes out of the dining-room while the train was +waiting, and prances up and down the platform ready to shoot all antelope, +lions, or private citizens that might endeavour to molest or come too near him. +He was a good-looking kid; only he was like all them tenderfoots—he +didn’t know a law-and-order town when he saw it. +</p> + +<p> +“By and by along comes Pedro Johnson, the proprietor of the Crystal +Palace <i>chili-con-carne</i> stand in Bildad. Pedro was a man who liked to +amuse himself; so he kind of herd rides this youngster, laughing at him, +tickled to death. I was too far away to hear, but the kid seems to mention some +remarks to Pedro, and Pedro goes up and slaps him about nine feet away, and +laughs harder than ever. And then the boy gets up quicker than he fell and +jerks out his little pearl-handle, and—bing! bing! bing! Pedro gets it +three times in special and treasured portions of his carcass. I saw the dust +fly off his clothes every time the bullets hit. Sometimes them little +thirty-twos cause worry at close range. +</p> + +<p> +“The engine bell was ringing, and the train starting off slow. I goes up +to the kid and places him under arrest, and takes away his gun. But the first +thing I knew that <i>caballard</i> of capitalists makes a break for the train. +One of ’em hesitates in front of me for a second, and kind of smiles and +shoves his hand up against my chin, and I sort of laid down on the platform and +took a nap. I never was afraid of guns; but I don’t want any person +except a barber to take liberties like that with my face again. When I woke up, +the whole outfit—train, boy, and all—was gone. I asked about Pedro, +and they told me the doctor said he would recover provided his wounds +didn’t turn out to be fatal. +</p> + +<p> +“When Luke got back three days later, and I told him about it, he was mad +all over. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Why’n’t you telegraph to San Antone,’ he asks, +‘and have the bunch arrested there?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, well,’ says I, ‘I always did admire telegraphy; +but astronomy was what I had took up just then.’ That capitalist sure +knew how to gesticulate with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Luke got madder and madder. He investigates and finds in the depot a +card one of the men had dropped that gives the address of some <i>hombre</i> +called Scudder in New York City. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Bud,’ says Luke, ‘I’m going after that bunch. +I’m going there and get the man or boy, as you say he was, and bring him +back. I’m sheriff of Mojada County, and I shall keep law and order in its +precincts while I’m able to draw a gun. And I want you to go with me. No +Eastern Yankee can shoot up a respectable and well-known citizen of Bildad, +’specially with a thirty-two calibre, and escape the law. Pedro +Johnson,’ says Luke, ‘is one of our most prominent citizens and +business men. I’ll appoint Sam Bell acting sheriff with penitentiary +powers while I’m away, and you and me will take the six forty-five +northbound to-morrow evening and follow up this trail.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’m your company,’ says I. ‘I never see this +New York, but I’d like to. But, Luke,’ says I, ‘don’t +you have to have a dispensation or a habeas corpus or something from the state, +when you reach out that far for rich men and malefactors?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Did I have a requisition,’ says Luke, ‘when I went +over into the Brazos bottoms and brought back Bill Grimes and two more for +holding up the International? Did me and you have a search warrant or a posse +comitatus when we rounded up them six Mexican cow thieves down in Hidalgo? +It’s my business to keep order in Mojada County.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And it’s my business as office deputy,’ says I, +‘to see that business is carried on according to law. Between us both we +ought to keep things pretty well cleaned up.’ +</p> + +<p> +“So, the next day, Luke packs a blanket and some collars and his mileage +book in a haversack, and him and me hits the breeze for New York. It was a +powerful long ride. The seats in the cars was too short for six-footers like us +to sleep comfortable on; and the conductor had to keep us from getting off at +every town that had five-story houses in it. But we got there finally; and we +seemed to see right away that he was right about it. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Luke,’ says I, ‘as office deputy and from a law +standpoint, it don’t look to me like this place is properly and legally +in the jurisdiction of Mojada County, Texas.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘From the standpoint of order,’ says he, ‘it’s +amenable to answer for its sins to the properly appointed authorities from +Bildad to Jerusalem.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Amen,’ says I. ‘But let’s turn our trick +sudden, and ride. I don’t like the looks of this place.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Think of Pedro Johnson,’ says Luke, ‘a friend of mine +and yours shot down by one of these gilded abolitionists at his very +door!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘It was at the door of the freight depot,’ says I. +‘But the law will not be balked at a quibble like that.’ +</p> + +<p> +“We put up at one of them big hotels on Broadway. The next morning I goes +down about two miles of stairsteps to the bottom and hunts for Luke. It +ain’t no use. It looks like San Jacinto day in San Antone. There’s +a thousand folks milling around in a kind of a roofed-over plaza with marble +pavements and trees growing right out of ’em, and I see no more chance of +finding Luke than if we was hunting each other in the big pear flat down below +Old Fort Ewell. But soon Luke and me runs together in one of the turns of them +marble alleys. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It ain’t no use, Bud,’ says he. ‘I can’t +find no place to eat at. I’ve been looking for restaurant signs and +smelling for ham all over the camp. But I’m used to going hungry when I +have to. Now,’ says he, ‘I’m going out and get a hack and +ride down to the address on this Scudder card. You stay here and try to hustle +some grub. But I doubt if you’ll find it. I wish we’d brought along +some cornmeal and bacon and beans. I’ll be back when I see this Scudder, +if the trail ain’t wiped out.’ +</p> + +<p> +“So I starts foraging for breakfast. For the honour of old Mojada County +I didn’t want to seem green to them abolitionists, so every time I turned +a corner in them marble halls I went up to the first desk or counter I see and +looks around for grub. If I didn’t see what I wanted I asked for +something else. In about half an hour I had a dozen cigars, five story +magazines, and seven or eight railroad time-tables in my pockets, and never a +smell of coffee or bacon to point out the trail. +</p> + +<p> +“Once a lady sitting at a table and playing a game kind of like pushpin +told me to go into a closet that she called Number 3. I went in and shut the +door, and the blamed thing lit itself up. I set down on a stool before a shelf +and waited. Thinks I, ‘This is a private dining-room.’ But no +waiter never came. When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes out again. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Did you get what you wanted?’ says she. +</p> + +<p> +“‘No, ma’am,’ says I. ‘Not a bite.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Then there’s no charge,’ says she. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thanky, ma’am,’ says I, and I takes up the trail +again. +</p> + +<p> +“By and by I thinks I’ll shed etiquette; and I picks up one of them +boys with blue clothes and yellow buttons in front, and he leads me to what he +calls the caffay breakfast room. And the first thing I lays my eyes on when I +go in is that boy that had shot Pedro Johnson. He was setting all alone at a +little table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid he’d break +it. +</p> + +<p> +“I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and +makes a move like he was going to get up. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Keep still, son,’ says I. ‘You’re apprehended, +arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go on and hammer that egg +some more if it’s the inside of it you want. Now, what did you shoot Mr. +Johnson, of Bildad, for?’ +</p> + +<p> +“And may I ask who you are?’ says he. +</p> + +<p> +“‘You may,’ says I. ‘Go ahead.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I suppose you’re on,’ says this kid, without batting +his eyes. ‘But what are you eating? Here, waiter!’ he calls out, +raising his finger. ‘Take this gentleman’s order. +</p> + +<p> +“‘A beefsteak,’ says I, ‘and some fried eggs and a can +of peaches and a quart of coffee will about suffice.’ +</p> + +<p> +“We talk awhile about the sundries of life and then he says: +</p> + +<p> +“‘What are you going to do about that shooting? I had a right to +shoot that man,’ says he. ‘He called me names that I couldn’t +overlook, and then he struck me. He carried a gun, too. What else could I +do?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘We’ll have to take you back to Texas,’ says I. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’d like to go back,’ says the boy, with a kind of a +grin—‘if it wasn’t on an occasion of this kind. It’s +the life I like. I’ve always wanted to ride and shoot and live in the +open air ever since I can remember.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Who was this gang of stout parties you took this trip +with?’ I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My stepfather,’ says he, ‘and some business partners +of his in some Mexican mining and land schemes.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I saw you shoot Pedro Johnson,’ says I, ‘and I took +that little popgun away from you that you did it with. And when I did so I +noticed three or four little scars in a row over your right eyebrow. +You’ve been in rookus before, haven’t you?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’ve had these scars ever since I can remember,’ says +he. ‘I don’t know how they came there.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Was you ever in Texas before?’ says I. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Not that I remember of,’ says he. ‘But I thought I +had when we struck the prairie country. But I guess I hadn’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Have you got a mother?’ I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She died five years ago,’ says he. +</p> + +<p> +“Skipping over the most of what followed—when Luke came back I +turned the kid over to him. He had seen Scudder and told him what he wanted; +and it seems that Scudder got active with one of these telephones as soon as he +left. For in about an hour afterward there comes to our hotel some of these +city rangers in everyday clothes that they call detectives, and marches the +whole outfit of us to what they call a magistrate’s court. They accuse +Luke of attempted kidnapping, and ask him what he has to say. +</p> + +<p> +“‘This snipe,’ says Luke to the judge, ‘shot and +wilfully punctured with malice and forethought one of the most respected and +prominent citizens of the town of Bildad, Texas, Your Honor. And in so doing +laid himself liable to the penitence of law and order. And I hereby make claim +and demand restitution of the State of New York City for the said alleged +criminal; and I know he done it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Have you the usual and necessary requisition papers from the +governor of your state?’ asks the judge. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My usual papers,’ says Luke, ‘was taken away from me +at the hotel by these gentlemen who represent law and order in your city. They +was two Colt’s .45’s that I’ve packed for nine years; and if +I don’t get ’em back, there’ll be more trouble. You can ask +anybody in Mojada County about Luke Summers. I don’t usually need any +other kind of papers for what I do.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I see the judge looks mad, so I steps up and says: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Your Honor, the aforesaid defendant, Mr. Luke Summers, sheriff of +Mojada County, Texas, is as fine a man as ever threw a rope or upheld the +statutes and codicils of the greatest state in the Union. But he—’ +</p> + +<p> +“The judge hits his table with a wooden hammer and asks who I am. +</p> + +<p> +“Bud Oakley,’ says I. ‘Office deputy of the sheriff’s +office of Mojada County, Texas. Representing,’ says I, ‘the Law. +Luke Summers,’ I goes on, ‘represents Order. And if Your Honor will +give me about ten minutes in private talk, I’ll explain the whole thing +to you, and show you the equitable and legal requisition papers which I carry +in my pocket.’ +</p> + +<p> +“The judge kind of half smiles and says he will talk with me in his +private room. In there I put the whole thing up to him in such language as I +had, and when we goes outside, he announces the verdict that the young man is +delivered into the hands of the Texas authorities; and calls the next case. +</p> + +<p> +“Skipping over much of what happened on the way back, I’ll tell you +how the thing wound up in Bildad. +</p> + +<p> +“When we got the prisoner in the sheriff’s office, I says to Luke: +</p> + +<p> +“‘You, remember that kid of yours—that two-year old that they +stole away from you when the bust-up come?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Luke looks black and angry. He’d never let anybody talk to him +about that business, and he never mentioned it himself. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Toe the mark,’ says I. ‘Do you remember when he was +toddling around on the porch and fell down on a pair of Mexican spurs and cut +four little holes over his right eye? Look at the prisoner,’ says I, +‘look at his nose and the shape of his head and—why, you old fool, +don’t you know your own son?—I knew him,’ says I, ‘when +he perforated Mr. Johnson at the depot.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Luke comes over to me shaking all over. I never saw him lose his nerve +before. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Bud,’ says he. ‘I’ve never had that boy out of +my mind one day or one night since he was took away. But I never let on. But +can we hold him?— Can we make him stay?— I’ll make the best +man of him that ever put his foot in a stirrup. Wait a minute,’ says he, +all excited and out of his mind—‘I’ve got some-thing here in +my desk—I reckon it’ll hold legal yet—I’ve looked at it +a thousand times—“Cus-to-dy of the child,”’ says +Luke—‘“Cus-to-dy of the child.” We can hold him on +that, can’t we? Le’me see if I can find that decree.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Luke begins to tear his desk to pieces. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Hold on,’ says I. ‘You are Order and I’m Law. +You needn’t look for that paper, Luke. It ain’t a decree any more. +It’s requisition papers. It’s on file in that Magistrate’s +office in New York. I took it along when we went, because I was office deputy +and knew the law.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’ve got him back,’ says Luke. ‘He’s mine +again. I never thought—’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Wait a minute,’ says I. ‘We’ve got to have law +and order. You and me have got to preserve ’em both in Mojada County +according to our oath and conscience. The kid shot Pedro Johnson, one of +Bildad’s most prominent and—’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, hell!’ says Luke. ‘That don’t amount to +anything. That fellow was half Mexican, anyhow.’” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>XXII.<br/> +TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN BURNEY</h2> + +<p> +In behalf of Sir Walter’s soothing plant let us look into the case of +Martin Burney. +</p> + +<p> +They were constructing the Speedway along the west bank of the Harlem River. +The grub-boat of Dennis Corrigan, sub-contractor, was moored to a tree on the +bank. Twenty-two men belonging to the little green island toiled there at the +sinew-cracking labour. One among them, who wrought in the kitchen of the +grub-boat was of the race of the Goths. Over them all stood the exorbitant +Corrigan, harrying them like the captain of a galley crew. He paid them so +little that most of the gang, work as they might, earned little more than food +and tobacco; many of them were in debt to him. Corrigan boarded them all in the +grub-boat, and gave them good grub, for he got it back in work. +</p> + +<p> +Martin Burney was furthest behind of all. He was a little man, all muscles and +hands and feet, with a gray-red, stubbly beard. He was too light for the work, +which would have glutted the capacity of a steam shovel. +</p> + +<p> +The work was hard. Besides that, the banks of the river were humming with +mosquitoes. As a child in a dark room fixes his regard on the pale light of a +comforting window, these toilers watched the sun that brought around the one +hour of the day that tasted less bitter. After the sundown supper they would +huddle together on the river bank, and send the mosquitoes whining and eddying +back from the malignant puffs of twenty-three reeking pipes. Thus socially +banded against the foe, they wrenched out of the hour a few well-smoked drops +from the cup of joy. +</p> + +<p> +Each week Burney grew deeper in debt. Corrigan kept a small stock of goods on +the boat, which he sold to the men at prices that brought him no loss. Burney +was a good customer at the tobacco counter. One sack when he went to work in +the morning and one when he came in at night, so much was his account swelled +daily. Burney was something of a smoker. Yet it was not true that he ate his +meals with a pipe in his mouth, which had been said of him. The little man was +not discontented. He had plenty to eat, plenty of tobacco, and a tyrant to +curse; so why should not he, an Irishman, be well satisfied? +</p> + +<p> +One morning as he was starting with the others for work he stopped at the pine +counter for his usual sack of tobacco. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no more for ye,” said Corrigan. “Your +account’s closed. Ye are a losing investment. No, not even tobaccy, my +son. No more tobaccy on account. If ye want to work on and eat, do so, but the +smoke of ye has all ascended. ’Tis my advice that ye hunt a new +job.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no tobaccy to smoke in my pipe this day, Mr. Corrigan,” +said Burney, not quite understanding that such a thing could happen to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Earn it,” said Corrigan, “and then buy it.” +</p> + +<p> +Burney stayed on. He knew of no other job. At first he did not realize that +tobacco had got to be his father and mother, his confessor and sweetheart, and +wife and child. +</p> + +<p> +For three days he managed to fill his pipe from the other men’s sacks, +and then they shut him off, one and all. They told him, rough but friendly, +that of all things in the world tobacco must be quickest forthcoming to a +fellow-man desiring it, but that beyond the immediate temporary need +requisition upon the store of a comrade is pressed with great danger to +friendship. +</p> + +<p> +Then the blackness of the pit arose and filled the heart of Burney. Sucking the +corpse of his deceased dudheen, he staggered through his duties with his +barrowful of stones and dirt, feeling for the first time that the curse of Adam +was upon him. Other men bereft of a pleasure might have recourse to other +delights, but Burney had only two comforts in life. One was his pipe, the other +was an ecstatic hope that there would be no Speedways to build on the other +side of Jordan. +</p> + +<p> +At meal times he would let the other men go first into the grub-boat, and then +he would go down on his hands and knees, grovelling fiercely upon the ground +where they had been sitting, trying to find some stray crumbs of tobacco. Once +he sneaked down the river bank and filled his pipe with dead willow leaves. At +the first whiff of the smoke he spat in the direction of the boat and put the +finest curse he knew on Corrigan—one that began with the first Corrigans +born on earth and ended with the Corrigans that shall hear the trumpet of +Gabriel blow. He began to hate Corrigan with all his shaking nerves and soul. +Even murder occurred to him in a vague sort of way. Five days he went without +the taste of tobacco—he who had smoked all day and thought the night +misspent in which he had not awakened for a pipeful or two under the +bedclothes. +</p> + +<p> +One day a man stopped at the boat to say that there was work to be had in the +Bronx Park, where a large number of labourers were required in making some +improvements. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner Burney walked thirty yards down the river bank away from the +maddening smell of the others’ pipes. He sat down upon a stone. He was +thinking he would set out for the Bronx. At least he could earn tobacco there. +What if the books did say he owed Corrigan? Any man’s work was worth his +keep. But then he hated to go without getting even with the hard-hearted screw +who had put his pipe out. Was there any way to do it? +</p> + +<p> +Softly stepping among the clods came Tony, he of the race of Goths, who worked +in the kitchen. He grinned at Burney’s elbow, and that unhappy man, full +of race animosity and holding urbanity in contempt, growled at him: “What +d’ye want, ye—Dago?” +</p> + +<p> +Tony also contained a grievance—and a plot. He, too, was a Corrigan +hater, and had been primed to see it in others. +</p> + +<p> +“How you like-a Mr. Corrigan?” he asked. “You think-a him a +nice-a man?” +</p> + +<p> +“To hell with ’m,” he said. “May his liver turn to +water, and the bones of him crack in the cold of his heart. May dog fennel grow +upon his ancestors’ graves, and the grandsons of his children be born +without eyes. May whiskey turn to clabber in his mouth, and every time he +sneezes may he blister the soles of his feet. And the smoke of his +pipe—may it make his eyes water, and the drops fall on the grass that his +cows eat and poison the butter that he spreads on his bread.” +</p> + +<p> +Though Tony remained a stranger to the beauties of this imagery, he gathered +from it the conviction that it was sufficiently anti-Corrigan in its tendency. +So, with the confidence of a fellow-conspirator, he sat by Burney upon the +stone and unfolded his plot. +</p> + +<p> +It was very simple in design. Every day after dinner it was Corrigan’s +habit to sleep for an hour in his bunk. At such times it was the duty of the +cook and his helper, Tony, to leave the boat so that no noise might disturb the +autocrat. The cook always spent this hour in walking exercise. Tony’s +plan was this: After Corrigan should be asleep he (Tony) and Burney would cut +the mooring ropes that held the boat to the shore. Tony lacked the nerve to do +the deed alone. Then the awkward boat would swing out into a swift current and +surely overturn against a rock there was below. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on and do it,” said Burney. “If the back of ye aches +from the lick he gave ye as the pit of me stomach does for the taste of a bit +of smoke, we can’t cut the ropes too quick.” +</p> + +<p> +“All a-right,” said Tony. “But better wait ’bout-a ten +minute more. Give-a Corrigan plenty time get good-a sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +They waited, sitting upon the stone. The rest of the men were at work out of +sight around a bend in the road. Everything would have gone well—except, +perhaps, with Corrigan, had not Tony been moved to decorate the plot with its +conventional accompaniment. He was of dramatic blood, and perhaps he +intuitively divined the appendage to villainous machinations as prescribed by +the stage. He pulled from his shirt bosom a long, black, beautiful, venomous +cigar, and handed it to Burney. +</p> + +<p> +“You like-a smoke while we wait?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Burney clutched it and snapped off the end as a terrier bites at a rat. He laid +it to his lips like a long-lost sweetheart. When the smoke began to draw he +gave a long, deep sigh, and the bristles of his gray-red moustache curled down +over the cigar like the talons of an eagle. Slowly the red faded from the +whites of his eyes. He fixed his gaze dreamily upon the hills across the river. +The minutes came and went. +</p> + +<p> +“’Bout time to go now,” said Tony. “That damn-a +Corrigan he be in the reever very quick.” +</p> + +<p> +Burney started out of his trance with a grunt. He turned his head and gazed +with a surprised and pained severity at his accomplice. He took the cigar +partly from his mouth, but sucked it back again immediately, chewed it lovingly +once or twice, and spoke, in virulent puffs, from the corner of his mouth: +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, ye yaller haythen? Would ye lay contrivances against the +enlightened races of the earth, ye instigator of illegal crimes? Would ye seek +to persuade Martin Burney into the dirty tricks of an indecent Dago? Would ye +be for murderin’ your benefactor, the good man that gives ye food and +work? Take that, ye punkin-coloured assassin!” +</p> + +<p> +The torrent of Burney’s indignation carried with it bodily assault. The +toe of his shoe sent the would-be cutter of ropes tumbling from his seat. +</p> + +<p> +Tony arose and fled. His vendetta he again relegated to the files of things +that might have been. Beyond the boat he fled and away-away; he was afraid to +remain. +</p> + +<p> +Burney, with expanded chest, watched his late co-plotter disappear. Then he, +too, departed, setting his face in the direction of the Bronx. +</p> + +<p> +In his wake was a rank and pernicious trail of noisome smoke that brought peace +to his heart and drove the birds from the roadside into the deepest thickets. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>XXIII.<br/> +THE CALIPH AND THE CAD</h2> + +<p> +Surely there is no pastime more diverting than that of mingling, incognito, +with persons of wealth and station. Where else but in those circles can one see +life in its primitive, crude state unhampered by the conventions that bind the +dwellers in a lower sphere? +</p> + +<p> +There was a certain Caliph of Bagdad who was accustomed to go down among the +poor and lowly for the solace obtained from the relation of their tales and +histories. Is it not strange that the humble and poverty-stricken have not +availed themselves of the pleasure they might glean by donning diamonds and +silks and playing Caliph among the haunts of the upper world? +</p> + +<p> +There was one who saw the possibilities of thus turning the tables on Haroun al +Raschid. His name was Corny Brannigan, and he was a truck driver for a Canal +Street importing firm. And if you read further you will learn how he turned +upper Broadway into Bagdad and learned something about himself that he did not +know before. +</p> + +<p> +Many people would have called Corny a snob—preferably by means of a +telephone. His chief interest in life, his chosen amusement, and his sole +diversion after working hours, was to place himself in +juxtaposition—since he could not hope to mingle—with people of +fashion and means. +</p> + +<p> +Every evening after Corny had put up his team and dined at a lunch-counter that +made immediateness a specialty, he would clothe himself in evening raiment as +correct as any you will see in the palm rooms. Then he would betake himself to +that ravishing, radiant roadway devoted to Thespis, Thais, and Bacchus. +</p> + +<p> +For a time he would stroll about the lobbies of the best hotels, his soul +steeped in blissful content. Beautiful women, cooing like doves, but feathered +like birds of Paradise, flicked him with their robes as they passed. Courtly +gentlemen attended them, gallant and assiduous. And Corny’s heart within +him swelled like Sir Lancelot’s, for the mirror spoke to him as he passed +and said: “Corny, lad, there’s not a guy among ’em that looks +a bit the sweller than yerself. And you drivin’ of a truck and them +swearin’ off their taxes and playin’ the red in art galleries with +the best in the land!” +</p> + +<p> +And the mirrors spake the truth. Mr. Corny Brannigan had acquired the outward +polish, if nothing more. Long and keen observation of polite society had gained +for him its manner, its genteel air, and—most difficult of +acquirement—its repose and ease. +</p> + +<p> +Now and then in the hotels Corny had managed conversation and temporary +acquaintance with substantial, if not distinguished, guests. With many of these +he had exchanged cards, and the ones he received he carefully treasured for his +own use later. Leaving the hotel lobbies, Corny would stroll leisurely about, +lingering at the theatre entrance, dropping into the fashionable restaurants as +if seeking some friend. He rarely patronized any of these places; he was no bee +come to suck honey, but a butterfly flashing his wings among the flowers whose +calyces held no sweets for him. His wages were not large enough to furnish him +with more than the outside garb of the gentleman. To have been one of the +beings he so cunningly imitated, Corny Brannigan would have given his right +hand. +</p> + +<p> +One night Corny had an adventure. After absorbing the delights of an +hour’s lounging in the principal hotels along Broadway, he passed up into +the stronghold of Thespis. Cab drivers hailed him as a likely fare, to his +prideful content. Languishing eyes were turned upon him as a hopeful source of +lobsters and the delectable, ascendant globules of effervescence. These +overtures and unconscious compliments Corny swallowed as manna, and hoped Bill, +the off horse, would be less lame in the left forefoot in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Beneath a cluster of milky globes of electric light Corny paused to admire the +sheen of his low-cut patent leather shoes. The building occupying the angle was +a pretentious <i>café</i>. Out of this came a couple, a lady in a white, +cobwebby evening gown, with a lace wrap like a wreath of mist thrown over it, +and a man, tall, faultless, assured—too assured. They moved to the edge +of the sidewalk and halted. Corny’s eye, ever alert for +“pointers” in “swell” behaviour, took them in with a +sidelong glance. +</p> + +<p> +“The carriage is not here,” said the lady. “You ordered it to +wait?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ordered it for nine-thirty,” said the man. “It should be +here now.” +</p> + +<p> +A familiar note in the lady’s voice drew a more especial attention from +Corny. It was pitched in a key well known to him. The soft electric shone upon +her face. Sisters of sorrow have no quarters fixed for them. In the index to +the book of breaking hearts you will find that Broadway follows very soon after +the Bowery. This lady’s face was sad, and her voice was attuned with it. +They waited, as if for the carriage. Corny waited too, for it was out of doors, +and he was never tired of accumulating and profiting by knowledge of +gentlemanly conduct. +</p> + +<p> +“Jack,” said the lady, “don’t be angry. I’ve done +everything I could to please you this evening. Why do you act so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re an angel,” said the man. “Depend upon woman +to throw the blame upon a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not blaming you. I’m only trying to make you +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go about it in a very peculiar way.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been cross with me all the evening without any cause.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there isn’t any cause except—you make me tired.” +</p> + +<p> +Corny took out his card case and looked over his collection. He selected one +that read: “Mr. R. Lionel Whyte-Melville, Bloomsbury Square, +London.” This card he had inveigled from a tourist at the King Edward +Hotel. Corny stepped up to the man and presented it with a correctly formal +air. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask why I am selected for the honour?” asked the +lady’s escort. +</p> + +<p> +Now, Mr. Corny Brannigan had a very wise habit of saying little during his +imitations of the Caliph of Bagdad. The advice of Lord Chesterfield: +“Wear a black coat and hold your tongue,” he believed in without +having heard. But now speech was demanded and required of him. +</p> + +<p> +“No gent,” said Corny, “would talk to a lady like you done. +Fie upon you, Willie! Even if she happens to be your wife you ought to have +more respect for your clothes than to chin her back that way. Maybe it +ain’t my butt-in, but it goes, anyhow—you strike me as bein’ +a whole lot to the wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady’s escort indulged in more elegantly expressed but fetching +repartee. Corny, eschewing his truck driver’s vocabulary, retorted as +nearly as he could in polite phrases. Then diplomatic relations were severed; +there was a brief but lively set-to with other than oral weapons, from which +Corny came forth easily victor. +</p> + +<p> +A carriage dashed up, driven by a tardy and solicitous coachman. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you kindly open the door for me?” asked the lady. Corny +assisted her to enter, and took off his hat. The escort was beginning to +scramble up from the sidewalk. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Corny, “if he’s +your man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s no man of mine,” said the lady. “Perhaps +he—but there’s no chance of his being now. Drive home, Michael. If +you care to take this—with my thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +Three red roses were thrust out through the carriage window into Corny’s +hand. He took them, and the hand for an instant; and then the carriage sped +away. +</p> + +<p> +Corny gathered his foe’s hat and began to brush the dust from his +clothes. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along,” said Corny, taking the other man by the arm. +</p> + +<p> +His late opponent was yet a little dazed by the hard knocks he had received. +Corny led him carefully into a saloon three doors away. +</p> + +<p> +“The drinks for us,” said Corny, “me and my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a queer feller,” said the lady’s late +escort—“lick a man and then want to set ’em up.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re my best friend,” said Corny exultantly. “You +don’t understand? Well, listen. You just put me wise to somethin’. +I been playin’ gent a long time, thinkin’ it was just the glad rags +I had and nothin’ else. Say—you’re a swell, ain’t you? +Well, you trot in that class, I guess. I don’t; but I found out one +thing—I’m a gentleman, by—and I know it now. What’ll +you have to drink?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>XXIV.<br/> +THE DIAMOND OF KALI</h2> + +<p> +The original news item concerning the diamond of the goddess Kali was handed in +to the city editor. He smiled and held it for a moment above the wastebasket. +Then he laid it back on his desk and said: “Try the Sunday people; they +might work something out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The Sunday editor glanced the item over and said: “H’m!” +Afterward he sent for a reporter and expanded his comment. +</p> + +<p> +“You might see General Ludlow,” he said, “and make a story +out of this if you can. Diamond stories are a drug; but this one is big enough +to be found by a scrubwoman wrapped up in a piece of newspaper and tucked under +the corner of the hall linoleum. Find out first if the General has a daughter +who intends to go on the stage. If not, you can go ahead with the story. Run +cuts of the Kohinoor and J. P. Morgan’s collection, and work in pictures +of the Kimberley mines and Barney Barnato. Fill in with a tabulated comparison +of the values of diamonds, radium, and veal cutlets since the meat strike; and +let it run to a half page.” +</p> + +<p> +On the following day the reporter turned in his story. The Sunday editor let +his eye sprint along its lines. “H’m!” he said again. This +time the copy went into the waste-basket with scarcely a flutter. +</p> + +<p> +The reporter stiffened a little around the lips; but he was whistling softly +and contentedly between his teeth when I went over to talk with him about it an +hour later. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t blame the ‘old man’,” said he, +magnanimously, “for cutting it out. It did sound like funny business; but +it happened exactly as I wrote it. Say, why don’t you fish that story out +of the w.-b. and use it? Seems to me it’s as good as the tommyrot you +write.” +</p> + +<p> +I accepted the tip, and if you read further you will learn the facts about the +diamond of the goddess Kali as vouched for by one of the most reliable +reporters on the staff. +</p> + +<p> +Gen. Marcellus B. Ludlow lives in one of those decaying but venerated old +red-brick mansions in the West Twenties. The General is a member of an old New +York family that does not advertise. He is a globe-trotter by birth, a +gentleman by predilection, a millionaire by the mercy of Heaven, and a +connoisseur of precious stones by occupation. +</p> + +<p> +The reporter was admitted promptly when he made himself known at the +General’s residence at about eight thirty on the evening that he received +the assignment. In the magnificent library he was greeted by the distinguished +traveller and connoisseur, a tall, erect gentleman in the early fifties, with a +nearly white moustache, and a bearing so soldierly that one perceived in him +scarcely a trace of the National Guardsman. His weather-beaten countenance lit +up with a charming smile of interest when the reporter made known his errand. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have heard of my latest find. I shall be glad to show you what I +conceive to be one of the six most valuable blue diamonds in existence.” +</p> + +<p> +The General opened a small safe in a corner of the library and brought forth a +plush-covered box. Opening this, he exposed to the reporter’s bewildered +gaze a huge and brilliant diamond—nearly as large as a hailstone. +</p> + +<p> +“This stone,” said the General, “is something more than a +mere jewel. It once formed the central eye of the three-eyed goddess Kali, who +is worshipped by one of the fiercest and most fanatical tribes of India. If you +will arrange yourself comfortably I will give you a brief history of it for +your paper.” +</p> + +<p> +General Ludlow brought a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cabinet, and +set a comfortable armchair for the lucky scribe. +</p> + +<p> +“The Phansigars, or Thugs, of India,” began the General, “are +the most dangerous and dreaded of the tribes of North India. They are +extremists in religion, and worship the horrid goddess Kali in the form of +images. Their rites are interesting and bloody. The robbing and murdering of +travellers are taught as a worthy and obligatory deed by their strange +religious code. Their worship of the three-eyed goddess Kali is conducted so +secretly that no traveller has ever heretofore had the honour of witnessing the +ceremonies. That distinction was reserved for myself. +</p> + +<p> +“While at Sakaranpur, between Delhi and Khelat, I used to explore the +jungle in every direction in the hope of learning something new about these +mysterious Phansigars. +</p> + +<p> +“One evening at twilight I was making my way through a teakwood forest, +when I came upon a deep circular depression in an open space, in the centre of +which was a rude stone temple. I was sure that this was one of the temples of +the Thugs, so I concealed myself in the undergrowth to watch. +</p> + +<p> +“When the moon rose the depression in the clearing was suddenly filled +with hundreds of shadowy, swiftly gliding forms. Then a door opened in the +temple, exposing a brightly illuminated image of the goddess Kali, before which +a white-robed priest began a barbarous incantation, while the tribe of +worshippers prostrated themselves upon the earth. +</p> + +<p> +“But what interested me most was the central eye of the huge wooden idol. +I could see by its flashing brilliancy that it was an immense diamond of the +purest water. +</p> + +<p> +“After the rites were concluded the Thugs slipped away into the forest as +silently as they had come. The priest stood for a few minutes in the door of +the temple enjoying the cool of the night before closing his rather warm +quarters. Suddenly a dark, lithe shadow slipped down into the hollow, leaped +upon the priest; and struck him down with a glittering knife. Then the murderer +sprang at the image of the goddess like a cat and pried out the glowing central +eye of Kali with his weapon. Straight toward me he ran with his royal prize. +When he was within two paces I rose to my feet and struck him with all my force +between the eyes. He rolled over senseless and the magnificent jewel fell from +his hand. That is the splendid blue diamond you have just seen—a stone +worthy of a monarch’s crown.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a corking story,” said the reporter. “That +decanter is exactly like the one that John W. Gates always sets out during an +interview.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” said General Ludlow, “for forgetting hospitality +in the excitement of my narrative. Help yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s looking at you,” said the reporter. +</p> + +<p> +“What I am afraid of now,” said the General, lowering his voice, +“is that I may be robbed of the diamond. The jewel that formed an eye of +their goddess is their most sacred symbol. Somehow the tribe suspected me of +having it; and members of the band have followed me half around the earth. They +are the most cunning and cruel fanatics in the world, and their religious vows +would compel them to assassinate the unbeliever who has desecrated their sacred +treasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Once in Lucknow three of their agents, disguised as servants in a hotel, +endeavoured to strangle me with a twisted cloth. Again, in London, two Thugs, +made up as street musicians, climbed into my window at night and attacked me. +They have even tracked me to this country. My life is never safe. A month ago, +while I was at a hotel in the Berkshires, three of them sprang upon me from the +roadside weeds. I saved myself then by my knowledge of their customs.” +</p> + +<p> +“How was that, General?” asked the reporter. +</p> + +<p> +“There was a cow grazing near by,” said General Ludlow, “a +gentle Jersey cow. I ran to her side and stood. The three Thugs ceased their +attack, knelt and struck the ground thrice with their foreheads. Then, after +many respectful salaams, they departed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid the cow would hook?” asked the reporter. +</p> + +<p> +“No; the cow is a sacred animal to the Phansigars. Next to their goddess +they worship the cow. They have never been known to commit any deed of violence +in the presence of the animal they reverence.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a mighty interesting story,” said the reporter. +“If you don’t mind I’ll take another drink, and then a few +notes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will join you,” said General Ludlow, with a courteous wave of +his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“If I were you,” advised the reporter, “I’d take that +sparkler to Texas. Get on a cow ranch there, and the Pharisees—” +</p> + +<p> +“Phansigars,” corrected the General. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; the fancy guys would run up against a long horn every time they +made a break.” +</p> + +<p> +General Ludlow closed the diamond case and thrust it into his bosom. +</p> + +<p> +“The spies of the tribe have found me out in New York,” he said, +straightening his tall figure. “I’m familiar with the East Indian +cast of countenance, and I know that my every movement is watched. They will +undoubtedly attempt to rob and murder me here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here?” exclaimed the reporter, seizing the decanter and pouring +out a liberal amount of its contents. +</p> + +<p> +“At any moment,” said the General. “But as a soldier and a +connoisseur I shall sell my life and my diamond as dearly as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +At this point of the reporter’s story there is a certain vagueness, but +it can be gathered that there was a loud crashing noise at the rear of the +house they were in. General Ludlow buttoned his coat closely and sprang for the +door. But the reporter clutched him firmly with one hand, while he held the +decanter with the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me before we fly,” he urged, in a voice thick with some +inward turmoil, “do any of your daughters contemplate going on the +stage?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no daughters—fly for your life—the Phansigars are +upon us!” cried the General. +</p> + +<p> +The two men dashed out of the front door of the house. +</p> + +<p> +The hour was late. As their feet struck the side-walk strange men of dark and +forbidding appearance seemed to rise up out of the earth and encompass them. +One with Asiatic features pressed close to the General and droned in a terrible +voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Buy cast clo’!” +</p> + +<p> +Another, dark-whiskered and sinister, sped lithely to his side and began in a +whining voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, mister, have yer got a dime fer a poor feller what—” +</p> + +<p> +They hurried on, but only into the arms of a black-eyed, dusky-browed being, +who held out his hat under their noses, while a confederate of Oriental hue +turned the handle of a street organ near by. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty steps farther on General Ludlow and the reporter found themselves in the +midst of half a dozen villainous-looking men with high-turned coat collars and +faces bristling with unshaven beards. +</p> + +<p> +“Run for it!” hissed the General. “They have discovered the +possessor of the diamond of the goddess Kali.” +</p> + +<p> +The two men took to their heels. The avengers of the goddess pursued. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lordy!” groaned the reporter, “there isn’t a cow +this side of Brooklyn. We’re lost!” +</p> + +<p> +When near the corner they both fell over an iron object that rose from the +sidewalk close to the gutter. Clinging to it desperately, they awaited their +fate. +</p> + +<p> +“If I only had a cow!” moaned the reporter—“or another +nip from that decanter, General!” +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the pursuers observed where their victims had found refuge they +suddenly fell back and retreated to a considerable distance. +</p> + +<p> +“They are waiting for reinforcements in order to attack us,” said +General Ludlow. +</p> + +<p> +But the reporter emitted a ringing laugh, and hurled his hat triumphantly into +the air. +</p> + +<p> +“Guess again,” he shouted, and leaned heavily upon the iron object. +“Your old fancy guys or thugs, whatever you call ’em, are up to +date. Dear General, this is a pump we’ve stranded upon—same as a +cow in New York (hic!) see? Thas’h why the ’nfuriated smoked guys +don’t attack us—see? Sacred an’mal, the pump in N’ +York, my dear General!” +</p> + +<p> +But further down in the shadows of Twenty-eighth Street the marauders were +holding a parley. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Reddy,” said one. “Let’s go frisk the old +’un. He’s been showin’ a sparkler as big as a hen egg all +around Eighth Avenue for two weeks past.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not on your silhouette,” decided Reddy. “You see ’em +rallyin’ round The Pump? They’re friends of Bill’s. Bill +won’t stand for nothin’ of this kind in his district since he got +that bid to Esopus.” +</p> + +<p> +This exhausts the facts concerning the Kali diamond. But it is deemed not +inconsequent to close with the following brief (paid) item that appeared two +days later in a morning paper. +</p> + +<p> +“It is rumored that a niece of Gen. Marcellus B. Ludlow, of New York +City, will appear on the stage next season. +</p> + +<p> +“Her diamonds are said to be extremely valuable and of much historic +interest.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>XXV.<br/> +THE DAY WE CELEBRATE</h2> + +<p> +“In the tropics” (“Hop-along” Bibb, the bird fancier, +was saying to me) “the seasons, months, fortnights, week-ends, holidays, +dog-days, Sundays, and yesterdays get so jumbled together in the shuffle that +you never know when a year has gone by until you’re in the middle of the +next one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hop-along” Bibb kept his bird store on lower Fourth Avenue. He was +an ex-seaman and beachcomber who made regular voyages to southern ports and +imported personally conducted invoices of talking parrots and dialectic +paroquets. He had a stiff knee, neck, and nerve. I had gone to him to buy a +parrot to present, at Christmas, to my Aunt Joanna. +</p> + +<p> +“This one,” said I, disregarding his homily on the subdivisions of +time—“this one that seems all red, white, and blue—to what +genus of beasts does he belong? He appeals at once to my patriotism and to my +love of discord in colour schemes.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a cockatoo from Ecuador,” said Bibb. “All he +has been taught to say is ‘Merry Christmas.’ A seasonable bird. +He’s only seven dollars; and I’ll bet many a human has stuck you +for more money by making the same speech to you.” +</p> + +<p> +And then Bibb laughed suddenly and loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“That bird,” he explained, “reminds me. He’s got his +dates mixed. He ought to be saying ‘<i>E pluribus unum</i>,’ to +match his feathers, instead of trying to work the Santa Claus graft. It reminds +me of the time me and Liverpool Sam got our ideas of things tangled up on the +coast of Costa Rica on account of the weather and other phenomena to be met +with in the tropics. +</p> + +<p> +“We were, as it were, stranded on that section of the Spanish main with +no money to speak of and no friends that should be talked about either. We had +stoked and second-cooked ourselves down there on a fruit steamer from New +Orleans to try our luck, which was discharged, after we got there, for lack of +evidence. There was no work suitable to our instincts; so me and Liverpool +began to subsist on the red rum of the country and such fruit as we could reap +where we had not sown. It was an alluvial town, called Soledad, where there was +no harbour or future or recourse. Between steamers the town slept and drank +rum. It only woke up when there were bananas to ship. It was like a man +sleeping through dinner until the dessert. +</p> + +<p> +“When me and Liverpool got so low down that the American consul +wouldn’t speak to us we knew we’d struck bed rock. +</p> + +<p> +“We boarded with a snuff-brown lady named Chica, who kept a rum-shop and +a ladies’ and gents’ restaurant in a street called the <i>calle de +los</i> Forty-seven Inconsolable Saints. When our credit played out there, +Liverpool, whose stomach overshadowed his sensations of <i>noblesse oblige</i>, +married Chica. This kept us in rice and fried plantain for a month; and then +Chica pounded Liverpool one morning sadly and earnestly for fifteen minutes +with a casserole handed down from the stone age, and we knew that we had +out-welcomed our liver. That night we signed an engagement with Don Jaime +McSpinosa, a hybrid banana fancier of the place, to work on his fruit preserves +nine miles out of town. We had to do it or be reduced to sea water and broken +doses of feed and slumber. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, speaking of Liverpool Sam, I don’t malign or inexculpate him +to you any more than I would to his face. But in my opinion, when an Englishman +gets as low as he can he’s got to dodge so that the dregs of other +nations don’t drop ballast on him out of their balloons. And if +he’s a Liverpool Englishman, why, fire-damp is what he’s got to +look out for. Being a natural American, that’s my personal view. But +Liverpool and me had much in common. We were without decorous clothes or ways +and means of existence; and, as the saying goes, misery certainly does enjoy +the society of accomplices. +</p> + +<p> +“Our job on old McSpinosa’s plantation was chopping down banana +stalks and loading the bunches of fruit on the backs of horses. Then a native +dressed up in an alligator hide belt, a machete, and a pair of AA sheeting +pajamas, drives ’em over to the coast and piles ’em up on the +beach. +</p> + +<p> +“You ever been in a banana grove? It’s as solemn as a rathskeller +at seven <span class="smallcaps">a. m.</span> It’s like being lost behind +the scenes at one of these mushroom musical shows. You can’t see the sky +for the foliage above you; and the ground is knee deep in rotten leaves; and +it’s so still that you can hear the stalks growing again after you chop +’em down. +</p> + +<p> +“At night me and Liverpool herded in a lot of grass huts on the edge of a +lagoon with the red, yellow, and black employés of Don Jaime. There we lay +fighting mosquitoes and listening to the monkeys squalling and the alligators +grunting and splashing in the lagoon until daylight with only snatches of sleep +between times. +</p> + +<p> +“We soon lost all idea of what time of the year it was. It’s just +about eighty degrees there in December and June and on Fridays and at midnight +and election day and any other old time. Sometimes it rains more than at +others, and that’s all the difference you notice. A man is liable to live +along there without noticing any fugiting of tempus until some day the +undertaker calls in for him just when he’s beginning to think about +cutting out the gang and saving up a little to invest in real estate. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how long we worked for Don Jaime; but it was through +two or three rainy spells, eight or ten hair cuts, and the life of three pairs +of sail-cloth trousers. All the money we earned went for rum and tobacco; but +we ate, and that was something. +</p> + +<p> +“All of a sudden one day me and Liverpool find the trade of committing +surgical operations on banana stalks turning to aloes and quinine in our +mouths. It’s a seizure that often comes upon white men in Latin and +geographical countries. We wanted to be addressed again in language and see the +smoke of a steamer and read the real estate transfers and gents’ +outfitting ads in an old newspaper. Even Soledad seemed like a centre of +civilization to us, so that evening we put our thumbs on our nose at Don +Jaime’s fruit stand and shook his grass burrs off our feet. +</p> + +<p> +“It was only twelve miles to Soledad, but it took me and Liverpool two +days to get there. It was banana grove nearly all the way; and we got twisted +time and again. It was like paging the palm room of a New York hotel for a man +named Smith. +</p> + +<p> +“When we saw the houses of Soledad between the trees all my +disinclination toward this Liverpool Sam rose up in me. I stood him while we +were two white men against the banana brindles; but now, when there were +prospects of my exchanging even cuss words with an American citizen, I put him +back in his proper place. And he was a sight, too, with his rum-painted nose +and his red whiskers and elephant feet with leather sandals strapped to them. I +suppose I looked about the same. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It looks to me,’ says I, ‘like Great Britain ought to +be made to keep such gin-swilling, scurvy, unbecoming mud larks as you at home +instead of sending ’em over here to degrade and taint foreign lands. We +kicked you out of America once and we ought to put on rubber boots and do it +again.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, you go to ’ell,’ says Liverpool, which was about +all the repartee he ever had. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Soledad, looked fine to me after Don Jaime’s plantation. +Liverpool and me walked into it side by side, from force of habit, past the +calabosa and the Hotel Grande, down across the plaza toward Chica’s hut, +where we hoped that Liverpool, being a husband of hers, might work his luck for +a meal. +</p> + +<p> +“As we passed the two-story little frame house occupied by the American +Club, we noticed that the balcony had been decorated all around with wreaths of +evergreens and flowers, and the flag was flying from the pole on the roof. +Stanzey, the consul, and Arkright, a gold-mine owner, were smoking on the +balcony. Me and Liverpool waved our dirty hands toward ’em and smiled +real society smiles; but they turned their backs to us and went on talking. And +we had played whist once with the two of ’em up to the time when +Liverpool held all thirteen trumps for four hands in succession. It was some +holiday, we knew; but we didn’t know the day nor the year. +</p> + +<p> +“A little further along we saw a reverend man named Pendergast, who had +come to Soledad to build a church, standing under a cocoanut palm with his +little black alpaca coat and green umbrella. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Boys, boys!’ says he, through his blue spectacles, +‘is it as bad as this? Are you so far reduced?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘We’re reduced,’ says I, ‘to very vulgar +fractions.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘It is indeed sad,’ says Pendergast, ‘to see my +countrymen in such circumstances.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Cut ’arf of that out, old party,’ says Liverpool. +‘Cawn’t you tell a member of the British upper classes when you see +one?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Shut up,’ I told Liverpool. ‘You’re on foreign +soil now, or that portion of it that’s not on you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And on this day, too!’ goes on Pendergast, +grievous—‘on this most glorious day of the year when we should all +be celebrating the dawn of Christian civilization and the downfall of the +wicked.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I did notice bunting and bouquets decorating the town, +reverend,’ says I, ‘but I didn’t know what it was for. +We’ve been so long out of touch with calendars that we didn’t know +whether it was summer time or Saturday afternoon.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Here is two dollars,’ says Pendergast digging up two Chili +silver wheels and handing ’em to me. ‘Go, my men, and observe the +rest of the day in a befitting manner.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Me and Liverpool thanked him kindly, and walked away. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Shall we eat?’ I asks. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, ’ell!’ says Liverpool. ‘What’s money +for?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Very well, then,’ I says, ‘since you insist upon it, +we’ll drink.’ +</p> + +<p> +“So we pull up in a rum shop and get a quart of it and go down on the +beach under a cocoanut tree and celebrate. +</p> + +<p> +“Not having eaten anything but oranges in two days, the rum has immediate +effect; and once more I conjure up great repugnance toward the British nation. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Stand up here,’ I says to Liverpool, ‘you scum of a +despot limited monarchy, and have another dose of Bunker Hill. That good man, +Mr. Pendergast,’ says I, ‘said we were to observe the day in a +befitting manner, and I’m not going to see his money misapplied.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, you go to ’ell!’ says Liverpool, and I started in +with a fine left-hander on his right eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Liverpool had been a fighter once, but dissipation and bad company had +taken the nerve out of him. In ten minutes I had him lying on the sand waving +the white flag. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Get up,’ says I, kicking him in the ribs, ‘and come +along with me.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Liverpool got up and followed behind me because it was his habit, wiping +the red off his face and nose. I led him to Reverend Pendergast’s shack +and called him out. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Look at this, sir,’ says I—‘look at this thing +that was once a proud Britisher. You gave us two dollars and told us to +celebrate the day. The star-spangled banner still waves. Hurrah for the stars +and eagles!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Dear me,’ says Pendergast, holding up his hands. +‘Fighting on this day of all days! On Christmas day, when peace +on—’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Christmas, hell!’ says I. ‘I thought it was the +Fourth of July.’” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Merry Christmas!” said the red, white, and blue cockatoo. +</p> + +<p> +“Take him for six dollars,” said Hop-along Bibb. “He’s +got his dates and colours mixed.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIXES AND SEVENS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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