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diff --git a/3707-h/3707-h.htm b/3707-h/3707-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bfc93a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/3707-h/3707-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9670 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trimmed Lamp, by O. Henry</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + body { margin-left:20%; + margin-right:20%; + text-align:justify; } +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +hr.narrow { width: 40%; + text-align: center; } + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent { text-indent: 0%; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + + table {font-size: large; } + table.sm {font-size: medium; } + + .caption { font-size: small; + font-weight: bold; } + .center { text-align: center; } + img { border: 0; } + .vsmall { font-size: 60%; } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trimmed Lamp, by O. Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Trimmed Lamp<br /> + And Other Stories of the Four Million</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: O. Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 30, 2001 [eBook #3707]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 24, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Franks, Greg Weeks, the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIMMED LAMP ***</div> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/frontis.jpg"> + <img src="images/frontis.jpg" height="500" + alt="Wooed her across the counter + with a King Cophetua air" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <span class="caption">“Wooed her across the counter + with a King Cophetua air.”</span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<h1>THE<br /> +TRIMMED LAMP</h1> + +<h3>AND OTHER STORIES OF<br /> +THE FOUR MILLION</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>O. HENRY</h2> + +<h5><i>Author of “The Four Million,” “The Voice of the<br /> +City,” “Strictly Business,” “Whirligigs,”<br /> +“Sixes and Sevens,” Etc.</i></h5> + +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="3"> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c1" >THE TRIMMED LAMP</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c2" >A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c3" >THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c4" >THE PENDULUM</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c5" >TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c6" >THE ASSESSOR OF SUCCESS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c7" >THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c8" >THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O’ROON</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c9" >BRICKDUST ROW</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c10">THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c11">VANITY AND SOME SABLES</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c12">THE SOCIAL TRIANGLE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c13">THE PURPLE DRESS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c14">THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c15">THE LOST BLEND</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c16">A HARLEM TRAGEDY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c17">“THE GUILTY PARTY”—AN EAST SIDE TRAGEDY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c18">ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c19">A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT’S DREAM</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c20">THE LAST LEAF</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c21">THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c22">THE COUNTRY OF ELUSION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c23">THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c24">THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#c25">ELSIE IN NEW YORK</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c1" id="c1"></a>THE TRIMMED LAMP</h2> + +<p> +Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We +often hear “shop-girls” spoken of. No such persons exist. There are +girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their +occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who +live on Fifth Avenue as “marriage-girls.” +</p> + +<p> +Lou and Nancy were chums. They came to the big city to find work because there +was not enough to eat at their homes to go around. Nancy was nineteen; Lou was +twenty. Both were pretty, active, country girls who had no ambition to go on +the stage. +</p> + +<p> +The little cherub that sits up aloft guided them to a cheap and respectable +boarding-house. Both found positions and became wage-earners. They remained +chums. It is at the end of six months that I would beg you to step forward and +be introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss +Lou. While you are shaking hands please take notice—cautiously—of +their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a +lady in a box at the horse show is. +</p> + +<p> +Lou is a piece-work ironer in a hand laundry. She is clothed in a badly-fitting +purple dress, and her hat plume is four inches too long; but her ermine muff +and scarf cost $25, and its fellow beasts will be ticketed in the windows at +$7.98 before the season is over. Her cheeks are pink, and her light blue eyes +bright. Contentment radiates from her. +</p> + +<p> +Nancy you would call a shop-girl—because you have the habit. There is no +type; but a perverse generation is always seeking a type; so this is what the +type should be. She has the high-ratted pompadour, and the exaggerated +straight-front. Her skirt is shoddy, but has the correct flare. No furs protect +her against the bitter spring air, but she wears her short broadcloth jacket as +jauntily as though it were Persian lamb! On her face and in her eyes, +remorseless type-seeker, is the typical shop-girl expression. It is a look of +silent but contemptuous revolt against cheated womanhood; of sad prophecy of +the vengeance to come. When she laughs her loudest the look is still there. The +same look can be seen in the eyes of Russian peasants; and those of us left +will see it some day on Gabriel’s face when he comes to blow us up. It is +a look that should wither and abash man; but he has been known to smirk at it +and offer flowers—with a string tied to them. +</p> + +<p> +Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lou’s cheery +“See you again,” and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems, +somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the housetops +to the stars. +</p> + +<p> +The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lou’s steady company. +Faithful? Well, he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a dozen +subpoena servers to find her lamb. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t you cold, Nance?” said Lou. “Say, what a chump +you are for working in that old store for $8 a week! I made $18.50 last week. +Of course ironing ain’t as swell work as selling lace behind a counter, +but it pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I don’t know that +it’s any less respectful work, either.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can have it,” said Nancy, with uplifted nose. +“I’ll take my eight a week and hall bedroom. I like to be among +nice things and swell people. And look what a chance I’ve got! Why, one +of our glove girls married a Pittsburg—steel maker, or blacksmith or +something—the other day worth a million dollars. I’ll catch a swell +myself some time. I ain’t bragging on my looks or anything; but +I’ll take my chances where there’s big prizes offered. What show +would a girl have in a laundry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that’s where I met Dan,” said Lou, triumphantly. +“He came in for his Sunday shirt and collars and saw me at the first +board, ironing. We all try to get to work at the first board. Ella Maginnis was +sick that day, and I had her place. He said he noticed my arms first, how round +and white they was. I had my sleeves rolled up. Some nice fellows come into +laundries. You can tell ’em by their bringing their clothes in suit +cases; and turning in the door sharp and sudden.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you wear a waist like that, Lou?” said Nancy, gazing down +at the offending article with sweet scorn in her heavy-lidded eyes. “It +shows fierce taste.” +</p> + +<p> +“This waist?” cried Lou, with wide-eyed indignation. “Why, I +paid $16 for this waist. It’s worth twenty-five. A woman left it to be +laundered, and never called for it. The boss sold it to me. It’s got +yards and yards of hand embroidery on it. Better talk about that ugly, plain +thing you’ve got on.” +</p> + +<p> +“This ugly, plain thing,” said Nancy, calmly, “was copied +from one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing. The girls say her bill in +the store last year was $12,000. I made mine, myself. It cost me $1.50. Ten +feet away you couldn’t tell it from hers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Lou, good-naturedly, “if you want to starve +and put on airs, go ahead. But I’ll take my job and good wages; and after +hours give me something as fancy and attractive to wear as I am able to +buy.” +</p> + +<p> +But just then Dan came—a serious young man with a ready-made necktie, who +had escaped the city’s brand of frivolity—an electrician earning 30 +dollars per week who looked upon Lou with the sad eyes of Romeo, and thought +her embroidered waist a web in which any fly should delight to be caught. +</p> + +<p> +“My friend, Mr. Owens—shake hands with Miss Danforth,” said +Lou. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m mighty glad to know you, Miss Danforth,” said Dan, with +outstretched hand. “I’ve heard Lou speak of you so often.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Nancy, touching his fingers with the tips of her +cool ones, “I’ve heard her mention you—a few times.” +</p> + +<p> +Lou giggled. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you get that handshake from Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, Nance?” +she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“If I did, you can feel safe in copying it,” said Nancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I couldn’t use it, at all. It’s too stylish for me. +It’s intended to set off diamond rings, that high shake is. Wait till I +get a few and then I’ll try it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Learn it first,” said Nancy wisely, “and you’ll be +more likely to get the rings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, to settle this argument,” said Dan, with his ready, cheerful +smile, “let me make a proposition. As I can’t take both of you up +to Tiffany’s and do the right thing, what do you say to a little +vaudeville? I’ve got the tickets. How about looking at stage diamonds +since we can’t shake hands with the real sparklers?” +</p> + +<p> +The faithful squire took his place close to the curb; Lou next, a little +peacocky in her bright and pretty clothes; Nancy on the inside, slender, and +soberly clothed as the sparrow, but with the true Van Alstyne Fisher +walk—thus they set out for their evening’s moderate diversion. +</p> + +<p> +I do not suppose that many look upon a great department store as an educational +institution. But the one in which Nancy worked was something like that to her. +She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. +If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays +for it, or another’s. +</p> + +<p> +The people she served were mostly women whose dress, manners, and position in +the social world were quoted as criterions. From them Nancy began to take +toll—the best from each according to her view. +</p> + +<p> +From one she would copy and practice a gesture, from another an eloquent +lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of carrying a purse, +of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing “inferiors in +station.” From her best beloved model, Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, she made +requisition for that excellent thing, a soft, low voice as clear as silver and +as perfect in articulation as the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of +this high social refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to +escape a deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good +principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits. The +teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England conscience; but +if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the words “prisms and +pilgrims” forty times the devil will flee from you. And when Nancy spoke +in the Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt the thrill of <i>noblesse oblige</i> +to her very bones. +</p> + +<p> +There was another source of learning in the great departmental school. Whenever +you see three or four shop-girls gather in a bunch and jingle their wire +bracelets as an accompaniment to apparently frivolous conversation, do not +think that they are there for the purpose of criticizing the way Ethel does her +back hair. The meeting may lack the dignity of the deliberative bodies of man; +but it has all the importance of the occasion on which Eve and her first +daughter first put their heads together to make Adam understand his proper +place in the household. It is Woman’s Conference for Common Defense and +Exchange of Strategical Theories of Attack and Repulse upon and against the +World, which is a Stage, and Man, its Audience who Persists in Throwing +Bouquets Thereupon. Woman, the most helpless of the young of any +animal—with the fawn’s grace but without its fleetness; with the +bird’s beauty but without its power of flight; with the honey-bee’s +burden of sweetness but without its—Oh, let’s drop that +simile—some of us may have been stung. +</p> + +<p> +During this council of war they pass weapons one to another, and exchange +stratagems that each has devised and formulated out of the tactics of life. +</p> + +<p> +“I says to ’im,” says Sadie, “ain’t you the fresh +thing! Who do you suppose I am, to be addressing such a remark to me? And what +do you think he says back to me?” +</p> + +<p> +The heads, brown, black, flaxen, red, and yellow bob together; the answer is +given; and the parry to the thrust is decided upon, to be used by each +thereafter in passages-at-arms with the common enemy, man. +</p> + +<p> +Thus Nancy learned the art of defense; and to women successful defense means +victory. +</p> + +<p> +The curriculum of a department store is a wide one. Perhaps no other college +could have fitted her as well for her life’s ambition—the drawing +of a matrimonial prize. +</p> + +<p> +Her station in the store was a favored one. The music room was near enough for +her to hear and become familiar with the works of the best composers—at +least to acquire the familiarity that passed for appreciation in the social +world in which she was vaguely trying to set a tentative and aspiring foot. She +absorbed the educating influence of art wares, of costly and dainty fabrics, of +adornments that are almost culture to women. +</p> + +<p> +The other girls soon became aware of Nancy’s ambition. “Here comes +your millionaire, Nancy,” they would call to her whenever any man who +looked the rôle approached her counter. It got to be a habit of men, who +were hanging about while their women folk were shopping, to stroll over to the +handkerchief counter and dawdle over the cambric squares. Nancy’s +imitation high-bred air and genuine dainty beauty was what attracted. Many men +thus came to display their graces before her. Some of them may have been +millionaires; others were certainly no more than their sedulous apes. Nancy +learned to discriminate. There was a window at the end of the handkerchief +counter; and she could see the rows of vehicles waiting for the shoppers in the +street below. She looked and perceived that automobiles differ as well as do +their owners. +</p> + +<p> +Once a fascinating gentleman bought four dozen handkerchiefs, and wooed her +across the counter with a King Cophetua air. When he had gone one of the girls +said: +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong, Nance, that you didn’t warm up to that fellow. +He looks the swell article, all right, to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Him?” said Nancy, with her coolest, sweetest, most impersonal, Van +Alstyne Fisher smile; “not for mine. I saw him drive up outside. A 12 H. +P. machine and an Irish chauffeur! And you saw what kind of handkerchiefs he +bought—silk! And he’s got dactylis on him. Give me the real thing +or nothing, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +Two of the most “refined” women in the store—a forelady and a +cashier—had a few “swell gentlemen friends” with whom they +now and then dined. Once they included Nancy in an invitation. The dinner took +place in a spectacular café whose tables are engaged for New Year’s eve a +year in advance. There were two “gentlemen friends”—one +without any hair on his head—high living ungrew it; and we can prove +it—the other a young man whose worth and sophistication he impressed upon +you in two convincing ways—he swore that all the wine was corked; and he +wore diamond cuff buttons. This young man perceived irresistible excellencies +in Nancy. His taste ran to shop-girls; and here was one that added the voice +and manners of his high social world to the franker charms of her own caste. +So, on the following day, he appeared in the store and made her a serious +proposal of marriage over a box of hem-stitched, grass-bleached Irish linens. +Nancy declined. A brown pompadour ten feet away had been using her eyes and +ears. When the rejected suitor had gone she heaped carboys of upbraidings and +horror upon Nancy’s head. +</p> + +<p> +“What a terrible little fool you are! That fellow’s a +millionaire—he’s a nephew of old Van Skittles himself. And he was +talking on the level, too. Have you gone crazy, Nance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I?” said Nancy. “I didn’t take him, did I? He +isn’t a millionaire so hard that you could notice it, anyhow. His family +only allows him $20,000 a year to spend. The bald-headed fellow was guying him +about it the other night at supper.” +</p> + +<p> +The brown pompadour came nearer and narrowed her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, what do you want?” she inquired, in a voice hoarse for lack +of chewing-gum. “Ain’t that enough for you? Do you want to be a +Mormon, and marry Rockefeller and Gladstone Dowie and the King of Spain and the +whole bunch? Ain’t $20,000 a year good enough for you?” +</p> + +<p> +Nancy flushed a little under the level gaze of the black, shallow eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t altogether the money, Carrie,” she explained. +“His friend caught him in a rank lie the other night at dinner. It was +about some girl he said he hadn’t been to the theater with. Well, I +can’t stand a liar. Put everything together—I don’t like him; +and that settles it. When I sell out it’s not going to be on any bargain +day. I’ve got to have something that sits up in a chair like a man, +anyhow. Yes, I’m looking out for a catch; but it’s got to be able +to do something more than make a noise like a toy bank.” +</p> + +<p> +“The physiopathic ward for yours!” said the brown pompadour, +walking away. +</p> + +<p> +These high ideas, if not ideals—Nancy continued to cultivate on $8. per +week. She bivouacked on the trail of the great unknown “catch,” +eating her dry bread and tightening her belt day by day. On her face was the +faint, soldierly, sweet, grim smile of the preordained man-hunter. The store +was her forest; and many times she raised her rifle at game that seemed +broad-antlered and big; but always some deep unerring instinct—perhaps of +the huntress, perhaps of the woman—made her hold her fire and take up the +trail again. +</p> + +<p> +Lou flourished in the laundry. Out of her $18.50 per week she paid $6. for her +room and board. The rest went mainly for clothes. Her opportunities for +bettering her taste and manners were few compared with Nancy’s. In the +steaming laundry there was nothing but work, work and her thoughts of the +evening pleasures to come. Many costly and showy fabrics passed under her iron; +and it may be that her growing fondness for dress was thus transmitted to her +through the conducting metal. +</p> + +<p> +When the day’s work was over Dan awaited her outside, her faithful shadow +in whatever light she stood. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he cast an honest and troubled glance at Lou’s clothes that +increased in conspicuity rather than in style; but this was no disloyalty; he +deprecated the attention they called to her in the streets. +</p> + +<p> +And Lou was no less faithful to her chum. There was a law that Nancy should go +with them on whatsoever outings they might take. Dan bore the extra burden +heartily and in good cheer. It might be said that Lou furnished the color, +Nancy the tone, and Dan the weight of the distraction-seeking trio. The escort, +in his neat but obviously ready-made suit, his ready-made tie and unfailing, +genial, ready-made wit never startled or clashed. He was of that good kind that +you are likely to forget while they are present, but remember distinctly after +they are gone. +</p> + +<p> +To Nancy’s superior taste the flavor of these ready-made pleasures was +sometimes a little bitter: but she was young; and youth is a gourmand, when it +cannot be a gourmet. +</p> + +<p> +“Dan is always wanting me to marry him right away,” Lou told her +once. “But why should I? I’m independent. I can do as I please with +the money I earn; and he never would agree for me to keep on working afterward. +And say, Nance, what do you want to stick to that old store for, and half +starve and half dress yourself? I could get you a place in the laundry right +now if you’d come. It seems to me that you could afford to be a little +less stuck-up if you could make a good deal more money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I’m stuck-up, Lou,” said Nancy, +“but I’d rather live on half rations and stay where I am. I suppose +I’ve got the habit. It’s the chance that I want. I don’t +expect to be always behind a counter. I’m learning something new every +day. I’m right up against refined and rich people all the time—even +if I do only wait on them; and I’m not missing any pointers that I see +passing around.” +</p> + +<p> +“Caught your millionaire yet?” asked Lou with her teasing laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t selected one yet,” answered Nancy. +“I’ve been looking them over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness! the idea of picking over ’em! Don’t you ever let +one get by you Nance—even if he’s a few dollars shy. But of course +you’re joking—millionaires don’t think about working girls +like us.” +</p> + +<p> +“It might be better for them if they did,” said Nancy, with cool +wisdom. “Some of us could teach them how to take care of their +money.” +</p> + +<p> +“If one was to speak to me,” laughed Lou, “I know I’d +have a duck-fit.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s because you don’t know any. The only difference +between swells and other people is you have to watch ’em closer. +Don’t you think that red silk lining is just a little bit too bright for +that coat, Lou?” +</p> + +<p> +Lou looked at the plain, dull olive jacket of her friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no I don’t—but it may seem so beside that +faded-looking thing you’ve got on.” +</p> + +<p> +“This jacket,” said Nancy, complacently, “has exactly the cut +and fit of one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing the other day. The +material cost me $3.98. I suppose hers cost about $100. more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Lou lightly, “it don’t strike me as +millionaire bait. Shouldn’t wonder if I catch one before you do, +anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +Truly it would have taken a philosopher to decide upon the values of the +theories held by the two friends. Lou, lacking that certain pride and +fastidiousness that keeps stores and desks filled with girls working for the +barest living, thumped away gaily with her iron in the noisy and stifling +laundry. Her wages supported her even beyond the point of comfort; so that her +dress profited until sometimes she cast a sidelong glance of impatience at the +neat but inelegant apparel of Dan—Dan the constant, the immutable, the +undeviating. +</p> + +<p> +As for Nancy, her case was one of tens of thousands. Silk and jewels and laces +and ornaments and the perfume and music of the fine world of good-breeding and +taste—these were made for woman; they are her equitable portion. Let her +keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no +traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps her birthright and the pottage +she earns is often very scant. +</p> + +<p> +In this atmosphere Nancy belonged; and she throve in it and ate her frugal +meals and schemed over her cheap dresses with a determined and contented mind. +She already knew woman; and she was studying man, the animal, both as to his +habits and eligibility. Some day she would bring down the game that she wanted; +but she promised herself it would be what seemed to her the biggest and the +best, and nothing smaller. +</p> + +<p> +Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom when he +should come. +</p> + +<p> +But, another lesson she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard of values +began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollar-mark grew blurred in her +mind’s eye, and shaped itself into letters that spelled such words as +“truth” and “honor” and now and then just +“kindness.” Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or +elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little dell, mossy and embowered, where a +rill trickles, babbling to him of rest and comfort. At these times the spear of +Nimrod himself grows blunt. +</p> + +<p> +So, Nancy wondered sometimes if Persian lamb was always quoted at its market +value by the hearts that it covered. +</p> + +<p> +One Thursday evening Nancy left the store and turned across Sixth Avenue +westward to the laundry. She was expected to go with Lou and Dan to a musical +comedy. +</p> + +<p> +Dan was just coming out of the laundry when she arrived. There was a queer, +strained look on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I would drop around to see if they had heard from her,” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Heard from who?” asked Nancy. “Isn’t Lou there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you knew,” said Dan. “She hasn’t been here +or at the house where she lived since Monday. She moved all her things from +there. She told one of the girls in the laundry she might be going to +Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t anybody seen her anywhere?” asked Nancy. +</p> + +<p> +Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly, and a steely gleam in his steady +gray eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“They told me in the laundry,” he said, harshly, “that they +saw her pass yesterday—in an automobile. With one of the millionaires, I +suppose, that you and Lou were forever busying your brains about.” +</p> + +<p> +For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand that trembled +slightly on Dan’s sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve no right to say such a thing to me, Dan—as if I had +anything to do with it!” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Dan, softening. He fumbled +in his vest pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got the tickets for the show to-night,” he said, with a +gallant show of lightness. “If you—” +</p> + +<p> +Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go with you, Dan,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again. +</p> + +<p> +At twilight one evening the shop-girl was hurrying home along the border of a +little quiet park. She heard her name called, and wheeled about in time to +catch Lou rushing into her arms. +</p> + +<p> +After the first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do, ready to +attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on their swift tongues. +And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had descended upon Lou, manifesting +itself in costly furs, flashing gems, and creations of the tailors’ art. +</p> + +<p> +“You little fool!” cried Lou, loudly and affectionately. “I +see you are still working in that store, and as shabby as ever. And how about +that big catch you were going to make—nothing doing yet, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity had +descended upon Nancy—something that shone brighter than gems in her eyes +and redder than a rose in her cheeks, and that danced like electricity anxious +to be loosed from the tip of her tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m still in the store,” said Nancy, “but +I’m going to leave it next week. I’ve made my catch—the +biggest catch in the world. You won’t mind now Lou, will +you?—I’m going to be married to Dan—to Dan!—he’s +my Dan now—why, Lou!” +</p> + +<p> +Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new-crop, smooth-faced +young policemen that are making the force more endurable—at least to the +eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur coat, and diamond-ringed hands +crouching down against the iron fence of the park sobbing turbulently, while a +slender, plainly-dressed working girl leaned close, trying to console her. But +the Gibsonian cop, being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, +for he was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help so far as the +power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with his +nightstick till the sound goes up to the furthermost stars. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c2" id="c2"></a>A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT</h2> + +<p> +To Carson Chalmers, in his apartment near the square, Phillips brought the +evening mail. Beside the routine correspondence there were two items bearing +the same foreign postmark. +</p> + +<p> +One of the incoming parcels contained a photograph of a woman. The other +contained an interminable letter, over which Chalmers hung, absorbed, for a +long time. The letter was from another woman; and it contained poisoned barbs, +sweetly dipped in honey, and feathered with innuendoes concerning the +photographed woman. +</p> + +<p> +Chalmers tore this letter into a thousand bits and began to wear out his +expensive rug by striding back and forth upon it. Thus an animal from the +jungle acts when it is caged, and thus a caged man acts when he is housed in a +jungle of doubt. +</p> + +<p> +By and by the restless mood was overcome. The rug was not an enchanted one. For +sixteen feet he could travel along it; three thousand miles was beyond its +power to aid. +</p> + +<p> +Phillips appeared. He never entered; he invariably appeared, like a well-oiled +genie. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you dine here, sir, or out?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” said Chalmers, “and in half an hour.” He +listened glumly to the January blasts making an Aeolian trombone of the empty +street. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” he said to the disappearing genie. “As I came home +across the end of the square I saw many men standing there in rows. There was +one mounted upon something, talking. Why do those men stand in rows, and why +are they there?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are homeless men, sir,” said Phillips. “The man +standing on the box tries to get lodging for them for the night. People come +around to listen and give him money. Then he sends as many as the money will +pay for to some lodging-house. That is why they stand in rows; they get sent to +bed in order as they come.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the time dinner is served,” said Chalmers, “have one of +those men here. He will dine with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“W-w-which—,” began Phillips, stammering for the first time +during his service. +</p> + +<p> +“Choose one at random,” said Chalmers. “You might see that he +is reasonably sober—and a certain amount of cleanliness will not be held +against him. That is all.” +</p> + +<p> +It was an unusual thing for Carson Chalmers to play the Caliph. But on that +night he felt the inefficacy of conventional antidotes to melancholy. Something +wanton and egregious, something high-flavored and Arabian, he must have to +lighten his mood. +</p> + +<p> +On the half hour Phillips had finished his duties as slave of the lamp. The +waiters from the restaurant below had whisked aloft the delectable dinner. The +dining table, laid for two, glowed cheerily in the glow of the pink-shaded +candles. +</p> + +<p> +And now Phillips, as though he ushered a cardinal—or held in charge a +burglar—wafted in the shivering guest who had been haled from the line of +mendicant lodgers. +</p> + +<p> +It is a common thing to call such men wrecks; if the comparison be used here it +is the specific one of a derelict come to grief through fire. Even yet some +flickering combustion illuminated the drifting hulk. His face and hands had +been recently washed—a rite insisted upon by Phillips as a memorial to +the slaughtered conventions. In the candle-light he stood, a flaw in the +decorous fittings of the apartment. His face was a sickly white, covered almost +to the eyes with a stubble the shade of a red Irish setter’s coat. +Phillips’s comb had failed to control the pale brown hair, long matted +and conformed to the contour of a constantly worn hat. His eyes were full of a +hopeless, tricky defiance like that seen in a cur’s that is cornered by +his tormentors. His shabby coat was buttoned high, but a quarter inch of +redeeming collar showed above it. His manner was singularly free from +embarrassment when Chalmers rose from his chair across the round dining table. +</p> + +<p> +“If you will oblige me,” said the host, “I will be glad to +have your company at dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Plumer,” said the highway guest, in harsh and +aggressive tones. “If you’re like me, you like to know the name of +the party you’re dining with.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was going on to say,” continued Chalmers somewhat hastily, +“that mine is Chalmers. Will you sit opposite?” +</p> + +<p> +Plumer, of the ruffled plumes, bent his knee for Phillips to slide the chair +beneath him. He had an air of having sat at attended boards before. Phillips +set out the anchovies and olives. +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” barked Plumer; “going to be in courses, is it? All +right, my jovial ruler of Bagdad. I’m your Scheherezade all the way to +the toothpicks. You’re the first Caliph with a genuine Oriental flavor +I’ve struck since frost. What luck! And I was forty-third in line. I +finished counting, just as your welcome emissary arrived to bid me to the +feast. I had about as much chance of getting a bed to-night as I have of being +the next President. How will you have the sad story of my life, Mr. Al +Raschid—a chapter with each course or the whole edition with the cigars +and coffee?” +</p> + +<p> +“The situation does not seem a novel one to you,” said Chalmers +with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“By the chin whiskers of the prophet—no!” answered the guest. +“New York’s as full of cheap Haroun al Raschids as Bagdad is of +fleas. I’ve been held up for my story with a loaded meal pointed at my +head twenty times. Catch anybody in New York giving you something for nothing! +They spell curiosity and charity with the same set of building blocks. Lots of +’em will stake you to a dime and chop-suey; and a few of ’em will +play Caliph to the tune of a top sirloin; but every one of ’em will stand +over you till they screw your autobiography out of you with foot notes, +appendix and unpublished fragments. Oh, I know what to do when I see victuals +coming toward me in little old Bagdad-on-the-Subway. I strike the asphalt three +times with my forehead and get ready to spiel yarns for my supper. I claim +descent from the late Tommy Tucker, who was forced to hand out vocal harmony +for his pre-digested wheaterina and spoopju.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not ask your story,” said Chalmers. “I tell you frankly +that it was a sudden whim that prompted me to send for some stranger to dine +with me. I assure you you will not suffer through any curiosity of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, fudge!” exclaimed the guest, enthusiastically tackling his +soup; “I don’t mind it a bit. I’m a regular Oriental magazine +with a red cover and the leaves cut when the Caliph walks abroad. In fact, we +fellows in the bed line have a sort of union rate for things of this sort. +Somebody’s always stopping and wanting to know what brought us down so +low in the world. For a sandwich and a glass of beer I tell ’em that +drink did it. For corned beef and cabbage and a cup of coffee I give ’em +the hard-hearted-landlord—six-months-in-the-hospital-lost-job story. A +sirloin steak and a quarter for a bed gets the Wall Street tragedy of the +swept-away fortune and the gradual descent. This is the first spread of this +kind I’ve stumbled against. I haven’t got a story to fit it. +I’ll tell you what, Mr. Chalmers, I’m going to tell you the truth +for this, if you’ll listen to it. It’ll be harder for you to +believe than the made-up ones.” +</p> + +<p> +An hour later the Arabian guest lay back with a sigh of satisfaction while +Phillips brought the coffee and cigars and cleared the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever hear of Sherrard Plumer?” he asked, with a strange +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember the name,” said Chalmers. “He was a painter, I +think, of a good deal of prominence a few years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Five years,” said the guest. “Then I went down like a chunk +of lead. I’m Sherrard Plumer! I sold the last portrait I painted for +$2,000. After that I couldn’t have found a sitter for a gratis +picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the trouble?” Chalmers could not resist asking. +</p> + +<p> +“Funny thing,” answered Plumer, grimly. “Never quite +understood it myself. For a while I swam like a cork. I broke into the swell +crowd and got commissions right and left. The newspapers called me a +fashionable painter. Then the funny things began to happen. Whenever I finished +a picture people would come to see it, and whisper and look queerly at one +another.” +</p> + +<p> +“I soon found out what the trouble was. I had a knack of bringing out in +the face of a portrait the hidden character of the original. I don’t know +how I did it—I painted what I saw—but I know it did me. Some of my +sitters were fearfully enraged and refused their pictures. I painted the +portrait of a very beautiful and popular society dame. When it was finished her +husband looked at it with a peculiar expression on his face, and the next week +he sued for divorce.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember one case of a prominent banker who sat to me. While I had his +portrait on exhibition in my studio an acquaintance of his came in to look at +it. ‘Bless me,’ says he, ‘does he really look like +that?” I told him it was considered a faithful likeness. ‘I never +noticed that expression about his eyes before,’ said he; ‘I think +I’ll drop downtown and change my bank account.’ He did drop down, +but the bank account was gone and so was Mr. Banker. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t long till they put me out of business. People +don’t want their secret meannesses shown up in a picture. They can smile +and twist their own faces and deceive you, but the picture can’t. I +couldn’t get an order for another picture, and I had to give up. I worked +as a newspaper artist for a while, and then for a lithographer, but my work +with them got me into the same trouble. If I drew from a photograph my drawing +showed up characteristics and expressions that you couldn’t find in the +photo, but I guess they were in the original, all right. The customers raised +lively rows, especially the women, and I never could hold a job long. So I +began to rest my weary head upon the breast of Old Booze for comfort. And +pretty soon I was in the free-bed line and doing oral fiction for hand-outs +among the food bazaars. Does the truthful statement weary thee, O Caliph? I can +turn on the Wall Street disaster stop if you prefer, but that requires a tear, +and I’m afraid I can’t hustle one up after that good dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Chalmers, earnestly, “you interest me very +much. Did all of your portraits reveal some unpleasant trait, or were there +some that did not suffer from the ordeal of your peculiar brush?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some? Yes,” said Plumer. “Children generally, a good many +women and a sufficient number of men. All people aren’t bad, you know. +When they were all right the pictures were all right. As I said, I don’t +explain it, but I’m telling you facts.” +</p> + +<p> +On Chalmers’s writing-table lay the photograph that he had received that +day in the foreign mail. Ten minutes later he had Plumer at work making a +sketch from it in pastels. At the end of an hour the artist rose and stretched +wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s done,” he yawned. “You’ll excuse me for +being so long. I got interested in the job. Lordy! but I’m tired. No bed +last night, you know. Guess it’ll have to be good night now, O Commander +of the Faithful!” +</p> + +<p> +Chalmers went as far as the door with him and slipped some bills into his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I’ll take ’em,” said Plumer. “All +that’s included in the fall. Thanks. And for the very good dinner. I +shall sleep on feathers to-night and dream of Bagdad. I hope it won’t +turn out to be a dream in the morning. Farewell, most excellent Caliph!” +</p> + +<p> +Again Chalmers paced restlessly upon his rug. But his beat lay as far from the +table whereon lay the pastel sketch as the room would permit. Twice, thrice, he +tried to approach it, but failed. He could see the dun and gold and brown of +the colors, but there was a wall about it built by his fears that kept him at a +distance. He sat down and tried to calm himself. He sprang up and rang for +Phillips. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a young artist in this building,” he said. +“—a Mr. Reineman—do you know which is his apartment?” +</p> + +<p> +“Top floor, front, sir,” said Phillips. +</p> + +<p> +“Go up and ask him to favor me with his presence here for a few +minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Reineman came at once. Chalmers introduced himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Reineman,” said he, “there is a little pastel sketch on +yonder table. I would be glad if you will give me your opinion of it as to its +artistic merits and as a picture.” +</p> + +<p> +The young artist advanced to the table and took up the sketch. Chalmers half +turned away, leaning upon the back of a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“How—do—you find it?” he asked, slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“As a drawing,” said the artist, “I can’t praise it +enough. It’s the work of a master—bold and fine and true. It +puzzles me a little; I haven’t seen any pastel work near as good in +years.” +</p> + +<p> +“The face, man—the subject—the original—what would you +say of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“The face,” said Reineman, “is the face of one of God’s +own angels. May I ask who—” +</p> + +<p> +“My wife!” shouted Chalmers, wheeling and pouncing upon the +astonished artist, gripping his hand and pounding his back. “She is +traveling in Europe. Take that sketch, boy, and paint the picture of your life +from it and leave the price to me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c3" id="c3"></a>THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL</h2> + +<p> +This document is intended to strike somewhere between a temperance lecture and +the “Bartender’s Guide.” Relative to the latter, drink shall +swell the theme and be set forth in abundance. Agreeably to the former, not an +elbow shall be crooked. +</p> + +<p> +Bob Babbitt was “off the stuff.” Which means—as you will +discover by referring to the unabridged dictionary of Bohemia—that he had +“cut out the booze;” that he was “on the water wagon.” +The reason for Bob’s sudden attitude of hostility toward the “demon +rum”—as the white ribboners miscall whiskey (see the +“Bartender’s Guide”), should be of interest to reformers and +saloon-keepers. +</p> + +<p> +There is always hope for a man who, when sober, will not concede or acknowledge +that he was ever drunk. But when a man will say (in the apt words of the +phrase-distiller), “I had a beautiful skate on last night,” you +will have to put stuff in his coffee as well as pray for him. +</p> + +<p> +One evening on his way home Babbitt dropped in at the Broadway bar that he +liked best. Always there were three or four fellows there from the downtown +offices whom he knew. And then there would be high-balls and stories, and he +would hurry home to dinner a little late but feeling good, and a little sorry +for the poor Standard Oil Company. On this evening as he entered he heard some +one say: “Babbitt was in last night as full as a boiled owl.” +</p> + +<p> +Babbitt walked to the bar, and saw in the mirror that his face was as white as +chalk. For the first time he had looked Truth in the eyes. Others had lied to +him; he had dissembled with himself. He was a drunkard, and had not known it. +What he had fondly imagined was a pleasant exhilaration had been maudlin +intoxication. His fancied wit had been drivel; his gay humors nothing but the +noisy vagaries of a sot. But, never again! +</p> + +<p> +“A glass of seltzer,” he said to the bartender. +</p> + +<p> +A little silence fell upon the group of his cronies, who had been expecting him +to join them. +</p> + +<p> +“Going off the stuff, Bob?” one of them asked politely and with +more formality than the highballs ever called forth. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Babbitt. +</p> + +<p> +Some one of the group took up the unwashed thread of a story he had been +telling; the bartender shoved over a dime and a nickel change from the quarter, +ungarnished with his customary smile; and Babbitt walked out. +</p> + +<p> +Now, Babbitt had a home and a wife—but that is another story. And I will +tell you that story, which will show you a better habit and a worse story than +you could find in the man who invented the phrase. +</p> + +<p> +It began away up in Sullivan County, where so many rivers and so much trouble +begins—or begin; how would you say that? It was July, and Jessie was a +summer boarder at the Mountain Squint Hotel, and Bob, who was just out of +college, saw her one day—and they were married in September. That’s +the tabloid novel—one swallow of water, and it’s gone. +</p> + +<p> +But those July days! +</p> + +<p> +Let the exclamation point expound it, for I shall not. For particulars you +might read up on “Romeo and Juliet,” and Abraham Lincoln’s +thrilling sonnet about “You can fool some of the people,” &c., +and Darwin’s works. +</p> + +<p> +But one thing I must tell you about. Both of them were mad over Omar’s +Rubaiyat. They knew every verse of the old bluffer by heart—not +consecutively, but picking ’em out here and there as you fork the +mushrooms in a fifty-cent steak à la Bordelaise. Sullivan County is full +of rocks and trees; and Jessie used to sit on them, and—please be +good—used to sit on the rocks; and Bob had a way of standing behind her +with his hands over her shoulders holding her hands, and his face close to +hers, and they would repeat over and over their favorite verses of the old +tent-maker. They saw only the poetry and philosophy of the lines +then—indeed, they agreed that the Wine was only an image, and that what +was meant to be celebrated was some divinity, or maybe Love or Life. However, +at that time neither of them had tasted the stuff that goes with a sixty-cent +<i>table d’hôte</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Where was I? Oh, they married and came to New York. Bob showed his college +diploma, and accepted a position filling inkstands in a lawyer’s office +at $15 a week. At the end of two years he had worked up to $50, and gotten his +first taste of Bohemia—the kind that won’t stand the borax and +formaldehyde tests. +</p> + +<p> +They had two furnished rooms and a little kitchen. To Jess, accustomed to the +mild but beautiful savor of a country town, the dreggy Bohemia was sugar and +spice. She hung fish seines on the walls of her rooms, and bought a +rakish-looking sideboard, and learned to play the banjo. Twice or thrice a week +they dined at French or Italian <i>tables d’hôte</i> in a cloud of smoke, +and brag and unshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get the +cherry. At home she smoked a cigarette after dinner. She learned to pronounce +Chianti, and leave her olive stones for the waiter to pick up. Once she essayed +to say la, la, la! in a crowd but got only as far as the second one. They met +one or two couples while dining out and became friendly with them. The +sideboard was stocked with Scotch and rye and a liqueur. They had their new +friends in to dinner and all were laughing at nothing by 1 A. M. Some +plastering fell in the room below them, for which Bob had to pay $4.50. Thus +they footed it merrily on the ragged frontiers of the country that has no +boundary lines or government. +</p> + +<p> +And soon Bob fell in with his cronies and learned to keep his foot on the +little rail six inches above the floor for an hour or so every afternoon before +he went home. Drink always rubbed him the right way, and he would reach his +rooms as jolly as a sandboy. Jessie would meet him at the door, and generally +they would dance some insane kind of a rigadoon about the floor by way of +greeting. Once when Bob’s feet became confused and he tumbled headlong +over a foot-stool Jessie laughed so heartily and long that he had to throw all +the couch pillows at her to make her hush. +</p> + +<p> +In such wise life was speeding for them on the day when Bob Babbitt first felt +the power that the giftie gi’ed him. +</p> + +<p> +But let us get back to our lamb and mint sauce. +</p> + +<p> +When Bob got home that evening he found Jessie in a long apron cutting up a +lobster for the Newburg. Usually when Bob came in mellow from his hour at the +bar his welcome was hilarious, though somewhat tinctured with Scotch smoke. +</p> + +<p> +By screams and snatches of song and certain audible testimonials of domestic +felicity was his advent proclaimed. When she heard his foot on the stairs the +old maid in the hall room always stuffed cotton into her ears. At first Jessie +had shrunk from the rudeness and favor of these spiritual greetings, but as the +fog of the false Bohemia gradually encompassed her she came to accept them as +love’s true and proper greeting. +</p> + +<p> +Bob came in without a word, smiled, kissed her neatly but noiselessly, took up +a paper and sat down. In the hall room the old maid held her two plugs of +cotton poised, filled with anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie dropped lobster and knife and ran to him with frightened eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Bob, are you ill?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what’s the matter with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Hearken, brethren. When She-who-has-a-right-to-ask interrogates you concerning +a change she finds in your mood answer her thus: Tell her that you, in a sudden +rage, have murdered your grandmother; tell her that you have robbed orphans and +that remorse has stricken you; tell her your fortune is swept away; that you +are beset by enemies, by bunions, by any kind of malevolent fate; but do not, +if peace and happiness are worth as much as a grain of mustard seed to +you—do not answer her “Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Jessie went back to the lobster in silence. She cast looks of darkest suspicion +at Bob. He had never acted that way before. +</p> + +<p> +When dinner was on the table she set out the bottle of Scotch and the glasses. +Bob declined. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you the truth, Jess,” he said. “I’ve cut out the +drink. Help yourself, of course. If you don’t mind I’ll try some of +the seltzer straight.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve stopped drinking?” she said, looking at him steadily +and unsmilingly. “What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t doing me any good,” said Bob. “Don’t +you approve of the idea?” +</p> + +<p> +Jessie raised her eyebrows and one shoulder slightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Entirely,” she said with a sculptured smile. “I could not +conscientiously advise any one to drink or smoke, or whistle on Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +The meal was finished almost in silence. Bob tried to make talk, but his +efforts lacked the stimulus of previous evenings. He felt miserable, and once +or twice his eye wandered toward the bottle, but each time the scathing words +of his bibulous friend sounded in his ear, and his mouth set with +determination. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie felt the change deeply. The essence of their lives seemed to have +departed suddenly. The restless fever, the false gayety, the unnatural +excitement of the shoddy Bohemia in which they had lived had dropped away in +the space of the popping of a cork. She stole curious and forlorn glances at +the dejected Bob, who bore the guilty look of at least a wife-beater or a +family tyrant. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner the colored maid who came in daily to perform such chores cleared +away the things. Jessie, with an unreadable countenance, brought back the +bottle of Scotch and the glasses and a bowl of cracked ice and set them on the +table. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask,” she said, with some of the ice in her tones, +“whether I am to be included in your sudden spasm of goodness? If not, +I’ll make one for myself. It’s rather chilly this evening, for some +reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now, Jess,” said Bob good-naturedly, “don’t +be too rough on me. Help yourself, by all means. There’s no danger of +your overdoing it. But I thought there was with me; and that’s why I +quit. Have yours, and then let’s get out the banjo and try over that new +quickstep.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard,” said Jessie in the tones of the oracle, +“that drinking alone is a pernicious habit. No, I don’t think I +feel like playing this evening. If we are going to reform we may as well +abandon the evil habit of banjo-playing, too.” +</p> + +<p> +She took up a book and sat in her little willow rocker on the other side of the +table. Neither of them spoke for half an hour. +</p> + +<p> +And then Bob laid down his paper and got up with a strange, absent look on his +face and went behind her chair and reached over her shoulders, taking her hands +in his, and laid his face close to hers. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment to Jessie the walls of the seine-hung room vanished, and she saw +the Sullivan County hills and rills. Bob felt her hands quiver in his as he +began the verse from old Omar: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring<br /> +The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:<br /> +The Bird of Time has but a little way<br /> +To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing!” +</p> + +<p> +And then he walked to the table and poured a stiff drink of Scotch into a +glass. +</p> + +<p> +But in that moment a mountain breeze had somehow found its way in and blown +away the mist of the false Bohemia. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie leaped and with one fierce sweep of her hand sent the bottle and glasses +crashing to the floor. The same motion of her arm carried it around Bob’s +neck, where it met its mate and fastened tight. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my God, Bobbie—not that verse—I see now. I wasn’t +always such a fool, was I? The other one, boy—the one that says: +‘Remould it to the Heart’s Desire.’ Say that +one—‘to the Heart’s Desire.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that one,” said Bob. “It goes: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Ah! Love, could you and I with Him conspire<br /> +To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire<br /> +Would not we—’” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me finish it,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Would not we shatter it to bits—and then<br /> +Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!’” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s shattered all right,” said Bob, crunching some glass +under his heel. +</p> + +<p> +In some dungeon below the accurate ear of Mrs. Pickens, the landlady, located +the smash. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s that wild Mr. Babbitt coming home soused again,” she +said. “And he’s got such a nice little wife, too!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c4" id="c4"></a>THE PENDULUM</h2> + +<p> +“Eighty-first street—let ’em out, please,” yelled the +shepherd in blue. +</p> + +<p> +A flock of citizen sheep scrambled out and another flock scrambled aboard. +Ding-ding! The cattle cars of the Manhattan Elevated rattled away, and John +Perkins drifted down the stairway of the station with the released flock. +</p> + +<p> +John walked slowly toward his flat. Slowly, because in the lexicon of his daily +life there was no such word as “perhaps.” There are no surprises +awaiting a man who has been married two years and lives in a flat. As he walked +John Perkins prophesied to himself with gloomy and downtrodden cynicism the +foregone conclusions of the monotonous day. +</p> + +<p> +Katy would meet him at the door with a kiss flavored with cold cream and +butter-scotch. He would remove his coat, sit upon a macadamized lounge and +read, in the evening paper, of Russians and Japs slaughtered by the deadly +linotype. For dinner there would be pot roast, a salad flavored with a dressing +warranted not to crack or injure the leather, stewed rhubarb and the bottle of +strawberry marmalade blushing at the certificate of chemical purity on its +label. After dinner Katy would show him the new patch in her crazy quilt that +the iceman had cut for her off the end of his four-in-hand. At half-past seven +they would spread newspapers over the furniture to catch the pieces of +plastering that fell when the fat man in the flat overhead began to take his +physical culture exercises. Exactly at eight Hickey & Mooney, of the +vaudeville team (unbooked) in the flat across the hall, would yield to the +gentle influence of delirium tremens and begin to overturn chairs under the +delusion that Hammerstein was pursuing them with a five-hundred-dollar-a-week +contract. Then the gent at the window across the air-shaft would get out his +flute; the nightly gas leak would steal forth to frolic in the highways; the +dumbwaiter would slip off its trolley; the janitor would drive Mrs. +Zanowitski’s five children once more across the Yalu, the lady with the +champagne shoes and the Skye terrier would trip downstairs and paste her +Thursday name over her bell and letter-box—and the evening routine of the +Frogmore flats would be under way. +</p> + +<p> +John Perkins knew these things would happen. And he knew that at a quarter past +eight he would summon his nerve and reach for his hat, and that his wife would +deliver this speech in a querulous tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, where are you going, I’d like to know, John Perkins?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thought I’d drop up to McCloskey’s,” he would answer, +“and play a game or two of pool with the fellows.” +</p> + +<p> +Of late such had been John Perkins’s habit. At ten or eleven he would +return. Sometimes Katy would be asleep; sometimes waiting up, ready to melt in +the crucible of her ire a little more gold plating from the wrought steel +chains of matrimony. For these things Cupid will have to answer when he stands +at the bar of justice with his victims from the Frogmore flats. +</p> + +<p> +To-night John Perkins encountered a tremendous upheaval of the commonplace when +he reached his door. No Katy was there with her affectionate, confectionate +kiss. The three rooms seemed in portentous disorder. All about lay her things +in confusion. Shoes in the middle of the floor, curling tongs, hair bows, +kimonos, powder box, jumbled together on dresser and chairs—this was not +Katy’s way. With a sinking heart John saw the comb with a curling cloud +of her brown hair among its teeth. Some unusual hurry and perturbation must +have possessed her, for she always carefully placed these combings in the +little blue vase on the mantel to be some day formed into the coveted feminine +“rat.” +</p> + +<p> +Hanging conspicuously to the gas jet by a string was a folded paper. John +seized it. It was a note from his wife running thus: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Dear John: I just had a telegram saying mother is very sick. I am going +to take the 4.30 train. Brother Sam is going to meet me at the depot there. +There is cold mutton in the ice box. I hope it isn’t her quinzy again. +Pay the milkman 50 cents. She had it bad last spring. Don’t forget to +write to the company about the gas meter, and your good socks are in the top +drawer. I will write to-morrow. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Hastily,<br /> +KATY.” +</p> + +<p> +Never during their two years of matrimony had he and Katy been separated for a +night. John read the note over and over in a dumbfounded way. Here was a break +in a routine that had never varied, and it left him dazed. +</p> + +<p> +There on the back of a chair hung, pathetically empty and formless, the red +wrapper with black dots that she always wore while getting the meals. Her +week-day clothes had been tossed here and there in her haste. A little paper +bag of her favorite butter-scotch lay with its string yet unwound. A daily +paper sprawled on the floor, gaping rectangularly where a railroad time-table +had been clipped from it. Everything in the room spoke of a loss, of an essence +gone, of its soul and life departed. John Perkins stood among the dead remains +with a queer feeling of desolation in his heart. +</p> + +<p> +He began to set the rooms tidy as well as he could. When he touched her clothes +a thrill of something like terror went through him. He had never thought what +existence would be without Katy. She had become so thoroughly annealed into his +life that she was like the air he breathed—necessary but scarcely +noticed. Now, without warning, she was gone, vanished, as completely absent as +if she had never existed. Of course it would be only for a few days, or at most +a week or two, but it seemed to him as if the very hand of death had pointed a +finger at his secure and uneventful home. +</p> + +<p> +John dragged the cold mutton from the ice-box, made coffee and sat down to a +lonely meal face to face with the strawberry marmalade’s shameless +certificate of purity. Bright among withdrawn blessings now appeared to him the +ghosts of pot roasts and the salad with tan polish dressing. His home was +dismantled. A quinzied mother-in-law had knocked his lares and penates +sky-high. After his solitary meal John sat at a front window. +</p> + +<p> +He did not care to smoke. Outside the city roared to him to come join in its +dance of folly and pleasure. The night was his. He might go forth unquestioned +and thrum the strings of jollity as free as any gay bachelor there. He might +carouse and wander and have his fling until dawn if he liked; and there would +be no wrathful Katy waiting for him, bearing the chalice that held the dregs of +his joy. He might play pool at McCloskey’s with his roistering friends +until Aurora dimmed the electric bulbs if he chose. The hymeneal strings that +had curbed him always when the Frogmore flats had palled upon him were +loosened. Katy was gone. +</p> + +<p> +John Perkins was not accustomed to analyzing his emotions. But as he sat in his +Katy-bereft 10×12 parlor he hit unerringly upon the keynote of his +discomfort. He knew now that Katy was necessary to his happiness. His feeling +for her, lulled into unconsciousness by the dull round of domesticity, had been +sharply stirred by the loss of her presence. Has it not been dinned into us by +proverb and sermon and fable that we never prize the music till the +sweet-voiced bird has flown—or in other no less florid and true +utterances? +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a double-dyed dub,” mused John Perkins, “the way +I’ve been treating Katy. Off every night playing pool and bumming with +the boys instead of staying home with her. The poor girl here all alone with +nothing to amuse her, and me acting that way! John Perkins, you’re the +worst kind of a shine. I’m going to make it up for the little girl. +I’ll take her out and let her see some amusement. And I’ll cut out +the McCloskey gang right from this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, there was the city roaring outside for John Perkins to come dance in the +train of Momus. And at McCloskey’s the boys were knocking the balls idly +into the pockets against the hour for the nightly game. But no primrose way nor +clicking cue could woo the remorseful soul of Perkins the bereft. The thing +that was his, lightly held and half scorned, had been taken away from him, and +he wanted it. Backward to a certain man named Adam, whom the cherubim bounced +from the orchard, could Perkins, the remorseful, trace his descent. +</p> + +<p> +Near the right hand of John Perkins stood a chair. On the back of it stood +Katy’s blue shirtwaist. It still retained something of her contour. +Midway of the sleeves were fine, individual wrinkles made by the movements of +her arms in working for his comfort and pleasure. A delicate but impelling odor +of bluebells came from it. John took it and looked long and soberly at the +unresponsive grenadine. Katy had never been unresponsive. Tears:—yes, +tears—came into John Perkins’s eyes. When she came back things +would be different. He would make up for all his neglect. What was life without +her? +</p> + +<p> +The door opened. Katy walked in carrying a little hand satchel. John stared at +her stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +“My! I’m glad to get back,” said Katy. “Ma wasn’t +sick to amount to anything. Sam was at the depot, and said she just had a +little spell, and got all right soon after they telegraphed. So I took the next +train back. I’m just dying for a cup of coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +Nobody heard the click and rattle of the cog-wheels as the third-floor front of +the Frogmore flats buzzed its machinery back into the Order of Things. A band +slipped, a spring was touched, the gear was adjusted and the wheels revolve in +their old orbit. +</p> + +<p> +John Perkins looked at the clock. It was 8.15. He reached for his hat and +walked to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, where are you going, I’d like to know, John Perkins?” +asked Katy, in a querulous tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Thought I’d drop up to McCloskey’s,” said John, +“and play a game or two of pool with the fellows.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c5" id="c5"></a>TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN</h2> + +<p> +There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are +not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how +much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Bless the day. +President Roosevelt gives it to us. We hear some talk of the Puritans, but +don’t just remember who they were. Bet we can lick ’em, anyhow, if +they try to land again. Plymouth Rocks? Well, that sounds more familiar. Lots +of us have had to come down to hens since the Turkey Trust got its work in. But +somebody in Washington is leaking out advance information to ’em about +these Thanksgiving proclamations. +</p> + +<p> +The big city east of the cranberry bogs has made Thanksgiving Day an +institution. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which +it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries. It is the one day +that is purely American. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American. +</p> + +<p> +And now for the story which is to prove to you that we have traditions on this +side of the ocean that are becoming older at a much rapider rate than those of +England are—thanks to our git-up and enterprise. +</p> + +<p> +Stuffy Pete took his seat on the third bench to the right as you enter Union +Square from the east, at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day +for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at 1 o’clock. For +every time he had done so things had happened to him—Charles Dickensy +things that swelled his waistcoat above his heart, and equally on the other +side. +</p> + +<p> +But to-day Stuffy Pete’s appearance at the annual trysting place seemed +to have been rather the result of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the +philanthropists seem to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals. +</p> + +<p> +Certainly Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him +of his powers barely those of respiration and locomotion. His eyes were like +two pale gooseberries firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of +putty. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue +denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar. Buttons that had been +sewed upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers a week before flew like +popcorn, strewing the earth around him. Ragged he was, with a split shirt front +open to the wishbone; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, +brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the +caloric produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending +with plum pudding, and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and +baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. +Wherefore he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt. +</p> + +<p> +The meal had been an unexpected one. He was passing a red brick mansion near +the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family +and a reverence for traditions. They even denied the existence of New York, and +believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square. One +of their traditional habits was to station a servant at the postern gate with +orders to admit the first hungry wayfarer that came along after the hour of +noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish. Stuffy Pete happened to pass by +on his way to the park, and the seneschals gathered him in and upheld the +custom of the castle. +</p> + +<p> +After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was +conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision. With a tremendous +effort he moved his head slowly to the left. And then his eyes bulged out +fearfully, and his breath ceased, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs +wriggled and rustled on the gravel. +</p> + +<p> +For the Old Gentleman was coming across Fourth avenue toward his bench. +</p> + +<p> +Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and +found Stuffy Pete on his bench. That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was +trying to make a tradition of. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had +found Stuffy there, and had led him to a restaurant and watched him eat a big +dinner. They do those things in England unconsciously. But this is a young +country, and nine years is not so bad. The Old Gentleman was a staunch American +patriot, and considered himself a pioneer in American tradition. In order to +become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever +letting it get away from us. Something like collecting the weekly dimes in +industrial insurance. Or cleaning the streets. +</p> + +<p> +The Old Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he +was rearing. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in +its character, such as the Magna Charta or jam for breakfast was in England. +But it was a step. It was almost feudal. It showed, at least, that a Custom was +not impossible to New Y—ahem!—America. +</p> + +<p> +The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dressed all in black, and +wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won’t stay on your nose. His +hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make +more use of his big, knobby cane with the crooked handle. +</p> + +<p> +As his established benefactor came up Stuffy wheezed and shuddered like some +woman’s over-fat pug when a street dog bristles up at him. He would have +flown, but all the skill of Santos-Dumont could not have separated him from his +bench. Well had the myrmidons of the two old ladies done their work. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning,” said the Old Gentleman. “I am glad to +perceive that the vicissitudes of another year have spared you to move in +health about the beautiful world. For that blessing alone this day of +thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us. If you will come with me, my +man, I will provide you with a dinner that should make your physical being +accord with the mental.” +</p> + +<p> +That is what the old Gentleman said every time. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine +years. The words themselves almost formed an Institution. Nothing could be +compared with them except the Declaration of Independence. Always before they +had been music in Stuffy’s ears. But now he looked up at the Old +Gentleman’s face with tearful agony in his own. The fine snow almost +sizzled when it fell upon his perspiring brow. But the Old Gentleman shivered a +little and turned his back to the wind. +</p> + +<p> +Stuffy had always wondered why the Old Gentleman spoke his speech rather sadly. +He did not know that it was because he was wishing every time that he had a son +to succeed him. A son who would come there after he was gone—a son who +would stand proud and strong before some subsequent Stuffy, and say: “In +memory of my father.” Then it would be an Institution. +</p> + +<p> +But the Old Gentleman had no relatives. He lived in rented rooms in one of the +decayed old family brownstone mansions in one of the quiet streets east of the +park. In the winter he raised fuchsias in a little conservatory the size of a +steamer trunk. In the spring he walked in the Easter parade. In the summer he +lived at a farmhouse in the New Jersey hills, and sat in a wicker armchair, +speaking of a butterfly, the ornithoptera amphrisius, that he hoped to find +some day. In the autumn he fed Stuffy a dinner. These were the Old +Gentleman’s occupations. +</p> + +<p> +Stuffy Pete looked up at him for a half minute, stewing and helpless in his own +self-pity. The Old Gentleman’s eyes were bright with the giving-pleasure. +His face was getting more lined each year, but his little black necktie was in +as jaunty a bow as ever, and the linen was beautiful and white, and his gray +mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noise that +sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old +Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed them +into Stuffy’s old formula of acceptance. +</p> + +<p> +“Thankee, sir. I’ll go with ye, and much obliged. I’m very +hungry, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The coma of repletion had not prevented from entering Stuffy’s mind the +conviction that he was the basis of an Institution. His Thanksgiving appetite +was not his own; it belonged by all the sacred rights of established custom, if +not, by the actual Statute of Limitations, to this kind old gentleman who bad +preempted it. True, America is free; but in order to establish tradition some +one must be a repetend—a repeating decimal. The heroes are not all heroes +of steel and gold. See one here that wielded only weapons of iron, badly +silvered, and tin. +</p> + +<p> +The Old Gentleman led his annual protégé southward to the restaurant, and to +the table where the feast had always occurred. They were recognized. +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes de old guy,” said a waiter, “dat blows dat same +bum to a meal every Thanksgiving.” +</p> + +<p> +The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing like a smoked pearl at his +corner-stone of future ancient Tradition. The waiters heaped the table with +holiday food—and Stuffy, with a sigh that was mistaken for hunger’s +expression, raised knife and fork and carved for himself a crown of +imperishable bay. +</p> + +<p> +No more valiant hero ever fought his way through the ranks of an enemy. Turkey, +chops, soups, vegetables, pies, disappeared before him as fast as they could be +served. Gorged nearly to the uttermost when he entered the restaurant, the +smell of food had almost caused him to lose his honor as a gentleman, but he +rallied like a true knight. He saw the look of beneficent happiness on the Old +Gentleman’s face—a happier look than even the fuchsias and the +ornithoptera amphrisius had ever brought to it—and he had not the heart +to see it wane. +</p> + +<p> +In an hour Stuffy leaned back with a battle won. “Thankee kindly, +sir,” he puffed like a leaky steam pipe; “thankee kindly for a +hearty meal.” Then he arose heavily with glazed eyes and started toward +the kitchen. A waiter turned him about like a top, and pointed him toward the +door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in silver change, leaving +three nickels for the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +They parted as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, +Stuffy north. +</p> + +<p> +Around the first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. Then he seemed +to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers, and fell to the sidewalk +like a sunstricken horse. +</p> + +<p> +When the ambulance came the young surgeon and the driver cursed softly at his +weight. There was no smell of whiskey to justify a transfer to the patrol +wagon, so Stuffy and his two dinners went to the hospital. There they stretched +him on a bed and began to test him for strange diseases, with the hope of +getting a chance at some problem with the bare steel. +</p> + +<p> +And lo! an hour later another ambulance brought the Old Gentleman. And they +laid him on another bed and spoke of appendicitis, for he looked good for the +bill. +</p> + +<p> +But pretty soon one of the young doctors met one of the young nurses whose eyes +he liked, and stopped to chat with her about the cases. +</p> + +<p> +“That nice old gentleman over there, now,” he said, “you +wouldn’t think that was a case of almost starvation. Proud old family, I +guess. He told me he hadn’t eaten a thing for three days.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c6" id="c6"></a>THE ASSESSOR OF SUCCESS</h2> + +<p> +Hastings Beauchamp Morley sauntered across Union Square with a pitying look at +the hundreds that lolled upon the park benches. They were a motley lot, he +thought; the men with stolid, animal, unshaven faces; the women wriggling and +self-conscious, twining and untwining their feet that hung four inches above +the gravelled walks. +</p> + +<p> +Were I Mr. Carnegie or Mr. Rockefeller I would put a few millions in my inside +pocket and make an appointment with all the Park Commissioners (around the +corner, if necessary), and arrange for benches in all the parks of the world +low enough for women to sit upon, and rest their feet upon the ground. After +that I might furnish libraries to towns that would pay for ’em, or build +sanitariums for crank professors, and call ’em colleges, if I wanted to. +</p> + +<p> +Women’s rights societies have been laboring for many years after equality +with man. With what result? When they sit on a bench they must twist their +ankles together and uncomfortably swing their highest French heels clear of +earthly support. Begin at the bottom, ladies. Get your feet on the ground, and +then rise to theories of mental equality. +</p> + +<p> +Hastings Beauchamp Morley was carefully and neatly dressed. That was the result +of an instinct due to his birth and breeding. It is denied us to look further +into a man’s bosom than the starch on his shirt front; so it is left to +us only to recount his walks and conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Morley had not a cent in his pockets; but he smiled pityingly at a hundred +grimy, unfortunate ones who had no more, and who would have no more when the +sun’s first rays yellowed the tall paper-cutter building on the west side +of the square. But Morley would have enough by then. Sundown had seen his +pockets empty before; but sunrise had always seen them lined. +</p> + +<p> +First he went to the house of a clergyman off Madison avenue and presented a +forged letter of introduction that holily purported to issue from a pastorate +in Indiana. This netted him $5 when backed up by a realistic romance of a +delayed remittance. +</p> + +<p> +On the sidewalk, twenty steps from the clergyman’s door, a pale-faced, +fat man huskily enveloped him with a raised, red fist and the voice of a bell +buoy, demanding payment of an old score. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Bergman, man,” sang Morley, dulcetly, “is this you? I +was just on my way up to your place to settle up. That remittance from my aunt +arrived only this morning. Wrong address was the trouble. Come up to the corner +and I’ll square up. Glad to see you. Saves me a walk.” +</p> + +<p> +Four drinks placated the emotional Bergman. There was an air about Morley when +he was backed by money in hand that would have stayed off a call loan at +Rothschilds’. When he was penniless his bluff was pitched half a tone +lower, but few are competent to detect the difference in the notes. +</p> + +<p> +“You gum to mine blace and bay me to-morrow, Mr. Morley,” said +Bergman. “Oxcuse me dat I dun you on der street. But I haf not seen you +in dree mont’. Pros’t!” +</p> + +<p> +Morley walked away with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face. The +credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have to avoid +Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware that Bergman ever went +home by that route. +</p> + +<p> +At the door of a darkened house two squares to the north Morley knocked with a +peculiar sequence of raps. The door opened to the length of a six-inch chain, +and the pompous, important black face of an African guardian imposed itself in +the opening. Morley was admitted. +</p> + +<p> +In a third-story room, in an atmosphere opaque with smoke, he hung for ten +minutes above a roulette wheel. Then downstairs he crept, and was out-sped by +the important negro, jingling in his pocket the 40 cents in silver that +remained to him of his five-dollar capital. At the corner he lingered, +undecided. +</p> + +<p> +Across the street was a drug store, well lighted, sending forth gleams from the +German silver and crystal of its soda fountain and glasses. Along came a +youngster of five, headed for the dispensary, stepping high with the +consequence of a big errand, possibly one to which his advancing age had earned +him promotion. In his hand he clutched something tightly, publicly, proudly, +conspicuously. +</p> + +<p> +Morley stopped him with his winning smile and soft speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” said the youngster. “I’m doin’ to the drug +’tore for mamma. She dave me a dollar to buy a bottle of +med’cin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, now, now!” said Morley. “Such a big man you are to be +doing errands for mamma. I must go along with my little man to see that the +cars don’t run over him. And on the way we’ll have some chocolates. +Or would he rather have lemon drops?” +</p> + +<p> +Morley entered the drug store leading the child by the hand. He presented the +prescription that had been wrapped around the money. +</p> + +<p> +On his face was a smile, predatory, parental, politic, profound. +</p> + +<p> +“Aqua pura, one pint,” said he to the druggist. “Sodium +chloride, ten grains. Fiat solution. And don’t try to skin me, because I +know all about the number of gallons of H<span class="vsmall">2</span>O in the +Croton reservoir, and I always use the other ingredient on my potatoes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen cents,” said the druggist, with a wink after he had +compounded the order. “I see you understand pharmacy. A dollar is the +regular price.” +</p> + +<p> +“To gulls,” said Morley, smilingly. +</p> + +<p> +He settled the wrapped bottle carefully in the child’s arms and escorted +him to the corner. In his own pocket he dropped the 85 cents accruing to him by +virtue of his chemical knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“Look out for the cars, sonny,” he said, cheerfully, to his small +victim. +</p> + +<p> +Two street cars suddenly swooped in opposite directions upon the youngster. +Morley dashed between them and pinned the infantile messenger by the neck, +holding him in safety. Then from the corner of his street he sent him on his +way, swindled, happy, and sticky with vile, cheap candy from the +Italian’s fruit stand. +</p> + +<p> +Morley went to a restaurant and ordered a sirloin and a pint of inexpensive +Chateau Breuille. He laughed noiselessly, but so genuinely that the waiter +ventured to premise that good news had come his way. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” said Morley, who seldom held conversation with any one. +“It is not that. It is something else that amuses me. Do you know what +three divisions of people are easiest to over-reach in transactions of all +kinds?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said the waiter, calculating the size of the tip promised +by the careful knot of Morley’s tie; “there’s the buyers from +the dry goods stores in the South during August, and honeymooners from Staten +Island, and”— +</p> + +<p> +“Wrong!” said Morley, chuckling happily. “The answer is +just—men, women and children. The world—well, say New York and as +far as summer boarders can swim out from Long Island—is full of +greenhorns. Two minutes longer on the broiler would have made this steak fit to +be eaten by a gentleman, Francois.” +</p> + +<p> +“If yez t’inks it’s on de bum,” said the waiter, +“Oi’ll”— +</p> + +<p> +Morley lifted his hand in protest—slightly martyred protest. +</p> + +<p> +“It will do,” he said, magnanimously. “And now, green +Chartreuse, frappe and a demi-tasse.” +</p> + +<p> +Morley went out leisurely and stood on a corner where two tradeful arteries of +the city cross. With a solitary dime in his pocket, he stood on the curb +watching with confident, cynical, smiling eyes the tides of people that flowed +past him. Into that stream he must cast his net and draw fish for his further +sustenance and need. Good Izaak Walton had not the half of his self-reliance +and bait-lore. +</p> + +<p> +A joyful party of four—two women and two men—fell upon him with +cries of delight. There was a dinner party on—where had he been for a +fortnight past?—what luck to thus run upon him! They surrounded and +engulfed him—he must join them—tra la la—and the rest. +</p> + +<p> +One with a white hat plume curving to the shoulder touched his sleeve, and cast +at the others a triumphant look that said: “See what I can do with +him?” and added her queen’s command to the invitations. +</p> + +<p> +“I leave you to imagine,” said Morley, pathetically, “how it +desolates me to forego the pleasure. But my friend Carruthers, of the New York +Yacht Club, is to pick me up here in his motor car at 8.” +</p> + +<p> +The white plume tossed, and the quartet danced like midges around an arc light +down the frolicsome way. +</p> + +<p> +Morley stood, turning over and over the dime in his pocket and laughing +gleefully to himself. “‘Front,’” he chanted under his +breath; “‘front’ does it. It is trumps in the game. How they +take it in! Men, women and children—forgeries, water-and-salt +lies—how they all take it in!” +</p> + +<p> +An old man with an ill-fitting suit, a straggling gray beard and a corpulent +umbrella hopped from the conglomeration of cabs and street cars to the sidewalk +at Morley’s side. +</p> + +<p> +“Stranger,” said he, “excuse me for troubling you, but do you +know anybody in this here town named Solomon Smothers? He’s my son, and +I’ve come down from Ellenville to visit him. Be darned if I know what I +done with his street and number.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not, sir,” said Morley, half closing his eyes to veil the joy +in them. “You had better apply to the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“The police!” said the old man. “I ain’t done +nothin’ to call in the police about. I just come down to see Ben. He +lives in a five-story house, he writes me. If you know anybody by that name and +could”— +</p> + +<p> +“I told you I did not,” said Morley, coldly. “I know no one +by the name of Smithers, and I advise you to”— +</p> + +<p> +“Smothers not Smithers,” interrupted the old man hopefully. +“A heavy-set man, sandy complected, about twenty-nine, two front teeth +out, about five foot”— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ‘Smothers!’” exclaimed Morley. “Sol +Smothers? Why, he lives in the next house to me. I thought you said +‘Smithers.’” +</p> + +<p> +Morley looked at his watch. You must have a watch. You can do it for a dollar. +Better go hungry than forego a gunmetal or the ninety-eight-cent one that the +railroads—according to these watchmakers—are run by. +</p> + +<p> +“The Bishop of Long Island,” said Morley, “was to meet me +here at 8 to dine with me at the Kingfishers’ Club. But I can’t +leave the father of my friend Sol Smothers alone on the street. By St. Swithin, +Mr. Smothers, we Wall street men have to work! Tired is no name for it! I was +about to step across to the other corner and have a glass of ginger ale with a +dash of sherry when you approached me. You must let me take you to Sol’s +house, Mr. Smothers. But, before we take the car I hope you will join me +in”— +</p> + +<p> +An hour later Morley seated himself on the end of a quiet bench in Madison +Square, with a twenty-five-cent cigar between his lips and $140 in deeply +creased bills in his inside pocket. Content, light-hearted, ironical, keenly +philosophic, he watched the moon drifting in and out amidst a maze of flying +clouds. An old, ragged man with a low-bowed head sat at the other end of the +bench. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the old man stirred and looked at his bench companion. In +Morley’s appearance he seemed to recognize something superior to the +usual nightly occupants of the benches. +</p> + +<p> +“Kind sir,” he whined, “if you could spare a dime or even a +few pennies to one who”— +</p> + +<p> +Morley cut short his stereotyped appeal by throwing him a dollar. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless you!” said the old man. “I’ve been trying to +find work for”— +</p> + +<p> +“Work!” echoed Morley with his ringing laugh. “You are a +fool, my friend. The world is a rock to you, no doubt; but you must be an Aaron +and smite it with your rod. Then things better than water will gush out of it +for you. That is what the world is for. It gives to me whatever I want from +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“God has blessed you,” said the old man. “It is only work +that I have known. And now I can get no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go home,” said Morley, rising and buttoning his coat. +“I stopped here only for a smoke. I hope you may find work.” +</p> + +<p> +“May your kindness be rewarded this night,” said the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Morley, “you have your wish already. I am +satisfied. I think good luck follows me like a dog. I am for yonder bright +hotel across the square for the night. And what a moon that is lighting up the +city to-night. I think no one enjoys the moonlight and such little things as I +do. Well, a good-night to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Morley walked to the corner where he would cross to his hotel. He blew slow +streams of smoke from his cigar heavenward. A policeman passing saluted to his +benign nod. What a fine moon it was. +</p> + +<p> +The clock struck nine as a girl just entering womanhood stopped on the corner +waiting for the approaching car. She was hurrying as if homeward from +employment or delay. Her eyes were clear and pure, she was dressed in simple +white, she looked eagerly for the car and neither to the right nor the left. +</p> + +<p> +Morley knew her. Eight years before he had sat on the same bench with her at +school. There had been no sentiment between them—nothing but the +friendship of innocent days. +</p> + +<p> +But he turned down the side street to a quiet spot and laid his suddenly +burning face against the cool iron of a lamp-post, and said dully: +</p> + +<p> +“God! I wish I could die.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c7" id="c7"></a>THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY</h2> + +<p> +It is well that hay fever and colds do not obtain in the healthful vicinity of +Cactus City, Texas, for the dry goods emporium of Navarro & Platt, situated +there, is not to be sneezed at. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty thousand people in Cactus City scatter their silver coin with liberal +hands for the things that their hearts desire. The bulk of this semiprecious +metal goes to Navarro & Platt. Their huge brick building covers enough +ground to graze a dozen head of sheep. You can buy of them a rattlesnake-skin +necktie, an automobile or an eighty-five dollar, latest style, ladies’ +tan coat in twenty different shades. Navarro & Platt first introduced +pennies west of the Colorado River. They had been ranchmen with business heads, +who saw that the world did not necessarily have to cease its revolutions after +free grass went out. +</p> + +<p> +Every Spring, Navarro, senior partner, fifty-five, half Spanish, cosmopolitan, +able, polished, had “gone on” to New York to buy goods. This year +he shied at taking up the long trail. He was undoubtedly growing older; and he +looked at his watch several times a day before the hour came for his siesta. +</p> + +<p> +“John,” he said, to his junior partner, “you shall go on this +year to buy the goods.” +</p> + +<p> +Platt looked tired. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m told,” said he, “that New York is a plumb dead +town; but I’ll go. I can take a whirl in San Antone for a few days on my +way and have some fun.” +</p> + +<p> +Two weeks later a man in a Texas full dress suit—black frock coat, +broad-brimmed soft white hat, and lay-down collar 3-4 inch high, with black, +wrought iron necktie—entered the wholesale cloak and suit establishment +of Zizzbaum & Son, on lower Broadway. +</p> + +<p> +Old Zizzbaum had the eye of an osprey, the memory of an elephant and a mind +that unfolded from him in three movements like the puzzle of the +carpenter’s rule. He rolled to the front like a brunette polar bear, and +shook Platt’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“And how is the good Mr. Navarro in Texas?” he said. “The +trip was too long for him this year, so? We welcome Mr. Platt instead.” +</p> + +<p> +“A bull’s eye,” said Platt, “and I’d give forty +acres of unirrigated Pecos County land to know how you did it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew,” grinned Zizzbaum, “just as I know that the rainfall +in El Paso for the year was 28.5 inches, or an increase of 15 inches, and that +therefore Navarro & Platt will buy a $15,000 stock of suits this spring +instead of $10,000, as in a dry year. But that will be to-morrow. There is +first a cigar in my private office that will remove from your mouth the taste +of the ones you smuggle across the Rio Grande and like—because they are +smuggled.” +</p> + +<p> +It was late in the afternoon and business for the day had ended, Zizzbaum left +Platt with a half-smoked cigar, and came out of the private office to Son, who +was arranging his diamond scarfpin before a mirror, ready to leave. +</p> + +<p> +“Abey,” he said, “you will have to take Mr. Platt around +to-night and show him things. They are customers for ten years. Mr. Navarro and +I we played chess every moment of spare time when he came. That is good, but +Mr. Platt is a young man and this is his first visit to New York. He should +amuse easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Abey, screwing the guard tightly on his pin. +“I’ll take him on. After he’s seen the Flatiron and the head +waiter at the Hotel Astor and heard the phonograph play ‘Under the Old +Apple Tree’ it’ll be half past ten, and Mr. Texas will be ready to +roll up in his blanket. I’ve got a supper engagement at 11:30, but +he’ll be all to the Mrs. Winslow before then.” +</p> + +<p> +The next morning at 10 Platt walked into the store ready to do business. He had +a bunch of hyacinths pinned on his lapel. Zizzbaum himself waited on him. +Navarro & Platt were good customers, and never failed to take their +discount for cash. +</p> + +<p> +“And what did you think of our little town?” asked Zizzbaum, with +the fatuous smile of the Manhattanite. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t care to live in it,” said the Texan. “Your +son and I knocked around quite a little last night. You’ve got good +water, but Cactus City is better lit up.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got a few lights on Broadway, don’t you think, Mr. +Platt?” +</p> + +<p> +“And a good many shadows,” said Platt. “I think I like your +horses best. I haven’t seen a crow-bait since I’ve been in +town.” +</p> + +<p> +Zizzbaum led him up stairs to show the samples of suits. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask Miss Asher to come,” he said to a clerk. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Asher came, and Platt, of Navarro & Platt, felt for the first time the +wonderful bright light of romance and glory descend upon him. He stood still as +a granite cliff above the cañon of the Colorado, with his wide-open eyes +fixed upon her. She noticed his look and flushed a little, which was contrary +to her custom. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Asher was the crack model of Zizzbaum & Son. She was of the blond type +known as “medium,” and her measurements even went the required +38-25-42 standard a little better. She had been at Zizzbaum’s two years, +and knew her business. Her eye was bright, but cool; and had she chosen to +match her gaze against the optic of the famed basilisk, that fabulous +monster’s gaze would have wavered and softened first. Incidentally, she +knew buyers. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mr. Platt,” said Zizzbaum, “I want you to see these +princess gowns in the light shades. They will be the thing in your climate. +This first, if you please, Miss Asher.” +</p> + +<p> +Swiftly in and out of the dressing-room the prize model flew, each time wearing +a new costume and looking more stunning with every change. She posed with +absolute self-possession before the stricken buyer, who stood, tongue-tied and +motionless, while Zizzbaum orated oilily of the styles. On the model’s +face was her faint, impersonal professional smile that seemed to cover +something like weariness or contempt. +</p> + +<p> +When the display was over Platt seemed to hesitate. Zizzbaum was a little +anxious, thinking that his customer might be inclined to try elsewhere. But +Platt was only looking over in his mind the best building sites in Cactus City, +trying to select one on which to build a house for his wife-to-be—who was +just then in the dressing-room taking off an evening gown of lavender and +tulle. +</p> + +<p> +“Take your time, Mr. Platt,” said Zizzbaum. “Think it over +to-night. You won’t find anybody else meet our prices on goods like +these. I’m afraid you’re having a dull time in New York, Mr. Platt. +A young man like you—of course, you miss the society of the ladies. +Wouldn’t you like a nice young lady to take out to dinner this evening? +Miss Asher, now, is a very nice young lady; she will make it agreeable for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, she doesn’t know me,” said Platt, wonderingly. +“She doesn’t know anything about me. Would she go? I’m not +acquainted with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would she go?” repeated Zizzbaum, with uplifted eyebrows. +“Sure, she would go. I will introduce you. Sure, she would go.” +</p> + +<p> +He called Miss Asher loudly. +</p> + +<p> +She came, calm and slightly contemptuous, in her white shirt waist and plain +black skirt. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Platt would like the pleasure of your company to dinner this +evening,” said Zizzbaum, walking away. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said Miss Asher, looking at the ceiling. “I’d +be much pleased. Nine-eleven West Twentieth street. What time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say seven o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, but please don’t come ahead of time. I room with a +school teacher, and she doesn’t allow any gentlemen to call in the room. +There isn’t any parlor, so you’ll have to wait in the hall. +I’ll be ready.” +</p> + +<p> +At half past seven Platt and Miss Asher sat at a table in a Broadway +restaurant. She was dressed in a plain, filmy black. Platt didn’t know +that it was all a part of her day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +With the unobtrusive aid of a good waiter he managed to order a respectable +dinner, minus the usual Broadway preliminaries. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Asher flashed upon him a dazzling smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Mayn’t I have something to drink?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, certainly,” said Platt. “Anything you want.” +</p> + +<p> +“A dry Martini,” she said to the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +When it was brought and set before her Platt reached over and took it away. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A cocktail, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was some kind of tea you ordered. This is liquor. You +can’t drink this. What is your first name?” +</p> + +<p> +“To my intimate friends,” said Miss Asher, freezingly, “it is +‘Helen.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen, Helen,” said Platt, leaning over the table. “For +many years every time the spring flowers blossomed out on the prairies I got to +thinking of somebody that I’d never seen or heard of. I knew it was you +the minute I saw you yesterday. I’m going back home to-morrow, and +you’re going with me. I know it, for I saw it in your eyes when you first +looked at me. You needn’t kick, for you’ve got to fall into line. +Here’s a little trick I picked out for you on my way over.” +</p> + +<p> +He flicked a two-carat diamond solitaire ring across the table. Miss Asher +flipped it back to him with her fork. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t get fresh,” she said, severely. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m worth a hundred thousand dollars,” said Platt. +“I’ll build you the finest house in West Texas.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t buy me, Mr. Buyer,” said Miss Asher, “if you +had a hundred million. I didn’t think I’d have to call you down. +You didn’t look like the others to me at first, but I see you’re +all alike.” +</p> + +<p> +“All who?” asked Platt. +</p> + +<p> +“All you buyers. You think because we girls have to go out to dinner with +you or lose our jobs that you’re privileged to say what you please. Well, +forget it. I thought you were different from the others, but I see I was +mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +Platt struck his fingers on the table with a gesture of sudden, illuminating +satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, almost +hilariously—“the Nicholson place, over on the north side. +There’s a big grove of live oaks and a natural lake. The old house can be +pulled down and the new one set further back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Put out your pipe,” said Miss Asher. “I’m sorry to +wake you up, but you fellows might as well get wise, once for all, to where you +stand. I’m supposed to go to dinner with you and help jolly you along so +you’ll trade with old Zizzy, but don’t expect to find me in any of +the suits you buy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to tell me,” said Platt, “that you go out this +way with customers, and they all—they all talk to you like I have?” +</p> + +<p> +“They all make plays,” said Miss Asher. “But I must say that +you’ve got ’em beat in one respect. They generally talk diamonds, +while you’ve actually dug one up.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you been working, Helen?” +</p> + +<p> +“Got my name pat, haven’t you? I’ve been supporting myself +for eight years. I was a cash girl and a wrapper and then a shop girl until I +was grown, and then I got to be a suit model. Mr. Texas Man, don’t you +think a little wine would make this dinner a little less dry?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going to drink wine any more, dear. It’s awful to +think how— I’ll come to the store to-morrow and get you. I want you +to pick out an automobile before we leave. That’s all we need to buy +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, cut that out. If you knew how sick I am of hearing such talk.” +</p> + +<p> +After the dinner they walked down Broadway and came upon Diana’s little +wooded park. The trees caught Platt’s eye at once, and he must turn along +under the winding walk beneath them. The lights shone upon two bright tears in +the model’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like that,” said Platt. “What’s the +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you mind,” said Miss Asher. “Well, it’s +because—well, I didn’t think you were that kind when I first saw +you. But you are all like. And now will you take me home, or will I have to +call a cop?” +</p> + +<p> +Platt took her to the door of her boarding-house. They stood for a minute in +the vestibule. She looked at him with such scorn in her eyes that even his +heart of oak began to waver. His arm was half way around her waist, when she +struck him a stinging blow on the face with her open hand. +</p> + +<p> +As he stepped back a ring fell from somewhere and bounded on the tiled floor. +Platt groped for it and found it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, take your useless diamond and go, Mr. Buyer,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“This was the other one—the wedding ring,” said the Texan, +holding the smooth gold band on the palm of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Asher’s eyes blazed upon him in the half darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Was that what you meant?—did you”— +</p> + +<p> +Somebody opened the door from inside the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” said Platt. “I’ll see you at the store +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Asher ran up to her room and shook the school teacher until she sat up in +bed ready to scream “Fire!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is it?” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I want to know,” said the model. +“You’ve studied geography, Emma, and you ought to know. Where is a +town called Cac—Cac—Carac—Caracas City, I think, they called +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you wake me up for that?” said the school teacher. +“Caracas is in Venezuela, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s it like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s principally earthquakes and negroes and monkeys and +malarial fever and volcanoes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” said Miss Asher, blithely; “I’m +going there to-morrow.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c8" id="c8"></a>THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O’ROON</h2> + +<p> +It cannot be denied that men and women have looked upon one another for the +first time and become instantly enamored. It is a risky process, this love at +first sight, before she has seen him in Bradstreet or he has seen her in curl +papers. But these things do happen; and one instance must form a theme for this +story—though not, thank Heaven, to the overshadowing of more vital and +important subjects, such as drink, policemen, horses and earldoms. +</p> + +<p> +During a certain war a troop calling itself the Gentle Riders rode into history +and one or two ambuscades. The Gentle Riders were recruited from the +aristocracy of the wild men of the West and the wild men of the aristocracy of +the East. In khaki there is little telling them one from another, so they +became good friends and comrades all around. +</p> + +<p> +Ellsworth Remsen, whose old Knickerbocker descent atoned for his modest rating +at only ten millions, ate his canned beef gayly by the campfires of the Gentle +Riders. The war was a great lark to him, so that he scarcely regretted polo and +planked shad. +</p> + +<p> +One of the troopers was a well set up, affable, cool young man, who called +himself O’Roon. To this young man Remsen took an especial liking. The two +rode side by side during the famous mooted up-hill charge that was disputed so +hotly at the time by the Spaniards and afterward by the Democrats. +</p> + +<p> +After the war Remsen came back to his polo and shad. One day a well set up, +affable, cool young man disturbed him at his club, and he and O’Roon were +soon pounding each other and exchanging opprobrious epithets after the manner +of long-lost friends. O’Roon looked seedy and out of luck and perfectly +contented. But it seemed that his content was only apparent. +</p> + +<p> +“Get me a job, Remsen,” he said. “I’ve just handed a +barber my last shilling.” +</p> + +<p> +“No trouble at all,” said Remsen. “I know a lot of men who +have banks and stores and things downtown. Any particular line you +fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said O’Roon, with a look of interest. “I took a +walk in your Central Park this morning. I’d like to be one of those +bobbies on horseback. That would be about the ticket. Besides, it’s the +only thing I could do. I can ride a little and the fresh air suits me. Think +you could land that for me?” +</p> + +<p> +Remsen was sure that he could. And in a very short time he did. And they who +were not above looking at mounted policemen might have seen a well set up, +affable, cool young man on a prancing chestnut steed attending to his duties +along the driveways of the park. +</p> + +<p> +And now at the extreme risk of wearying old gentlemen who carry leather fob +chains, and elderly ladies who—but no! grandmother herself yet thrills at +foolish, immortal Romeo—there must be a hint of love at first sight. +</p> + +<p> +It came just as Remsen was strolling into Fifth avenue from his club a few +doors away. +</p> + +<p> +A motor car was creeping along foot by foot, impeded by a freshet of vehicles +that filled the street. In the car was a chauffeur and an old gentleman with +snowy side whiskers and a Scotch plaid cap which could not be worn while +automobiling except by a personage. Not even a wine agent would dare do it. But +these two were of no consequence—except, perhaps, for the guiding of the +machine and the paying for it. At the old gentleman’s side sat a young +lady more beautiful than pomegranate blossoms, more exquisite than the first +quarter moon viewed at twilight through the tops of oleanders. Remsen saw her +and knew his fate. He could have flung himself under the very wheels that +conveyed her, but he knew that would be the last means of attracting the +attention of those who ride in motor cars. Slowly the auto passed, and, if we +place the poets above the autoists, carried the heart of Remsen with it. Here +was a large city of millions, and many women who at a certain distance appear +to resemble pomegranate blossoms. Yet he hoped to see her again; for each one +fancies that his romance has its own tutelary guardian and divinity. +</p> + +<p> +Luckily for Remsen’s peace of mind there came a diversion in the guise of +a reunion of the Gentle Riders of the city. There were not many of +them—perhaps a score—and there was wassail and things to eat, and +speeches and the Spaniard was bearded again in recapitulation. And when +daylight threatened them the survivors prepared to depart. But some remained +upon the battlefield. One of these was Trooper O’Roon, who was not +seasoned to potent liquids. His legs declined to fulfil the obligations they +had sworn to the police department. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m stewed, Remsen,” said O’Roon to his friend. +“Why do they build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels? +They’ll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk +con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. I’ve got +to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig is up, I tell +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at me,” said Remsen, who was his smiling self, pointing to +his own face; “whom do you see here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Goo’ fellow,” said O’Roon, dizzily, “Goo’ +old Remsen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so,” said Remsen. “You see Mounted Policeman +O’Roon. Look at your face—no; you can’t do that without a +glass—but look at mine, and think of yours. How much alike are we? As two +French <i>table d’hôte</i> dinners. With your badge, on your horse, in +your uniform, will I charm nurse-maids and prevent the grass from growing under +people’s feet in the Park this day. I will have your badge and your +honor, besides having the jolliest lark I’ve been blessed with since we +licked Spain.” +</p> + +<p> +Promptly on time the counterfeit presentment of Mounted Policeman O’Roon +single-footed into the Park on his chestnut steed. In a uniform two men who are +unlike will look alike; two who somewhat resemble each other in feature and +figure will appear as twin brothers. So Remsen trotted down the bridle paths, +enjoying himself hugely, so few real pleasures do ten-millionaires have. +</p> + +<p> +Along the driveway in the early morning spun a victoria drawn by a pair of +fiery bays. There was something foreign about the affair, for the Park is +rarely used in the morning except by unimportant people who love to be healthy, +poor and wise. In the vehicle sat an old gentleman with snowy side-whiskers and +a Scotch plaid cap which could not be worn while driving except by a personage. +At his side sat the lady of Remsen’s heart—the lady who looked like +pomegranate blossoms and the gibbous moon. +</p> + +<p> +Remsen met them coming. At the instant of their passing her eyes looked into +his, and but for the ever coward’s heart of a true lover he could have +sworn that she flushed a faint pink. He trotted on for twenty yards, and then +wheeled his horse at the sound of runaway hoofs. The bays had bolted. +</p> + +<p> +Remsen sent his chestnut after the victoria like a shot. There was work cut out +for the impersonator of Policeman O’Roon. The chestnut ranged alongside +the off bay thirty seconds after the chase began, rolled his eye back at +Remsen, and said in the only manner open to policemen’s horses: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you duffer, are you going to do your share? You’re not +O’Roon, but it seems to me if you’d lean to the right you could +reach the reins of that foolish slow-running bay—ah! you’re all +right; O’Roon couldn’t have done it more neatly!” +</p> + +<p> +The runaway team was tugged to an inglorious halt by Remsen’s tough +muscles. The driver released his hands from the wrapped reins, jumped from his +seat and stood at the heads of the team. The chestnut, approving his new rider, +danced and pranced, reviling equinely the subdued bays. Remsen, lingering, was +dimly conscious of a vague, impossible, unnecessary old gentleman in a Scotch +cap who talked incessantly about something. And he was acutely conscious of a +pair of violet eyes that would have drawn Saint Pyrites from his iron +pillar—or whatever the allusion is—and of the lady’s smile +and look—a little frightened, but a look that, with the ever coward heart +of a true lover, he could not yet construe. They were asking his name and +bestowing upon him wellbred thanks for his heroic deed, and the Scotch cap was +especially babbling and insistent. But the eloquent appeal was in the eyes of +the lady. +</p> + +<p> +A little thrill of satisfaction ran through Remsen, because he had a name to +give which, without undue pride, was worthy of being spoken in high places, and +a small fortune which, with due pride, he could leave at his end without +disgrace. +</p> + +<p> +He opened his lips to speak and closed them again. +</p> + +<p> +Who was he? Mounted Policeman O’Roon. The badge and the honor of his +comrade were in his hands. If Ellsworth Remsen, ten-millionaire and +Knickerbocker, had just rescued pomegranate blossoms and Scotch cap from +possible death, where was Policeman O’Roon? Off his beat, exposed, +disgraced, discharged. Love had come, but before that there had been something +that demanded precedence—the fellowship of men on battlefields fighting +an alien foe. +</p> + +<p> +Remsen touched his cap, looked between the chestnut’s ears, and took +refuge in vernacularity. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it,” he said stolidly. “We policemen are +paid to do these things. It’s our duty.” +</p> + +<p> +And he rode away—rode away cursing <i>noblesse oblige</i>, but knowing he +could never have done anything else. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the day Remsen sent the chestnut to his stable and went to +O’Roon’s room. The policeman was again a well set up, affable, cool +young man who sat by the window smoking cigars. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you and the rest of the police force and all badges, horses, +brass buttons and men who can’t drink two glasses of <i>brut</i> without +getting upset were at the devil,” said Remsen feelingly. +</p> + +<p> +O’Roon smiled with evident satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Good old Remsen,” he said, affably, “I know all about it. +They trailed me down and cornered me here two hours ago. There was a little row +at home, you know, and I cut sticks just to show them. I don’t believe I +told you that my Governor was the Earl of Ardsley. Funny you should bob against +them in the Park. If you damaged that horse of mine I’ll never forgive +you. I’m going to buy him and take him back with me. Oh, yes, and I think +my sister—Lady Angela, you know—wants particularly for you to come +up to the hotel with me this evening. Didn’t lose my badge, did you, +Remsen? I’ve got to turn that in at Headquarters when I resign.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c9" id="c9"></a>BRICKDUST ROW</h2> + +<p> +Blinker was displeased. A man of less culture and poise and wealth would have +sworn. But Blinker always remembered that he was a gentleman—a thing that +no gentleman should do. So he merely looked bored and sardonic while he rode in +a hansom to the center of disturbance, which was the Broadway office of Lawyer +Oldport, who was agent for the Blinker estate. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see,” said Blinker, “why I should be always +signing confounded papers. I am packed, and was to have left for the North +Woods this morning. Now I must wait until to-morrow morning. I hate night +trains. My best razors are, of course, at the bottom of some unidentifiable +trunk. It is a plot to drive me to bay rum and a monologueing, thumb-handed +barber. Give me a pen that doesn’t scratch. I hate pens that +scratch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down,” said double-chinned, gray Lawyer Oldport. “The +worst has not been told you. Oh, the hardships of the rich! The papers are not +yet ready to sign. They will be laid before you to-morrow at eleven. You will +miss another day. Twice shall the barber tweak the helpless nose of a Blinker. +Be thankful that your sorrows do not embrace a haircut.” +</p> + +<p> +“If,” said Blinker, rising, “the act did not involve more +signing of papers I would take my business out of your hands at once. Give me a +cigar, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“If,” said Lawyer Oldport, “I had cared to see an old +friend’s son gulped down at one mouthful by sharks I would have ordered +you to take it away long ago. Now, let’s quit fooling, Alexander. Besides +the grinding task of signing your name some thirty times to-morrow, I must +impose upon you the consideration of a matter of business—of business, +and I may say humanity or right. I spoke to you about this five years ago, but +you would not listen—you were in a hurry for a coaching trip, I think. +The subject has come up again. The property—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, property!” interrupted Blinker. “Dear Mr. Oldport, I +think you mentioned to-morrow. Let’s have it all at one dose +to-morrow—signatures and property and snappy rubber bands and that smelly +sealing-wax and all. Have luncheon with me? Well, I’ll try to remember to +drop in at eleven to-morrow. Morning.” +</p> + +<p> +The Blinker wealth was in lands, tenements and hereditaments, as the legal +phrase goes. Lawyer Oldport had once taken Alexander in his little pulmonary +gasoline runabout to see the many buildings and rows of buildings that he owned +in the city. For Alexander was sole heir. They had amused Blinker very much. +The houses looked so incapable of producing the big sums of money that Lawyer +Oldport kept piling up in banks for him to spend. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening Blinker went to one of his clubs, intending to dine. Nobody was +there except some old fogies playing whist who spoke to him with grave +politeness and glared at him with savage contempt. Everybody was out of town. +But here he was kept in like a schoolboy to write his name over and over on +pieces of paper. His wounds were deep. +</p> + +<p> +Blinker turned his back on the fogies, and said to the club steward who had +come forward with some nonsense about cold fresh salmon roe: +</p> + +<p> +“Symons, I’m going to Coney Island.” He said it as one might +say: “All’s off; I’m going to jump into the river.” +</p> + +<p> +The joke pleased Symons. He laughed within a sixteenth of a note of the +audibility permitted by the laws governing employees. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir,” he tittered. “Of course, sir, I think I can +see you at Coney, Mr. Blinker.” +</p> + +<p> +Blinker got a paper and looked up the movements of Sunday steamboats. Then he +found a cab at the first corner and drove to a North River pier. He stood in +line, as democratic as you or I, and bought a ticket, and was trampled upon and +shoved forward until, at last, he found himself on the upper deck of the boat +staring brazenly at a girl who sat alone upon a camp stool. But Blinker did not +intend to be brazen; the girl was so wonderfully good looking that he forgot +for one minute that he was the prince incog, and behaved just as he did in +society. +</p> + +<p> +She was looking at him, too, and not severely. A puff of wind threatened +Blinker’s straw hat. He caught it warily and settled it again. The +movement gave the effect of a bow. The girl nodded and smiled, and in another +instant he was seated at her side. She was dressed all in white, she was paler +than Blinker imagined milkmaids and girls of humble stations to be, but she was +as tidy as a cherry blossom, and her steady, supremely frank gray eyes looked +out from the intrepid depths of an unshadowed and untroubled soul. +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you raise your hat to me?” she asked, with a +smile-redeemed severity. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t,” Blinker said, but he quickly covered the mistake +by extending it to “I didn’t know how to keep from it after I saw +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not allow gentlemen to sit by me to whom I have not been +introduced,” she said, with a sudden haughtiness that deceived him. He +rose reluctantly, but her clear, teasing laugh brought him down to his chair +again. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you weren’t going far,” she declared, with +beauty’s magnificent self-confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to Coney Island?” asked Blinker. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” She turned upon him wide-open eyes full of bantering +surprise. “Why, what a question! Can’t you see that I’m +riding a bicycle in the park?” Her drollery took the form of +impertinence. +</p> + +<p> +“And I am laying brick on a tall factory chimney,” said Blinker. +“Mayn’t we see Coney together? I’m all alone and I’ve +never been there before.” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends,” said the girl, “on how nicely you behave. +I’ll consider your application until we get there.” +</p> + +<p> +Blinker took pains to provide against the rejection of his application. He +strove to please. To adopt the metaphor of his nonsensical phrase, he laid +brick upon brick on the tall chimney of his devoirs until, at length, the +structure was stable and complete. The manners of the best society come around +finally to simplicity; and as the girl’s way was that naturally, they +were on a mutual plane of communication from the beginning. +</p> + +<p> +He learned that she was twenty, and her name was Florence; that she trimmed +hats in a millinery shop; that she lived in a furnished room with her best chum +Ella, who was cashier in a shoe store; and that a glass of milk from the bottle +on the window-sill and an egg that boils itself while you twist up your hair +makes a breakfast good enough for any one. Florence laughed when she heard +“Blinker.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she said. “It certainly shows that you have +imagination. It gives the ‘Smiths’ a chance for a little rest, +anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +They landed at Coney, and were dashed on the crest of a great human wave of mad +pleasure-seekers into the walks and avenues of Fairyland gone into vaudeville. +</p> + +<p> +With a curious eye, a critical mind and a fairly withheld judgment Blinker +considered the temples, pagodas and kiosks of popularized delights. Hoi polloi +trampled, hustled and crowded him. Basket parties bumped him; sticky children +tumbled, howling, under his feet, candying his clothes. Insolent youths +strolling among the booths with hard-won canes under one arm and easily won +girls on the other, blew defiant smoke from cheap cigars into his face. The +publicity gentlemen with megaphones, each before his own stupendous attraction, +roared like Niagara in his ears. Music of all kinds that could be tortured from +brass, reed, hide or string, fought in the air to gain space for its vibrations +against its competitors. But what held Blinker in awful fascination was the +mob, the multitude, the proletariat shrieking, struggling, hurrying, panting, +hurling itself in incontinent frenzy, with unabashed abandon, into the +ridiculous sham palaces of trumpery and tinsel pleasures. The vulgarity of it, +its brutal overriding of all the tenets of repression and taste that were held +by his caste, repelled him strongly. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of his disgust he turned and looked down at Florence by his side. +She was ready with her quick smile and upturned, happy eyes, as bright and +clear as the water in trout pools. The eyes were saying that they had the right +to be shining and happy, for was their owner not with her (for the present) +Man, her Gentleman Friend and holder of the keys to the enchanted city of fun? +</p> + +<p> +Blinker did not read her look accurately, but by some miracle he suddenly saw +Coney aright. +</p> + +<p> +He no longer saw a mass of vulgarians seeking gross joys. He now looked clearly +upon a hundred thousand true idealists. Their offenses were wiped out. +Counterfeit and false though the garish joys of these spangled temples were, he +perceived that deep under the gilt surface they offered saving and apposite +balm and satisfaction to the restless human heart. Here, at least, was the husk +of Romance, the empty but shining casque of Chivalry, the breath-catching +though safe-guarded dip and flight of Adventure, the magic carpet that +transports you to the realms of fairyland, though its journey be through but a +few poor yards of space. He no longer saw a rabble, but his brothers seeking +the ideal. There was no magic of poesy here or of art; but the glamour of their +imagination turned yellow calico into cloth of gold and the megaphones into the +silver trumpets of joy’s heralds. +</p> + +<p> +Almost humbled, Blinker rolled up the shirt sleeves of his mind and joined the +idealists. +</p> + +<p> +“You are the lady doctor,” he said to Florence. “How shall we +go about doing this jolly conglomeration of fairy tales, incorporated?” +</p> + +<p> +“We will begin there,” said the Princess, pointing to a fun pagoda +on the edge of the sea, “and we will take them all in, one by one.” +</p> + +<p> +They caught the eight o’clock returning boat and sat, filled with +pleasant fatigue, against the rail in the bow, listening to the Italians’ +fiddle and harp. Blinker had thrown off all care. The North Woods seemed to him +an uninhabitable wilderness. What a fuss he had made over signing his +name—pooh! he could sign it a hundred times. And her name was as pretty +as she was—“Florence,” he said it to himself a great many +times. +</p> + +<p> +As the boat was nearing its pier in the North River a two-funnelled, drab, +foreign-looking sea-going steamer was dropping down toward the bay. The boat +turned its nose in toward its slip. The steamer veered as if to seek midstream, +and then yawed, seemed to increase its speed and struck the Coney boat on the +side near the stern, cutting into it with a terrifying shock and crash. +</p> + +<p> +While the six hundred passengers on the boat were mostly tumbling about the +decks in a shrieking panic the captain was shouting at the steamer that it +should not back off and leave the rent exposed for the water to enter. But the +steamer tore its way out like a savage sawfish and cleaved its heartless way, +full speed ahead. +</p> + +<p> +The boat began to sink at its stern, but moved slowly toward the slip. The +passengers were a frantic mob, unpleasant to behold. +</p> + +<p> +Blinker held Florence tightly until the boat had righted itself. She made no +sound or sign of fear. He stood on a camp stool, ripped off the slats above his +head and pulled down a number of the life preservers. He began to buckle one +around Florence. The rotten canvas split and the fraudulent granulated cork +came pouring out in a stream. Florence caught a handful of it and laughed +gleefully. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks like breakfast food,” she said. “Take it off. +They’re no good.” +</p> + +<p> +She unbuckled it and threw it on the deck. She made Blinker sit down and sat by +his side and put her hand in his. “What’ll you bet we don’t +reach the pier all right?” she said and began to hum a song. +</p> + +<p> +And now the captain moved among the passengers and compelled order. The boat +would undoubtedly make her slip, he said, and ordered the women and children to +the bow, where they could land first. The boat, very low in the water at the +stern, tried gallantly to make his promise good. +</p> + +<p> +“Florence,” said Blinker, as she held him close by an arm and hand, +“I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what they all say,” she replied, lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not one of ‘they all,’” he persisted. “I +never knew any one I could love before. I could pass my life with you and be +happy every day. I am rich. I can make things all right for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what they all say,” said the girl again, weaving the +words into her little, reckless song. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say that again,” said Blinker in a tone that made her +look at him in frank surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t I say it?” she asked calmly. “They all +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are ‘they’?” he asked, jealous for the first time +in his existence. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the fellows I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know so many?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I’m not a wall flower,” she answered with modest +complacency. +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you see these—these men? At your home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not. I meet them just as I did you. Sometimes on the boat, +sometimes in the park, sometimes on the street. I’m a pretty good judge +of a man. I can tell in a minute if a fellow is one who is likely to get +fresh.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by ‘fresh?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, try to kiss you—me, I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do any of them try that?” asked Blinker, clenching his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure. All men do. You know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you allow them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some. Not many. They won’t take you out anywhere unless you +do.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head and looked searchingly at Blinker. Her eyes were as +innocent as a child’s. There was a puzzled look in them, as though she +did not understand him. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong about my meeting fellows?” she asked, +wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything,” he answered, almost savagely. “Why don’t +you entertain your company in the house where you live? Is it necessary to pick +up Tom, Dick and Harry on the streets?” +</p> + +<p> +She kept her absolutely ingenuous eyes upon his. “If you could see the +place where I live you wouldn’t ask that. I live in Brickdust Row. They +call it that because there’s red dust from the bricks crumbling over +everything. I’ve lived there for more than four years. There’s no +place to receive company. You can’t have anybody come to your room. What +else is there to do? A girl has got to meet the men, hasn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, hoarsely. “A girl has got to meet a—has +got to meet the men.” +</p> + +<p> +“The first time one spoke to me on the street,” she continued, +“I ran home and cried all night. But you get used to it. I meet a good +many nice fellows at church. I go on rainy days and stand in the vestibule +until one comes up with an umbrella. I wish there was a parlor, so I could ask +you to call, Mr. Blinker—are you really sure it isn’t +‘Smith,’ now?” +</p> + +<p> +The boat landed safely. Blinker had a confused impression of walking with the +girl through quiet crosstown streets until she stopped at a corner and held out +her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I live just one more block over,” she said. “Thank you for a +very pleasant afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +Blinker muttered something and plunged northward till he found a cab. A big, +gray church loomed slowly at his right. Blinker shook his fist at it through +the window. +</p> + +<p> +“I gave you a thousand dollars last week,” he cried under his +breath, “and she meets them in your very doors. There is something wrong; +there is something wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +At eleven the next day Blinker signed his name thirty times with a new pen +provided by Lawyer Oldport. +</p> + +<p> +“Now let me go to the woods,” he said surlily. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not looking well,” said Lawyer Oldport. “The trip +will do you good. But listen, if you will, to that little matter of business of +which I spoke to you yesterday, and also five years ago. There are some +buildings, fifteen in number, of which there are new five-year leases to be +signed. Your father contemplated a change in the lease provisions, but never +made it. He intended that the parlors of these houses should not be sub-let, +but that the tenants should be allowed to use them for reception rooms. These +houses are in the shopping district, and are mainly tenanted by young working +girls. As it is they are forced to seek companionship outside. This row of red +brick—” +</p> + +<p> +Blinker interrupted him with a loud, discordant laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Brickdust Row for an even hundred,” he cried. “And I own it. +Have I guessed right?” +</p> + +<p> +“The tenants have some such name for it,” said Lawyer Oldport. +</p> + +<p> +Blinker arose and jammed his hat down to his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Do what you please with it,” he said harshly. “Remodel it, +burn it, raze it to the ground. But, man, it’s too late I tell you. +It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c10" id="c10"></a>THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER</h2> + +<p> +Besides many other things, Raggles was a poet. He was called a tramp; but that +was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a +traveller, a naturalist and a discoverer. But most of all he was a poet. In all +his life he never wrote a line of verse; he lived his poetry. His Odyssey would +have been a Limerick, had it been written. But, to linger with the primary +proposition, Raggles was a poet. +</p> + +<p> +Raggles’s specialty, had he been driven to ink and paper, would have been +sonnets to the cities. He studied cities as women study their reflections in +mirrors; as children study the glue and sawdust of a dislocated doll; as the +men who write about wild animals study the cages in the zoo. A city to Raggles +was not merely a pile of bricks and mortar, peopled by a certain number of +inhabitants; it was a thing with a soul characteristic and distinct; an +individual conglomeration of life, with its own peculiar essence, flavor and +feeling. Two thousand miles to the north and south, east and west, Raggles +wandered in poetic fervor, taking the cities to his breast. He footed it on +dusty roads, or sped magnificently in freight cars, counting time as of no +account. And when he had found the heart of a city and listened to its secret +confession, he strayed on, restless, to another. Fickle Raggles!—but +perhaps he had not met the civic corporation that could engage and hold his +critical fancy. +</p> + +<p> +Through the ancient poets we have learned that the cities are feminine. So they +were to poet Raggles; and his mind carried a concrete and clear conception of +the figure that symbolized and typified each one that he had wooed. +</p> + +<p> +Chicago seemed to swoop down upon him with a breezy suggestion of Mrs. +Partington, plumes and patchouli, and to disturb his rest with a soaring and +beautiful song of future promise. But Raggles would awake to a sense of +shivering cold and a haunting impression of ideals lost in a depressing aura of +potato salad and fish. +</p> + +<p> +Thus Chicago affected him. Perhaps there is a vagueness and inaccuracy in the +description; but that is Raggles’s fault. He should have recorded his +sensations in magazine poems. +</p> + +<p> +Pittsburg impressed him as the play of “Othello” performed in the +Russian language in a railroad station by Dockstader’s minstrels. A royal +and generous lady this Pittsburg, though—homely, hearty, with flushed +face, washing the dishes in a silk dress and white kid slippers, and bidding +Raggles sit before the roaring fireplace and drink champagne with his +pigs’ feet and fried potatoes. +</p> + +<p> +New Orleans had simply gazed down upon him from a balcony. He could see her +pensive, starry eyes and catch the flutter of her fan, and that was all. Only +once he came face to face with her. It was at dawn, when she was flushing the +red bricks of the banquette with a pail of water. She laughed and hummed a +chansonette and filled Raggles’s shoes with ice-cold water. Allons! +</p> + +<p> +Boston construed herself to the poetic Raggles in an erratic and singular way. +It seemed to him that he had drunk cold tea and that the city was a white, cold +cloth that had been bound tightly around his brow to spur him to some unknown +but tremendous mental effort. And, after all, he came to shovel snow for a +livelihood; and the cloth, becoming wet, tightened its knots and could not be +removed. +</p> + +<p> +Indefinite and unintelligible ideas, you will say; but your disapprobation +should be tempered with gratitude, for these are poets’ fancies—and +suppose you had come upon them in verse! +</p> + +<p> +One day Raggles came and laid siege to the heart of the great city of +Manhattan. She was the greatest of all; and he wanted to learn her note in the +scale; to taste and appraise and classify and solve and label her and arrange +her with the other cities that had given him up the secret of their +individuality. And here we cease to be Raggles’s translator and become +his chronicler. +</p> + +<p> +Raggles landed from a ferry-boat one morning and walked into the core of the +town with the blasé air of a cosmopolite. He was dressed with care to play the +rôle of an “unidentified man.” No country, race, class, +clique, union, party clan or bowling association could have claimed him. His +clothing, which had been donated to him piece-meal by citizens of different +height, but same number of inches around the heart, was not yet as +uncomfortable to his figure as those specimens of raiment, self-measured, that +are railroaded to you by transcontinental tailors with a suit case, suspenders, +silk handkerchief and pearl studs as a bonus. Without money—as a poet +should be—but with the ardor of an astronomer discovering a new star in +the chorus of the milky way, or a man who has seen ink suddenly flow from his +fountain pen, Raggles wandered into the great city. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the afternoon he drew out of the roar and commotion with a look of dumb +terror on his countenance. He was defeated, puzzled, discomfited, frightened. +Other cities had been to him as long primer to read; as country maidens quickly +to fathom; as send-price-of-subscription-with-answer rebuses to solve; as +oyster cocktails to swallow; but here was one as cold, glittering, serene, +impossible as a four-carat diamond in a window to a lover outside fingering +damply in his pocket his ribbon-counter salary. +</p> + +<p> +The greetings of the other cities he had known—their homespun kindliness, +their human gamut of rough charity, friendly curses, garrulous curiosity and +easily estimated credulity or indifference. This city of Manhattan gave him no +clue; it was walled against him. Like a river of adamant it flowed past him in +the streets. Never an eye was turned upon him; no voice spoke to him. His heart +yearned for the clap of Pittsburg’s sooty hand on his shoulder; for +Chicago’s menacing but social yawp in his ear; for the pale and +eleemosynary stare through the Bostonian eyeglass—even for the +precipitate but unmalicious boot-toe of Louisville or St. Louis. +</p> + +<p> +On Broadway Raggles, successful suitor of many cities, stood, bashful, like any +country swain. For the first time he experienced the poignant humiliation of +being ignored. And when he tried to reduce this brilliant, swiftly changing, +ice-cold city to a formula he failed utterly. Poet though he was, it offered +him no color similes, no points of comparison, no flaw in its polished facets, +no handle by which he could hold it up and view its shape and structure, as he +familiarly and often contemptuously had done with other towns. The houses were +interminable ramparts loopholed for defense; the people were bright but +bloodless spectres passing in sinister and selfish array. +</p> + +<p> +The thing that weighed heaviest on Raggles’s soul and clogged his +poet’s fancy was the spirit of absolute egotism that seemed to saturate +the people as toys are saturated with paint. Each one that he considered +appeared a monster of abominable and insolent conceit. Humanity was gone from +them; they were toddling idols of stone and varnish, worshipping themselves and +greedy for though oblivious of worship from their fellow graven images. Frozen, +cruel, implacable, impervious, cut to an identical pattern, they hurried on +their ways like statues brought by some miracles to motion, while soul and +feeling lay unaroused in the reluctant marble. +</p> + +<p> +Gradually Raggles became conscious of certain types. One was an elderly +gentleman with a snow-white, short beard, pink, unwrinkled face and stony, +sharp blue eyes, attired in the fashion of a gilded youth, who seemed to +personify the city’s wealth, ripeness and frigid unconcern. Another type +was a woman, tall, beautiful, clear as a steel engraving, goddess-like, calm, +clothed like the princesses of old, with eyes as coldly blue as the reflection +of sunlight on a glacier. And another was a by-product of this town of +marionettes—a broad, swaggering, grim, threateningly sedate fellow, with +a jowl as large as a harvested wheat field, the complexion of a baptized infant +and the knuckles of a prize-fighter. This type leaned against cigar signs and +viewed the world with frappéd contumely. +</p> + +<p> +A poet is a sensitive creature, and Raggles soon shrivelled in the bleak +embrace of the undecipherable. The chill, sphinx-like, ironical, illegible, +unnatural, ruthless expression of the city left him downcast and bewildered. +Had it no heart? Better the woodpile, the scolding of vinegar-faced housewives +at back doors, the kindly spleen of bartenders behind provincial free-lunch +counters, the amiable truculence of rural constables, the kicks, arrests and +happy-go-lucky chances of the other vulgar, loud, crude cities than this +freezing heartlessness. +</p> + +<p> +Raggles summoned his courage and sought alms from the populace. Unheeding, +regardless, they passed on without the wink of an eyelash to testify that they +were conscious of his existence. And then he said to himself that this fair but +pitiless city of Manhattan was without a soul; that its inhabitants were +manikins moved by wires and springs, and that he was alone in a great +wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +Raggles started to cross the street. There was a blast, a roar, a hissing and a +crash as something struck him and hurled him over and over six yards from where +he had been. As he was coming down like the stick of a rocket the earth and all +the cities thereof turned to a fractured dream. +</p> + +<p> +Raggles opened his eyes. First an odor made itself known to him—an odor +of the earliest spring flowers of Paradise. And then a hand soft as a falling +petal touched his brow. Bending over him was the woman clothed like the +princess of old, with blue eyes, now soft and humid with human sympathy. Under +his head on the pavement were silks and furs. With Raggles’s hat in his +hand and with his face pinker than ever from a vehement burst of oratory +against reckless driving, stood the elderly gentleman who personified the +city’s wealth and ripeness. From a nearby café hurried the by-product +with the vast jowl and baby complexion, bearing a glass full of a crimson fluid +that suggested delightful possibilities. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink dis, sport,” said the by-product, holding the glass to +Raggles’s lips. +</p> + +<p> +Hundreds of people huddled around in a moment, their faces wearing the deepest +concern. Two flattering and gorgeous policemen got into the circle and pressed +back the overplus of Samaritans. An old lady in a black shawl spoke loudly of +camphor; a newsboy slipped one of his papers beneath Raggles’s elbow, +where it lay on the muddy pavement. A brisk young man with a notebook was +asking for names. +</p> + +<p> +A bell clanged importantly, and the ambulance cleaned a lane through the crowd. +A cool surgeon slipped into the midst of affairs. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you feel, old man?” asked the surgeon, stooping easily to +his task. The princess of silks and satins wiped a red drop or two from +Raggles’s brow with a fragrant cobweb. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” said Raggles, with a seraphic smile, “I feel +fine.” +</p> + +<p> +He had found the heart of his new city. +</p> + +<p> +In three days they let him leave his cot for the convalescent ward in the +hospital. He had been in there an hour when the attendants heard sounds of +conflict. Upon investigation they found that Raggles had assaulted and damaged +a brother convalescent—a glowering transient whom a freight train +collision had sent in to be patched up. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s all this about?” inquired the head nurse. +</p> + +<p> +“He was runnin’ down me town,” said Raggles. +</p> + +<p> +“What town?” asked the nurse. +</p> + +<p> +“Noo York,” said Raggles. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c11" id="c11"></a>VANITY AND SOME SABLES</h2> + +<p> +When “Kid” Brady was sent to the ropes by Molly McKeever’s +blue-black eyes he withdrew from the Stovepipe Gang. So much for the power of a +colleen’s blanderin’ tongue and stubborn true-heartedness. If you +are a man who read this, may such an influence be sent you before 2 +o’clock to-morrow; if you are a woman, may your Pomeranian greet you this +morning with a cold nose—a sign of doghealth and your happiness. +</p> + +<p> +The Stovepipe Gang borrowed its name from a sub-district of the city called the +“Stovepipe,” which is a narrow and natural extension of the +familiar district known as “Hell’s Kitchen.” The +“Stovepipe” strip of town runs along Eleventh and Twelfth avenues +on the river, and bends a hard and sooty elbow around little, lost homeless +DeWitt Clinton park. Consider that a stovepipe is an important factor in any +kitchen and the situation is analyzed. The chefs in “Hell’s +Kitchen” are many, and the “Stovepipe” gang, wears the cordon +blue. +</p> + +<p> +The members of this unchartered but widely known brotherhood appeared to pass +their time on street corners arrayed like the lilies of the conservatory and +busy with nail files and penknives. Thus displayed as a guarantee of good +faith, they carried on an innocuous conversation in a 200-word vocabulary, to +the casual observer as innocent and immaterial as that heard in clubs seven +blocks to the east. +</p> + +<p> +But off exhibition the “Stovepipes” were not mere street corner +ornaments addicted to posing and manicuring. Their serious occupation was the +separating of citizens from their coin and valuables. Preferably this was done +by weird and singular tricks without noise or bloodshed; but whenever the +citizen honored by their attentions refused to impoverish himself gracefully +his objections came to be spread finally upon some police station blotter or +hospital register. +</p> + +<p> +The police held the “Stovepipe” gang in perpetual suspicion and +respect. As the nightingale’s liquid note is heard in the deepest +shadows, so along the “Stovepipe’s” dark and narrow confines +the whistle for reserves punctures the dull ear of night. Whenever there was +smoke in the “stovepipe” the tasselled men in blue knew there was +fire in “Hell’s Kitchen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Kid” Brady promised Molly to be good. “Kid” was the +vainest, the strongest, the wariest and the most successful plotter in the +gang. Therefore, the boys were sorry to give him up. +</p> + +<p> +But they witnessed his fall to a virtuous life without protest. For, in the +Kitchen it is considered neither unmanly nor improper for a guy to do as his +girl advises. +</p> + +<p> +Black her eye for love’s sake, if you will; but it is all-to-the-good +business to do a thing when she wants you to do it. +</p> + +<p> +“Turn off the hydrant,” said the Kid, one night when Molly, +tearful, besought him to amend his ways. “I’m going to cut out the +gang. You for mine, and the simple life on the side. I’ll tell you, +Moll—I’ll get work; and in a year we’ll get married. +I’ll do it for you. We’ll get a flat and a flute, and a sewing +machine and a rubber plant and live as honest as we can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Kid,” sighed Molly, wiping the powder off his shoulder with +her handkerchief, “I’d rather hear you say that than to own all of +New York. And we can be happy on so little!” +</p> + +<p> +The Kid looked down at his speckless cuffs and shining patent leathers with a +suspicion of melancholy. +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll hurt hardest in the rags department,” said he. +“I’ve kind of always liked to rig out swell when I could. You know +how I hate cheap things, Moll. This suit set me back sixty-five. Anything in +the wearing apparel line has got to be just so, or it’s to the misfit +parlors for it, for mine. If I work I won’t have so much coin to hand +over to the little man with the big shears.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Kid. I’ll like you just as much in a blue jumper as I +would in a red automobile.” +</p> + +<p> +Before the Kid had grown large enough to knock out his father he had been +compelled to learn the plumber’s art. So now back to this honorable and +useful profession he returned. But it was as an assistant that he engaged +himself; and it is the master plumber and not the assistant, who wears diamonds +as large as hailstones and looks contemptuously upon the marble colonnades of +Senator Clark’s mansion. +</p> + +<p> +Eight months went by as smoothly and surely as though they had +“elapsed” on a theater program. The Kid worked away at his pipes +and solder with no symptoms of backsliding. The Stovepipe gang continued its +piracy on the high avenues, cracked policemen’s heads, held up late +travelers, invented new methods of peaceful plundering, copied Fifth +avenue’s cut of clothes and neckwear fancies and comported itself +according to its lawless bylaws. But the Kid stood firm and faithful to his +Molly, even though the polish was gone from his fingernails and it took him 15 +minutes to tie his purple silk ascot so that the worn places would not show. +</p> + +<p> +One evening he brought a mysterious bundle with him to Molly’s house. +</p> + +<p> +“Open that, Moll!” he said in his large, quiet way. +“It’s for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Molly’s eager fingers tore off the wrappings. She shrieked aloud, and in +rushed a sprinkling of little McKeevers, and Ma McKeever, dishwashy, but an +undeniable relative of the late Mrs. Eve. +</p> + +<p> +Again Molly shrieked, and something dark and long and sinuous flew and +enveloped her neck like an anaconda. +</p> + +<p> +“Russian sables,” said the Kid, pridefully, enjoying the sight of +Molly’s round cheek against the clinging fur. “The real thing. They +don’t grow anything in Russia too good for you, Moll.” +</p> + +<p> +Molly plunged her hands into the muff, overturned a row of the family infants +and flew to the mirror. Hint for the beauty column. To make bright eyes, rosy +cheeks and a bewitching smile: Recipe—one set Russian sables. Apply. +</p> + +<p> +When they were alone Molly became aware of a small cake of the ice of common +sense floating down the full tide of her happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a bird, all right, Kid,” she admitted gratefully. +“I never had any furs on before in my life. But ain’t Russian +sables awful expensive? Seems to me I’ve heard they were.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I ever chucked any bargain-sale stuff at you, Moll?” asked +the Kid, with calm dignity. “Did you ever notice me leaning on the +remnant counter or peering in the window of the five-and-ten? Call that scarf +$250 and the muff $175 and you won’t make any mistake about the price of +Russian sables. The swell goods for me. Say, they look fine on you, +Moll.” +</p> + +<p> +Molly hugged the sables to her bosom in rapture. And then her smile went away +little by little, and she looked the Kid straight in the eye sadly and +steadily. +</p> + +<p> +He knew what every look of hers meant; and he laughed with a faint flush upon +his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Cut it out,” he said, with affectionate roughness. “I told +you I was done with that. I bought ’em and paid for ’em, all right, +with my own money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of the money you worked for, Kid? Out of $75 a month?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure. I been saving up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see—saved $425 in eight months, Kid?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, let up,” said the Kid, with some heat. “I had some money +when I went to work. Do you think I’ve been holding ’em up again? I +told you I’d quit. They’re paid for on the square. Put ’em on +and come out for a walk.” +</p> + +<p> +Molly calmed her doubts. Sables are soothing. Proud as a queen she went forth +in the streets at the Kid’s side. In all that region of low-lying streets +Russian sables had never been seen before. The word sped, and doors and windows +blossomed with heads eager to see the swell furs Kid Brady had given his girl. +All down the street there were “Oh’s” and +“Ah’s” and the reported fabulous sum paid for the sables was +passed from lip to lip, increasing as it went. At her right elbow sauntered the +Kid with the air of princes. Work had not diminished his love of pomp and show +and his passion for the costly and genuine. On a corner they saw a group of the +Stovepipe Gang loafing, immaculate. They raised their hats to the Kid’s +girl and went on with their calm, unaccented palaver. +</p> + +<p> +Three blocks behind the admired couple strolled Detective Ransom, of the +Central office. Ransom was the only detective on the force who could walk +abroad with safety in the Stovepipe district. He was fair dealing and unafraid +and went there with the hypothesis that the inhabitants were human. Many liked +him, and now and then one would tip off to him something that he was looking +for. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the excitement down the street?” asked Ransom of a +pale youth in a red sweater. +</p> + +<p> +“Dey’re out rubberin’ at a set of buffalo robes Kid Brady +staked his girl to,” answered the youth. “Some say he paid $900 for +de skins. Dey’re swell all right enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hear Brady has been working at his old trade for nearly a year,” +said the detective. “He doesn’t travel with the gang any more, does +he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s workin’, all right,” said the red sweater, +“but—say, sport, are you trailin’ anything in the fur line? A +job in a plumbin’ shop don’ match wid dem skins de Kid’s +girl’s got on.” +</p> + +<p> +Ransom overtook the strolling couple on an empty street near the river bank. He +touched the Kid’s arm from behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see you a moment, Brady,” he said, quietly. His eye rested +for a second on the long fur scarf thrown stylishly back over Molly’s +left shoulder. The Kid, with his old-time police hating frown on his face, +stepped a yard or two aside with the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you go to Mrs. Hethcote’s on West 7—th street yesterday +to fix a leaky water pipe?” asked Ransom. +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” said the Kid. “What of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“The lady’s $1,000 set of Russian sables went out of the house +about the same time you did. The description fits the ones this lady has +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“To h—Harlem with you,” cried the Kid, angrily. “You +know I’ve cut out that sort of thing, Ransom. I bought them sables +yesterday at—” +</p> + +<p> +The Kid stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you’ve been working straight lately,” said Ransom. +“I’ll give you every chance. I’ll go with you where you say +you bought the furs and investigate. The lady can wear ’em along with us +and nobody’ll be on. That’s fair, Brady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” agreed the Kid, hotly. And then he stopped suddenly in +his tracks and looked with an odd smile at Molly’s distressed and anxious +face. +</p> + +<p> +“No use,” he said, grimly. “They’re the Hethcote +sables, all right. You’ll have to turn ’em over, Moll, but they +ain’t too good for you if they cost a million.” +</p> + +<p> +Molly, with anguish in her face, hung upon the Kid’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Kiddy, you’ve broke my heart,” she said. “I was so +proud of you—and now they’ll do you—and where’s our +happiness gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go home,” said the Kid, wildly. “Come on, Ransom—take +the furs. Let’s get away from here. Wait a minute—I’ve a good +mind to—no, I’ll be d–––– if I can do +it—run along, Moll—I’m ready, Ransom.” +</p> + +<p> +Around the corner of a lumber-yard came Policeman Kohen on his way to his beat +along the river. The detective signed to him for assistance. Kohen joined the +group. Ransom explained. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said Kohen. “I hear about those saples dat vas stole. +You say you have dem here?” +</p> + +<p> +Policeman Kohen took the end of Molly’s late scarf in his hands and +looked at it closely. +</p> + +<p> +“Once,” he said, “I sold furs in Sixth avenue. Yes, dese are +saples. Dey come from Alaska. Dis scarf is vort $12 and dis muff—” +</p> + +<p> +“Biff!” came the palm of the Kid’s powerful hand upon the +policeman’s mouth. Kohen staggered and rallied. Molly screamed. The +detective threw himself upon Brady and with Kohen’s aid got the nippers +on his wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“The scarf is vort $12 and the muff is vort $9,” persisted the +policeman. “Vot is dis talk about $1,000 saples?” +</p> + +<p> +The Kid sat upon a pile of lumber and his face turned dark red. +</p> + +<p> +“Correct, Solomonski!” he declared, viciously. “I paid $21.50 +for the set. I’d rather have got six months and not have told it. Me, the +swell guy that wouldn’t look at anything cheap! I’m a plain +bluffer. Moll—my salary couldn’t spell sables in Russian.” +</p> + +<p> +Molly cast herself upon his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“What do I care for all the sables and money in the world,” she +cried. “It’s my Kiddy I want. Oh, you dear, stuck-up, crazy +blockhead!” +</p> + +<p> +“You can take dose nippers off,” said Kohen to the detective. +“Before I leaf de station de report come in dat de lady vind her +saples—hanging in her wardrobe. Young man, I excuse you dat punch in my +vace—dis von time.” +</p> + +<p> +Ransom handed Molly her furs. Her eyes were smiling upon the Kid. She wound the +scarf and threw the end over her left shoulder with a duchess’ grace. +</p> + +<p> +“A gouple of young vools,” said Policeman Kohen to Ransom; +“come on away.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c12" id="c12"></a>THE SOCIAL TRIANGLE</h2> + +<p> +At the stroke of six Ikey Snigglefritz laid down his goose. Ikey was a +tailor’s apprentice. Are there tailor’s apprentices nowadays? +</p> + +<p> +At any rate, Ikey toiled and snipped and basted and pressed and patched and +sponged all day in the steamy fetor of a tailor-shop. But when work was done +Ikey hitched his wagon to such stars as his firmament let shine. +</p> + +<p> +It was Saturday night, and the boss laid twelve begrimed and begrudged dollars +in his hand. Ikey dabbled discreetly in water, donned coat, hat and collar with +its frazzled tie and chalcedony pin, and set forth in pursuit of his ideals. +</p> + +<p> +For each of us, when our day’s work is done, must seek our ideal, whether +it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of +the musty bookshelves. +</p> + +<p> +Behold Ikey as he ambles up the street beneath the roaring “El” +between the rows of reeking sweat-shops. Pallid, stooping, insignificant, +squalid, doomed to exist forever in penury of body and mind, yet, as he swings +his cheap cane and projects the noisome inhalations from his cigarette you +perceive that he nurtures in his narrow bosom the bacillus of society. +</p> + +<p> +Ikey’s legs carried him to and into that famous place of entertainment +known as the Café Maginnis—famous because it was the rendezvous of Billy +McMahan, the greatest man, the most wonderful man, Ikey thought, that the world +had ever produced. +</p> + +<p> +Billy McMahan was the district leader. Upon him the Tiger purred, and his hand +held manna to scatter. Now, as Ikey entered, McMahan stood, flushed and +triumphant and mighty, the centre of a huzzaing concourse of his lieutenants +and constituents. It seems there had been an election; a signal victory had +been won; the city had been swept back into line by a resistless besom of +ballots. +</p> + +<p> +Ikey slunk along the bar and gazed, breath-quickened, at his idol. +</p> + +<p> +How magnificent was Billy McMahan, with his great, smooth, laughing face; his +gray eye, shrewd as a chicken hawk’s; his diamond ring, his voice like a +bugle call, his prince’s air, his plump and active roll of money, his +clarion call to friend and comrade—oh, what a king of men he was! How he +obscured his lieutenants, though they themselves loomed large and serious, blue +of chin and important of mien, with hands buried deep in the pockets of their +short overcoats! But Billy—oh, what small avail are words to paint for +you his glory as seen by Ikey Snigglefritz! +</p> + +<p> +The Café Maginnis rang to the note of victory. The white-coated bartenders +threw themselves featfully upon bottle, cork and glass. From a score of clear +Havanas the air received its paradox of clouds. The leal and the hopeful shook +Billy McMahan’s hand. And there was born suddenly in the worshipful soul +of Ikey Snigglefritz an audacious, thrilling impulse. +</p> + +<p> +He stepped forward into the little cleared space in which majesty moved, and +held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Billy McMahan grasped it unhesitatingly, shook it and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +Made mad now by the gods who were about to destroy him, Ikey threw away his +scabbard and charged upon Olympus. +</p> + +<p> +“Have a drink with me, Billy,” he said familiarly, “you and +your friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mind if I do, old man,” said the great leader, +“just to keep the ball rolling.” +</p> + +<p> +The last spark of Ikey’s reason fled. +</p> + +<p> +“Wine,” he called to the bartender, waving a trembling hand. +</p> + +<p> +The corks of three bottles were drawn; the champagne bubbled in the long row of +glasses set upon the bar. Billy McMahan took his and nodded, with his beaming +smile, at Ikey. The lieutenants and satellites took theirs and growled +“Here’s to you.” Ikey took his nectar in delirium. All drank. +</p> + +<p> +Ikey threw his week’s wages in a crumpled roll upon the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“C’rect,” said the bartender, smoothing the twelve one-dollar +notes. The crowd surged around Billy McMahan again. Some one was telling how +Brannigan fixed ’em over in the Eleventh. Ikey leaned against the bar a +while, and then went out. +</p> + +<p> +He went down Hester street and up Chrystie, and down Delancey to where he +lived. And there his women folk, a bibulous mother and three dingy sisters, +pounced upon him for his wages. And at his confession they shrieked and +objurgated him in the pithy rhetoric of the locality. +</p> + +<p> +But even as they plucked at him and struck him Ikey remained in his ecstatic +trance of joy. His head was in the clouds; the star was drawing his wagon. +Compared with what he had achieved the loss of wages and the bray of +women’s tongues were slight affairs. +</p> + +<p> +He had shaken the hand of Billy McMahan. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Billy McMahan had a wife, and upon her visiting cards was engraved the name +“Mrs. William Darragh McMahan.” And there was a certain vexation +attendant upon these cards; for, small as they were, there were houses in which +they could not be inserted. Billy McMahan was a dictator in politics, a +four-walled tower in business, a mogul, dreaded, loved and obeyed among his own +people. He was growing rich; the daily papers had a dozen men on his trail to +chronicle his every word of wisdom; he had been honored in caricature holding +the Tiger cringing in leash. +</p> + +<p> +But the heart of Billy was sometimes sore within him. There was a race of men +from which he stood apart but that he viewed with the eye of Moses looking over +into the promised land. He, too, had ideals, even as had Ikey Snigglefritz; and +sometimes, hopeless of attaining them, his own solid success was as dust and +ashes in his mouth. And Mrs. William Darragh McMahan wore a look of discontent +upon her plump but pretty face, and the very rustle of her silks seemed a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +There was a brave and conspicuous assemblage in the dining saloon of a noted +hostelry where Fashion loves to display her charms. At one table sat Billy +McMahan and his wife. Mostly silent they were, but the accessories they enjoyed +little needed the indorsement of speech. Mrs. McMahan’s diamonds were +outshone by few in the room. The waiter bore the costliest brands of wine to +their table. In evening dress, with an expression of gloom upon his smooth and +massive countenance, you would look in vain for a more striking figure than +Billy’s. +</p> + +<p> +Four tables away sat alone a tall, slender man, about thirty, with thoughtful, +melancholy eyes, a Van Dyke beard and peculiarly white, thin hands. He was +dining on filet mignon, dry toast and apollinaris. That man was Cortlandt Van +Duyckink, a man worth eighty millions, who inherited and held a sacred seat in +the exclusive inner circle of society. +</p> + +<p> +Billy McMahan spoke to no one around him, because he knew no one. Van Duyckink +kept his eyes on his plate because he knew that every one present was hungry to +catch his. He could bestow knighthood and prestige by a nod, and he was chary +of creating a too extensive nobility. +</p> + +<p> +And then Billy McMahan conceived and accomplished the most startling and +audacious act of his life. He rose deliberately and walked over to Cortlandt +Van Duyckink’s table and held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Mr. Van Duyckink,” he said, “I’ve heard you was +talking about starting some reforms among the poor people down in my district. +I’m McMahan, you know. Say, now, if that’s straight I’ll do +all I can to help you. And what I says goes in that neck of the woods, +don’t it? Oh, say, I rather guess it does.” +</p> + +<p> +Van Duyckink’s rather sombre eyes lighted up. He rose to his lank height +and grasped Billy McMahan’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mr. McMahan,” he said, in his deep, serious tones. +“I have been thinking of doing some work of that sort. I shall be glad of +your assistance. It pleases me to have become acquainted with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Billy walked back to his seat. His shoulder was tingling from the accolade +bestowed by royalty. A hundred eyes were now turned upon him in envy and new +admiration. Mrs. William Darragh McMahan trembled with ecstasy, so that her +diamonds smote the eye almost with pain. And now it was apparent that at many +tables there were those who suddenly remembered that they enjoyed Mr. +McMahan’s acquaintance. He saw smiles and bows about him. He became +enveloped in the aura of dizzy greatness. His campaign coolness deserted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Wine for that gang!” he commanded the waiter, pointing with his +finger. “Wine over there. Wine to those three gents by that green bush. +Tell ’em it’s on me. D––––n it! Wine for +everybody!” +</p> + +<p> +The waiter ventured to whisper that it was perhaps inexpedient to carry out the +order, in consideration of the dignity of the house and its custom. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Billy, “if it’s against the rules. I +wonder if ’twould do to send my friend Van Duyckink a bottle? No? Well, +it’ll flow all right at the caffy to-night, just the same. It’ll be +rubber boots for anybody who comes in there any time up to 2 A. M.” +</p> + +<p> +Billy McMahan was happy. +</p> + +<p> +He had shaken the hand of Cortlandt Van Duyckink.<br /> + +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The big pale-gray auto with its shining metal work looked out of place moving +slowly among the push carts and trash-heaps on the lower east side. So did +Cortlandt Van Duyckink, with his aristocratic face and white, thin hands, as he +steered carefully between the groups of ragged, scurrying youngsters in the +streets. And so did Miss Constance Schuyler, with her dim, ascetic beauty, +seated at his side. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Cortlandt,” she breathed, “isn’t it sad that human +beings have to live in such wretchedness and poverty? And you—how noble +it is of you to think of them, to give your time and money to improve their +condition!” +</p> + +<p> +Van Duyckink turned his solemn eyes upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“It is little,” he said, sadly, “that I can do. The question +is a large one, and belongs to society. But even individual effort is not +thrown away. Look, Constance! On this street I have arranged to build soup +kitchens, where no one who is hungry will be turned away. And down this other +street are the old buildings that I shall cause to be torn down and there erect +others in place of those death-traps of fire and disease.” +</p> + +<p> +Down Delancey slowly crept the pale-gray auto. Away from it toddled coveys of +wondering, tangle-haired, barefooted, unwashed children. It stopped before a +crazy brick structure, foul and awry. +</p> + +<p> +Van Duyckink alighted to examine at a better perspective one of the leaning +walls. Down the steps of the building came a young man who seemed to epitomize +its degradation, squalor and infelicity—a narrow-chested, pale, unsavory +young man, puffing at a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +Obeying a sudden impulse, Van Duyckink stepped out and warmly grasped the hand +of what seemed to him a living rebuke. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to know you people,” he said, sincerely. “I am going +to help you as much as I can. We shall be friends.” +</p> + +<p> +As the auto crept carefully away Cortlandt Van Duyckink felt an unaccustomed +glow about his heart. He was near to being a happy man. +</p> + +<p> +He had shaken the hand of Ikey Snigglefritz. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c13" id="c13"></a>THE PURPLE DRESS</h2> + +<p> +We are to consider the shade known as purple. It is a color justly in repute +among the sons and daughters of man. Emperors claim it for their especial dye. +Good fellows everywhere seek to bring their noses to the genial hue that +follows the commingling of the red and blue. We say of princes that they are +born to the purple; and no doubt they are, for the colic tinges their faces +with the royal tint equally with the snub-nosed countenance of a +woodchopper’s brat. All women love it—when it is the fashion. +</p> + +<p> +And now purple is being worn. You notice it on the streets. Of course other +colors are quite stylish as well—in fact, I saw a lovely thing the other +day in olive green albatross, with a triple-lapped flounce skirt trimmed with +insert squares of silk, and a draped fichu of lace opening over a shirred vest +and double puff sleeves with a lace band holding two gathered frills—but +you see lots of purple too. Oh, yes, you do; just take a walk down Twenty-third +street any afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore Maida—the girl with the big brown eyes and cinnamon-colored +hair in the Bee-Hive Store—said to Grace—the girl with the +rhinestone brooch and peppermint-pepsin flavor to her +speech—“I’m going to have a purple dress—a tailor-made +purple dress—for Thanksgiving.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, are you,” said Grace, putting away some 7½ gloves into +the 6¾ box. “Well, it’s me for red. You see more red on +Fifth avenue. And the men all seem to like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like purple best,” said Maida. “And old Schlegel has +promised to make it for $8. It’s going to be lovely. I’m going to +have a plaited skirt and a blouse coat trimmed with a band of galloon under a +white cloth collar with two rows of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sly boots!” said Grace with an educated wink. +</p> + +<p> +“—soutache braid over a surpliced white vest; and a plaited basque +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sly boots—sly boots!” repeated Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“—plaited gigot sleeves with a drawn velvet ribbon over an inside +cuff. What do you mean by saying that?” +</p> + +<p> +“You think Mr. Ramsay likes purple. I heard him say yesterday he thought +some of the dark shades of red were stunning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” said Maida. “I prefer purple, and them +that don’t like it can just take the other side of the street.” +</p> + +<p> +Which suggests the thought that after all, the followers of purple may be +subject to slight delusions. Danger is near when a maiden thinks she can wear +purple regardless of complexions and opinions; and when Emperors think their +purple robes will wear forever. +</p> + +<p> +Maida had saved $18 after eight months of economy; and this had bought the +goods for the purple dress and paid Schlegel $4 on the making of it. On the day +before Thanksgiving she would have just enough to pay the remaining $4. And +then for a holiday in a new dress—can earth offer anything more +enchanting? +</p> + +<p> +Old Bachman, the proprietor of the Bee-Hive Store, always gave a Thanksgiving +dinner to his employees. On every one of the subsequent 364 days, excusing +Sundays, he would remind them of the joys of the past banquet and the hopes of +the coming ones, thus inciting them to increased enthusiasm in work. The dinner +was given in the store on one of the long tables in the middle of the room. +They tacked wrapping paper over the front windows; and the turkeys and other +good things were brought in the back way from the restaurant on the corner. You +will perceive that the Bee-Hive was not a fashionable department store, with +escalators and pompadours. It was almost small enough to be called an emporium; +and you could actually go in there and get waited on and walk out again. And +always at the Thanksgiving dinners Mr. Ramsay— +</p> + +<p> +Oh, bother! I should have mentioned Mr. Ramsay first of all. He is more +important than purple or green, or even the red cranberry sauce. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Ramsay was the head clerk; and as far as I am concerned I am for him. He +never pinched the girls’ arms when he passed them in dark corners of the +store; and when he told them stories when business was dull and the girls +giggled and said: “Oh, pshaw!” it wasn’t G. Bernard they +meant at all. Besides being a gentleman, Mr. Ramsay was queer and original in +other ways. He was a health crank, and believed that people should never eat +anything that was good for them. He was violently opposed to anybody being +comfortable, and coming in out of snow storms, or wearing overshoes, or taking +medicine, or coddling themselves in any way. Every one of the ten girls in the +store had little pork-chop-and-fried-onion dreams every night of becoming Mrs. +Ramsay. For, next year old Bachman was going to take him in for a partner. And +each one of them knew that if she should catch him she would knock those cranky +health notions of his sky high before the wedding cake indigestion was over. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Ramsay was master of ceremonies at the dinners. Always they had two +Italians in to play a violin and harp and had a little dance in the store. +</p> + +<p> +And here were two dresses being conceived to charm Ramsay—one purple and +the other red. Of course, the other eight girls were going to have dresses too, +but they didn’t count. Very likely they’d wear some +shirt-waist-and-black-skirt-affairs—nothing as resplendent as purple or +red. +</p> + +<p> +Grace had saved her money, too. She was going to buy her dress ready-made. Oh, +what’s the use of bothering with a tailor—when you’ve got a +figger it’s easy to get a fit—the ready-made are intended for a +perfect figger—except I have to have ’em all taken in at the +waist—the average figger is so large waisted. +</p> + +<p> +The night before Thanksgiving came. Maida hurried home, keen and bright with +the thoughts of the blessed morrow. Her thoughts were of purple, but they were +white themselves—the joyous enthusiasm of the young for the pleasures +that youth must have or wither. She knew purple would become her, and—for +the thousandth time she tried to assure herself that it was purple Mr. Ramsay +said he liked and not red. She was going home first to get the $4 wrapped in a +piece of tissue paper in the bottom drawer of her dresser, and then she was +going to pay Schlegel and take the dress home herself. +</p> + +<p> +Grace lived in the same house. She occupied the hall room above Maida’s. +</p> + +<p> +At home Maida found clamor and confusion. The landlady’s tongue +clattering sourly in the halls like a churn dasher dabbing in buttermilk. And +then Grace come down to her room crying with eyes as red as any dress. +</p> + +<p> +“She says I’ve got to get out,” said Grace. “The old +beast. Because I owe her $4. She’s put my trunk in the hall and locked +the door. I can’t go anywhere else. I haven’t got a cent of +money.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had some yesterday,” said Maida. +</p> + +<p> +“I paid it on my dress,” said Grace. “I thought she’d +wait till next week for the rent.” +</p> + +<p> +Sniffle, sniffle, sob, sniffle. +</p> + +<p> +Out came—out it had to come—Maida’s $4. +</p> + +<p> +“You blessed darling,” cried Grace, now a rainbow instead of +sunset. “I’ll pay the mean old thing and then I’m going to +try on my dress. I think it’s heavenly. Come up and look at it. +I’ll pay the money back, a dollar a week—honest I will.” +</p> + +<p> +Thanksgiving. +</p> + +<p> +The dinner was to be at noon. At a quarter to twelve Grace switched into +Maida’s room. Yes, she looked charming. Red was her color. Maida sat by +the window in her old cheviot skirt and blue waist darning a st—. Oh, +doing fancy work. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, goodness me! ain’t you dressed yet?” shrilled the red +one. “How does it fit in the back? Don’t you think these velvet +tabs look awful swell? Why ain’t you dressed, Maida?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dress didn’t get finished in time,” said Maida. +“I’m not going to the dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s too bad. Why, I’m awfully sorry, Maida. Why +don’t you put on anything and come along—it’s just the store +folks, you know, and they won’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was set on my purple,” said Maida. “If I can’t have +it I won’t go at all. Don’t bother about me. Run along or +you’ll be late. You look awful nice in red.” +</p> + +<p> +At her window Maida sat through the long morning and past the time of the +dinner at the store. In her mind she could hear the girls shrieking over a +pull-bone, could hear old Bachman’s roar over his own deeply-concealed +jokes, could see the diamonds of fat Mrs. Bachman, who came to the store only +on Thanksgiving days, could see Mr. Ramsay moving about, alert, kindly, looking +to the comfort of all. +</p> + +<p> +At four in the afternoon, with an expressionless face and a lifeless air she +slowly made her way to Schlegel’s shop and told him she could not pay the +$4 due on the dress. +</p> + +<p> +“Gott!” cried Schlegel, angrily. “For what do you look so +glum? Take him away. He is ready. Pay me some time. Haf I not seen you pass +mine shop every day in two years? If I make clothes is it that I do not know +how to read beoples because? You will pay me some time when you can. Take him +away. He is made goot; and if you look bretty in him all right. So. Pay me when +you can.” +</p> + +<p> +Maida breathed a millionth part of the thanks in her heart, and hurried away +with her dress. As she left the shop a smart dash of rain struck upon her face. +She smiled and did not feel it. +</p> + +<p> +Ladies who shop in carriages, you do not understand. Girls whose wardrobes are +charged to the old man’s account, you cannot begin to +comprehend—you could not understand why Maida did not feel the cold dash +of the Thanksgiving rain. +</p> + +<p> +At five o’clock she went out upon the street wearing her purple dress. +The rain had increased, and it beat down upon her in a steady, wind-blown pour. +People were scurrying home and to cars with close-held umbrellas and tight +buttoned raincoats. Many of them turned their heads to marvel at this +beautiful, serene, happy-eyed girl in the purple dress walking through the +storm as though she were strolling in a garden under summer skies. +</p> + +<p> +I say you do not understand it, ladies of the full purse and varied wardrobe. +You do not know what it is to live with a perpetual longing for pretty +things—to starve eight months in order to bring a purple dress and a +holiday together. What difference if it rained, hailed, blew, snowed, cycloned? +</p> + +<p> +Maida had no umbrella nor overshoes. She had her purple dress and she walked +abroad. Let the elements do their worst. A starved heart must have one crumb +during a year. The rain ran down and dripped from her fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Some one turned a corner and blocked her way. She looked up into Mr. +Ramsay’s eyes, sparkling with admiration and interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Miss Maida,” said he, “you look simply magnificent in +your new dress. I was greatly disappointed not to see you at our dinner. And of +all the girls I ever knew, you show the greatest sense and intelligence. There +is nothing more healthful and invigorating than braving the weather as you are +doing. May I walk with you?” +</p> + +<p> +And Maida blushed and sneezed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c14" id="c14"></a>THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99</h2> + +<p> +John Byrnes, hose-cart driver of Engine Company No. 99, was afflicted with what +his comrades called Japanitis. +</p> + +<p> +Byrnes had a war map spread permanently upon a table in the second story of the +engine-house, and he could explain to you at any hour of the day or night the +exact positions, conditions and intentions of both the Russian and Japanese +armies. He had little clusters of pins stuck in the map which represented the +opposing forces, and these he moved about from day to day in conformity with +the war news in the daily papers. +</p> + +<p> +Wherever the Japs won a victory John Byrnes would shift his pins, and then he +would execute a war dance of delight, and the other firemen would hear him +yell: “Go it, you blamed little, sawed-off, huckleberry-eyed, +monkey-faced hot tamales! Eat ’em up, you little sleight-o’-hand, +bow-legged bull terriers—give ’em another of them Yalu looloos, and +you’ll eat rice in St. Petersburg. Talk about your Russians—say, +wouldn’t they give you a painsky when it comes to a scrapovitch?” +</p> + +<p> +Not even on the fair island of Nippon was there a more enthusiastic champion of +the Mikado’s men. Supporters of the Russian cause did well to keep clear +of Engine-House No. 99. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes all thoughts of the Japs left John Byrnes’s head. That was when +the alarm of fire had sounded and he was strapped in his driver’s seat on +the swaying cart, guiding Erebus and Joe, the finest team in the whole +department—according to the crew of 99. +</p> + +<p> +Of all the codes adopted by man for regulating his actions toward his +fellow-mortals, the greatest are these—the code of King Arthur’s +Knights of the Round Table, the Constitution of the United States and the +unwritten rules of the New York Fire Department. The Round Table methods are no +longer practicable since the invention of street cars and breach-of-promise +suits, and our Constitution is being found more and more unconstitutional every +day, so the code of our firemen must be considered in the lead, with the Golden +Rule and Jeffries’s new punch trying for place and show. +</p> + +<p> +The Constitution says that one man is as good as another; but the Fire +Department says he is better. This is a too generous theory, but the law will +not allow itself to be construed otherwise. All of which comes perilously near +to being a paradox, and commends itself to the attention of the S. P. C. A. +</p> + +<p> +One of the transatlantic liners dumped out at Ellis Island a lump of protozoa +which was expected to evolve into an American citizen. A steward kicked him +down the gangway, a doctor pounced upon his eyes like a raven, seeking for +trachoma or ophthalmia; he was hustled ashore and ejected into the city in the +name of Liberty—perhaps, theoretically, thus inoculating against +kingocracy with a drop of its own virus. This hypodermic injection of +Europeanism wandered happily into the veins of the city with the broad grin of +a pleased child. It was not burdened with baggage, cares or ambitions. Its body +was lithely built and clothed in a sort of foreign fustian; its face was +brightly vacant, with a small, flat nose, and was mostly covered by a thick, +ragged, curling beard like the coat of a spaniel. In the pocket of the imported +Thing were a few +coins—denarii—scudi—kopecks—pfennigs—pilasters—whatever +the financial nomenclature of his unknown country may have been. +</p> + +<p> +Prattling to himself, always broadly grinning, pleased by the roar and movement +of the barbarous city into which the steamship cut-rates had shunted him, the +alien strayed away from the sea, which he hated, as far as the district covered +by Engine Company No. 99. Light as a cork, he was kept bobbing along by the +human tide, the crudest atom in all the silt of the stream that emptied into +the reservoir of Liberty. +</p> + +<p> +While crossing Third avenue he slowed his steps, enchanted by the thunder of +the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash of the wheels on the +cobbles. And then there was a new, delightful chord in the uproar—the +musical clanging of a gong and a great shining juggernaut belching fire and +smoke, that people were hurrying to see. +</p> + +<p> +This beautiful thing, entrancing to the eye, dashed past, and the protoplasmic +immigrant stepped into the wake of it with his broad, enraptured, +uncomprehending grin. And so stepping, stepped into the path of No. 99’s +flying hose-cart, with John Byrnes gripping, with arms of steel, the reins over +the plunging backs of Erebus and Joe. +</p> + +<p> +The unwritten constitutional code of the fireman has no exceptions or +amendments. It is a simple thing—as simple as the rule of three. There +was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was the hose-cart and the iron +pillar of the elevated railroad. +</p> + +<p> +John Byrnes swung all his weight and muscle on the left rein. The team and cart +swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the pillar. The men on the +cart went flying like skittles. The driver’s strap burst, the pillar rang +with the shock, and John Byrnes fell on the car track with a broken shoulder +twenty feet away, while Erebus—beautiful, raven-black, best-loved +Erebus—lay whickering in his harness with a broken leg. +</p> + +<p> +In consideration for the feelings of Engine Company No. 99 the details will be +lightly touched. The company does not like to be reminded of that day. There +was a great crowd, and hurry calls were sent in; and while the ambulance gong +was clearing the way the men of No. 99 heard the crack of the S. P. C. A. +agent’s pistol, and turned their heads away, not daring to look toward +Erebus again. +</p> + +<p> +When the firemen got back to the engine-house they found that one of them was +dragging by the collar the cause of their desolation and grief. They set it in +the middle of the floor and gathered grimly about it. Through its whiskers the +calamitous object chattered effervescently and waved its hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Sounds like a seidlitz powder,” said Mike Dowling, disgustedly, +“and it makes me sicker than one. Call that a man!—that hoss was +worth a steamer full of such two-legged animals. It’s a +immigrant—that’s what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at the doctor’s chalk mark on its coat,” said Reilly, +the desk man. “It’s just landed. It must be a kind of a Dago or a +Hun or one of them Finns, I guess. That’s the kind of truck that Europe +unloads onto us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Think of a thing like that getting in the way and laying John up in +hospital and spoiling the best fire team in the city,” groaned another +fireman. “It ought to be taken down to the dock and drowned.” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody go around and get Sloviski,” suggested the engine driver, +“and let’s see what nation is responsible for this conglomeration +of hair and head noises.” +</p> + +<p> +Sloviski kept a delicatessen store around the corner on Third avenue, and was +reputed to be a linguist. +</p> + +<p> +One of the men fetched him—a fat, cringing man, with a discursive eye and +the odors of many kinds of meats upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“Take a whirl at this importation with your jaw-breakers, +Sloviski,” requested Mike Dowling. “We can’t quite figure out +whether he’s from the Hackensack bottoms or +Hongkong-on-the-Ganges.” +</p> + +<p> +Sloviski addressed the stranger in several dialects that ranged in rhythm and +cadence from the sounds produced by a tonsilitis gargle to the opening of a can +of tomatoes with a pair of scissors. The immigrant replied in accents +resembling the uncorking of a bottle of ginger ale. +</p> + +<p> +“I have you his name,” reported Sloviski. “You shall not +pronounce it. Writing of it in paper is better.” They gave him paper, and +he wrote, “Demetre Svangvsk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Looks like short hand,” said the desk man. +</p> + +<p> +“He speaks some language,” continued the interpreter, wiping his +forehead, “of Austria and mixed with a little Turkish. And, den, he have +some Magyar words and a Polish or two, and many like the Roumanian, but not +without talk of one tribe in Bessarabia. I do not him quite understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you call him a Dago or a Polocker, or what?” asked Mike, +frowning at the polyglot description. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a”—answered Sloviski—“he is a—I dink +he come from—I dink he is a fool,” he concluded, impatient at his +linguistic failure, “and if you pleases I will go back at mine +delicatessen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever he is, he’s a bird,” said Mike Dowling; “and +you want to watch him fly.” +</p> + +<p> +Taking by the wing the alien fowl that had fluttered into the nest of Liberty, +Mike led him to the door of the engine-house and bestowed upon him a kick +hearty enough to convey the entire animus of Company 99. Demetre Svangvsk +hustled away down the sidewalk, turning once to show his ineradicable grin to +the aggrieved firemen. +</p> + +<p> +In three weeks John Byrnes was back at his post from the hospital. With great +gusto he proceeded to bring his war map up to date. “My money on the Japs +every time,” he declared. “Why, look at them +Russians—they’re nothing but wolves. Wipe ’em out, I +say—and the little old jiu jitsu gang are just the cherry blossoms to do +the trick, and don’t you forget it!” +</p> + +<p> +The second day after Byrnes’s reappearance came Demetre Svangvsk, the +unidentified, to the engine-house, with a broader grin than ever. He managed to +convey the idea that he wished to congratulate the hose-cart driver on his +recovery and to apologize for having caused the accident. This he accomplished +by so many extravagant gestures and explosive noises that the company was +diverted for half an hour. Then they kicked him out again, and on the next day +he came back grinning. How or where he lived no one knew. And then John +Byrnes’s nine-year-old son, Chris, who brought him convalescent +delicacies from home to eat, took a fancy to Svangvsk, and they allowed him to +loaf about the door of the engine-house occasionally. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon the big drab automobile of the Deputy Fire Commissioner buzzed up +to the door of No. 99 and the Deputy stepped inside for an informal inspection. +The men kicked Svangvsk out a little harder than usual and proudly escorted the +Deputy around 99, in which everything shone like my lady’s mirror. +</p> + +<p> +The Deputy respected the sorrow of the company concerning the loss of Erebus, +and he had come to promise it another mate for Joe that would do him credit. So +they let Joe out of his stall and showed the Deputy how deserving he was of the +finest mate that could be in horsedom. +</p> + +<p> +While they were circling around Joe confabbing, Chris climbed into the +Deputy’s auto and threw the power full on. The men heard a monster +puffing and a shriek from the lad, and sprang out too late. The big auto shot +away, luckily taking a straight course down the street. The boy knew nothing of +its machinery; he sat clutching the cushions and howling. With the power on +nothing could have stopped that auto except a brick house, and there was +nothing for Chris to gain by such a stoppage. +</p> + +<p> +Demetre Svangvsk was just coming in again with a grin for another kick when +Chris played his merry little prank. While the others sprang for the door +Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the horse’s bare back like a snake +and shouted something at him like the crack of a dozen whips. One of the +firemen afterward swore that Joe answered him back in the same language. Ten +seconds after the auto started the big horse was eating up the asphalt behind +it like a strip of macaroni. +</p> + +<p> +Some people two blocks and a half away saw the rescue. They said that the auto +was nothing but a drab noise with a black speck in the middle of it for Chris, +when a big bay horse with a lizard lying on its back cantered up alongside of +it, and the lizard reached over and picked the black speck out of the noise. +</p> + +<p> +Only fifteen minutes after Svangvsk’s last kicking at the hands—or +rather the feet—of Engine Company No. 99 he rode Joe back through the +door with the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking he was going to +receive. +</p> + +<p> +Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joe’s and made a +noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudly through his nostrils, +putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski, of the delicatessen. +</p> + +<p> +John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to be kicked. Byrnes +gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand that Demetre grinned anyhow, +conceiving it to be a new form of punishment. +</p> + +<p> +“The heathen rides like a Cossack,” remarked a fireman who had seen +a Wild West show—“they’re the greatest riders in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Yas—yas—me Cossack,” he spluttered, striking his +chest. +</p> + +<p> +“Cossack!” repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, “ain’t +that a kind of a Russian?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re one of the Russian tribes, sure,” said the desk man, +who read books between fire alarms. +</p> + +<p> +Just then Alderman Foley, who was on his way home and did not know of the +runaway, stopped at the door of the engine-house and called to Byrnes: +</p> + +<p> +“Hello there, Jimmy, me boy—how’s the war coming along? Japs +still got the bear on the trot, have they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” said John Byrnes, argumentatively, +“them Japs haven’t got any walkover. You wait till Kuropatkin gets +a good whack at ’em and they won’t be knee-high to a +puddle-ducksky.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c15" id="c15"></a>THE LOST BLEND</h2> + +<p> +Since the bar has been blessed by the clergy, and cocktails open the dinners of +the elect, one may speak of the saloon. Teetotalers need not listen, if they +choose; there is always the slot restaurant, where a dime dropped into the cold +bouillon aperture will bring forth a dry Martini. +</p> + +<p> +Con Lantry worked on the sober side of the bar in Kenealy’s café. You and +I stood, one-legged like geese, on the other side and went into voluntary +liquidation with our week’s wages. Opposite danced Con, clean, temperate, +clear-headed, polite, white-jacketed, punctual, trustworthy, young, +responsible, and took our money. +</p> + +<p> +The saloon (whether blessed or cursed) stood in one of those little +“places” which are parallelograms instead of streets, and inhabited +by laundries, decayed Knickerbocker families and Bohemians who have nothing to +do with either. +</p> + +<p> +Over the café lived Kenealy and his family. His daughter Katherine had eyes of +dark Irish—but why should you be told? Be content with your Geraldine or +your Eliza Ann. For Con dreamed of her; and when she called softly at the foot +of the back stairs for the pitcher of beer for dinner, his heart went up and +down like a milk punch in the shaker. Orderly and fit are the rules of Romance; +and if you hurl the last shilling of your fortune upon the bar for whiskey, the +bartender shall take it, and marry his boss’s daughter, and good will +grow out of it. +</p> + +<p> +But not so Con. For in the presence of woman he was tongue-tied and scarlet. He +who would quell with his eye the sonorous youth whom the claret punch made +loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the obstreperous, or hurl gutterward +the cantankerous without a wrinkle coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood +before woman he was voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot +avalanche of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A +trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney, the dumbest +lover that ever babbled of the weather in the presence of his divinity. +</p> + +<p> +There came to Kenealy’s two sunburned men, Riley and McQuirk. They had +conference with Kenealy; and then they took possession of a back room which +they filled with bottles and siphons and jugs and druggist’s measuring +glasses. All the appurtenances and liquids of a saloon were there, but they +dispensed no drinks. All day long the two sweltered in there pouring and mixing +unknown brews and decoctions from the liquors in their store. Riley had the +education, and he figured on reams of paper, reducing gallons to ounces and +quarts to fluid drams. McQuirk, a morose man with a red eye, dashed each +unsuccessful completed mixture into the waste pipes with curses gentle, husky +and deep. They labored heavily and untiringly to achieve some mysterious +solution like two alchemists striving to resolve gold from the elements. +</p> + +<p> +Into this back room one evening when his watch was done sauntered Con. His +professional curiosity had been stirred by these occult bartenders at whose bar +none drank, and who daily drew upon Kenealy’s store of liquors to follow +their consuming and fruitless experiments. +</p> + +<p> +Down the back stairs came Katherine with her smile like sunrise on Gweebarra +Bay. +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening, Mr. Lantry,” says she. “And what is the news +to-day, if you please?” +</p> + +<p> +“It looks like r-rain,” stammered the shy one, backing to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“It couldn’t do better,” said Katherine. “I’m +thinking there’s nothing the worse off for a little water.” In the +back room Riley and McQuirk toiled like bearded witches over their strange +compounds. From fifty bottles they drew liquids carefully measured after +Riley’s figures, and shook the whole together in a great glass vessel. +Then McQuirk would dash it out, with gloomy profanity, and they would begin +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down,” said Riley to Con, “and I’ll tell you. +</p> + +<p> +“Last summer me and Tim concludes that an American bar in this nation of +Nicaragua would pay. There was a town on the coast where there’s nothing +to eat but quinine and nothing to drink but rum. The natives and foreigners lay +down with chills and get up with fevers; and a good mixed drink is +nature’s remedy for all such tropical inconveniences. +</p> + +<p> +“So we lays in a fine stock of wet goods in New York, and bar fixtures +and glassware, and we sails for that Santa Palma town on a lime steamer. On the +way me and Tim sees flying fish and plays seven-up with the captain and +steward, and already begins to feel like the high-ball kings of the tropics of +Capricorn. +</p> + +<p> +“When we gets in five hours of the country that we was going to introduce +to long drinks and short change the captain calls us over to the starboard +binnacle and recollects a few things. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I forgot to tell you, boys,’ says he, ‘that Nicaragua +slapped an import duty of 48 per cent. ad valorem on all bottled goods last +month. The President took a bottle of Cincinnati hair tonic by mistake for +tabasco sauce, and he’s getting even. Barrelled goods is free.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Sorry you didn’t mention it sooner,’ says we. And we +bought two forty-two gallon casks from the captain, and opened every bottle we +had and dumped the stuff all together in the casks. That 48 per cent. would +have ruined us; so we took the chances on making that $1,200 cocktail rather +than throw the stuff away. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, when we landed we tapped one of the barrels. The mixture was +something heartrending. It was the color of a plate of Bowery pea soup, and it +tasted like one of those coffee substitutes your aunt makes you take for the +heart trouble you get by picking losers. We gave a nigger four fingers of it to +try it, and he lay under a cocoanut tree three days beating the sand with his +heels and refused to sign a testimonial. +</p> + +<p> +“But the other barrel! Say, bartender, did you ever put on a straw hat +with a yellow band around it and go up in a balloon with a pretty girl with +$8,000,000 in your pocket all at the same time? That’s what thirty drops +of it would make you feel like. With two fingers of it inside you you would +bury your face in your hands and cry because there wasn’t anything more +worth while around for you to lick than little Jim Jeffries. Yes, sir, the +stuff in that second barrel was distilled elixir of battle, money and high +life. It was the color of gold and as clear as glass, and it shone after dark +like the sunshine was still in it. A thousand years from now you’ll get a +drink like that across the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we started up business with that one line of drinks, and it was +enough. The piebald gentry of that country stuck to it like a hive of bees. If +that barrel had lasted that country would have become the greatest on earth. +When we opened up of mornings we had a line of Generals and Colonels and +ex-Presidents and revolutionists a block long waiting to be served. We started +in at 50 cents silver a drink. The last ten gallons went easy at $5 a gulp. It +was wonderful stuff. It gave a man courage and ambition and nerve to do +anything; at the same time he didn’t care whether his money was tainted +or fresh from the Ice Trust. When that barrel was half gone Nicaragua had +repudiated the National debt, removed the duty on cigarettes and was about to +declare war on the United States and England. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas by accident we discovered this king of drinks, and +’twill be by good luck if we strike it again. For ten months we’ve +been trying. Small lots at a time, we’ve mixed barrels of all the harmful +ingredients known to the profession of drinking. Ye could have stocked ten bars +with the whiskies, brandies, cordials, bitters, gins and wines me and Tim have +wasted. A glorious drink like that to be denied to the world! ’Tis a +sorrow and a loss of money. The United States as a nation would welcome a drink +of that sort, and pay for it.” +</p> + +<p> +All the while McQuirk had been carefully measuring and pouring together small +quantities of various spirits, as Riley called them, from his latest pencilled +prescription. The completed mixture was of a vile, mottled chocolate color. +McQuirk tasted it, and hurled it, with appropriate epithets, into the waste +sink. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a strange story, even if true,” said Con. +“I’ll be going now along to my supper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take a drink,” said Riley. “We’ve all kinds except the +lost blend.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never drink,” said Con, “anything stronger than water. I +am just after meeting Miss Katherine by the stairs. She said a true word. +‘There’s not anything,’ says she, ‘but is better off +for a little water.’” +</p> + +<p> +When Con had left them Riley almost felled McQuirk by a blow on the back. +</p> + +<p> +“Did ye hear that?” he shouted. “Two fools are we. The six +dozen bottles of ’pollinaris we had on the ship—ye opened them +yourself—which barrel did ye pour them in—which barrel, ye +mudhead?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mind,” said McQuirk, slowly, “’twas in the second +barrel we opened. I mind the blue piece of paper pasted on the side of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got it now,” cried Riley. “’Twas that we +lacked. ’Tis the water that does the trick. Everything else we had right. +Hurry, man, and get two bottles of ’pollinaris from the bar, while I +figure out the proportionments with me pencil.” +</p> + +<p> +An hour later Con strolled down the sidewalk toward Kenealy’s café. Thus +faithful employees haunt, during their recreation hours, the vicinity where +they labor, drawn by some mysterious attraction. +</p> + +<p> +A police patrol wagon stood at the side door. Three able cops were half +carrying, half hustling Riley and McQuirk up its rear steps. The eyes and faces +of each bore the bruises and cuts of sanguinary and assiduous conflict. Yet +they whooped with strange joy, and directed upon the police the feeble remnants +of their pugnacious madness. +</p> + +<p> +“Began fighting each other in the back room,” explained Kenealy to +Con. “And singing! That was worse. Smashed everything pretty much up. But +they’re good men. They’ll pay for everything. Trying to invent some +new kind of cocktail, they was. I’ll see they come out all right in the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Con sauntered into the back room to view the battlefield. As he went through +the hall Katherine was just coming down the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening again, Mr. Lantry,” said she. “And is there no +news from the weather yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Still threatens r-rain,” said Con, slipping past with red in his +smooth, pale cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Riley and McQuirk had indeed waged a great and friendly battle. Broken bottles +and glasses were everywhere. The room was full of alcohol fumes; the floor was +variegated with spirituous puddles. +</p> + +<p> +On the table stood a 32-ounce glass graduated measure. In the bottom of it were +two tablespoonfuls of liquid—a bright golden liquid that seemed to hold +the sunshine a prisoner in its auriferous depths. +</p> + +<p> +Con smelled it. He tasted it. He drank it. +</p> + +<p> +As he returned through the hall Katherine was just going up the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“No news yet, Mr. Lantry?” she asked with her teasing laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Con lifted her clear from the floor and held her there. +</p> + +<p> +“The news is,” he said, “that we’re to be +married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Put me down, sir!” she cried indignantly, “or I will— +Oh, Con, where, oh, wherever did you get the nerve to say it?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c16" id="c16"></a>A HARLEM TRAGEDY</h2> + +<p> +Harlem. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink had dropped into Mrs. Cassidy’s flat one flight below. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t it a beaut?” said Mrs. Cassidy. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her face proudly for her friend Mrs. Fink to see. One eye was nearly +closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it. Her lip was cut and +bleeding a little and there were red finger-marks on each side of her neck. +</p> + +<p> +“My husband wouldn’t ever think of doing that to me,” said +Mrs. Fink, concealing her envy. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t have a man,” declared Mrs. Cassidy, “that +didn’t beat me up at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. +Say! but that last dose Jack gave me wasn’t no homeopathic one. I can see +stars yet. But he’ll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the week +to make up for it. This eye is good for theater tickets and a silk shirt waist +at the very least.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hope,” said Mrs. Fink, assuming complacency, “that +Mr. Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go on, Maggie!” said Mrs. Cassidy, laughing and applying witch +hazel, “you’re only jealous. Your old man is too frappéd and slow +to ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical culture with +a newspaper when he comes home—now ain’t that the truth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,” +acknowledged Mrs. Fink, with a toss of her head; “but he certainly +don’t ever make no Steve O’Donnell out of me just to amuse +himself—that’s a sure thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy matron. With +the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew down the collar of her +kimono and revealed another treasured bruise, maroon-colored, edged with olive +and orange—a bruise now nearly well, but still to memory dear. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to envious +admiration. She and Mrs. Cassidy had been chums in the downtown paper-box +factory before they had married, one year before. Now she and her man occupied +the flat above Mame and her man. Therefore she could not put on airs with Mame. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t it hurt when he soaks you?” asked Mrs. Fink, +curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Hurt!”—Mrs. Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. +“Well, say—did you ever have a brick house fall on you?—well, +that’s just the way it feels—just like when they’re digging +you out of the ruins. Jack’s got a left that spells two matinees and a +new pair of Oxfords—and his right!—well, it takes a trip to Coney +and six pairs of openwork, silk lisle threads to make that good.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what does he beat you for?” inquired Mrs. Fink, with wide-open +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Silly!” said Mrs. Cassidy, indulgently. “Why, because +he’s full. It’s generally on Saturday nights.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what cause do you give him?” persisted the seeker after +knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, didn’t I marry him? Jack comes in tanked up; and I’m +here, ain’t I? Who else has he got a right to beat? I’d just like +to catch him once beating anybody else! Sometimes it’s because supper +ain’t ready; and sometimes it’s because it is. Jack ain’t +particular about causes. He just lushes till he remembers he’s married, +and then he makes for home and does me up. Saturday nights I just move the +furniture with sharp corners out of the way, so I won’t cut my head when +he gets his work in. He’s got a left swing that jars you! Sometimes I +take the count in the first round; but when I feel like having a good time +during the week or want some new rags I come up again for more punishment. +That’s what I done last night. Jack knows I’ve been wanting a black +silk waist for a month, and I didn’t think just one black eye would bring +it. Tell you what, Mag, I’ll bet you the ice cream he brings it +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink was thinking deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“My Mart,” she said, “never hit me a lick in his life. +It’s just like you said, Mame; he comes in grouchy and ain’t got a +word to say. He never takes me out anywhere. He’s a chair-warmer at home +for fair. He buys me things, but he looks so glum about it that I never +appreciate ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Cassidy slipped an arm around her chum. “You poor thing!” she +said. “But everybody can’t have a husband like Jack. Marriage +wouldn’t be no failure if they was all like him. These discontented wives +you hear about—what they need is a man to come home and kick their slats +in once a week, and then make it up in kisses, and chocolate creams. +That’d give ’em some interest in life. What I want is a masterful +man that slugs you when he’s jagged and hugs you when he ain’t +jagged. Preserve me from the man that ain’t got the sand to do +neither!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink sighed. +</p> + +<p> +The hallways were suddenly filled with sound. The door flew open at the kick of +Mr. Cassidy. His arms were occupied with bundles. Mame flew and hung about his +neck. Her sound eye sparkled with the love light that shines in the eye of the +Maori maid when she recovers consciousness in the hut of the wooer who has +stunned and dragged her there. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, old girl!” shouted Mr. Cassidy. He shed his bundles and +lifted her off her feet in a mighty hug. “I got tickets for Barnum & +Bailey’s, and if you’ll bust the string of one of them bundles I +guess you’ll find that silk waist—why, good evening, Mrs. +Fink—I didn’t see you at first. How’s old Mart coming +along?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s very well, Mr. Cassidy—thanks,” said Mrs. Fink. +“I must be going along up now. Mart’ll be home for supper soon. +I’ll bring you down that pattern you wanted to-morrow, Mame.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink went up to her flat and had a little cry. It was a meaningless cry, +the kind of cry that only a woman knows about, a cry from no particular cause, +altogether an absurd cry; the most transient and the most hopeless cry in the +repertory of grief. Why had Martin never thrashed her? He was as big and strong +as Jack Cassidy. Did he not care for her at all? He never quarrelled; he came +home and lounged about, silent, glum, idle. He was a fairly good provider, but +he ignored the spices of life. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink’s ship of dreams was becalmed. Her captain ranged between plum +duff and his hammock. If only he would shiver his timbers or stamp his foot on +the quarter-deck now and then! And she had thought to sail so merrily, touching +at ports in the Delectable Isles! But now, to vary the figure, she was ready to +throw up the sponge, tired out, without a scratch to show for all those tame +rounds with her sparring partner. For one moment she almost hated +Mame—Mame, with her cuts and bruises, her salve of presents and kisses; +her stormy voyage with her fighting, brutal, loving mate. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fink came home at 7. He was permeated with the curse of domesticity. Beyond +the portals of his cozy home he cared not to roam, to roam. He was the man who +had caught the street car, the anaconda that had swallowed its prey, the tree +that lay as it had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +“Like the supper, Mart?” asked Mrs. Fink, who had striven over it. +</p> + +<p> +“M-m-m-yep,” grunted Mr. Fink. +</p> + +<p> +After supper he gathered his newspapers to read. He sat in his stocking feet. +</p> + +<p> +Arise, some new Dante, and sing me the befitting corner of perdition for the +man who sitteth in the house in his stockinged feet. Sisters of Patience who by +reason of ties or duty have endured it in silk, yarn, cotton, lisle thread or +woollen—does not the new canto belong? +</p> + +<p> +The next day was Labor Day. The occupations of Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Fink ceased +for one passage of the sun. Labor, triumphant, would parade and otherwise +disport itself. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink took Mrs. Cassidy’s pattern down early. Mame had on her new +silk waist. Even her damaged eye managed to emit a holiday gleam. Jack was +fruitfully penitent, and there was a hilarious scheme for the day afoot, with +parks and picnics and Pilsener in it. +</p> + +<p> +A rising, indignant jealousy seized Mrs. Fink as she returned to her flat +above. Oh, happy Mame, with her bruises and her quick-following balm! But was +Mame to have a monopoly of happiness? Surely Martin Fink was as good a man as +Jack Cassidy. Was his wife to go always unbelabored and uncaressed? A sudden, +brilliant, breathless idea came to Mrs. Fink. She would show Mame that there +were husbands as able to use their fists and perhaps to be as tender afterward +as any Jack. +</p> + +<p> +The holiday promised to be a nominal one with the Finks. Mrs. Fink had the +stationary washtubs in the kitchen filled with a two weeks’ wash that had +been soaking overnight. Mr. Fink sat in his stockinged feet reading a +newspaper. Thus Labor Day presaged to speed. +</p> + +<p> +Jealousy surged high in Mrs. Fink’s heart, and higher still surged an +audacious resolve. If her man would not strike her—if he would not so far +prove his manhood, his prerogative and his interest in conjugal affairs, he +must be prompted to his duty. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fink lit his pipe and peacefully rubbed an ankle with a stockinged toe. He +reposed in the state of matrimony like a lump of unblended suet in a pudding. +This was his level Elysium—to sit at ease vicariously girdling the world +in print amid the wifely splashing of suds and the agreeable smells of +breakfast dishes departed and dinner ones to come. Many ideas were far from his +mind; but the furthest one was the thought of beating his wife. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink turned on the hot water and set the washboards in the suds. Up from +the flat below came the gay laugh of Mrs. Cassidy. It sounded like a taunt, a +flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the unslugged bride above. Now +was Mrs. Fink’s time. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she turned like a fury upon the man reading. +</p> + +<p> +“You lazy loafer!” she cried, “must I work my arms off +washing and toiling for the ugly likes of you? Are you a man or are you a +kitchen hound?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fink dropped his paper, motionless from surprise. She feared that he would +not strike—that the provocation had been insufficient. She leaped at him +and struck him fiercely in the face with her clenched hand. In that instant she +felt a thrill of love for him such as she had not felt for many a day. Rise up, +Martin Fink, and come into your kingdom! Oh, she must feel the weight of his +hand now—just to show that he cared—just to show that he cared! +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fink sprang to his feet—Maggie caught him again on the jaw with a +wide swing of her other hand. She closed her eyes in that fearful, blissful +moment before his blow should come—she whispered his name to +herself—she leaned to the expected shock, hungry for it. +</p> + +<p> +In the flat below Mr. Cassidy, with a shamed and contrite face was powdering +Mame’s eye in preparation for their junket. From the flat above came the +sound of a woman’s voice, high-raised, a bumping, a stumbling and a +shuffling, a chair overturned—unmistakable sounds of domestic conflict. +</p> + +<p> +“Mart and Mag scrapping?” postulated Mr. Cassidy. +“Didn’t know they ever indulged. Shall I trot up and see if they +need a sponge holder?” +</p> + +<p> +One of Mrs. Cassidy’s eyes sparkled like a diamond. The other twinkled at +least like paste. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, oh,” she said, softly and without apparent meaning, in the +feminine ejaculatory manner. “I wonder if—wonder if! Wait, Jack, +till I go up and see.” +</p> + +<p> +Up the stairs she sped. As her foot struck the hallway above out from the +kitchen door of her flat wildly flounced Mrs. Fink. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Maggie,” cried Mrs. Cassidy, in a delighted whisper; +“did he? Oh, did he?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink ran and laid her face upon her chum’s shoulder and sobbed +hopelessly. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Cassidy took Maggie’s face between her hands and lifted it gently. +Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, +becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the +recreant fist of Mr. Fink. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Maggie,” pleaded Mame, “or I’ll go in there +and find out. What was it? Did he hurt you—what did he do?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Fink’s face went down again despairingly on the bosom of her friend. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake don’t open that door, Mame,” she +sobbed. “And don’t ever tell nobody—keep it under your hat. +He—he never touched me, and—he’s—oh, +Gawd—he’s washin’ the clothes—he’s washin’ +the clothes!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c17" id="c17"></a>“THE GUILTY PARTY”</h2> + +<p> +A red-haired, unshaven, untidy man sat in a rocking chair by a window. He had +just lighted a pipe, and was puffing blue clouds with great satisfaction. He +had removed his shoes and donned a pair of blue, faded carpet-slippers. With +the morbid thirst of the confirmed daily news drinker, he awkwardly folded back +the pages of an evening paper, eagerly gulping down the strong, black +headlines, to be followed as a chaser by the milder details of the smaller +type. +</p> + +<p> +In an adjoining room a woman was cooking supper. Odors from strong bacon and +boiling coffee contended against the cut-plug fumes from the vespertine pipe. +</p> + +<p> +Outside was one of those crowded streets of the east side, in which, as +twilight falls, Satan sets up his recruiting office. A mighty host of children +danced and ran and played in the street. Some in rags, some in clean white and +beribboned, some wild and restless as young hawks, some gentle-faced and +shrinking, some shrieking rude and sinful words, some listening, awed, but +soon, grown familiar, to embrace—here were the children playing in the +corridors of the House of Sin. Above the playground forever hovered a great +bird. The bird was known to humorists as the stork. But the people of Chrystie +street were better ornithologists. They called it a vulture. +</p> + +<p> +A little girl of twelve came up timidly to the man reading and resting by the +window, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, won’t you play a game of checkers with me if you +aren’t too tired?” +</p> + +<p> +The red-haired, unshaven, untidy man sitting shoeless by the window answered, +with a frown. +</p> + +<p> +“Checkers. No, I won’t. Can’t a man who works hard all day +have a little rest when he comes home? Why don’t you go out and play with +the other kids on the sidewalk?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman who was cooking came to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“John,” she said, “I don’t like for Lizzie to play in +the street. They learn too much there that ain’t good for ’em. +She’s been in the house all day long. It seems that you might give up a +little of your time to amuse her when you come home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let her go out and play like the rest of ’em if she wants to be +amused,” said the red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, “and +don’t bother me.”<br /> + +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“You’re on,” said Kid Mullaly. “Fifty dollars to $25 I +take Annie to the dance. Put up.” +</p> + +<p> +The Kid’s black eyes were snapping with the fire of the baited and +challenged. He drew out his “roll” and slapped five tens upon the +bar. The three or four young fellows who were thus “taken” more +slowly produced their stake. The bartender, ex-officio stakeholder, took the +money, laboriously wrapped it, recorded the bet with an inch-long pencil and +stuffed the whole into a corner of the cash register. +</p> + +<p> +“And, oh, what’ll be done to you’ll be a plenty,” said +a bettor, with anticipatory glee. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my lookout,” said the “Kid,” sternly. +“Fill ’em up all around, Mike.” +</p> + +<p> +After the round Burke, the “Kid’s” sponge, sponge-holder, +pal, Mentor and Grand Vizier, drew him out to the bootblack stand at the saloon +corner where all the official and important matters of the Small Hours Social +Club were settled. As Tony polished the light tan shoes of the club’s +President and Secretary for the fifth time that day, Burke spake words of +wisdom to his chief. +</p> + +<p> +“Cut that blond out, ‘Kid,’” was his advice, “or +there’ll be trouble. What do you want to throw down that girl of yours +for? You’ll never find one that’ll freeze to you like Liz has. +She’s worth a hallful of Annies.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m no Annie admirer!” said the “Kid,” dropping +a cigarette ash on his polished toe, and wiping it off on Tony’s +shoulder. “But I want to teach Liz a lesson. She thinks I belong to her. +She’s been bragging that I daren’t speak to another girl. Liz is +all right—in some ways. She’s drinking a little too much lately. +And she uses language that a lady oughtn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re engaged, ain’t you?” asked Burke. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure. We’ll get married next year, maybe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw you make her drink her first glass of beer,” said Burke. +“That was two years ago, when she used to come down to the corner of +Chrystie bare-headed to meet you after supper. She was a quiet sort of a kid +then, and couldn’t speak without blushing.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a little spitfire, sometimes, now,” said the Kid. +“I hate jealousy. That’s why I’m going to the dance with +Annie. It’ll teach her some sense.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you better look a little out,” were Burke’s last +words. “If Liz was my girl and I was to sneak out to a dance coupled up +with an Annie, I’d want a suit of chain armor on under my gladsome rags, +all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Through the land of the stork-vulture wandered Liz. Her black eyes searched the +passing crowds fierily but vaguely. Now and then she hummed bars of foolish +little songs. Between times she set her small, white teeth together, and spake +crisp words that the east side has added to language. +</p> + +<p> +Liz’s skirt was green silk. Her waist was a large brown-and-pink plaid, +well-fitting and not without style. She wore a cluster ring of huge imitation +rubies, and a locket that banged her knees at the bottom of a silver chain. Her +shoes were run down over twisted high heels, and were strangers to polish. Her +hat would scarcely have passed into a flour barrel. +</p> + +<p> +The “Family Entrance” of the Blue Jay Café received her. At a table +she sat, and punched the button with the air of milady ringing for her +carriage. The waiter came with his large-chinned, low-voiced manner of +respectful familiarity. Liz smoothed her silken skirt with a satisfied wriggle. +She made the most of it. Here she could order and be waited upon. It was all +that her world offered her of the prerogative of woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskey, Tommy,” she said as her sisters further uptown murmur, +“Champagne, James.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, Miss Lizzie. What’ll the chaser be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seltzer. And say, Tommy, has the Kid been around to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no, Miss Lizzie, I haven’t saw him to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Fluently came the “Miss Lizzie,” for the Kid was known to be one +who required rigid upholdment of the dignity of his fiancee. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m lookin’ for ’m,” said Liz, after the chaser +had sputtered under her nose. “It’s got to me that he says +he’ll take Annie Karlson to the dance. Let him. The pink-eyed white rat! +I’m lookin’ for ’m. You know me, Tommy. Two years me and the +Kid’s been engaged. Look at that ring. Five hundred, he said it cost. Let +him take her to the dance. What’ll I do? I’ll cut his heart out. +Another whiskey, Tommy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t listen to no such reports, Miss Lizzie,” said the +waiter smoothly, from the narrow opening above his chin. “Kid +Mullaly’s not the guy to throw a lady like you down. Seltzer on the +side?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two years,” repeated Liz, softening a little to sentiment under +the magic of the distiller’s art. “I always used to play out on the +street of evenin’s ’cause there was nothin’ doin’ for +me at home. For a long time I just sat on doorsteps and looked at the lights +and the people goin’ by. And then the Kid came along one evenin’ +and sized me up, and I was mashed on the spot for fair. The first drink he made +me take I cried all night at home, and got a lickin’ for makin’ a +noise. And now—say, Tommy, you ever see this Annie Karlson? If it +wasn’t for peroxide the chloroform limit would have put her out long ago. +Oh, I’m lookin’ for ’m. You tell the Kid if he comes in. Me? +I’ll cut his heart out. Leave it to me. Another whiskey, Tommy.” +</p> + +<p> +A little unsteadily, but with watchful and brilliant eyes, Liz walked up the +avenue. On the doorstep of a brick tenement a curly-haired child sat, puzzling +over the convolutions of a tangled string. Liz flopped down beside her, with a +crooked, shifting smile on her flushed face. But her eyes had grown clear and +artless of a sudden. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me show you how to make a cat’s-cradle, kid,” she said, +tucking her green silk skirt under her rusty shoes. +</p> + +<p> +And while they sat there the lights were being turned on for the dance in the +hall of the Small Hours Social Club. It was the bi-monthly dance, a dress +affair in which the members took great pride and bestirred themselves huskily +to further and adorn. +</p> + +<p> +At 9 o’clock the President, Kid Mullaly, paced upon the floor with a lady +on his arm. As the Loreley’s was her hair golden. Her “yes” +was softened to a “yah,” but its quality of assent was patent to +the most Milesian ears. She stepped upon her own train and blushed, +and—she smiled into the eyes of Kid Mullaly. +</p> + +<p> +And then, as the two stood in the middle of the waxed floor, the thing happened +to prevent which many lamps are burning nightly in many studies and libraries. +</p> + +<p> +Out from the circle of spectators in the hall leaped Fate in a green silk +skirt, under the <i>nom de guerre</i> of “Liz.” Her eyes were hard +and blacker than jet. She did not scream or waver. Most unwomanly, she cried +out one oath—the Kid’s own favorite oath—and in his own deep +voice; and then while the Small Hours Social Club went frantically to pieces, +she made good her boast to Tommy, the waiter—made good as far as the +length of her knife blade and the strength of her arm permitted. +</p> + +<p> +And next came the primal instinct of self-preservation—or was it +self-annihilation, the instinct that society has grafted on the natural branch? +</p> + +<p> +Liz ran out and down the street swift and true as a woodcock flying through a +grove of saplings at dusk. +</p> + +<p> +And then followed the big city’s biggest shame, its most ancient and +rotten surviving canker, its pollution and disgrace, its blight and perversion, +its forever infamy and guilt, fostered, unreproved and cherished, handed down +from a long-ago century of the basest barbarity—the Hue and Cry. Nowhere +but in the big cities does it survive, and here most of all, where the ultimate +perfection of culture, citizenship and alleged superiority joins, bawling, in +the chase. +</p> + +<p> +They pursued—a shrieking mob of fathers, mothers, lovers and +maidens—howling, yelling, calling, whistling, crying for blood. Well may +the wolf in the big city stand outside the door. Well may his heart, the +gentler, falter at the siege. +</p> + +<p> +Knowing her way, and hungry for her surcease, she darted down the familiar ways +until at last her feet struck the dull solidity of the rotting pier. And then +it was but a few more panting steps—and good mother East River took Liz +to her bosom, soothed her muddily but quickly, and settled in five minutes the +problem that keeps lights burning o’ nights in thousands of pastorates +and colleges.<br /> + +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +It’s mighty funny what kind of dreams one has sometimes. Poets call them +visions, but a vision is only a dream in blank verse. I dreamed the rest of +this story. +</p> + +<p> +I thought I was in the next world. I don’t know how I got there; I +suppose I had been riding on the Ninth avenue elevated or taking patent +medicine or trying to pull Jim Jeffries’s nose, or doing some such little +injudicious stunt. But, anyhow, there I was, and there was a great crowd of us +outside the courtroom where the judgments were going on. And every now and then +a very beautiful and imposing court-officer angel would come outside the door +and call another case. +</p> + +<p> +While I was considering my own worldly sins and wondering whether there would +be any use of my trying to prove an alibi by claiming that I lived in New +Jersey, the bailiff angel came to the door and sang out: +</p> + +<p> +“Case No. 99,852,743.” +</p> + +<p> +Up stepped a plain-clothes man—there were lots of ’em there, +dressed exactly like preachers and hustling us spirits around just like cops do +on earth—and by the arm he dragged—whom, do you think? Why, Liz! +</p> + +<p> +The court officer took her inside and closed the door. I went up to Mr. Fly-Cop +and inquired about the case. +</p> + +<p> +“A very sad one,” says he, laying the points of his manicured +fingers together. “An utterly incorrigible girl. I am Special Terrestrial +Officer the Reverend Jones. The case was assigned to me. The girl murdered her +fiance and committed suicide. She had no defense. My report to the court +relates the facts in detail, all of which are substantiated by reliable +witnesses. The wages of sin is death. Praise the Lord.” +</p> + +<p> +The court officer opened the door and stepped out. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor girl,” said Special Terrestrial Officer the Reverend Jones, +with a tear in his eye. “It was one of the saddest cases that I ever met +with. Of course she was”— +</p> + +<p> +“Discharged,” said the court officer. “Come here, Jonesy. +First thing you know you’ll be switched to the pot-pie squad. How would +you like to be on the missionary force in the South Sea Islands—hey? Now, +you quit making these false arrests, or you’ll be transferred—see? +The guilty party you’ve got to look for in this case is a red-haired, +unshaven, untidy man, sitting by the window reading, in his stocking feet, +while his children play in the streets. Get a move on you.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, wasn’t that a silly dream? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c18" id="c18"></a>ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS</h2> + +<p> +Somewhere in the depths of the big city, where the unquiet dregs are forever +being shaken together, young Murray and the Captain had met and become friends. +Both were at the lowest ebb possible to their fortunes; both had fallen from at +least an intermediate Heaven of respectability and importance, and both were +typical products of the monstrous and peculiar social curriculum of their +overweening and bumptious civic alma mater. +</p> + +<p> +The captain was no longer a captain. One of those sudden moral cataclysms that +sometimes sweep the city had hurled him from a high and profitable position in +the Police Department, ripping off his badge and buttons and washing into the +hands of his lawyers the solid pieces of real estate that his frugality had +enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One +month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from +his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and +cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair +of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the +newspapers. And then he fought the attendant at the Municipal Lodging House who +tried to give him a bath. When Murray first saw him he was holding the hand of +an Italian woman who sold apples and garlic on Essex street, and quoting the +words of a song book ballad. +</p> + +<p> +Murray’s fall had been more Luciferian, if less spectacular. All the +pretty, tiny little kickshaws of Gotham had once been his. The megaphone man +roars out at you to observe the house of his uncle on a grand and revered +avenue. But there had been an awful row about something, and the prince had +been escorted to the door by the butler, which, in said avenue, is equivalent +to the impact of the avuncular shoe. A weak Prince Hal, without inheritance or +sword, he drifted downward to meet his humorless Falstaff, and to pick the +crusts of the streets with him. +</p> + +<p> +One evening they sat on a bench in a little downtown park. The great bulk of +the Captain, which starvation seemed to increase—drawing irony instead of +pity to his petitions for aid—was heaped against the arm of the bench in +a shapeless mass. His red face, spotted by tufts of vermilion, week-old +whiskers and topped by a sagging white straw hat, looked, in the gloom, like +one of those structures that you may observe in a dark Third avenue window, +challenging your imagination to say whether it be something recent in the way +of ladies’ hats or a strawberry shortcake. A tight-drawn belt—last +relic of his official spruceness—made a deep furrow in his circumference. +The Captain’s shoes were buttonless. In a smothered bass he cursed his +star of ill-luck. +</p> + +<p> +Murray, at his side, was shrunk into his dingy and ragged suit of blue serge. +His hat was pulled low; he sat quiet and a little indistinct, like some ghost +that had been dispossessed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m hungry,” growled the Captain—“by the top +sirloin of the Bull of Bashan, I’m starving to death. Right now I could +eat a Bowery restaurant clear through to the stovepipe in the alley. +Can’t you think of nothing, Murray? You sit there with your shoulders +scrunched up, giving an imitation of Reginald Vanderbilt driving his +coach—what good are them airs doing you now? Think of some place we can +get something to chew.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget, my dear Captain,” said Murray, without moving, +“that our last attempt at dining was at my suggestion.” +</p> + +<p> +“You bet it was,” groaned the Captain, “you bet your life it +was. Have you got any more like that to make—hey?” +</p> + +<p> +“I admit we failed,” sighed Murray. “I was sure Malone would +be good for one more free lunch after the way he talked baseball with me the +last time I spent a nickel in his establishment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had this hand,” said the Captain, extending the unfortunate +member—“I had this hand on the drumstick of a turkey and two +sardine sandwiches when them waiters grabbed us.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was within two inches of the olives,” said Murray. +“Stuffed olives. I haven’t tasted one in a year.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’ll we do?” grumbled the Captain. “We can’t +starve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t we?” said Murray quietly. “I’m glad to +hear that. I was afraid we could.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wait here,” said the Captain, rising heavily and puffily to +his feet. “I’m going to try to make one more turn. You stay here +till I come back, Murray. I won’t be over half an hour. If I turn the +trick I’ll come back flush.” +</p> + +<p> +He made some elephantine attempts at smartening his appearance. He gave his +fiery mustache a heavenward twist; he dragged into sight a pair of black-edged +cuffs, deepened the crease in his middle by tightening his belt another hole, +and set off, jaunty as a zoo rhinoceros, across the south end of the park. +</p> + +<p> +When he was out of sight Murray also left the park, hurrying swiftly eastward. +He stopped at a building whose steps were flanked by two green lights. +</p> + +<p> +“A police captain named Maroney,” he said to the desk sergeant, +“was dismissed from the force after being tried under charges three years +ago. I believe sentence was suspended. Is this man wanted now by the +police?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why are ye asking?” inquired the sergeant, with a frown. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought there might be a reward standing,” explained Murray, +easily. “I know the man well. He seems to be keeping himself pretty shady +at present. I could lay my hands on him at any time. If there should be a +reward—” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no reward,” interrupted the sergeant, shortly. +“The man’s not wanted. And neither are ye. So, get out. Ye are +frindly with um, and ye would be selling um. Out with ye quick, or I’ll +give ye a start.” +</p> + +<p> +Murray gazed at the officer with serene and virtuous dignity. +</p> + +<p> +“I would be simply doing my duty as a citizen and gentleman,” he +said, severely, “if I could assist the law in laying hold of one of its +offenders.” +</p> + +<p> +Murray hurried back to the bench in the park. He folded his arms and shrank +within his clothes to his ghost-like presentment. +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes afterward the Captain arrived at the rendezvous, windy and +thunderous as a dog-day in Kansas. His collar had been torn away; his straw hat +had been twisted and battered; his shirt with ox-blood stripes split to the +waist. And from head to knee he was drenched with some vile and ignoble greasy +fluid that loudly proclaimed to the nose its component leaven of garlic and +kitchen stuff. +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake, Captain,” sniffed Murray, “I doubt +that I would have waited for you if I had suspected you were so desperate as to +resort to swill barrels. I”— +</p> + +<p> +“Cheese it,” said the Captain, harshly. “I’m not +hogging it yet. It’s all on the outside. I went around on Essex and +proposed marriage to that Catrina that’s got the fruit shop there. Now, +that business could be built up. She’s a peach as far as a Dago could be. +I thought I had that senoreena mashed sure last week. But look what she done to +me! I guess I got too fresh. Well there’s another scheme queered.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say,” said Murray, with infinite contempt, +“that you would have married that woman to help yourself out of your +disgraceful troubles!” +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” said the Captain. “I’d marry the Empress of China +for one bowl of chop suey. I’d commit murder for a plate of beef stew. +I’d steal a wafer from a waif. I’d be a Mormon for a bowl of +chowder.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said Murray, resting his head on his hands, “that +I would play Judas for the price of one drink of whiskey. For thirty pieces of +silver I would”— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now!” exclaimed the Captain in dismay. “You +wouldn’t do that, Murray! I always thought that Kike’s squeal on +his boss was about the lowest-down play that ever happened. A man that gives +his friend away is worse than a pirate.” +</p> + +<p> +Through the park stepped a large man scanning the benches where the electric +light fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Mac?” he said, halting before the derelicts. His +diamond stickpin dazzled. His diamond-studded fob chain assisted. He was big +and smooth and well fed. “Yes, I see it’s you,” he continued. +“They told me at Mike’s that I might find you over here. Let me see +you a few minutes, Mac.” +</p> + +<p> +The Captain lifted himself with a grunt of alacrity. If Charlie Finnegan had +come down in the bottomless pit to seek him there must be something doing. +Charlie guided him by an arm into a patch of shadow. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Mac,” he said, “they’re trying Inspector +Pickering on graft charges.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was my inspector,” said the Captain. +</p> + +<p> +“O’Shea wants the job,” went on Finnegan. “He must have +it. It’s for the good of the organization. Pickering must go under. Your +testimony will do it. He was your ‘man higher up’ when you were on +the force. His share of the boodle passed through your hands. You must go on +the stand and testify against him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was”—began the Captain. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a minute,” said Finnegan. A bundle of yellowish stuff came +out of his inside pocket. “Five hundred dollars in it for you. Two-fifty +on the spot, and the rest”— +</p> + +<p> +“He was my friend, I say,” finished the Captain. “I’ll +see you and the gang, and the city, and the party in the flames of Hades before +I’ll take the stand against Dan Pickering. I’m down and out; but +I’m no traitor to a man that’s been my friend.” The +Captain’s voice rose and boomed like a split trombone. “Get out of +this park, Charlie Finnegan, where us thieves and tramps and boozers are your +betters; and take your dirty money with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Finnegan drifted out by another walk. The Captain returned to his seat. +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t avoid hearing,” said Murray, drearily. “I +think you are the biggest fool I ever saw.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you have done?” asked the Captain. +</p> + +<p> +“Nailed Pickering to the cross,” said Murray. +</p> + +<p> +“Sonny,” said the Captain, huskily and without heat. “You and +me are different. New York is divided into two parts—above Forty-second +street, and below Fourteenth. You come from the other part. We both act +according to our lights.” +</p> + +<p> +An illuminated clock above the trees retailed the information that it lacked +the half hour of twelve. Both men rose from the bench and moved away together +as if seized by the same idea. They left the park, struck through a narrow +cross street, and came into Broadway, at this hour as dark, echoing and +de-peopled as a byway in Pompeii. +</p> + +<p> +Northward they turned; and a policeman who glanced at their unkempt and +slinking figures withheld the attention and suspicion that he would have +granted them at any other hour and place. For on every street in that part of +the city other unkempt and slinking figures were shuffling and hurrying toward +a converging point—a point that is marked by no monument save that groove +on the pavement worn by tens of thousands of waiting feet. +</p> + +<p> +At Ninth street a tall man wearing an opera hat alighted from a Broadway car +and turned his face westward. But he saw Murray, pounced upon him and dragged +him under a street light. The Captain lumbered slowly to the corner, like a +wounded bear, and waited, growling. +</p> + +<p> +“Jerry!” cried the hatted one. “How fortunate! I was to begin +a search for you to-morrow. The old gentleman has capitulated. You’re to +be restored to favor. Congratulate you. Come to the office in the morning and +get all the money you want. I’ve liberal instructions in that +respect.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the little matrimonial arrangement?” said Murray, with his +head turned sidewise. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—er—well, of course, your uncle understands—expects +that the engagement between you and Miss Vanderhurst shall be”— +</p> + +<p> +“Good night,” said Murray, moving away. +</p> + +<p> +“You madman!” cried the other, catching his arm. “Would you +give up two millions on account of”— +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see her nose, old man?” asked Murray, solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“But, listen to reason, Jerry. Miss Vanderhurst is an heiress, +and”— +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I admit that her nose isn’t”— +</p> + +<p> +“Good night!” said Murray. “My friend is waiting for me. I am +quoting him when I authorize you to report that there is ‘nothing +doing.’ Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +A wriggling line of waiting men extended from a door in Tenth street far up +Broadway, on the outer edge of the pavement. The Captain and Murray fell in at +the tail of the quivering millipede. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty feet longer than it was last night,” said Murray, looking +up at his measuring angle of Grace Church. +</p> + +<p> +“Half an hour,” growled the Captain, “before we get our +punk.” +</p> + +<p> +The city clocks began to strike 12; the Bread Line moved forward slowly, its +leathern feet sliding on the stones with the sound of a hissing serpent, as +they who had lived according to their lights closed up in the rear. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c19" id="c19"></a>A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT’S DREAM</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“<i>The knights are dead;<br /> +Their swords are rust.<br /> +Except a few who have to hust-<br /> +Le all the time<br /> +To raise the dust.</i>” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="smallcaps">Dear Reader</span>: It was summertime. The sun glared +down upon the city with pitiless ferocity. It is difficult for the sun to be +ferocious and exhibit compunction simultaneously. The heat was—oh, bother +thermometers!—who cares for standard measures, anyhow? It was so hot +that— +</p> + +<p> +The roof gardens put on so many extra waiters that you could hope to get your +gin fizz now—as soon as all the other people got theirs. The hospitals +were putting in extra cots for bystanders. For when little, woolly dogs loll +their tongues out and say “woof, woof!” at the fleas that bite +’em, and nervous old black bombazine ladies screech “Mad +dog!” and policemen begin to shoot, somebody is going to get hurt. The +man from Pompton, N.J., who always wears an overcoat in July, had turned up in +a Broadway hotel drinking hot Scotches and enjoying his annual ray from the +calcium. Philanthropists were petitioning the Legislature to pass a bill +requiring builders to make tenement fire-escapes more commodious, so that +families might die all together of the heat instead of one or two at a time. So +many men were telling you about the number of baths they took each day that you +wondered how they got along after the real lessee of the apartment came back to +town and thanked ’em for taking such good care of it. The young man who +called loudly for cold beef and beer in the restaurant, protesting that roast +pullet and Burgundy was really too heavy for such weather, blushed when he met +your eye, for you had heard him all winter calling, in modest tones, for the +same ascetic viands. Soup, pocketbooks, shirt waists, actors and baseball +excuses grew thinner. Yes, it was summertime. +</p> + +<p> +A man stood at Thirty-fourth street waiting for a downtown car. A man of forty, +gray-haired, pink-faced, keen, nervous, plainly dressed, with a harassed look +around the eyes. He wiped his forehead and laughed loudly when a fat man with +an outing look stopped and spoke with him. +</p> + +<p> +“No, siree,” he shouted with defiance and scorn. “None of +your old mosquito-haunted swamps and skyscraper mountains without elevators for +me. When I want to get away from hot weather I know how to do it. New York, +sir, is the finest summer resort in the country. Keep in the shade and watch +your diet, and don’t get too far away from an electric fan. Talk about +your Adirondacks and your Catskills! There’s more solid comfort in the +borough of Manhattan than in all the rest of the country together. No, siree! +No tramping up perpendicular cliffs and being waked up at 4 in the morning by a +million flies, and eating canned goods straight from the city for me. Little +old New York will take a few select summer boarders; comforts and conveniences +of homes—that’s the ad. that I answer every time.” +</p> + +<p> +“You need a vacation,” said the fat man, looking closely at the +other. “You haven’t been away from town in years. Better come with +me for two weeks, anyhow. The trout in the Beaverkill are jumping at anything +now that looks like a fly. Harding writes me that he landed a three-pound brown +last week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” cried the other man. “Go ahead, if you like, and +boggle around in rubber boots wearing yourself out trying to catch fish. When I +want one I go to a cool restaurant and order it. I laugh at you fellows +whenever I think of you hustling around in the heat in the country thinking you +are having a good time. For me Father Knickerbocker’s little improved +farm with the big shady lane running through the middle of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The fat man sighed over his friend and went his way. The man who thought New +York was the greatest summer resort in the country boarded a car and went +buzzing down to his office. On the way he threw away his newspaper and looked +up at a ragged patch of sky above the housetops. +</p> + +<p> +“Three pounds!” he muttered, absently. “And Harding +isn’t a liar. I believe, if I could—but it’s +impossible—they’ve got to have another month—another month at +least.” +</p> + +<p> +In his office the upholder of urban midsummer joys dived, headforemost, into +the swimming pool of business. Adkins, his clerk, came and added a spray of +letters, memoranda and telegrams. +</p> + +<p> +At 5 o’clock in the afternoon the busy man leaned back in his office +chair, put his feet on the desk and mused aloud: +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what kind of bait Harding used.”<br /> + +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +She was all in white that day; and thereby Compton lost a bet to Gaines. +Compton had wagered she would wear light blue, for she knew that was his +favorite color, and Compton was a millionaire’s son, and that almost laid +him open to the charge of betting on a sure thing. But white was her choice, +and Gaines held up his head with twenty-five’s lordly air. +</p> + +<p> +The little summer hotel in the mountains had a lively crowd that year. There +were two or three young college men and a couple of artists and a young naval +officer on one side. On the other there were enough beauties among the young +ladies for the correspondent of a society paper to refer to them as a +“bevy.” But the moon among the stars was Mary Sewell. Each one of +the young men greatly desired to arrange matters so that he could pay her +millinery bills, and fix the furnace, and have her do away with the +“Sewell” part of her name forever. Those who could stay only a week +or two went away hinting at pistols and blighted hearts. But Compton stayed +like the mountains themselves, for he could afford it. And Gaines stayed +because he was a fighter and wasn’t afraid of millionaire’s sons, +and—well, he adored the country. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think, Miss Mary?” he said once. “I knew a +duffer in New York who claimed to like it in the summer time. Said you could +keep cooler there than you could in the woods. Wasn’t he an awful silly? +I don’t think I could breathe on Broadway after the 1st of June.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma was thinking of going back week after next,” said Miss Mary +with a lovely frown. +</p> + +<p> +“But when you think of it,” said Gaines, “there are lots of +jolly places in town in the summer. The roof gardens, you know, and +the—er—the roof gardens.” +</p> + +<p> +Deepest blue was the lake that day—the day when they had the mock +tournament, and the men rode clumsy farm horses around in a glade in the woods +and caught curtain rings on the end of a lance. Such fun! +</p> + +<p> +Cool and dry as the finest wine came the breath of the shadowed forest. The +valley below was a vision seen through an opal haze. A white mist from hidden +falls blurred the green of a hand’s breadth of tree tops half-way down +the gorge. Youth made merry hand-in-hand with young summer. Nothing on Broadway +like that. +</p> + +<p> +The villagers gathered to see the city folks pursue their mad drollery. The +woods rang with the laughter of pixies and naiads and sprites. Gaines caught +most of the rings. His was the privilege to crown the queen of the tournament. +He was the conquering knight—as far as the rings went. On his arm he wore +a white scarf. Compton wore light blue. She had declared her preference for +blue, but she wore white that day. +</p> + +<p> +Gaines looked about for the queen to crown her. He heard her merry laugh, as if +from the clouds. She had slipped away and climbed Chimney Rock, a little +granite bluff, and stood there, a white fairy among the laurels, fifty feet +above their heads. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly he and Compton accepted the implied challenge. The bluff was easily +mounted at the rear, but the front offered small hold to hand or foot. Each man +quickly selected his route and began to climb. A crevice, a bush, a slight +projection, a vine or tree branch—all of these were aids that counted in +the race. It was all foolery—there was no stake; but there was youth in +it, cross reader, and light hearts, and something else that Miss Clay writes so +charmingly about. +</p> + +<p> +Gaines gave a great tug at the root of a laurel and pulled himself to Miss +Mary’s feet. On his arm he carried the wreath of roses; and while the +villagers and summer boarders screamed and applauded below he placed it on the +queen’s brow. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a gallant knight,” said Miss Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could be your true knight always,” began Gaines, but Miss +Mary laughed him dumb, for Compton scrambled over the edge of the rock one +minute behind time. +</p> + +<p> +What a twilight that was when they drove back to the hotel! The opal of the +valley turned slowly to purple, the dark woods framed the lake as a mirror, the +tonic air stirred the very soul in one. The first pale stars came out over the +mountain tops where yet a faint glow of—<br /> + +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Gaines,” said Adkins. +</p> + +<p> +The man who believed New York to be the finest summer resort in the world +opened his eyes and kicked over the mucilage bottle on his desk. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I believe I was asleep,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the heat,” said Adkins. “It’s something +awful in the city these”— +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” said the other. “The city beats the country ten +to one in summer. Fools go out tramping in muddy brooks and wear themselves out +trying to catch little fish as long as your finger. Stay in town and keep +comfortable—that’s my idea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some letters just came,” said Adkins. “I thought you might +like to glance at them before you go.” +</p> + +<p> +Let us look over his shoulder and read just a few lines of one of them: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<span class="smallcaps">My Dear, Dear Husband</span>: Just received your letter +ordering us to stay another month. … Rita’s cough is almost gone. … +Johnny has simply gone wild like a little Indian … Will be the making of both +children … work so hard, and I know that your business can hardly afford to +keep us here so long … best man that ever … you always pretend that you like +the city in summer … trout fishing that you used to be so fond of … and all to +keep us well and happy … come to you if it were not doing the babies so much +good. … I stood last evening on Chimney Rock in exactly the same spot where I +was when you put the wreath of roses on my head … through all the world … when +you said you would be my true knight … fifteen years ago, dear, just think! … +have always been that to me … ever and ever, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smallcaps">Mary</span>. +</p> + +<p> +The man who said he thought New York the finest summer resort in the country +dropped into a café on his way home and had a glass of beer under an electric +fan. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder what kind of a fly old Harding used,” he said to himself. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c20" id="c20"></a>THE LAST LEAF</h2> + +<p> +In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and +broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These +“places” make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself +a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. +Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in +traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having +been paid on account! +</p> + +<p> +So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting +for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. +Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth +avenue, and became a “colony.” +</p> + +<p> +At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. +“Johnsy” was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other +from California. They had met at the <i>table d’hôte</i> of an Eighth +street “Delmonico’s,” and found their tastes in art, chicory +salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted. +</p> + +<p> +That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called +Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy +fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims +by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and +moss-grown “places.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of +a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game +for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she +lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small +Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house. +</p> + +<p> +One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray +eyebrow. +</p> + +<p> +“She has one chance in—let us say, ten,” he said, as he shook +down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. “And that chance is for her +to want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side of the +undertaker makes the entire pharmacopeia look silly. Your little lady has made +up her mind that she’s not going to get well. Has she anything on her +mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“She—she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day,” said +Sue. +</p> + +<p> +“Paint?—bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about +twice—a man, for instance?” +</p> + +<p> +“A man?” said Sue, with a jew’s-harp twang in her voice. +“Is a man worth—but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the +kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it is the weakness, then,” said the doctor. “I will do +all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. +But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession +I subtract 50 per cent. from the curative power of medicines. If you will get +her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will +promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten.” +</p> + +<p> +After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese +napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy’s room with her drawing +board, whistling ragtime. +</p> + +<p> +Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward +the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep. +</p> + +<p> +She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine +story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for +magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature. +</p> + +<p> +As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle +on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several +times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside. +</p> + +<p> +Johnsy’s eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and +counting—counting backward. +</p> + +<p> +“Twelve,” she said, and a little later “eleven;” and +then “ten,” and “nine;” and then “eight” +and “seven,” almost together. +</p> + +<p> +Sue looked solicitously out the window. What was there to count? There was only +a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty +feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half +way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from +the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling +bricks. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, dear?” asked Sue. +</p> + +<p> +“Six,” said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. “They’re +falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head +ache to count them. But now it’s easy. There goes another one. There are +only five left now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Five what, dear. Tell your Sudie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. +I’ve known that for three days. Didn’t the doctor tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,” complained Sue, with +magnificent scorn. “What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting +well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don’t be a +goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well +real soon were—let’s see exactly what he said—he said the +chances were ten to one! Why, that’s almost as good a chance as we have +in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to +take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the +editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for +her greedy self.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t get any more wine,” said Johnsy, keeping her +eyes fixed out the window. “There goes another. No, I don’t want +any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it +gets dark. Then I’ll go, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Johnsy, dear,” said Sue, bending over her, “will you promise +me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done +working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I +would draw the shade down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you draw in the other room?” asked Johnsy, coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather be here by you,” said Sue. “Besides I +don’t want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me as soon as you have finished,” said Johnsy, closing her +eyes, and lying white and still as a fallen statue, “because I want to +see the last one fall. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of thinking. +I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just +like one of those poor, tired leaves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try to sleep,” said Sue. “I must call Behrman up to be my +model for the old hermit miner. I’ll not be gone a minute. Don’t +try to move ’till I come back.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was +past sixty and had a Michael Angelo’s Moses beard curling down from the +head of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty +years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of +his Mistress’s robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but +had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and +then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by +serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the +price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming +masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly +at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting +to protect the two young artists in the studio above. +</p> + +<p> +Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den +below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there +for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told +him of Johnsy’s fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and +fragile as a leaf herself, float away when her slight hold upon the world grew +weaker. +</p> + +<p> +Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and +derision for such idiotic imaginings. +</p> + +<p> +“Vass!” he cried. “Is dere people in de world mit der +foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not +heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool +hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der prain of +her? Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Johnsy.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very ill and weak,” said Sue, “and the fever has left +her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do +not care to pose for me, you needn’t. But I think you are a horrid +old—old flibbertigibbet.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are just like a woman!” yelled Behrman. “Who said I will +not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot +I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss +Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go +away. Gott! yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the +window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out +the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a +moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with +snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit-miner on an +upturned kettle for a rock. +</p> + +<p> +When Sue awoke from an hour’s sleep the next morning she found Johnsy +with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade. +</p> + +<p> +“Pull it up; I want to see,” she ordered, in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +Wearily Sue obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured +through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy +leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, but with its +serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely +from a branch some twenty feet above the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the last one,” said Johnsy. “I thought it would surely +fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die +at the same time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, dear!” said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, +“think of me, if you won’t think of yourself. What would I +do?” +</p> + +<p> +But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when +it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to +possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship +and to earth were loosed. +</p> + +<p> +The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy +leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the +night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the +windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves. +</p> + +<p> +When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be +raised. +</p> + +<p> +The ivy leaf was still there. +</p> + +<p> +Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was +stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been a bad girl, Sudie,” said Johnsy. “Something +has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to +want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little +port in it, and—no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some +pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook.” +</p> + +<p> +An hour later she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway +as he left. +</p> + +<p> +“Even chances,” said the doctor, taking Sue’s thin, shaking +hand in his. “With good nursing you’ll win. And now I must see +another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is—some kind of an +artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is +acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made +more comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +The next day the doctor said to Sue: “She’s out of danger. +You’ve won. Nutrition and care now—that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a +very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, +pillows and all. +</p> + +<p> +“I have something to tell you, white mouse,” she said. “Mr. +Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The +janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs +helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They +couldn’t imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then +they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from +its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow +colors mixed on it, and—look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf +on the wall. Didn’t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the +wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece—he painted +it there the night that the last leaf fell.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c21" id="c21"></a>THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST</h2> + +<p> +One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue +boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss +Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown +dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She +lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. +Donovan, politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan +bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him +social, business and political advancement, and erased the snuffy-brown one +from the tablets of his consideration. +</p> + +<p> +Two weeks later Andy was sitting on the front steps enjoying his cigar. There +was a soft rustle behind and above him, and Andy turned his head—and had +his head turned. +</p> + +<p> +Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore a night-black dress of +<i>crêpe de</i>—<i>crêpe de</i>—oh, this thin black goods. Her hat +was black, and from it drooped and fluttered an ebon veil, filmy as a +spider’s web. She stood on the top step and drew on black silk gloves. +Not a speck of white or a spot of color about her dress anywhere. Her rich +golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple, into a shining, smooth knot low +on her neck. Her face was plain rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated +and made almost beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above the houses +across the street into the sky with an expression of the most appealing sadness +and melancholy. +</p> + +<p> +Gather the idea, girls—all black, you know, with the preference for +<i>crêpe de</i>—oh, <i>crêpe de Chine</i>—that’s it. All +black, and that sad, faraway look, and the hair shining under the black veil +(you have to be a blonde, of course), and try to look as if, although your +young life had been blighted just as it was about to give a hop-skip-and-a-jump +over the threshold of life, a walk in the park might do you good, and be sure +to happen out the door at the right moment, and—oh, it’ll fetch +’em every time. But it’s fierce, now, how cynical I am, ain’t +it?—to talk about mourning costumes this way. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Donovan suddenly reinscribed Miss Conway upon the tablets of his +consideration. He threw away the remaining inch-and-a-quarter of his cigar, +that would have been good for eight minutes yet, and quickly shifted his center +of gravity to his low cut patent leathers. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a fine, clear evening, Miss Conway,” he said; and if +the Weather Bureau could have heard the confident emphasis of his tones it +would have hoisted the square white signal, and nailed it to the mast. +</p> + +<p> +“To them that has the heart to enjoy it, it is, Mr. Donovan,” said +Miss Conway, with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Donovan, in his heart, cursed fair weather. Heartless weather! It should +hail and blow and snow to be consonant with the mood of Miss Conway. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope none of your relatives—I hope you haven’t sustained a +loss?” ventured Mr. Donovan. +</p> + +<p> +“Death has claimed,” said Miss Conway, hesitating—“not +a relative, but one who—but I will not intrude my grief upon you, Mr. +Donovan.” +</p> + +<p> +“Intrude?” protested Mr. Donovan. “Why, say, Miss Conway, +I’d be delighted, that is, I’d be sorry—I mean I’m sure +nobody could sympathize with you truer than I would.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Conway smiled a little smile. And oh, it was sadder than her expression in +repose. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and they give you the +laugh,’” she quoted. “I have learned that, Mr. Donovan. I +have no friends or acquaintances in this city. But you have been kind to me. I +appreciate it highly.” +</p> + +<p> +He had passed her the pepper twice at the table. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s tough to be alone in New York—that’s a +cinch,” said Mr. Donovan. “But, say—whenever this little old +town does loosen up and get friendly it goes the limit. Say you took a little +stroll in the park, Miss Conway—don’t you think it might chase away +some of your mullygrubs? And if you’d allow me—” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, Mr. Donovan. I’d be pleased to accept of your escort if +you think the company of one whose heart is filled with gloom could be anyways +agreeable to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Through the open gates of the iron-railed, old, downtown park, where the elect +once took the air, they strolled, and found a quiet bench. +</p> + +<p> +There is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age: +youth’s burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares; old age +may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same. +</p> + +<p> +“He was my fiance,” confided Miss Conway, at the end of an hour. +“We were going to be married next spring. I don’t want you to think +that I am stringing you, Mr. Donovan, but he was a real Count. He had an estate +and a castle in Italy. Count Fernando Mazzini was his name. I never saw the +beat of him for elegance. Papa objected, of course, and once we eloped, but +papa overtook us, and took us back. I thought sure papa and Fernando would +fight a duel. Papa has a livery business—in P’kipsee, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Finally, papa came ’round, all right, and said we might be married +next spring. Fernando showed him proofs of his title and wealth, and then went +over to Italy to get the castle fixed up for us. Papa’s very proud, and +when Fernando wanted to give me several thousand dollars for my trousseau he +called him down something awful. He wouldn’t even let me take a ring or +any presents from him. And when Fernando sailed I came to the city and got a +position as cashier in a candy store.” +</p> + +<p> +“Three days ago I got a letter from Italy, forwarded from P’kipsee, +saying that Fernando had been killed in a gondola accident.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is why I am in mourning. My heart, Mr. Donovan, will remain forever +in his grave. I guess I am poor company, Mr. Donovan, but I cannot take any +interest in no one. I should not care to keep you from gayety and your friends +who can smile and entertain you. Perhaps you would prefer to walk back to the +house?” +</p> + +<p> +Now, girls, if you want to observe a young man hustle out after a pick and +shovel, just tell him that your heart is in some other fellow’s grave. +Young men are grave-robbers by nature. Ask any widow. Something must be done to +restore that missing organ to weeping angels in <i>crêpe de Chine</i>. Dead men +certainly get the worst of it from all sides. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry,” said Mr. Donovan, gently. “No, we +won’t walk back to the house just yet. And don’t say you +haven’t no friends in this city, Miss Conway. I’m awful sorry, and +I want you to believe I’m your friend, and that I’m awful +sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got his picture here in my locket,” said Miss Conway, +after wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. “I never showed it to +anybody; but I will to you, Mr. Donovan, because I believe you to be a true +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Donovan gazed long and with much interest at the photograph in the locket +that Miss Conway opened for him. The face of Count Mazzini was one to command +interest. It was a smooth, intelligent, bright, almost a handsome +face—the face of a strong, cheerful man who might well be a leader among +his fellows. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a larger one, framed, in my room,” said Miss Conway. +“When we return I will show you that. They are all I have to remind me of +Fernando. But he ever will be present in my heart, that’s a sure +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +A subtle task confronted Mr. Donovan,—that of supplanting the unfortunate +Count in the heart of Miss Conway. This his admiration for her determined him +to do. But the magnitude of the undertaking did not seem to weigh upon his +spirits. The sympathetic but cheerful friend was the rôle he essayed; and +he played it so successfully that the next half-hour found them conversing +pensively across two plates of ice-cream, though yet there was no diminution of +the sadness in Miss Conway’s large gray eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Before they parted in the hall that evening she ran upstairs and brought down +the framed photograph wrapped lovingly in a white silk scarf. Mr. Donovan +surveyed it with inscrutable eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“He gave me this the night he left for Italy,” said Miss Conway. +“I had the one for the locket made from this.” +</p> + +<p> +“A fine-looking man,” said Mr. Donovan, heartily. “How would +it suit you, Miss Conway, to give me the pleasure of your company to Coney next +Sunday afternoon?” +</p> + +<p> +A month later they announced their engagement to Mrs. Scott and the other +boarders. Miss Conway continued to wear black. +</p> + +<p> +A week after the announcement the two sat on the same bench in the downtown +park, while the fluttering leaves of the trees made a dim kinetoscopic picture +of them in the moonlight. But Donovan had worn a look of abstracted gloom all +day. He was so silent to-night that love’s lips could not keep back any +longer the questions that love’s heart propounded. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Andy, you are so solemn and grouchy +to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know better. Can’t I tell? You never acted this way before. What +is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nothing much, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes it is; and I want to know. I’ll bet it’s some other girl +you are thinking about. All right. Why don’t you go get her if you want +her? Take your arm away, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you then,” said Andy, wisely, “but I guess +you won’t understand it exactly. You’ve heard of Mike Sullivan, +haven’t you? ‘Big Mike’ Sullivan, everybody calls him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I haven’t,” said Maggie. “And I don’t want +to, if he makes you act like this. Who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s the biggest man in New York,” said Andy, almost +reverently. “He can about do anything he wants to with Tammany or any +other old thing in the political line. He’s a mile high and as broad as +East River. You say anything against Big Mike, and you’ll have a million +men on your collarbone in about two seconds. Why, he made a visit over to the +old country awhile back, and the kings took to their holes like rabbits. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Big Mike’s a friend of mine. I ain’t more than +deuce-high in the district as far as influence goes, but Mike’s as good a +friend to a little man, or a poor man as he is to a big one. I met him to-day +on the Bowery, and what do you think he does? Comes up and shakes hands. +‘Andy,’ says he, ‘I’ve been keeping cases on you. +You’ve been putting in some good licks over on your side of the street, +and I’m proud of you. What’ll you take to drink?” He takes a +cigar, and I take a highball. I told him I was going to get married in two +weeks. ‘Andy,’ says he, ‘send me an invitation, so I’ll +keep in mind of it, and I’ll come to the wedding.’ That’s +what Big Mike says to me; and he always does what he says. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand it, Maggie, but I’d have one of my +hands cut off to have Big Mike Sullivan at our wedding. It would be the +proudest day of my life. When he goes to a man’s wedding, there’s a +guy being married that’s made for life. Now, that’s why I’m +maybe looking sore to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you invite him, then, if he’s so much to the +mustard?” said Maggie, lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a reason why I can’t,” said Andy, sadly. +“There’s a reason why he mustn’t be there. Don’t ask me +what it is, for I can’t tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t care,” said Maggie. “It’s something +about politics, of course. But it’s no reason why you can’t smile +at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” said Andy, presently, “do you think as much of me +as you did of your—as you did of the Count Mazzini?” +</p> + +<p> +He waited a long time, but Maggie did not reply. And then, suddenly she leaned +against his shoulder and began to cry—to cry and shake with sobs, holding +his arm tightly, and wetting the <i>crêpe de Chine</i> with tears. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there, there!” soothed Andy, putting aside his own trouble. +“And what is it, now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Andy,” sobbed Maggie. “I’ve lied to you, and +you’ll never marry me, or love me any more. But I feel that I’ve +got to tell. Andy, there never was so much as the little finger of a count. I +never had a beau in my life. But all the other girls had; and they talked about +’em; and that seemed to make the fellows like ’em more. And, Andy, +I look swell in black—you know I do. So I went out to a photograph store +and bought that picture, and had a little one made for my locket, and made up +all that story about the Count, and about his being killed, so I could wear +black. And nobody can love a liar, and you’ll shake me, Andy, and +I’ll die for shame. Oh, there never was anybody I liked but you—and +that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +But instead of being pushed away, she found Andy’s arm folding her +closer. She looked up and saw his face cleared and smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Could you—could you forgive me, Andy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said Andy. “It’s all right about that. Back to +the cemetery for the Count. You’ve straightened everything out, Maggie. I +was in hopes you would before the wedding-day. Bully girl!” +</p> + +<p> +“Andy,” said Maggie, with a somewhat shy smile, after she had been +thoroughly assured of forgiveness, “did you believe all that story about +the Count?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, not to any large extent,” said Andy, reaching for his cigar +case, “because it’s Big Mike Sullivan’s picture you’ve +got in that locket of yours.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c22" id="c22"></a>THE COUNTRY OF ELUSION</h2> + +<p> +The cunning writer will choose an indefinable subject, for he can then set down +his theory of what it is; and next, at length, his conception of what it is +not—and lo! his paper is covered. Therefore let us follow the prolix and +unmapable trail into that mooted country, Bohemia. +</p> + +<p> +Grainger, sub-editor of <i>Doc’s Magazine</i>, closed his roll-top desk, +put on his hat, walked into the hall, punched the “down” button, +and waited for the elevator. +</p> + +<p> +Grainger’s day had been trying. The chief had tried to ruin the magazine +a dozen times by going against Grainger’s ideas for running it. A lady +whose grandfather had fought with McClellan had brought a portfolio of poems in +person. +</p> + +<p> +Grainger was curator of the Lion’s House of the magazine. That day he had +“lunched” an Arctic explorer, a short-story writer, and the famous +conductor of a slaughter-house exposé. Consequently his mind was in a whirl of +icebergs, Maupassant, and trichinosis. +</p> + +<p> +But there was a surcease and a recourse; there was Bohemia. He would seek +distraction there; and, let’s see—he would call by for Mary Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour later he threaded his way like a Brazilian orchid-hunter through +the palm forest in the tiled entrance hall of the “Idealia” +apartment-house. One day the christeners of apartment-houses and the +cognominators of sleeping-cars will meet, and there will be some jealous and +sanguinary knifing. +</p> + +<p> +The clerk breathed Grainger’s name so languidly into the house telephone +that it seemed it must surely drop, from sheer inertia, down to the +janitor’s regions. But, at length, it soared dilatorily up to Miss +Adrian’s ear. Certainly, Mr. Grainger was to come up immediately. +</p> + +<p> +A colored maid with an Eliza-crossing-the-ice expression opened the door of the +apartment for him. Grainger walked sideways down the narrow hall. A bunch of +burnt umber hair and a sea-green eye appeared in the crack of a door. A long, +white, undraped arm came out, barring the way. +</p> + +<p> +“So glad you came, Ricky, instead of any of the others,” said the +eye. “Light a cigarette and give it to me. Going to take me to dinner? +Fine. Go into the front room till I finish dressing. But don’t sit in +your usual chair. There’s pie in it—Meringue. Kappelman threw it at +Reeves last evening while he was reciting. Sophy has just come to straighten +up. Is it lit? Thanks. There’s Scotch on the mantel—oh, no, it +isn’t,—that’s chartreuse. Ask Sophy to find you some. I +won’t be long.” +</p> + +<p> +Grainger escaped the meringue. As he waited his spirits sank still lower. The +atmosphere of the room was as vapid as a zephyr wandering over a Vesuvian +lava-bed. Relics of some feast lay about the room, scattered in places where +even a prowling cat would have been surprised to find them. A straggling +cluster of deep red roses in a marmalade jar bowed their heads over tobacco +ashes and unwashed goblets. A chafing-dish stood on the piano; a leaf of sheet +music supported a stack of sandwiches in a chair. +</p> + +<p> +Mary came in, dressed and radiant. Her gown was of that thin, black fabric +whose name through the change of a single vowel seems to summon visions ranging +between the extremes of man’s experience. Spelled with an “ê” +it belongs to Gallic witchery and diaphanous dreams; with an “a” it +drapes lamentation and woe. +</p> + +<p> +That evening they went to the Café André. And, as people would confide to you +in a whisper that André’s was the only truly Bohemian restaurant in town, +it may be well to follow them. +</p> + +<p> +André began his professional career as a waiter in a Bowery ten-cent +eating-house. Had you seen him there you would have called him tough—to +yourself. Not aloud, for he would have “soaked” you as quickly as +he would have soaked his thumb in your coffee. He saved money and started a +basement <i>table d’hôte</i> in Eighth (or Ninth) Street. One afternoon +André drank too much absinthe. He announced to his startled family that he was +the Grand Llama of Thibet, therefore requiring an empty audience hall in which +to be worshiped. He moved all the tables and chairs from the restaurant into +the back yard, wrapped a red table-cloth around himself, and sat on a +step-ladder for a throne. When the diners began to arrive, madame, in a flurry +of despair, laid cloths and ushered them, trembling, outside. Between the +tables clothes-lines were stretched, bearing the family wash. A party of +Bohemia hunters greeted the artistic innovation with shrieks and acclamations +of delight. That week’s washing was not taken in for two years. When +André came to his senses he had the menu printed on stiffly starched cuffs, and +served the ices in little wooden tubs. Next he took down his sign and darkened +the front of the house. When you went there to dine you fumbled for an electric +button and pressed it. A lookout slid open a panel in the door, looked at you +suspiciously, and asked if you were acquainted with Senator Herodotus Q. +McMilligan, of the Chickasaw Nation. If you were, you were admitted and allowed +to dine. If you were not, you were admitted and allowed to dine. There you have +one of the abiding principles of Bohemia. When André had accumulated $20,000 he +moved up-town, near Broadway, in the fierce light that beats upon the +thrown-down. There we find him and leave him, with customers in pearls and +automobile veils, striving to catch his excellently graduated nod of +recognition. +</p> + +<p> +There is a large round table in the northeast corner of André’s at which +six can sit. To this table Grainger and Mary Adrian made their way. Kappelman +and Reeves were already there. And Miss Tooker, who designed the May cover for +the <i>Ladies’ Notathome Magazine</i>. And Mrs. Pothunter, who never +drank anything but black and white highballs, being in mourning for her +husband, who—oh, I’ve forgotten what he did—died, like as +not. +</p> + +<p> +Spaghetti-weary reader, wouldst take one penny-in-the-slot peep into the fair +land of Bohemia? Then look; and when you think you have seen it you have not. +And it is neither thimbleriggery nor astigmatism. +</p> + +<p> +The walls of the Café André were covered with original sketches by the artists +who furnished much of the color and sound of the place. Fair woman furnished +the theme for the bulk of the drawings. When you say “sirens and +siphons” you come near to estimating the alliterative atmosphere of +André’s. +</p> + +<p> +First, I want you to meet my friend, Miss Adrian. Miss Tooker and Mrs. +Pothunter you already know. While she tucks in the fingers of her elbow gloves +you shall have her daguerreotype. So faint and uncertain shall the portrait be: +</p> + +<p> +Age, somewhere between twenty-seven and highneck evening dresses. Camaraderie +in large bunches—whatever the fearful word may mean. +Habitat—anywhere from Seattle to Tierra del Fuego. Temperament +uncharted—she let Reeves squeeze her hand after he recited one of his +poems; but she counted the change after sending him out with a dollar to buy +some pickled pig’s feet. Deportment 75 out of a possible 100. Morals 100. +</p> + +<p> +Mary was one of the princesses of Bohemia. In the first place, it was a royal +and a daring thing to have been named Mary. There are twenty Fifines and +Heloises to one Mary in the Country of Elusion. +</p> + +<p> +Now her gloves are tucked in. Miss Tooker has assumed a June poster pose; Mrs. +Pothunter has bitten her lips to make the red show; Reeves has several times +felt his coat to make sure that his latest poem is in the pocket. (It had been +neatly typewritten; but he has copied it on the backs of letters with a +pencil.) Kappelman is underhandedly watching the clock. It is ten minutes to +nine. When the hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A French +girl says to her suitor: “Did you ask my father for my hand at nine +o’clock this morning, as you said you would?” “I did +not,” he replies. “At nine o’clock I was fighting a duel with +swords in the Bois de Boulogne.” “Coward!” she hisses. +</p> + +<p> +The dinner was ordered. You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with +the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the +entrée; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; +songs with the coffee; the slapsticks with the cordials. +</p> + +<p> +Between Miss Adrian’s eyebrows was the pucker that shows the intense +strain it requires to be at ease in Bohemia. Pat must come each sally, +<i>mot</i>, and epigram. Every second of deliberation upon a reply costs you a +bay leaf. Fine as a hair, a line began to curve from her nostrils to her mouth. +To hold her own not a chance must be missed. A sentence addressed to her must +be as a piccolo, each word of it a stop, which she must be prepared to seize +upon and play. And she must always be quicker than a Micmac Indian to paddle +the light canoe of conversation away from the rocks in the rapids that flow +from the Pierian spring. For, plodding reader, the handwriting on the wall in +the banquet hall of Bohemia is “<i>Laisser faire</i>.” The gray +ghost that sometimes peeps through the rings of smoke is that of slain old King +Convention. Freedom is the tyrant that holds them in slavery. +</p> + +<p> +As the dinner waned, hands reached for the pepper cruet rather than for the +shaker of Attic salt. Miss Tooker, with an elbow to business, leaned across the +table toward Grainger, upsetting her glass of wine. +</p> + +<p> +“Now while you are fed and in good humor,” she said, “I want +to make a suggestion to you about a new cover.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good idea,” said Grainger, mopping the tablecloth with his +napkin. “I’ll speak to the waiter about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Kappelman, the painter, was the cut-up. As a piece of delicate Athenian wit he +got up from his chair and waltzed down the room with a waiter. That dependent, +no doubt an honest, pachydermatous, worthy, tax-paying, art-despising biped, +released himself from the unequal encounter, carried his professional smile +back to the dumb-waiter and dropped it down the shaft to eternal oblivion. +Reeves began to make Keats turn in his grave. Mrs. Pothunter told the story of +the man who met the widow on the train. Miss Adrian hummed what is still called +a <i>chanson</i> in the cafés of Bridgeport. Grainger edited each individual +effort with his assistant editor’s smile, which meant: “Great! but +you’ll have to send them in through the regular channels. If I were the +chief now—but you know how it is.” +</p> + +<p> +And soon the head waiter bowed before them, desolated to relate that the +closing hour had already become chronologically historical; so out all trooped +into the starry midnight, filling the street with gay laughter, to be barked at +by hopeful cabmen and enviously eyed by the dull inhabitants of an uninspired +world. +</p> + +<p> +Grainger left Mary at the elevator in the trackless palm forest of the Idealia. +After he had gone she came down again carrying a small hand-bag, ’phoned +for a cab, drove to the Grand Central Station, boarded a 12.55 commuter’s +train, rode four hours with her burnt-umber head bobbing against the red-plush +back of the seat, and landed during a fresh, stinging, glorious sunrise at a +deserted station, the size of a peach crate, called Crocusville. +</p> + +<p> +She walked a mile and clicked the latch of a gate. A bare, brown cottage stood +twenty yards back; an old man with a pearl-white, Calvinistic face and clothes +dyed blacker than a raven in a coal-mine was washing his hands in a tin basin +on the front porch. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, father?” said Mary timidly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am as well as Providence permits, Mary Ann. You will find your mother +in the kitchen.” +</p> + +<p> +In the kitchen a cryptic, gray woman kissed her glacially on the forehead, and +pointed out the potatoes which were not yet peeled for breakfast. Mary sat in a +wooden chair and decorticated spuds, with a thrill in her heart. +</p> + +<p> +For breakfast there were grace, cold bread, potatoes, bacon, and tea. +</p> + +<p> +“You are pursuing the same avocation in the city concerning which you +have advised us from time to time by letter, I trust,” said her father. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mary, “I am still reviewing books for the same +publication.” +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast she helped wash the dishes, and then all three sat in +straight-back chairs in the bare-floored parlor. +</p> + +<p> +“It is my custom,” said the old man, “on the Sabbath day to +read aloud from the great work entitled the ‘Apology for Authorized and +Set Forms of Liturgy,’ by the ecclesiastical philosopher and revered +theologian, Jeremy Taylor.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” said Mary blissfully, folding her hands. +</p> + +<p> +For two hours the numbers of the great Jeremy rolled forth like the notes of an +oratorio played on the violoncello. Mary sat gloating in the new sensation of +racking physical discomfort that the wooden chair brought her. Perhaps there is +no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr’s. Jeremy’s minor +chords soothed her like the music of a tom-tom. “Why, oh why,” she +said to herself, “does some one not write words to it?” +</p> + +<p> +At eleven they went to church in Crocusville. The back of the pine bench on +which she sat had a penitential forward tilt that would have brought St. Simeon +down, in jealousy, from his pillar. The preacher singled her out, and thundered +upon her vicarious head the damnation of the world. At each side of her an +adamant parent held her rigidly to the bar of judgment. An ant crawled upon her +neck, but she dared not move. She lowered her eyes before the +congregation—a hundred-eyed Cerberus that watched the gates through which +her sins were fast thrusting her. Her soul was filled with a delirious, almost +a fanatic joy. For she was out of the clutch of the tyrant, Freedom. Dogma and +creed pinioned her with beneficent cruelty, as steel braces bind the feet of a +crippled child. She was hedged, adjured, shackled, shored up, strait-jacketed, +silenced, ordered. When they came out the minister stopped to greet them. Mary +could only hang her head and answer “Yes, sir,” and “No, +sir,” to his questions. When she saw that the other women carried their +hymn-books at their waists with their left hands, she blushed and moved hers +there, too, from her right. +</p> + +<p> +She took the three-o’clock train back to the city. At nine she sat at the +round table for dinner in the Café André. Nearly the same crowd was there. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you been to-day?” asked Mrs. Pothunter. “I +’phoned to you at twelve.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been away in Bohemia,” answered Mary, with a mystic smile. +</p> + +<p> +There! Mary has given it away. She has spoiled my climax. For I was to have +told you that Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do +not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue +pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills. It is a +hillside that you turn your head to peer at from the windows of the Through +Express. +</p> + +<p> +At exactly half past eleven Kappelman, deceived by a new softness and slowness +of riposte and parry in Mary Adrian, tried to kiss her. Instantly she slapped +his face with such strength and cold fury that he shrank down, sobered, with +the flaming red print of a hand across his leering features. And all sounds +ceased, as when the shadows of great wings come upon a flock of chattering +sparrows. One had broken the paramount law of sham-Bohemia—the law of +“<i>Laisser faire</i>.” The shock came not from the blow delivered, +but from the blow received. With the effect of a schoolmaster entering the +play-room of his pupils was that blow administered. Women pulled down their +sleeves and laid prim hands against their ruffled side locks. Men looked at +their watches. There was nothing of the effect of a brawl about it; it was +purely the still panic produced by the sound of the ax of the fly cop, +Conscience hammering at the gambling-house doors of the Heart. +</p> + +<p> +With their punctilious putting on of cloaks, with their exaggerated pretense of +not having seen or heard, with their stammering exchange of unaccustomed +formalities, with their false show of a light-hearted exit I must take leave of +my Bohemian party. Mary has robbed me of my climax; and she may go. +</p> + +<p> +But I am not defeated. Somewhere there exists a great vault miles broad and +miles long—more capacious than the champagne caves of France. In that +vault are stored the anticlimaxes that should have been tagged to all the +stories that have been told in the world. I shall cheat that vault of one +deposit. +</p> + +<p> +Minnie Brown, with her aunt, came from Crocusville down to the city to see the +sights. And because she had escorted me to fishless trout streams and exhibited +to me open-plumbed waterfalls and broken my camera while I Julyed in her +village, I must escort her to the hives containing the synthetic clover honey +of town. +</p> + +<p> +Especially did the custom-made Bohemia charm her. The spaghetti wound its +tendrils about her heart; the free red wine drowned her belief in the existence +of commercialism in the world; she was dared and enchanted by the rugose wit +that can be churned out of California claret. +</p> + +<p> +But one evening I got her away from the smell of halibut and linoleum long +enough to read to her the manuscript of this story, which then ended before her +entrance into it. I read it to her because I knew that all the printing-presses +in the world were running to try to please her and some others. And I asked her +about it. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t quite catch the trains,” said she. “How long +was Mary in Crocusville?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten hours and five minutes,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, the story may do,” said Minnie. “But if she had +stayed there a week Kappelman would have got his kiss.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c23" id="c23"></a>THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT</h2> + +<p> +At the street corner, as solid as granite in the “rush-hour” tide +of humanity, stood the Man from Nome. The Arctic winds and sun had stained him +berry-brown. His eye still held the azure glint of the glaciers. +</p> + +<p> +He was as alert as a fox, as tough as a caribou cutlet and as broad-gauged as +the aurora borealis. He stood sprayed by a Niagara of sound—the crash of +the elevated trains, clanging cars, pounding of rubberless tires and the +antiphony of the cab and truck-drivers indulging in scarifying repartee. And +so, with his gold dust cashed in to the merry air of a hundred thousand, and +with the cakes and ale of one week in Gotham turning bitter on his tongue, the +Man from Nome sighed to set foot again in Chilkoot, the exit from the land of +street noises and Dead Sea apple pies. +</p> + +<p> +Up Sixth avenue, with the tripping, scurrying, chattering, bright-eyed, homing +tide came the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s. The Man from Nome looked and saw, +first, that she was supremely beautiful after his own conception of beauty; and +next, that she moved with exactly the steady grace of a dog sled on a level +crust of snow. His third sensation was an instantaneous conviction that he +desired her greatly for his own. This quickly do men from Nome make up their +minds. Besides, he was going back to the North in a short time, and to act +quickly was no less necessary. +</p> + +<p> +A thousand girls from the great department store of Sieber-Mason flowed along +the sidewalk, making navigation dangerous to men whose feminine field of vision +for three years has been chiefly limited to Siwash and Chilkat squaws. But the +Man from Nome, loyal to her who had resurrected his long cached heart, plunged +into the stream of pulchritude and followed her. +</p> + +<p> +Down Twenty-third street she glided swiftly, looking to neither side; no more +flirtatious than the bronze Diana above the Garden. Her fine brown hair was +neatly braided; her neat waist and unwrinkled black skirt were eloquent of the +double virtues—taste and economy. Ten yards behind followed the smitten +Man from Nome. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Claribel Colby, the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s, belonged to that sad +company of mariners known as Jersey commuters. She walked into the waiting-room +of the ferry, and up the stairs, and by a marvellous swift, little run, caught +the ferry-boat that was just going out. The Man from Nome closed up his ten +yards in three jumps and gained the deck close beside her. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Colby chose a rather lonely seat on the outside of the upper-cabin. The +night was not cold, and she desired to be away from the curious eyes and +tedious voices of the passengers. Besides, she was extremely weary and drooping +from lack of sleep. On the previous night she had graced the annual ball and +oyster fry of the West Side Wholesale Fish Dealers’ Assistants’ +Social Club No. 2, thus reducing her usual time of sleep to only three hours. +</p> + +<p> +And the day had been uncommonly troublous. Customers had been inordinately +trying; the buyer in her department had scolded her roundly for letting her +stock run down; her best friend, Mamie Tuthill, had snubbed her by going to +lunch with that Dockery girl. +</p> + +<p> +The Girl from Sieber-Mason’s was in that relaxed, softened mood that +often comes to the independent feminine wage-earner. It is a mood most +propitious for the man who would woo her. Then she has yearnings to be set in +some home and heart; to be comforted, and to hide behind some strong arm and +rest, rest. But Miss Claribel Colby was also very sleepy. +</p> + +<p> +There came to her side a strong man, browned and dressed carelessly in the best +of clothes, with his hat in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Lady,” said the Man from Nome, respectfully, “excuse me for +speaking to you, but I—I—I saw you on the street, +and—and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, gee!” remarked the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s, glancing up +with the most capable coolness. “Ain’t there any way to ever get +rid of you mashers? I’ve tried everything from eating onions to using +hatpins. Be on your way, Freddie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not one of that kind, lady,” said the Man from +Nome—“honest, I’m not. As I say, I saw you on the street, and +I wanted to know you so bad I couldn’t help followin’ after you. I +was afraid I wouldn’t ever see you again in this big town unless I spoke; +and that’s why I done so.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Colby looked once shrewdly at him in the dim light on the ferry-boat. No; +he did not have the perfidious smirk or the brazen swagger of the lady-killer. +Sincerity and modesty shone through his boreal tan. It seemed to her that it +might be good to hear a little of what he had to say. +</p> + +<p> +“You may sit down,” she said, laying her hand over a yawn with +ostentatious politness; “and—mind—don’t get fresh or +I’ll call the steward.” +</p> + +<p> +The Man from Nome sat by her side. He admired her greatly. He more than admired +her. She had exactly the looks he had tried so long in vain to find in a woman. +Could she ever come to like him? Well, that was to be seen. He must do all in +his power to stake his claim, anyhow. +</p> + +<p> +“My name’s Blayden,” said he—“Henry +Blayden.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you real sure it ain’t Jones?” asked the girl, leaning +toward him, with delicious, knowing raillery. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m down from Nome,” he went on with anxious seriousness. +“I scraped together a pretty good lot of dust up there, and brought it +down with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, say!” she rippled, pursuing persiflage with engaging +lightness, “then you must be on the White Wings force. I thought +I’d seen you somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t see me on the street to-day when I saw you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never look at fellows on the street.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I looked at you; and I never looked at anything before that I +thought was half as pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I keep the change?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I reckon so. I reckon you could keep anything I’ve got. I +reckon I’m what you would call a rough man, but I could be awful good to +anybody I liked. I’ve had a rough time of it up yonder, but I beat the +game. Nearly 5,000 ounces of dust was what I cleaned up while I was +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” exclaimed Miss Colby, obligingly sympathetic. “It +must be an awful dirty place, wherever it is.” +</p> + +<p> +And then her eyes closed. The voice of the Man from Nome had a monotony in its +very earnestness. Besides, what dull talk was this of brooms and sweeping and +dust? She leaned her head back against the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss,” said the Man from Nome, with deeper earnestness and +monotony, “I never saw anybody I liked as well as I do you. I know you +can’t think that way of me right yet; but can’t you give me a +chance? Won’t you let me know you, and see if I can’t make you like +me?” +</p> + +<p> +The head of the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s slid over gently and rested upon +his shoulder. Sweet sleep had won her, and she was dreaming rapturously of the +Wholesale Fish Dealers’ Assistants’ ball. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman from Nome kept his arms to himself. He did not suspect sleep, and +yet he was too wise to attribute the movement to surrender. He was greatly and +blissfully thrilled, but he ended by regarding the head upon his shoulder as an +encouraging preliminary, merely advanced as a harbinger of his success, and not +to be taken advantage of. +</p> + +<p> +One small speck of alloy discounted the gold of his satisfaction. Had he spoken +too freely of his wealth? He wanted to be liked for himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to say, Miss,” he said, “that you can count on me. +They know me in the Klondike from Juneau to Circle City and down the whole +length of the Yukon. Many a night I’ve laid in the snow up there where I +worked like a slave for three years, and wondered if I’d ever have +anybody to like me. I didn’t want all that dust just myself. I thought +I’d meet just the right one some time, and I done it to-day. +Money’s a mighty good thing to have, but to have the love of the one you +like best is better still. If you was ever to marry a man, Miss, which would +you rather he’d have?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cash!” +</p> + +<p> +The word came sharply and loudly from Miss Colby’s lips, giving evidence +that in her dreams she was now behind her counter in the great department store +of Sieber-Mason. +</p> + +<p> +Her head suddenly bobbed over sideways. She awoke, sat straight, and rubbed her +eyes. The Man from Nome was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! I believe I’ve been asleep,” said Miss Colby. +“Wonder what became of the White Wings!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c24" id="c24"></a>THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER</h2> + +<p> +Money talks. But you may think that the conversation of a little old ten-dollar +bill in New York would be nothing more than a whisper. Oh, very well! Pass up +this <i>sotto voce</i> autobiography of an X if you like. If you are one of the +kind that prefers to listen to John D’s checkbook roar at you through a +megaphone as it passes by, all right. But don’t forget that small change +can say a word to the point now and then. The next time you tip your +grocer’s clerk a silver quarter to give you extra weight of his +boss’s goods read the four words above the lady’s head. How are +they for repartee? +</p> + +<p> +I am a ten-dollar Treasury note, series of 1901. You may have seen one in a +friend’s hand. On my face, in the centre, is a picture of the bison +Americanus, miscalled a buffalo by fifty or sixty millions of Americans. The +heads of Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clark adorn the ends. On my back is the graceful +figure of Liberty or Ceres or Maxine Elliot standing in the centre of the stage +on a conservatory plant. My references is—or are—Section 3,588, +Revised Statutes. Ten cold, hard dollars—I don’t say whether +silver, gold, lead or iron—Uncle Sam will hand you over his counter if +you want to cash me in. +</p> + +<p> +I beg you will excuse any conversational breaks that I make—thanks, I +knew you would—got that sneaking little respect and agreeable feeling +toward even an X, haven’t you? You see, a tainted bill doesn’t have +much chance to acquire a correct form of expression. I never knew a really +cultured and educated person that could afford to hold a ten-spot any longer +than it would take to do an Arthur Duffy to the nearest That’s All! sign +or delicatessen store. +</p> + +<p> +For a six-year-old, I’ve had a lively and gorgeous circulation. I guess +I’ve paid as many debts as the man who dies. I’ve been owned by a +good many kinds of people. But a little old ragged, damp, dingy five-dollar +silver certificate gave me a jar one day. I was next to it in the fat and +bad-smelling purse of a butcher. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey, you Sitting Bull,” says I, “don’t scrouge so. +Anyhow, don’t you think it’s about time you went in on a customs +payment and got reissued? For a series of 1899 you’re a sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t get crackly just because you’re a Buffalo +bill,” says the fiver. “You’d be limp, too, if you’d +been stuffed down in a thick cotton-and-lisle-thread under an elastic all day, +and the thermometer not a degree under 85 in the store.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never heard of a pocketbook like that,” says I. “Who +carried you?” +</p> + +<p> +“A shopgirl,” says the five-spot. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” I had to ask. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll never know till their millennium comes,” says the +fiver. +</p> + +<p> +Just then a two-dollar bill behind me with a George Washington head, spoke up +to the fiver: +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, cut out yer kicks. Ain’t lisle thread good enough for yer? If +you was under all cotton like I’ve been to-day, and choked up with +factory dust till the lady with the cornucopia on me sneezed half a dozen +times, you’d have some reason to complain.” +</p> + +<p> +That was the next day after I arrived in New York. I came in a $500 package of +tens to a Brooklyn bank from one of its Pennsylvania correspondents—and I +haven’t made the acquaintance of any of the five and two spot’s +friends’ pocketbooks yet. Silk for mine, every time. +</p> + +<p> +I was lucky money. I kept on the move. Sometimes I changed hands twenty times a +day. I saw the inside of every business; I fought for my owner’s every +pleasure. It seemed that on Saturday nights I never missed being slapped down +on a bar. Tens were always slapped down, while ones and twos were slid over to +the bartenders folded. I got in the habit of looking for mine, and I managed to +soak in a little straight or some spilled Martini or Manhattan whenever I +could. Once I got tied up in a great greasy roll of bills in a pushcart +peddler’s jeans. I thought I never would get in circulation again, for +the future department store owner lived on eight cents’ worth of dog meat +and onions a day. But this peddler got into trouble one day on account of +having his cart too near a crossing, and I was rescued. I always will feel +grateful to the cop that got me. He changed me at a cigar store near the Bowery +that was running a crap game in the back room. So it was the Captain of the +precinct, after all, that did me the best turn, when he got his. He blew me for +wine the next evening in a Broadway restaurant; and I really felt as glad to +get back again as an Astor does when he sees the lights of Charing Cross. +</p> + +<p> +A tainted ten certainly does get action on Broadway. I was alimony once, and +got folded in a little dogskin purse among a lot of dimes. They were bragging +about the busy times there were in Ossining whenever three girls got hold of +one of them during the ice cream season. But it’s Slow Moving Vehicles +Keep to the Right for the little Bok tips when you think of the way we bison +plasters refuse to stick to anything during the rush lobster hour. +</p> + +<p> +The first I ever heard of tainted money was one night when a good thing with a +Van to his name threw me over with some other bills to buy a stack of blues. +</p> + +<p> +About midnight a big, easy-going man with a fat face like a monk’s and +the eye of a janitor with his wages raised took me and a lot of other notes and +rolled us into what is termed a “wad” among the money tainters. +</p> + +<p> +“Ticket me for five hundred,” said he to the banker, “and +look out for everything, Charlie. I’m going out for a stroll in the glen +before the moonlight fades from the brow of the cliff. If anybody finds the +roof in their way there’s $60,000 wrapped in a comic supplement in the +upper left-hand corner of the safe. Be bold; everywhere be bold, but be not +bowled over. ’Night.” +</p> + +<p> +I found myself between two $20 gold certificates. One of ’em says to me: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, old shorthorn, you’re in luck to-night. You’ll see +something of life. Old Jack’s going to make the Tenderloin look like a +hamburg steak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Explain,” says I. “I’m used to joints, but I +don’t care for filet mignon with the kind of sauce you serve.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Xcuse me,” said the twenty. “Old Jack is the +proprietor of this gambling house. He’s going on a whiz to-night because +he offered $50,000 to a church and it refused to accept it because they said +his money was tainted.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is a church?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I forgot,” says the twenty, “that I was talking to a +tenner. Of course you don’t know. You’re too much to put into the +contribution basket, and not enough to buy anything at a bazaar. A church +is—a large building in which penwipers and tidies are sold at $20 +each.” +</p> + +<p> +I don’t care much about chinning with gold certificates. There’s a +streak of yellow in ’em. All is not gold that’s quitters. +</p> + +<p> +Old Jack certainly was a gild-edged sport. When it came his time to loosen up +he never referred the waiter to an actuary. +</p> + +<p> +By and by it got around that he was smiting the rock in the wilderness; and all +along Broadway things with cold noses and hot gullets fell in on our trail. The +third Jungle Book was there waiting for somebody to put covers on it. Old +Jack’s money may have had a taint to it, but all the same he had orders +for his Camembert piling up on him every minute. First his friends rallied +round him; and then the fellows that his friends knew by sight; and then a few +of his enemies buried the hatchet; and finally he was buying souvenirs for so +many Neapolitan fisher maidens and butterfly octettes that the head waiters +were ’phoning all over town for Julian Mitchell to please come around and +get them into some kind of order. +</p> + +<p> +At last we floated into an uptown café that I knew by heart. When the +hod-carriers’ union in jackets and aprons saw us coming the chief goal +kicker called out: +“Six—eleven—forty-two—nineteen—twelve” to +his men, and they put on nose guards till it was clear whether we meant Port +Arthur or Portsmouth. But Old Jack wasn’t working for the furniture and +glass factories that night. He sat down quiet and sang “Ramble” in +a half-hearted way. His feelings had been hurt, so the twenty told me, because +his offer to the church had been refused. +</p> + +<p> +But the wassail went on; and Brady himself couldn’t have hammered the +thirst mob into a better imitation of the real penchant for the stuff that you +screw out of a bottle with a napkin. +</p> + +<p> +Old Jack paid the twenty above me for a round, leaving me on the outside of his +roll. He laid the roll on the table and sent for the proprietor. +</p> + +<p> +“Mike,” says he, “here’s money that the good people +have refused. Will it buy of your wares in the name of the devil? They say +it’s tainted.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will,” says Mike, “and I’ll put it in the drawer +next to the bills that was paid to the parson’s daughter for kisses at +the church fair to build a new parsonage for the parson’s daughter to +live in.” +</p> + +<p> +At 1 o’clock when the hod-carriers were making ready to close up the +front and keep the inside open, a woman slips in the door of the restaurant and +comes up to Old Jack’s table. You’ve seen the kind—black +shawl, creepy hair, ragged skirt, white face, eyes a cross between +Gabriel’s and a sick kitten’s—the kind of woman that’s +always on the lookout for an automobile or the mendicancy squad—and she +stands there without a word and looks at the money. +</p> + +<p> +Old Jack gets up, peels me off the roll and hands me to her with a bow. +</p> + +<p> +“Madam,” says he, just like actors I’ve heard, “here is +a tainted bill. I am a gambler. This bill came to me to-night from a +gentleman’s son. Where he got it I do not know. If you will do me the +favor to accept it, it is yours.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman took me with a trembling hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said she, “I counted thousands of this issue of bills +into packages when they were virgin from the presses. I was a clerk in the +Treasury Department. There was an official to whom I owed my position. You say +they are tainted now. If you only knew—but I won’t say any more. +Thank you with all my heart, sir—thank you—thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +Where do you suppose that woman carried me almost at a run? To a bakery. Away +from Old Jack and a sizzling good time to a bakery. And I get changed, and she +does a Sheridan-twenty-miles-away with a dozen rolls and a section of jelly +cake as big as a turbine water-wheel. Of course I lost sight of her then, for I +was snowed up in the bakery, wondering whether I’d get changed at the +drug store the next day in an alum deal or paid over to the cement works. +</p> + +<p> +A week afterward I butted up against one of the one-dollar bills the baker had +given the woman for change. +</p> + +<p> +“Hallo, E35039669,” says I, “weren’t you in the change +for me in a bakery last Saturday night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yep,” says the solitaire in his free and easy style. +</p> + +<p> +“How did the deal turn out?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“She blew E17051431 for milk and round steak,” says the one-spot. +“She kept me till the rent man came. It was a bum room with a sick kid in +it. But you ought to have seen him go for the bread and tincture of +formaldehyde. Half-starved, I guess. Then she prayed some. Don’t get +stuck up, tenner. We one-spots hear ten prayers, where you hear one. She said +something about ‘who giveth to the poor.’ Oh, let’s cut out +the slum talk. I’m certainly tired of the company that keeps me. I wish I +was big enough to move in society with you tainted bills.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up,” says I; “there’s no such thing. I know the +rest of it. There’s a ‘lendeth to the Lord’ somewhere in it. +Now look on my back and read what you see there.” +</p> + +<p> +“This note is a legal tender at its face value for all debts public and +private.” +</p> + +<p> +“This talk about tainted money makes me tired,” says I. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="c25" id="c25"></a>ELSIE IN NEW YORK</h2> + +<p> +No, bumptious reader, this story is not a continuation of the Elsie series. But +if your Elsie had lived over here in our big city there might have been a +chapter in her books not very different from this. +</p> + +<p> +Especially for the vagrant feet of youth are the roads of Manhattan beset +“with pitfall and with gin.” But the civic guardians of the young +have made themselves acquainted with the snares of the wicked, and most of the +dangerous paths are patrolled by their agents, who seek to turn straying ones +away from the peril that menaces them. And this will tell you how they guided +my Elsie safely through all peril to the goal that she was seeking. +</p> + +<p> +Elsie’s father had been a cutter for Fox & Otter, cloaks and furs, on +lower Broadway. He was an old man, with a slow and limping gait, so a +pot-hunter of a newly licensed chauffeur ran him down one day when livelier +game was scarce. They took the old man home, where he lay on his bed for a year +and then died, leaving $2.50 in cash and a letter from Mr. Otter offering to do +anything he could to help his faithful old employee. The old cutter regarded +this letter as a valuable legacy to his daughter, and he put it into her hands +with pride as the shears of the dread Cleaner and Repairer snipped off his +thread of life. +</p> + +<p> +That was the landlord’s cue; and forth he came and did his part in the +great eviction scene. There was no snowstorm ready for Elsie to steal out into, +drawing her little red woollen shawl about her shoulders, but she went out, +regardless of the unities. And as for the red shawl—back to Blaney with +it! Elsie’s fall tan coat was cheap, but it had the style and fit of the +best at Fox & Otter’s. And her lucky stars had given her good looks, +and eyes as blue and innocent as the new shade of note paper, and she had $1 +left of the $2.50. And the letter from Mr. Otter. Keep your eye on the letter +from Mr. Otter. That is the clue. I desire that everything be made plain as we +go. Detective stories are so plentiful now that they do not sell. +</p> + +<p> +And so we find Elsie, thus equipped, starting out in the world to seek her +fortune. One trouble about the letter from Mr. Otter was that it did not bear +the new address of the firm, which had moved about a month before. But Elsie +thought she could find it. She had heard that policemen, when politely +addressed, or thumbscrewed by an investigation committee, will give up +information and addresses. So she boarded a downtown car at One Hundred and +Seventy-seventh street and rode south to Forty-second, which she thought must +surely be the end of the island. There she stood against the wall undecided, +for the city’s roar and dash was new to her. Up where she had lived was +rural New York, so far out that the milkmen awaken you in the morning by the +squeaking of pumps instead of the rattling of cans. +</p> + +<p> +A kind-faced, sunburned young man in a soft-brimmed hat went past Elsie into +the Grand Central Depot. That was Hank Ross, of the Sunflower Ranch, in Idaho, +on his way home from a visit to the East. Hank’s heart was heavy, for the +Sunflower Ranch was a lonesome place, lacking the presence of a woman. He had +hoped to find one during his visit who would congenially share his prosperity +and home, but the girls of Gotham had not pleased his fancy. But, as he passed +in, he noted, with a jumping of his pulses, the sweet, ingenuous face of Elsie +and her pose of doubt and loneliness. With true and honest Western impulse he +said to himself that here was his mate. He could love her, he knew; and he +would surround her with so much comfort, and cherish her so carefully that she +would be happy, and make two sunflowers grow on the ranch where there grew but +one before. +</p> + +<p> +Hank turned and went back to her. Backed by his never before questioned honesty +of purpose, he approached the girl and removed his soft-brimmed hat. Elsie had +but time to sum up his handsome frank face with one shy look of modest +admiration when a burly cop hurled himself upon the ranchman, seized him by the +collar and backed him against the wall. Two blocks away a burglar was coming +out of an apartment-house with a bag of silverware on his shoulder; but that is +neither here nor there. +</p> + +<p> +“Carry on yez mashin’ tricks right before me eyes, will yez?” +shouted the cop. “I’ll teach yez to speak to ladies on me beat that +ye’re not acquainted with. Come along.” +</p> + +<p> +Elsie turned away with a sigh as the ranchman was dragged away. She had liked +the effect of his light blue eyes against his tanned complexion. She walked +southward, thinking herself already in the district where her father used to +work, and hoping to find some one who could direct her to the firm of Fox & +Otter. +</p> + +<p> +But did she want to find Mr. Otter? She had inherited much of the old +cutter’s independence. How much better it would be if she could find work +and support herself without calling on him for aid! +</p> + +<p> +Elsie saw a sign “Employment Agency” and went in. Many girls were +sitting against the wall in chairs. Several well-dressed ladies were looking +them over. One white-haired, kind-faced old lady in rustling black silk hurried +up to Elsie. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear,” she said in a sweet, gentle voice, “are you +looking for a position? I like your face and appearance so much. I want a young +woman who will be half maid and half companion to me. You will have a good home +and I will pay you $30 a month.” +</p> + +<p> +Before Elsie could stammer forth her gratified acceptance, a young woman with +gold glasses on her bony nose and her hands in her jacket pockets seized her +arm and drew her aside. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Miss Ticklebaum,” said she, “of the Association for the +Prevention of Jobs Being Put Up on Working Girls Looking for Jobs. We prevented +forty-seven girls from securing positions last week. I am here to protect you. +Beware of any one who offers you a job. How do you know that this woman does +not want to make you work as a breaker-boy in a coal mine or murder you to get +your teeth? If you accept work of any kind without permission of our +association you will be arrested by one of our agents.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what am I to do?” asked Elsie. “I have no home or money. +I must do something. Why am I not allowed to accept this kind lady’s +offer?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know,” said Miss Ticklebaum. “That is the affair of +our Committee on the Abolishment of Employers. It is my duty simply to see that +you do not get work. You will give me your name and address and report to our +secretary every Thursday. We have 600 girls on the waiting list who will in +time be allowed to accept positions as vacancies occur on our roll of Qualified +Employers, which now comprises twenty-seven names. There is prayer, music and +lemonade in our chapel the third Sunday of every month.” +</p> + +<p> +Elsie hurried away after thanking Miss Ticklebaum for her timely warning and +advice. After all, it seemed that she must try to find Mr. Otter. +</p> + +<p> +But after walking a few blocks she saw a sign, “Cashier wanted,” in +the window of a confectionery store. In she went and applied for the place, +after casting a quick glance over her shoulder to assure herself that the +job-preventer was not on her trail. +</p> + +<p> +The proprietor of the confectionery was a benevolent old man with a peppermint +flavor, who decided, after questioning Elsie pretty closely, that she was the +very girl he wanted. Her services were needed at once, so Elsie, with a +thankful heart, drew off her tan coat and prepared to mount the cashier’s +stool. +</p> + +<p> +But before she could do so a gaunt lady wearing steel spectacles and black +mittens stood before her, with a long finger pointing, and exclaimed: +“Young woman, hesitate!” +</p> + +<p> +Elsie hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” said the black-and-steel lady, “that in +accepting this position you may this day cause the loss of a hundred lives in +agonizing physical torture and the sending as many souls to perdition?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” said Elsie, in frightened tones. “How could I do +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rum,” said the lady—“the demon rum. Do you know why so +many lives are lost when a theatre catches fire? Brandy balls. The demon rum +lurking in brandy balls. Our society women while in theatres sit grossly +intoxicated from eating these candies filled with brandy. When the fire fiend +sweeps down upon them they are unable to escape. The candy stores are the +devil’s distilleries. If you assist in the distribution of these +insidious confections you assist in the destruction of the bodies and souls of +your fellow-beings, and in the filling of our jails, asylums and almshouses. +Think, girl, ere you touch the money for which brandy balls are sold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me,” said Elsie, bewildered. “I didn’t know there +was rum in brandy balls. But I must live by some means. What shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Decline the position,” said the lady, “and come with me. I +will tell you what to do.” +</p> + +<p> +After Elsie had told the confectioner that she had changed her mind about the +cashiership she put on her coat and followed the lady to the sidewalk, where +awaited an elegant victoria. +</p> + +<p> +“Seek some other work,” said the black-and-steel lady, “and +assist in crushing the hydra-headed demon rum.” And she got into the +victoria and drove away. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess that puts it up to Mr. Otter again,” said Elsie, ruefully, +turning down the street. “And I’m sorry, too, for I’d much +rather make my way without help.” +</p> + +<p> +Near Fourteenth street Elsie saw a placard tacked on the side of a doorway that +read: “Fifty girls, neat sewers, wanted immediately on theatrical +costumes. Good pay.” +</p> + +<p> +She was about to enter, when a solemn man, dressed all in black, laid his hand +on her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear girl,” he said, “I entreat you not to enter that +dressing-room of the devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness me!” exclaimed Elsie, with some impatience. “The +devil seems to have a cinch on all the business in New York. What’s wrong +about the place?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is here,” said the solemn man, “that the regalia of +Satan—in other words, the costumes worn on the stage—are +manufactured. The stage is the road to ruin and destruction. Would you imperil +your soul by lending the work of your hands to its support? Do you know, my +dear girl, what the theatre leads to? Do you know where actors and actresses go +after the curtain of the playhouse has fallen upon them for the last +time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said Elsie. “Into vaudeville. But do you think it +would be wicked for me to make a little money to live on by sewing? I must get +something to do pretty soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“The flesh-pots of Egypt,” exclaimed the reverend gentleman, +uplifting his hands. “I beseech you, my child, to turn away from this +place of sin and iniquity.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what will I do for a living?” asked Elsie. “I +don’t care to sew for this musical comedy, if it’s as rank as you +say it is; but I’ve got to have a job.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lord will provide,” said the solemn man. “There is a +free Bible class every Sunday afternoon in the basement of the cigar store next +to the church. Peace be with you. Amen. Farewell.” +</p> + +<p> +Elsie went on her way. She was soon in the downtown district where factories +abound. On a large brick building was a gilt sign, “Posey & Trimmer, +Artificial Flowers.” Below it was hung a newly stretched canvas bearing +the words, “Five hundred girls wanted to learn trade. Good wages from the +start. Apply one flight up.” +</p> + +<p> +Elsie started toward the door, near which were gathered in groups some twenty +or thirty girls. One big girl with a black straw hat tipped down over her eyes +stepped in front of her. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you’se,” said the girl, “are you’se +goin’ in there after a job?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Elsie; “I must have work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t do it,” said the girl. “I’m chairman +of our Scab Committee. There’s 400 of us girls locked out just because we +demanded 50 cents a week raise in wages, and ice water, and for the foreman to +shave off his mustache. You’re too nice a looking girl to be a scab. +Wouldn’t you please help us along by trying to find a job somewhere else, +or would you’se rather have your face pushed in?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try somewhere else,” said Elsie. +</p> + +<p> +She walked aimlessly eastward on Broadway, and there her heart leaped to see +the sign, “Fox & Otter,” stretching entirely across the front +of a tall building. It was as though an unseen guide had led her to it through +the by-ways of her fruitless search for work. +</p> + +<p> +She hurried into the store and sent in to Mr. Otter by a clerk her name and the +letter he had written her father. She was shown directly into his private +office. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Otter arose from his desk as Elsie entered and took both hands with a +hearty smile of welcome. He was a slightly corpulent man of nearly middle age, +a little bald, gold spectacled, polite, well dressed, radiating. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, and so this is Beatty’s little daughter! Your father +was one of our most efficient and valued employees. He left nothing? Well, +well. I hope we have not forgotten his faithful services. I am sure there is a +vacancy now among our models. Oh, it is easy work—nothing easier.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Otter struck a bell. A long-nosed clerk thrust a portion of himself inside +the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Send Miss Hawkins in,” said Mr. Otter. Miss Hawkins came. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Hawkins,” said Mr. Otter, “bring for Miss Beatty to try +on one of those Russian sable coats and—let’s see—one of +those latest model black tulle hats with white tips.” +</p> + +<p> +Elsie stood before the full-length mirror with pink cheeks and quick breath. +Her eyes shone like faint stars. She was beautiful. Alas! she was beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +I wish I could stop this story here. Confound it! I will. No; it’s got to +run it out. I didn’t make it up. I’m just repeating it. +</p> + +<p> +I’d like to throw bouquets at the wise cop, and the lady who rescues +Girls from Jobs, and the prohibitionist who is trying to crush brandy balls, +and the sky pilot who objects to costumes for stage people (there are others), +and all the thousands of good people who are at work protecting young people +from the pitfalls of a great city; and then wind up by pointing out how they +were the means of Elsie reaching her father’s benefactor and her kind +friend and rescuer from poverty. This would make a fine Elsie story of the old +sort. I’d like to do this; but there’s just a word or two to +follow. +</p> + +<p> +While Elsie was admiring herself in the mirror, Mr. Otter went to the telephone +booth and called up some number. Don’t ask me what it was. +</p> + +<p> +“Oscar,” said he, “I want you to reserve the same table for +me this evening. … What? Why, the one in the Moorish room to the left of the +shrubbery. … Yes; two. … Yes, the usual brand; and the ’85 Johannisburger +with the roast. If it isn’t the right temperature I’ll break your +neck. … No; not her … No, indeed … A new one—a peacherino, Oscar, a +peacherino!” +</p> + +<p> +Tired and tiresome reader, I will conclude, if you please, with a paraphrase of +a few words that you will remember were written by him—by him of +Gad’s Hill, before whom, if you doff not your hat, you shall stand with a +covered pumpkin—aye, sir, a pumpkin. +</p> + +<p> +Lost, Your Excellency. Lost, Associations and Societies. Lost, Right Reverends +and Wrong Reverends of every order. Lost, Reformers and Lawmakers, born with +heavenly compassion in your hearts, but with the reverence of money in your +souls. And lost thus around us every day. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIMMED LAMP ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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