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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This Project Gutenberg Etext Prepared by Glynn Burleson +gburleson@yahoo.com + + + + + +CONTENTS + +I THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS +II THE SLEUTHS +III WITCHES' LOAVES +IV THE PRIDE OF THE CITIES +V HOLDING UP A TRAIN +VI ULYSSES AND THE DOGMAN +VII THE CHAMPION OF THE WEATHER +VIII MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN +IX AT ARMS WITH MORPHEUS +X THE GHOST OF A CHANCE +XI JIMMIE PAYES AND MURIEL +XII THE DOOR OF UNREST +XIII THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES +XIV LET ME FEEL YOUR PULSE +XV OCTOBER AND JUNE +XVI THE CHURCH WITH AN OVERSHOOT WHEEL +XVII NEW YORK BY CAMPFIRE LIGHT +XVIII THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES +XIX THE LADY HIGHER UP +XX THE GREATER CONEY +XXI LAW AND ORDER +XXII TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN BURNEY +XXIII THE CALIPH AND THE CAD +XXIV THE DIAMOND OF KALI +XXV THE DAY WE CELEBRATE + + + + +I THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS + + + +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 _cuisine_, after only a six-weeks' sojourn. + +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, employes, 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. + +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. + +Sam Galloway was the Last of the Troubadours. Of course you know about +the troubadours. The encyclopaedia 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. + +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. + +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 _omnae personae in tres partes divisae sunt_. +Namely: Brons, 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. + +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 +Gull 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 + +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. + +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. + +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 encyclopaedia, should have flourished +between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries - -- drew rein at the +gates of his baronial castle! + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _canciones_ that he had learned from the Mexican sheep herders +and _vaqueros_. One, in particular, charmed and soothed the soul of the +lonely baron. It was a favourite song of the sheep herders, beginning: +"_Huile, huile, palomita_," which being translated means, "Fly, fly, +little dove." Sam sang it for old man Ellison many times that evening. + +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. + +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 _paisano_ 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. + +Old man Ellison was his own _vaciero_. That means that he supplied his +sheep camps with wood, water, and rations by his own labours instead of +hiring a _vaciero_. On small ranches it is often done. + +One morning he started for the camp of Incarnacion 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _vita simplex_ 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. + +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?" + +"I have two sections leased from the state," said old man Ellison, mildly. + +"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." + +King James patted the breech of his shot-gun warningly. + +Old man Ellison rode on to the camp of Incarnacion. 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Little tired; that's all, Sam. If you ain't played yourself out, let's +have that Mexican piece that starts off with: '_Huile, huile, palomita_.' +It seems that that song always kind of soothes and comforts me after I've +been riding far or anything bothers me." + +"Why, _seguramente_, _senor_," 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Born there," said old man Ellison, "and raised there till I was +twenty-one." + +"This man says," went on King James, "that he thinks you was related to +the Jackson County Reeveses. Was he right?" + +"Aunt Caroline Reeves," said the old man, "was my half-sister." + +"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?" + +The old man related his woes in detail, dignifiedly, with restraint and +candour. + +"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 a +cross 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." + +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. + +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. + +The Kiowa endeavoured to explain. + +"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." + +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. + +Old man Ellison sat at the kitchen table, having a tin cup of +before-supper coffee. He looked contented and pleased. + +"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." + +And then old man Ellison took another look at Sam's face and saw that the +minstrel had changed the man of action. + +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. + +"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." + +"This -- is -- King -- James -- you speak -- of?" asked old man Ellison, +while he sipped his coffee. + +"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?" + +Then there was a little silence in the castle except for the spluttering +of a venison steak that the Kiowa was cooking. + +"Sam," said old man Ellison, stroking his white whiskers with a tremulous +hand, "would you mind getting the guitar and playing that '_Huile, huile, +palomita_' piece once or twice? It always seems to be kind of soothing +and comforting when a man's tired and fagged out." + +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. + + + + +II THE SLEUTHS + + + +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. + +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. + +The case of Mary Snyder, in point, should not be without interest. + +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. + +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. + +On coming out Mr. Meeks addressed a policeman who was standing on the +corner, and explained his dilemma. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +The detective took Meeks aside and said: + +"This is not a very difficult case to unravel. Shave off your whiskers, +fill your pockets with good cigars, and meet me in the cafe of the Waldorf +at three o'clock this afternoon." + +Meeks obeyed. He found Mullins there. They had a bottle of wine, while +the detective asked questions concerning the missing woman. + +"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?" + +"A little past," said Meeks. + +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: + +"Wanted, at once -- one hundred attractive chorus girls for a new musical +comedy. Apply all day at No.- Broadway." + +Meeks was indignant. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Never mind the expense," said Meeks; "we'll try it." + +The sleuth led him back to the Waldorf. "Engage a couple of bedrooms and +a parlour," he advised, "and let's go up." + +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. + +"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. + +"By the month!" exclaimed Meeks. "What do you mean?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Meeks set forth his errand. "My fee, if successful, will be $500," said +Shamrock Jolnes. + +Meeks bowed his agreement to the price. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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: + +"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." + +Meeks felt joy and wonder in equal proportions. + +"How did you manage it?" he asked, with admiration in his tones. + +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. + +"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. + +"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 small +est things. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +When they reached the sidewalk again, Meeks examined the clues which he +had brought away from his sister's old room. + +"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." + +Shamrock Jolnes had a far-away look in his eyes. + +"I think you would do well to consult Juggins," said he. + +"Who is Juggins?" asked Meeks. + +"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." + +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. + +The two great detectives of different schools shook hands with ceremony, +and Meeks was introduced. + +"State the facts," said Juggins, going on with his reading. + +When Meeks ceased, the greater one closed his book and said: + +"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?" + +"That describes her exactly," admitted Meeks. Juggins rose and put on his +hat. + +"In fifteen minutes," he said, "I will return, bringing you her present +address." + +Shamrock Jolnes turned pale, but forced a smile. + +Within the specified time Juggins returned and consulted a little slip of +paper held in his hand. + +"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." + +Meeks hurried away. In twenty minutes he was back again, with a beaming +face. + +"She is there and well!" he cried. "Name your fee!" + +"Two dollars," said Juggins. + +When Meeks had settled his bill and departed, Shamrock Jolnes stood with +his hat in his hand before Juggins. + +"If it would not be asking too much," he stammered -- "if you would favour +me so far -- would you object to --" + +"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." + + + + +III WITCHES' LOAVES + + + +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). + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Two days afterward the customer came in. + +"Two loafs of stale bread, if you blease. + +"You haf here a fine bicture, madame," he said while she was wrapping up +the bread. + +"Yes?" says Miss Martha, reveling 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?" + +"Der balance," said the customer, is not in good drawing. Der +bairspective of it is not true. Goot morning, madame." + +He took his bread, bowed, and hurried out. + +Yes, he must be an artist. Miss Martha took the picture back to her room. + +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. + +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. + +Often now when he came he would chat for a while across the showcase. He +seemed to crave Miss Martha's cheerful words. + +He kept on buying stale bread. Never a cake, never a pie, never one of +her delicious Sally Lunns. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The customer hurried to the door to look, as any one will. Suddenly +inspired, Miss Martha seized the opportunity. + +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. + +When the customer turned once more she was tying the paper around them. + +When he had gone, after an unusually pleasant little chat, Miss Martha +smiled to herself, but not without a slight fluttering of the heart. + +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. + +For a long time that day her mind dwelt on the subject. She imagined the +scene when he should discover her little deception. + +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. + +He would prepare for his luncheon of dry bread and water. He would slice +into a loaf -- ah! + +Miss Martha blushed. Would he think of the hand that placed it there as +he ate? Would he -- + +The front door bell jangled viciously. Somebody was coming in, making a +great deal of noise. + +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. + +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. _At Miss Martha_. + +"_Dummkopf_!" he shouted with extreme loudness; and then "_Tausendonfer_!" +or something like it in German. + +The young man tried to draw him away. + +"I vill not go," he said angrily, "else I shall told her." + +He made a bass drum of Miss Martha's counter. + +"You haf shpoilt me," he cried, his blue eyes blazing behind his +spectacles. "I vill tell you. You vas von _meddingsome old cat_!" + +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. + +"Come on," he said, "you've said enough." He dragged the angry one out at +the door to the sidewalk, and then came back. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + + + + +IV THE PRIDE OF THE CITIES + + + +Said Mr. Kipling, "The cities are full of pride, challenging each to +each." Even so. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 tout ensemble +of a social club of Central Park West housemaids at a fish fry. + +"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. + +"Me?" said the man from Topaz City. "Four days. Never in Topaz City, was +you?" + +"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." + +"Topaz City," said the man who occupied four chairs, "is one of the finest +towns in the world." + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"Say," said the man from Topaz City, "that reminds me -- there were +sixteen stage robbers shot last year within twenty miles of --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"Beg pardon, you seem to misapprehend the idea. Of course, you visited +the Stock Exchange and Wall Street, where the --" + +"Oh, yes," said the man from Topaz City, as he lighted a Pennsylvania +stogie, "and I want to tell you chat 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 --" + +"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 --" + +"One man," said the Topazite -- "one man only has been murdered and robbed +in Topaz City in the last three --" + +"Oh, I know what Chicago is," interposed the New Yorker. "Have you been +up Fifth Avenue to see the magnificent residences of our mil --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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." + +"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 --" + +"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 --" + +"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. + +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. + +"You must admit," said he, "that in the way of noise New York is far ahead +of any other --" + +"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 --" + +The rattle of an express wagon drowned the rest of the words. + + + + +V HOLDING UP A TRAIN + + + +[Note. 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 _modus_ _operandi_ 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. O. H.] + + +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. + +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. + +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. Jim S-- and I +were working on the 101 Ranch in Colorado. The nesters had the cowman on t +he 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 any-body 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. + +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. + +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. + +We selected a place on the Santa Fe 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. + +The Santa Fe flyer was due at the tank at 11.15 P. M. 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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. Pull-man'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. + +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. + +"Young man, young man," says he, "you must keep cool and not get excited. +Above everything, keep cool." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"If you can't pay -- play," I says. + +"I can't play," says he. + +"Then learn right off quick," says I, letting him smell the end of my +gun-barrel. + +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: + + Prettiest little gal in the country -- oh! + Mammy and Daddy told me so. + +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. + +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, fa +ce-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. + +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: + +"That's mine, sir. You're not in the business of robbing women, are you?" + +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." + +"It just does," she declared eagerly, and reached out her hand for it. + +"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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 k +inds 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Now I propose to tell why it is easy to hold up a train, and, then, why no +one should ever do it. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I will give one instance to support my statement that the surprise is the +best card in playing for a hold-up. + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +gamed 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VI ULYSSES AND THE DOGMAN + + + +Do you know the time of the dogmen? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-coated, wide-brimmed man +stood like a Colossus blocking the sidewalk and declaring: + +"Well, I'm a son of a gun!" + +"Jim Berry!" breathed the dogman, with exclamation points in his voice. + +"Sam Telfair," cried Wide-Brim again, "you ding-basted old willy-walloo, +give us your hoof!" + +Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting of the West that is death +to the hand-shake microbe. + +"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?" + +Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough leaned against Jim's +leg and chewed his trousers with a yeasty growl. + +"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?" + +"I need a drink," said the dogman, dejected at the reminder of his old dog +of the sea. "Come on." + +Hard by was a cafe. 'Tis ever so in the big city. + +They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped and scrambled at the +end of his leash to get at the cafe cat. + +"Whiskey," said Jim to the waiter. + +"Make it two," said the dogman. + +"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?" + +"S-h-h-h!" said the dogman, signalling the waiter; "give it a name." + +"Whiskey," said Jim. + +"Make it two," said the dogman. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"If you're going to be in the city for awhile we will --" + +"No, sir-ee. I'm starting for home this evening on the 7.25. Like to +stay longer, but I can't." + +"I'll walk down to the ferry with you," said the dogman. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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!" + +"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." + +"I did, didn't I?" said the other, with a temporary gleam in his eye. +"But that was before I was dogmatized." + +"Does Misses Telfair --" began Jim. + +"Hush!" said the dogman. "Here's another cafe." + +They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at their feet. + +"Whiskey," said Jim. + +"Make it two," said the dogman. + +"I thought about you," said Jim, "when I bought that wild land. I wished +you was out there to help me with the stock." + +"Last Tuesday," said the dogman, "he bit me on the ankle because I asked +for cream in my coffee. He always gets the cream." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Don't Missis Telfair--" began Jim. + +"Oh, shut up!" said the dogman. "What is it this time?" + +"Whiskey," said Jim. + +"Make it two," said the dogman. + +"Well, I'll be racking along down toward the ferry," said the other. + +"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. + +At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swinging +doors. + +"Last chance," said he. "Speak up." + +"Whiskey," said Jim. + +"Make it two," said the dogman. + +"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 --" + +"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?" + +"Does Missis Telfair--" began Jim. + +"Oh, drop it," said the dogman. "Come again!" + +"Whiskey," said Jim. + +"Make it two," said the dogman. + +They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman stepped to the ticket window. + +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. + +"Ticket to Denver," said Jim. + +"Make it two," shouted the ex-dogman, reaching for his inside pocket. + + + + +VII THE CHAMPION OF THE WEATHER + + + +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. + +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: + +"Nice night!" + +"Why, yes," said Bud, "as nice as any night could be that ain't received +the Broadway stamp of approval." + +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: + +"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." + +"Found New York rather different from the Panhandle, didn't you, Bud?" +asked one of the hunters. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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, al +imony, and chewing tobacco. It's a gift with me not to be penurious with +my conversation. + +"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 _paseado_; 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. + +"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: + +"'Nice day!' + +"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. + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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. ' + +"'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.' + +"Summers talked agin it, but I was irritated some and I went on the street +car back to that caffy. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"The fellow looks at me and tries to grin, but he sees I don't and he +comes around serious. + +"'Well,' says he, eyeing the handle of my gun, 'it was rather a nice day; +some warmish, though.' + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"'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?' + +"'They're all well, thanks,' says he. 'We -- we have a new piano.' + +"'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. + +"'Thomas,' says he. 'He's just getting well from the measles.' + +"'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?' + +"'Pretty well,' he says. 'I'm putting away a little money.' + +"'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.' + +"So the next day I rolls up my blankets and hits the trail away from New +York City." + +For many minutes after Bud ceased talking we lingered around the fire, and +then all hands began to disperse for bed. + +As I was unrolling my bedding I heard the pinkish-haired young man saying +to Bud, with something like anxiety in his voice: + +"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." + +"Yes," said Bud, "it's a nice night." + + + + +VIII MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Police +Gazette. He always has a wife in every State in the Union and fiancees 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. + +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. + +This burglar of the third class began to prowl. He wore no masks, dark +lanterns, or gum shoes. He carried a 88-calibre revolver in his pocket, +and he chewed peppermint gum thoughtfully. + +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 rea +son. He had seen the window left open and had taken the chance. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Now hold up both your hands," commanded the burglar. + +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. + +"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." + +"Can't raise the other one," said the citizen, with a contortion of his +lineaments. + +"What's the matter with it?" + +"Rheumatism in the shoulder." + +"Inflammatory?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"'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." + +"How long have you had it?" inquired the citizen. + +"Four years. I guess that ain't all. Once you've got it, it's you for a +rheumatic life -- that's my judgment." + +"Ever try rattlesnake oil?" asked the citizen, interestedly. + +"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." + +"Some use Chiselum's Pills," remarked the citizen. + +"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." + +"Is yours worse in the morning or at night?" asked the citizen. + +"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?" + +"I never did. Does yours come in paroxysms or is it a steady pain?" + +The burglar sat down on the foot of the bed and rested his gun on his +crossed knee. + +"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." + +"Same here. I've spent a thousand dollars without getting any relief. +Yours swell any?" + +"Of mornings. And when it's goin' to rain -- great Christopher!" + +"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." + +"It's undiluted -- hades!" said the burglar. + +"You're dead right," said the citizen. + +The burglar looked down at his pistol and thrust it into his pocket with +an awkward attempt at ease. + +"Say, old man," he said, constrainedly, "ever try opodeldoc?" + +"Slop!" said the citizen angrily. "Might as well rub on restaurant +butter." + +"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!" + +"For a week," said the citizen. "I haven't been able to dress myself +without help. I'm afraid Thomas is in bed, and --" + +"Climb out," said the burglar, "I'll help you get into your duds." + +The conventional returned as a tidal wave and flooded the citizen. He +stroked his brown-and-gray beard. + +"It's very unusual --" he began. + +"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." + +As they were going out the door the citizen turned and started back. + +"Liked to forgot my money," he explained; "laid it on the dresser last +night." + +The burglar caught him by the right sleeve. + +"Come on," he said bluffly. "I ask you. Leave it alone. I've got the +price. Ever try witch hazel and oil of wintergreen?" + + + + +IX AT ARMS WITH MORPHEUS + + + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +I went straight to the medicine cabinet and looked. + +"You unmitigated hayseed!" I growled. "See what money will do for a man's +brains!" + +There stood the morphine bottle with the stopple out, just as Tom had left +it. + +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. + +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. + +"Couldn't help it," he said. "I never kicked a millionaire before in my +life. I may never have another opportunity." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Tom looked at me with a faint and foolish smile. + +"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." + +And he went to sleep in two seconds. I shook him by the shoulder. + +"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." + +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. + +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 -- Eur +eka! -- 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. + +"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." + +Tom looked the least bit interested. + +"What's the matter, Billy?" he muttered, composedly. "Don't your clothes +fit you?" + +"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" + +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. + +"C-c-confound you," he stammered, "I'll s-smash you." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +When Tom was ready to go he stopped, with the door open, and shook my hand. + +"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." + + + + +X A GHOST OF A CHANCE + + + +"Actually, a hod!" repeated Mrs. Kinsolving, pathetically. + +Mrs. Bellamy Bellmore arched a sympathetic eyebrow. Thus she expressed +condolence and a generous amount of apparent surprise. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +But, later on, Mrs. Kinsolving's hopes and spirits were revived by the +capture of a second and greater prize. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"There was an ancestor who fought against the Britishers, wasn't there? +Your mother said something to that effect." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + + + +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. + +"Did it have a -- a -- a --?" Mrs. Kinsolving, in her suspense and +agitation, could not bring out the word. + +"No, indeed -- far from it." + +There was a chorus of questions from others at the table. "Were n't you +frightened?" "What did it do?" "How did it look?" "How was it dressed?" +"Did it say anything?" "Didn't you scream?" + +"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." + +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." + +Terence sent a smile of pleased congratulation toward his mother. +Attainment was Mrs. Kinsolving's, at last, and he loved to see her happy. + +"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." + +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. ' + +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. + +"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?" + +"Rattled chains," suggested Terence, after some thought, "or groaned? +They usually do one or the other." + +"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?" + +"Don't think so," said Terence, with an extremely puzzled air. "Never +heard of any of them being noted beauties." + +"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?" + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Terence, in wide-eyed amazement; "you don't mean +that, Mrs. Bellmore! Did he actually kiss you?" + +"I said _it_," corrected Mrs. Bellmore. "I hope the impersonal pronoun is +correctly used." + +"But why did you say I was responsible?" + +"Because you are the only living male relative of the ghost." + +"I see. 'Unto the third and fourth generation. 'But, seriously, did he +-- did it -- how do you --?" + +"Know? How does any one know? I was asleep, and that is what awakened +me, I'm almost certain." + +"Almost?" + +"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?" + +"But, about kissing ghosts, you know," said Terence, humbly, "I require +the most primary instruction. I never kissed a ghost. Is it -- is it?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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?" + +"He was licked at Yorktown, I believe," said Terence, reflecting. "They +say he skedaddled with his company, after the first battle there." + +"I thought he must have been timid," said Mrs. Bellmore, absently. "He +might have had another." + +"Another battle?" asked Terence, dully. + +"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?" + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Too shy!" she murmured, sweetly, in explanation. + + + + +XI JIMMY HAYES AND MURIEL + + + +I + + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +"Hi, fellows!" shouted the rider cheerfully. "This here's a letter fer +Lieutenant Manning." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Take it over there and see," said Hayes. + +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. + +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. + +"Well, dang my hide!" said the other ranger. "The little cuss knows you. +Never thought them insects had that much sense!" + + +II + + +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 h is knee or shoulder in camp, under his +blankets at night, the ugly little beast never left him. + +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? + +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 chef _d'oeuvre_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 f +rom him were reported. + +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. + +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. + +Days, weeks, and months went by, and still that little cloud of +unforgotten cowardice hung above the camp. + + +III + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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 paean 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. + + + + +XII THE DOOR OF UNREST + + + +I sat an hour by sun, in the editor's room of the Montopolis _Weekly +Bugle_. I was the editor. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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." + +"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--" + +"Do ye know the name on that card?" asked my caller, interrupting me. + +"It is not a familiar one to me," I said. + +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 _Turkish Spy_ in old-style type; the +printing upon it was this: + +"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 a +nswered 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. + +"Such is the story of the Wandering Jew, as told by Michob Ader, who +relates --" Here the printing ended. + +I must have muttered aloud something to myself about the Wandering Jew, +for the old man spake up, bitterly and loudly. + +"'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 _Turkish Spy_ 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." + +I laid down my pencil and pad. Clearly it would not do. Here was an item +for the local column of the _Bugle_ 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. + +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. + +"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." + +Unknowingly, I had struck a chord. The old man blinked belligerently +through his senile tears. + +"'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. + +"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?' + +"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. + +"'Have one, Michob?' says he. + +"'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?' + +"'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.' + +"'And for what,' says I, 'do ye smoke be night in dark places widout even +a cinturion in plain clothes to attend ye?' + +"'Have ye ever heard, Michob,' says the Imperor, 'of predestinarianism?' + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"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 Poppaea, 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." + +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. + +And then, as if he suspected my thoughts, he suddenly shifted his key. + +"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." + +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. + +Above my desk hung an engraving of Raphael's cherubs. You could yet make +out their forms, though the dust blurred their outlines strangely. + +"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?" + +I fancied that it was in -- in Persia? Well, I did not know. + +"'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. + +"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." + +"I have none," said I, "and, if you please, I am about to leave for my +supper." + +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. + +"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." + +Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the _Bugle's_ +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. + +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. + +"Come now, Mr. Ader," I said, soothingly; "what is the matter?" + +The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs: + +"Because I would not...let the poor Christ...rest...upon the step." + +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. + +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. + +"'Twas me that did it," he muttered, as I led him toward the door -- "me, +the shoemaker of Jerusalem." + +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. + +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. + +"The Seven Whistlers!" he said, as one introduces well-known friends. + +"Wild geese," said I; "but I confess that their number is beyond me." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 _Turkish Spy_ an extraordinary story. He claimed to be the +Wandering Jew, and that -- + +But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had not been light that +day. + +Judge Hoover was the _Bugle's_ 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. + +"Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?" I asked him, smiling. + +"Why, yes," said the judge. "And that reminds me of my shoes he has for +mending. Here is his shop now." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"What is his history?" I inquired. + +"Whiskey," epitomized Judge Hoover. "That explains him." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +Uncle Abner was the Complete History of Montopolis, bound in butternut. + +"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'." + +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. + +"Did Mike O'Bader ever have a great loss or trouble of any kind?" I asked. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +I leaned back in my non-rotary revolving chair and nodded gently, like a +mandarin, at my paste-pot. + +"When old Mike has a spell," went on Uncle Abner, tepidly garrulous, "he +thinks he's the Wanderin' Jew." + +"He is," said I, nodding away. + +And Uncle Abner cackled insinuatingly at the editor's remark, for he was +expecting at least a "stickful" in the "Personal Notes" of the _Bugle_. + + + + +XIII THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES + + + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 n +ever failed to extract ready replies. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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! + +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. + +"No money?" said he with a surprised look. "It is quite annoying to be +called on so frequently for these petty sums. Really, I --" + +The major searched his pockets. He found only a two-dollar bill, which he +returned to his vest pocket. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +The major drew a small envelope from his upper vest pocket and tossed it +on the table. + +"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." + +Miss Lydia threw up her hands in silent despair. + +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 scen +e. Major Talbot betrayed some interest. + +"Oh, see!" exclaimed Miss Lydia, nudging his arm, and pointing to her +programme. + +The major put on his glasses and read the line in the cast of characters +that her finger indicated. + +Col. Webster Calhoun...H. Hopkins Hargraves. + +"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." + +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 st +age." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"We will go, Lydia," he said chokingly. "This is an abominable -- +desecration." + +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. + +Hargraves's success must have kept him up late that night, for neither at +the breakfast nor at the dinner table did he appear. + +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. + +"I put it all over 'em last night, major," he began exultantly. "I had my +inning, and, I think, scored. Here's what the _Post_ says: + + +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. + + +"How does that sound, major, for a first nighter?" + +"I had the honour" -- the major's voice sounded ominously frigid -- "of +witnessing your very remarkable performance, sir, last night." + +Hargraves looked disconcerted. + +"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." + +"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." + +The actor appeared to be slightly bewildered, and seemed hardly to take in +the full meaning of the old gentleman's words. + +"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." + +"They are not from Alabama, sir," said the major haughtily. + +"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: + + +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. + + +"Do you think that picture is fairer than the one you saw of Colonel +Calhoun last night?" + +"The description," said the major frowning, "is -- not without grounds. +Some exag -- latitude must be allowed in public speaking." + +"And in public acting," replied Hargraves. + +"That is not the point," persisted the major, unrelenting. "It was a +personal caricature. I positively decline to overlook it, sir." + +"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 --" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Deliverance came from an entirely unexpected source. + +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. + +"I be bound you don't know me, Mars' Pendleton," were his first words. + +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. + +"I don't believe I do," he said kindly -- "unless you will assist my +memory." + +"Don't you 'member Cindy's Mose, Mars' Pendleton, what 'migrated +'mediately after de war?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +Uncle Mose took a chair and laid his hat carefully on the floor beside it. + +"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. + +"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'." + +"I'm glad to hear it," said the major heartily. "Glad to hear it." + +"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." + +The major stepped to the door and called: "Lydia, dear, will you come?" + +Miss Lydia, looking quite grown up and a little worried, came in from her +room. + +"Dar, now! What'd I tell you? I knowed dat baby done be plum growed up. +You don't 'member Uncle Mose, child?" + +"This is Aunt Cindy's Mose, Lydia," explained the major. "He left +Sunnymead for the West when you were two years old." + +"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." + +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. + +The major inquired what the old man was doing so far from his home. + +"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." + +"And how did you know we were in Washington?" inquired Miss Lydia. + +"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'. + +"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." + +"Owe me?" said the major, in surprise. + +"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 f +ur. Yassir." + +Tears were in Major Talbot's eyes. He took Uncle Mose's hand and laid his +other upon his shoulder. + +"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." + +"Take it, honey," said Uncle Mose. "Hit belongs to you. Hit's Talbot +money." + +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. + +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. + +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: + + +Dear Miss Talbot: + +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." + +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. + +Sincerely yours, + +H. Hopkins Hargraves, + +P.S. How did I play Uncle Mose? + + + +Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia's door open and +stopped. + +"Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?" he asked. + +Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress. + +"The _Mobile Chronicle_ came," she said promptly. "It's on the table in +your study." + + + + +XIV LET ME FEEL YOUR PULSE + + + +So I went to a doctor. + +"How long has it been since you took any alcohol into your system?" he +asked. + +Turning my head sidewise, I answered, "Oh, quite awhile." + +He was a young doctor, somewhere between twenty and forty. He wore +heliotrope socks, but he looked like Napoleon. I liked him immensely. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Now," said he, "you see what alcohol does to the blood-pressure." + +"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! + +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. + +"It's the haemoglobin test," he explained. "The colour of your blood is +wrong." + +"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 --" + +"I mean," said the doctor, "that the shade of red is too light." + +"Oh," said I, "it's a case of matching instead of matches." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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, hut merely as tired ladies and gentlemen taking a rest. +Whatever slight maladies they may have are never alluded to in +conversation." + +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. + +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; hut the +Armour Packing Company would have been delighted with his hands. + +"Here," said the physician in charge, "our guests find relaxation from +past mental worries by devoting themselves to physical labour -- +recreation, in reality." + +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. + +"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." + +I had seen the book. "Why doesn't she do it by writing another one +instead?" I asked. + +As you see, I wasn't as far gone as they thought I was. + +"The gentleman pouring water through the funnel," continued the physician +in charge, "is a Wall Street broker broken down from overwork." + +I buttoned my coat. + +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. + +"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." + +I was a hundred yards away before my doctor overtook me. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +"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." + +"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." + +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?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"What you need," he decided, "is sea air and companionship." + +"Would a mermaid --" I began; but he slipped on his professional manner. + +"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." + +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'hote. The bay was a great stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. +The Corsair 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 p +rices. When you went away you simply left your baggage, stole a skiff, +and beat it for the mainland in the night. + +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. + +When we got back to town a thought seemed to occur to him suddenly. "By +the way," he asked, "how do you feel?" + +"Relieved of very much," I replied. + +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 coordination +exercises. + +"Have you a pain in the back of your head?" he asked. I told him I had +not. + +"Shut your eyes," he ordered, "put your feet close together, and jump +backward as far as you can." + +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. + +"Now touch your nose with your right forefinger," he said. + +"Where is it?" I asked. + +"On your face," said he. + +"I mean my right forefinger," I explained. + +"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: + +"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. + +"Now," he said, "gallop like a horse for about five minutes around the +room." + +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. + +"No glanders in our family, Doc," I said. + +The consulting physician held up his forefinger within three inches of my +nose. "Look at my finger," he commanded. + +"Did you ever try Pears' --" I began; but he went on with his test rapidly. + +"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. + +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 exami +nation. + +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. + +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. + +"You must follow this diet strictly," said the doctors. + +"I'd follow it a mile if I could get one-tenth of what's on it," I +answered. + +"Of next importance," they went on, "is outdoor air and exercise. And +here is a prescription that will be of great benefit to you." + +Then all of us took something. They took their hats, and I took my +departure. + +I went to a druggist and showed him the prescription. + +"It will be $2.87 for an ounce bottle," he said. + +"Will you give me a piece of your wrapping cord?" said I. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, what is it -- what is it, Brother John?" I heard Amaryllis say. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +I leaped into the air. + +"Hey! what's the matter down there?" called John from his room above mine. + +"Oh, nothing," I answered, "except that I accidentally bumped my head +against the ceiling." + +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. + +Then John spoke of alfalfa, and I brightened at once. "Oh, yes," said I, +"wasn't she in the chorus of -- let's see --" + +"Green, you know," said John, "and tender, and you plow it under after the +first season." + +"I know," said I, "and the grass grows over her." + +"Right," said John. "You know something about farming, after all." + +"I know something of some farmers," said I, "and a sure scythe will mow +them down some day." + +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." + +"A chicken?" said I. + +"A White Orpington hen, if you want to particularize." + +"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. + +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: + +"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 cardamom 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." + +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. + +"I forgot to mention," said I, "that I shall also take absolute rest and +exercise. + +After this consultation I felt much better. The reestablishing 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. + +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, wr +inkled eyes, in a home-made suit of gray jeans. + +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. + +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." + +"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 pharmacopoeia?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I'm glad you're well again," she said. "When you first came you +frightened me. I thought you were really ill." + +"Well again!" I almost shrieked. "Do you know that I have only one chance +in a thousand to live?" + +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?" + +"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." + +"What doctor?" + +"Doctor Tatum -- the old doctor who lives halfway up Black Oak Mountain. +Do you know him?" + +"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." + +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. + +When we got to the house Amaryllis lugged out an encyclopaedia 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 encyclopaedia 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?" + +"I know what he meant," said I. "I know now." + +A word to a brother who may have come under the spell of the unquiet Lady +Neurasthenia. + +The formula was true. Even though gropingly at times, the physicians of +the walled cities had put their fingers upon the specific medicament. + +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. + +Absolute rest and exercise! + +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? + + + + +XV OCTOBER AND JUNE + + + +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! + +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. + + +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. + + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"I did," said the Captain; "and that's why I came. I say, now, Theo, +reconsider your answer, won't you?" + +Theodora smiled softly upon him. He carried his years well. She was +really fond of his strength, his wholesome looks, his manliness -- +perhaps, if -- + +"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." + +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! + +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. + +"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." + +"I'd always do what you wanted me to do, Theo. If you wanted to --" + +"No, you wouldn't. You think now that you would, but you wouldn't. +Please don't ask me any more." + +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. + +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. + +"'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." + +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. + + + + +XVI THE CHURCH WITH AN OVERSHOT-WHEEL + + + +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 ears to carry +it home. + +You wonder again why it was named Lakelands. There are no lakes, and the +lands about are too poor to be worth mentioning. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + + "The wheel goes round, + The grist is ground, + The dusty miller's merry. + He sings all day, + His work is play, + While thinking of his dearie." + +Then Aglaia would run to him laughing, and call: + +"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. + +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 faraway, and she was already gone. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Phoebe 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 Phoebe two hundred dollars. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Two weeks after that Abram Strong came for his yearly visit to the Eagle +House, and became "Father Abram" again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +The miller looked down at her with his strong, ready smile. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"Good Miss Rose!" mimicked the miller, smiling. "Who thinks of others +more than you do?" + +A whimsical mood seemed to strike Miss Chester. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +The miller asked her no questions; but by and by Miss Chester began to +tell him. + +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. + +"And now where does the trouble come in?" asked the miller when he had +read the letter. + +"I cannot marry him," said Miss Chester. + +"Do you want to marry him?" asked Father Abram. + +"Oh, I love him," she answered, "but -- " Down went her head and she +sobbed again. + +"Come, Miss Rose," said the miller; "you can give me your confidence. I +do not question you, but I think you can trust me." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +Better than any sympathy, more helpful than pity, was Father Abram's +depreciation of her woes. + +"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." + +"I shall never tell him," said Miss Chester, sadly. "And I shall never +marry him nor any one else. I have not the right." + +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 Phoebe 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 Phoebe, and his bare toes proudly spurned the dust of the road. + +Miss Phoebe, 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. + +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. + +Suddenly the scene was transformed for him back almost a score of years +into the past. For, as Tommy pumped away, Miss Phoebe 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. + +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: + + "The wheel goes round, + The grist is ground, + The dusty miller's merry." + +-- 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!" + +Miss Phoebe 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. + +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 Phoebe's deep bass note was yet reverberating +softly. + +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. + +"Father," she said, somewhat timidly and doubtfully, "have you a great +deal of money?" + +"A great deal?" said the miller. "Well, that depends. There is plenty +unless you want to buy the moon or something equally expensive." + +"Would it cost very, very much," asked Aglaia, who had always counted her +dimes so carefully, "to send a telegram to Atlanta?" + +"Ah," said Father Abram, with a little sigh, "I see. You want to ask +Ralph to come." + +Aglaia looked up at him with a tender smile. + +"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." + + + + +XVII NEW YORK BY CAMP FIRE LIGHT + + + +Away out in the Creek Nation we learned things about New York. + +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. + +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. + +Bud went over to her assistance, and soon had her fire going. When he +came back we complimented him playfully upon his gallantry. + +"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." + +The camp demanded the particulars. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Rubber parties?" said a listener, inquiringly. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"After we all went into the sitting room she sat down and talked to me +quite awhile. + +"'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.' + +"'Never you mind,' says I, 'some lucky man will throw his rope over a +mighty elegant little housekeeper some day, not far from here.' + +"'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.' + +"'Don't mention it,' says I. 'Anything to oblige the ladies.'" + +Bud ceased his reminiscences. And then some one asked him what he +considered the most striking and prominent trait of New Yorkers. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The doctor comes over and he investigates the patient. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"'He's about gone now,' said Doc. 'Whenever they begin to think they see +heaven it's all off. ' + +"Blamed if that New York man didn't sit right up when he heard the Doc say +that. + +"'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.' + +"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!" + + + + +XVIII THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Why have you that string on your finger?" I asked. + +"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." + +The distinguished detective went to a wall telephone, and stood with the +receiver to his ear for probably ten minutes. + +"Were you listening to a confession?" I asked, when he had returned to his +chair. + +"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." + +After five minutes of silent pondering, Jolnes looked at me, with a smile, +and nodded his head. + +"Wonderful man!" I exclaimed; "already?" + +"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!" + +"Beautiful!" I could not help crying out in admiration. + +"Suppose we go out for a ramble," suggested Jolnes. + +"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." + +Jolnes and I went out and up the street toward the corner, where we were +to catch a surface car. + +Half-way up the block we met Rheingelder, an acquaintance of ours, who +held a City Hall position. + +"Good morning, Rheingelder," said Jolnes, halting. + +"Nice breakfast that was you had this morning." 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. + +"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." + +"Done," said Jolnes. "Sausage, pumpernickel and coffee." + +Rheingelder admitted the correctness of the surmise and paid the bet. +When we had proceeded on our way I said to Jolnes: + +"I thought you looked at the egg spilled on his chin and shirt front." + +"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." + +When we boarded the street car we found the seats all occupied -- +principally by ladies. Jolnes and I stood on the rear platform. + +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. + +"We New Yorkers," I remarked to Jolnes, "have about lost our manners, as +far as the exercise of them in public goes." + +"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." + +"You know him, then?" I said, in amazement. + +"I never saw him before we stepped on the car," declared the detective, +smilingly. + +"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." + +"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." + +Three blocks farther along the gentleman rose to leave the car. Jolnes +addressed him at the door: "Pardon me, sir, but are you not Colonel +Hunter, of Norfolk, Virginia?" + +"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." + +"Thank you," said Jolnes; "tell him that Reynolds sent his regards, if you +will be so kind." + +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. + +"Did you say your _three_ daughters?" he asked of the Virginia gentleman. + +"Yes, suh, my three daughters, all as fine girls as there are in Fairfax +County," was the answer. + +With that Major Ellison stopped the car and began to descend the step. + +Shamrock Jolnes clutched his arm. + +"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 _adopted_ daughter?" + +"You are, suh," admitted the major, from the ground, "but how the devil +you knew it, suh, is mo' than I can tell." + +"And mo' than I can tell, too," I said, as the car went on. + +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 cafe, promising to reveal the process of his latest wonderful +feat. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"And then," I cried, beginning to feel enthusiasm, "when he declared that +he had three daughters" -- + +"I could see," said Jolnes, "one in the background who added no flower; +and I knew that she must be --" + +"Adopted!" I broke in. "I give you every credit; but how did you know he +was leaving for the South to-night?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + + + + +XIX THE LADY HIGHER UP + + + +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 b +enches 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. + +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. + +"Ah, there, Mrs. Liberty!" called a clear, rollicking soprano voice +through the still, midnight air. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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 Cafe 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.' + +"That was the best thing happened on the roof. So you see how dull it +is. La, la, la!" + +"'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." + +"'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." + +"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 e 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?" + +"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." + +The golden statue veered in the changing breeze, menacing many points on +the horizon with its aureate arrow. + +"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 t +aking 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." + + + + +XX THE GREATER CONEY + + + +"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. + +"Was I there before? I was. I was there last Tuesday. Did I see the +sights? I did not. + +"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. + +"'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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'Is it trouble you are in, now, Miss,' says I; 'and what's to be done +about it?' + +"' '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. + +"'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. + +"'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.' + +"'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?' + +"'I did,' says she, reflectin'; 'but 'tis not safe, I'm thinkin', to ride +down them slantin' things into the water.' + +"'How did ye fancy the shoot the chutes?' I asks. + +"'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.' + +"'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?' + +"'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.' + +"'Did you see Venice?' says I. + +"'We did,' says she. 'She was a beauty. She was all dressed in red, she +was, with --' + +"I listened no more to Norah Flynn. I stepped up and I gathered her in my +arms. + +"' '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.' + +"Norah stuck her nose against me vest. + +"'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?' + +"' '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?' + +"'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.' + +"'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." + + + + +XXI LAW AND ORDER + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched +ourselves on the bank of the nearby _charco_ 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 _morral_ 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 _trabajadores_. + +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 _arroyo_. + +Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled sarcastically and +sorrowfully. + +"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 +_hombre_ 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." + +"Times have changed, Bud," said I, oracularly. "Law and order is the rule +now in the South and the Southwest." + +I caught a cold gleam from Bud's pale blue eyes. + +"Not that I --" I began, hastily. + +"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 re +ckon 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." + +"But --" I began. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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 +_caballard_ 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. + +"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. + +"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 thee 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. + +"'Bud,' says Luke to me, 'I want you to fix up a little and go up to San +Antone with me.' + +"'Let me get on my Mexican spurs,' says I, 'and I'm your company.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"'I'll wait for the decree if it won't take over half an hour,' says Luke. + +"'Tut, tut,' says the lawyer man. 'Law must take its course. Come back +day after to-morrow at half-past nine.' + +"At that time me and Luke shows up, and the lawyer hands him a folded +document. And Luke writes him out a check. + +"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: + +"'Decree of ab-so-lute divorce with cus-to-dy of the child.' + +"'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?' + +"'Bud,' says he, in a pained style, 'that child is the one thing I have to +live for. She may go; but the boy is mine! -- think of it -- I have +cus-to-dy of the child.' + +"'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.' + +"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.' + +"But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, _nolle_ +_prossed_, 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. + +"Luke takes out his decree once more and reads off its emoluments. + +"'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."' + +"'There is what you might call a human leaning,' says I, 'toward smashing +'em both -- not to mention the child.' + +"'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.' + +"'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. + +"He come back two weeks afterward, not saying much. + +"'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.'" + +And after that we never alluded to allusions, as you might say. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"'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?' + +"'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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"By and by along comes Pedro Johnson, the proprietor of the Crystal Palace +_chili-con-carne_ 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. + +"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 _caballard_ 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. + +"When Luke got back three days later, and I told him about it, he was mad +all over. + +"'Why'n't you telegraph to San Antone,' he asks, 'and have the bunch +arrested there?' + +"'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. + +"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 _hombre_ +called Scudder in New York City. + +"'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 Bel +l 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.' + +"'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?' + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"'From the standpoint of order,' says he, 'it's amenable to answer for its +sins to the properly appointed authorities from Bildad to Jerusalem.' + +"'Amen,' says I. 'But let's turn our trick sudden, and ride. I don't +like the looks of this place.' + +"'Think of Pedro Johnson,' says Luke, 'a friend of mine and yours shot +down by one of these gilded abolitionists at his very door!' + +"'It was at the door of the freight depot,' says I. 'But the law will not +be balked at a quibble like that.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"'Did you get what you wanted?' says she. + +"'No, ma'am,' says I. 'Not a bite.' + +"'Then there's no charge,' says she. + +"'Thanky, ma'am,' says I, and I takes up the trail again. + +"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. + +"I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and +makes a move like he was going to get up. + +"'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?' + +"And may I ask who you are?' says he. + +"'You may,' says I. 'Go ahead.' + +"'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. + +"'A beefsteak,' says I, 'and some fried eggs and a can of peaches and a +quart of coffee will about suffice.' + +"We talk awhile about the sundries of life and then he says: + +"'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?' + +"'We'll have to take you back to Texas,' says I. + +"'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. ' + +"'Who was this gang of stout parties you took this trip with?' I asks. + +"'My stepfather,' says he, 'and some business partners of his in some +Mexican mining and land schemes.' + +"'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?' + +"'I've had these scars ever since I can remember,' says he. 'I don't know +how they came there. ' + +"'Was you ever in Texas before?' says I. + +"'Not that I remember of,' says he. 'But I thought I had when we struck +the prairie country. But I guess I hadn't.' + +"'Have you got a mother?' I asks. + +"'She died five years ago,' says he. + +"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 at-tempted kidnapping, and ask him what he has to say. + +"'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.' + +"'Have you the usual and necessary requisition papers from the governor of +your state?' asks the judge. + +"'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.' + +"I see the judge looks mad, so I steps up and says: + +"'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 --' + +"The judge hits his table with a wooden hammer and asks who I am. + +"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.' + +"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. + +"Skipping over much of what happened on the way back, I'll tell you how +the thing wound up in Bildad. + +"When we got the prisoner in the sheriff's office, I says to Luke: + +"'You, remember that kid of yours -- that two-year old that they stole +away from you when the bust-up come?' + +"Luke looks black and angry. He'd never let anybody talk to him about +that business, and he never mentioned it himself. + +"'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.' + +"Luke comes over to me shaking all over. I never saw him lose his nerve +before. + +"'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.' + +"Luke begins to tear his desk to pieces. + +"'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.' + +"'I've got him back,' says Luke. 'He's mine again. I never thought -- ' + +"'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 --' + +"'Oh, hell!' says Luke. 'That don't amount to anything. That fellow was +half Mexican, anyhow.'" + + + + +XXII TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN BURNEY + + + +In behalf of Sir Walter's soothing plant let us look into the case of +Martin Burney. + +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, e +arned 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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +One morning as he was starting with the others for work he stopped at the +pine counter for his usual sack of tobacco. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Earn it," said Corrigan, "and then buy it." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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?" + +Tony also contained a grievance -- and a plot. He, too, was a Corrigan +hater, and had been primed to see it in others. + +"How you like-a Mr. Corrigan?" he asked. "You think-a him a nice-a man?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"All a-right," said Tony. "But better wait 'bout-a ten minute more. +Give-a Corrigan plenty time get good-a sleep." + +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. + +"You like-a smoke while we wait?" he asked. + +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. + +"'Bout time to go now," said Tony. "That damn-a Corrigan he be in the +reever very quick." + +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: + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +Burney, with expanded chest, watched his late coplotter disappear. Then +he, too, departed, setting his face in the direction of the Bronx. + +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. + + + + +XXIII THE CALIPH AND THE CAD + + + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _cafe_. 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. + +"The carriage is not here," said the lady. "You ordered it to wait?" + +"I ordered it for nine-thirty," said the man. "It should be here now." + +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. + +"Jack," said the lady, "don't be angry. I've done everything I could to +please you this evening. Why do you act so?" + +"Oh, you're an angel," said the man. "Depend upon woman to throw the +blame upon a man." + +"I'm not blaming you. I'm only trying to make you happy." + +"You go about it in a very peculiar way." + +"You have been cross with me all the evening without any cause." + +"Oh, there isn't any cause except -- you make me tired." + +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. + +"May I ask why I am selected for the honour?" asked the lady's escort. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +A carriage dashed up, driven by a tardy and solicitous coachman. + +"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. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Corny, "if he's your man." + +"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." + +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. + +Corny gathered his foe's hat and began to brush the dust from his clothes. + +"Come along," said Corny, taking the other man by the arm. + +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. + +"The drinks for us," said Corny "me and my friend." + +"You're a queer feller," said the lady's late escort -- "lick a man and +then want to set 'em up. + +"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?" + + + + +XXIV THE DIAMOND OF KALI + + + +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." + +The Sunday editor glanced the item over and said: "H'm!" Afterward he sent +for a reporter and expanded his comment. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +General Ludlow brought a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cabinet, +and set a comfortable armchair for the lucky scribe. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Pardon me," said General Ludlow, "for forgetting hospitality in the +excitement of my narrative. Help yourself." + +"Here's looking at you," said the reporter. + +"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. + +"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." + +"How was that, General?" asked the reporter. + +"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." + +"Afraid the cow would hook?" asked the reporter. + +"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." + +"It's a mighty interesting story," said the reporter. + +"If you don't mind I'll take another drink, and then a few notes." + +"I will join you," said General Ludlow, with a courteous wave of his hand. + +"If I were you," advised the reporter, "I'd take that sparkler to Texas. +Get on a cow ranch there, and the Pharisees --" + +"Phansigars," corrected the General. + +"Oh, yes; the fancy guys would run up against a long horn every time they +made a break." + +General Ludlow closed the diamond case and thrust it into his bosom. + +"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." + +"Here?" exclaimed the reporter, seizing the decanter and pouring out a +liberal amount of its contents. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"I have no daughters -- fly for your life -- the Phansigars are upon us!" +cried the General. + +The two men dashed out of the front door of the house. + +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: + +"Buy cast clo'!" + +Another, dark-whiskered and sinister, sped lithely to his side and began +in a whining voice: + +"Say, mister, have yer got a dime fer a poor feller what --" + +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. + +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. + +"Run for it!" hissed the General. "They have discovered the possessor of +the diamond of the goddess Kali." + +The two men took to their heels. The avengers of the goddess pursued. + +"Oh, Lordy!" groaned the reporter, "there isn't a cow this side of +Brooklyn. We're lost!" + +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. + +"If I only had a cow!" moaned the reporter -- "or another nip from that +decanter, General!" + +As soon as the pursuers observed where their victims had found refuge they +suddenly fell back and retreated to a considerable distance. + +"They are waiting for reinforcements in order to attack us," said General +Ludlow. + +But the reporter emitted a ringing laugh, and hurled his hat triumphantly +into the air. + +"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!" + +But further down in the shadows of Twenty-eighth Street the marauders were +holding a parley. + +"Come on, Reddy," said one. "Let's go frisk the old 'un. He's been +shown' a sparkler as big as a hen egg all around Eighth Avenue for two +weeks past." + +"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." + +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. + +"It is rumored that a niece of Gen. Marcellus B. Ludlow, of New York City, +will appear on the stage next season. + +"Her diamonds are said to be extremely valuable and of much historic +interest." + + + + +XXV THE DAY WE CELEBRATE + + + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +And then Bibb laughed suddenly and loudly. + +"That bird," he explained, "reminds me. He's got his dates mixed. He +ought to be saying '_E pluri bus unum_,' 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. + +"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. + +"When me and Liverpool got so low down that the American consul wouldn't +speak to us we knew we'd struck bed rock. + +"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 _calle de los_ +Forty-seven Inconsolable Saints. When our credit played out there, +Liverpool, whose stomach overshadowed his sensations of _noblesse oblige_, +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. + +"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 exist +ence; and, as the saying goes, misery certainly does enjoy the society of +accomplices. + +"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. + +"You ever been in a banana grove? It's as solemn as a rathskeller at +seven A. M. 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. + +"At night me and Liverpool herded in a lot of grass huts on the edge of a +lagoon with the red, yellow, and black employes 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. + +"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. + +"I don't know how long we worked for Don Jaime; but it was through two or +thee rainy spells, eight or ten hair cuts, and the life of thee pairs of +sail-cloth trousers. All the money we earned went for rum and tobacco; +but we ate, and that was something. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"'Oh, you go to 'ell,' says Liverpool, which was about all the repartee he +ever had. + +"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. + +"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 Ark-right, 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 ti +me 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. + +"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. + +"'Boys, boys!' says he, through his blue spectacles, 'is it as bad as +this? Are you so far reduced?' + +"'We're reduced,' says I, 'to very vulgar fractions.' + +"'It is indeed sad,' says Pendergast, 'to see my countrymen in such +circumstances.' + +"'Cut 'arf of that out, old party,' says Liverpool. 'Cawn't you tell a +member of the British upper classes when you see one?' + +"'Shut up,' I told Liverpool. 'You're on foreign soil now, or that +portion of it that's not on you.' + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"Me and Liverpool thanked him kindly, and walked away. + +"'Shall we eat?' I asks. + +"'Oh, 'ell!' says Liverpool. 'What's money for?' "'Very well, then,' I +says, 'since you insist upon it, we'll drink.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"'Oh, you go to 'ell!' says Liverpool, and I started in with a fine +left-hander on his right eye. + +"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. + +"'Get up,' says I, kicking him in the ribs, 'and come along with me.' + +"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. + +"'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!' + +"'Dear me,' says Pendergast, holding up his hands. 'Fighting on this day +of all days! On Christmas day, when peace on --' + +"'Christmas, hell!' says I. 'I thought it was the Fourth of July.'" + + +"Merry Christmas!" said the red, white, and blue cockatoo. + +"Take him for six dollars," said Hop-along Bibb. "He's got his dates and +colours mixed." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Sixes and Sevens, by O Henry + |