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diff --git a/old/tlamp10.txt b/old/tlamp10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6fe44d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tlamp10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7239 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Trimmed Lamp, et al by O Henry +#12 in our series by O Henry + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Greg Weeks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE TRIMMED LAMP + +AND OTHER STORIES OF + +THE FOUR MILLION + +By + +O HENRY + + + + +CONTENTS + +THE TRIMMED LAMP +A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT +THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL +THE PENDULUM +TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN +THE ASSESSOR OF SUCCESS +THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY +THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O'ROON +BRICKDUST ROW +THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER +VANITY AND SOME SABLES +THE SOCIAL TRIANGLE +THE PURPLE DRESS +THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99 +THE LOST BLEND +A HARLEM TRAGEDY +"THE GUILTY PARTY"--AN EAST SIDE TRAGEDY +ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS +A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT'S DREAM +THE LAST LEAF +THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST +THE COUNTRY OF ELUSION +THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT +THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER +ELSIE IN NEW YORK + + + + +THE TRIMMED LAMP + + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 $l8.50 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." + +"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?" + +"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 any 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"My friend, Mr. Owens--shake hands with Miss Danforth," said Lou. + +"I'm mighty glad to know you, Miss Danforth," said Dan, with +outstretched hand. "I've heard Lou speak of you so often." + +"Thanks," said Nancy, touching his fingers with the tips of her cool +ones, "I've heard her mention you--a few times." + +Lou giggled. + +"Did you get that handshake from Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, Nance?" +she asked. + +"If I did, you can feel safe in copying it," said Nancy. + +"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." + +"Learn it first," said Nancy wisely, "and you'll be more likely to +get the rings." + +"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 rickets. How about looking at stage +diamonds since we can't shake hands with the real sparklers?" + +The faithful squire tools 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 straigh-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 noblesse oblige to her very bones. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +Thus Nancy learned the art of defense; and to women successful +defense means victory. + +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. + +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. + +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 role 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. + +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: + +"What's wrong, Nance, that you didn't warm up to that fellow. He +looks the swell article, all right, to me." + +"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." + +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 cafe 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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +The brown pompadour came nearer and narrowed her eyes. + +"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?" + +Nancy flushed a little under the level gaze of the black, shallow +eyes. + +"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." + +"The physiopathic ward for yours!" said the brown pompadour, walking +away. + +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. + +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. + +When the day's work was over Dan awaited her outside, her faithful +shadow in whatever light she stood. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Caught your millionaire yet?" asked Lou with her teasing laugh. + +"I haven't selected one yet," answered Nancy. "I've been looking +them over." + +"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." + +"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." + +"If one was to speak to me," laughed Lou, "I know I'd have a duck- +fit." + +"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?" + +Lou looked at the plain, dull olive jacket of her friend. + +"Well, no I don't--but it may seem so beside that faded-looking +thing you've got on." + +"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." + +"Oh, well," said Lou lightly, "it don't strike me as millionaire +bait. Shouldn't wonder if I catch one before you do, anyway." + +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. + +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 he birthright and the pottage she earns is often very +scant. + +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. + +Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom +when he should come. + +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. + +So, Nancy wondered sometimes if Persian lamb was always quoted at +its market value by the hearts that it covered. + +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. + +Dan was just coming out of the laundry when she arrived. There was a +queer, strained look on his face. + +"I thought I would drop around to see if they had heard from her," +he said. + +"Heard from who?" asked Nancy. "Isn't Lou there?" + +"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." + +"Hasn't anybody seen her anywhere?" asked Nancy. + +Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly, and a steely gleam in +his steady gray eyes. + +"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." + +For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand +that trembled slightly on Dan's sleeve. + +"You've no right to say such a thing to me, Dan--as if I had +anything to do with it!" + +"I didn't mean it that way," said Dan, softening. He fumbled in his +vest pocket. + +"I've got the tickets for the show to-night," he said, with a +gallant show of lightness. "If you--" + +Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it. + +"I'll go with you, Dan," she said. + +Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity +lead 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. + +"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!" + +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. + + + + +A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Phillips appeared. He never entered; he invariably appeared, like a +well-oiled genie. + +"Will you dine here, sir, or out?" he asked. + +"Here," said Chalmers, "and in half an hour." He listened glumly to +the January blasts making an Aeolian trombone of the empty street. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"By the time dinner is served," said Chalmers, "have one of those +men here. He will dine with me." + +"W-w-which--," began Phillips, stammering for the first time during +his service. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"If you will oblige me," said the host, "I will be glad to have your +company at dinner." + +"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." + +"I was going on to say," continued Chalmers somewhat hastily, "that +mine is Chalmers. Will you sit opposite?" + +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. + +"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?" + +"The situation does not seem a novel one to you," said Chalmers with +a smile. + +"By the chin whiskers of the prophet--no!" answered the guest. "Now +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." + +"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." + +"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." + +An hour later the Arabian guest lay back with a sigh of satisfaction +while Phillips brought the coffee and cigars and cleared the table. + +"Did you ever hear of Sherrard Plumer?" he asked, with a strange +smile. + +"I remember the name," said Chalmers. "He was a painter, I think, of +a good deal of prominence a few years ago." + +"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." + +"What was the trouble?" Chalmers could not resist asking. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +Chalmers went as far as the door with him and slipped some bills +into his hand. + +"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!" + +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. + +"There is a young artist in this building," he said. "--a Mr. +Reineman--do you know which is his apartment?" + +"Top floor, front, sir," said Phillips. + +"Go up and ask him to favor me with his presence here for a few +minutes." + +Reineman came at once. Chalmers introduced himself. + +"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." + +The young artist advanced to the table and took up the sketch. +Chalmers half turned away, leaning upon the back of a chair. + +"How--do--you find it?" he asked, slowly. + +"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." + +"The face, man--the subject--the original--what would you say of +that?" + +"The face," said Reineman, "is the face of one of God's own angels. +May I ask who--" + +"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." + + + + +THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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! + +"A glass of seltzer," he said to the bartender. + +A little silence fell upon the group of his cronies, who had been +expecting him to join them. + +"Going off the stuff, Bob?" one of them asked politely and with more +formality than the highballs ever called forth. + +"Yes," said Babbitt. + +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. + +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. + +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. But those July days! + +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. + +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 a 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 +table d'hote. + +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. + +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 tables d'hote 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. + +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. + +In such wise life was speeding for them on the day when Bob Babbitt +first felt the power that the giftie gi'ed him. + +But let us get back to our lamb and mint sauce. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Jessie dropped lobster and knife and ran to him with frightened +eyes. + +"What's the matter, Bob, are you ill?" + +"Not at all, dear." + +"Then what's the matter with you?" + +"Nothing." + +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." + +Jessie went back to the lobster in silence. She cast looks of +darkest suspicion at Bob. He had never acted that way before. + +When dinner was on the table she set out the bottle of Scotch and +the glasses. Bob declined. + +"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." + +"You've stopped drinking?" she said, looking at him steadily and +unsmilingly. "What for?" + +"It wasn't doing me any good," said Bob. "Don't you approve of the +idea?" + +Jessie raised her eyebrows and one shoulder slightly. + +"Entirely," she said with a sculptured smile. "I could not +conscientiously advise any one to drink or smoke, or whistle on +Sunday." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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: + + "Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring + The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: + The Bird of Time has but a little way + To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing!" + +And then he walked to the table and poured a stiff drink of Scotch +into a glass. + +But in that moment a mountain breeze had somehow found its way in +and blown away the mist of the false Bohemia. + +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. + +"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.'" + +"I know that one," said Bob. "It goes:" + + "'Ah! Love, could you and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire + Would not we--'" + +"Let me finish it," said Jessie. + + "'Would not we shatter it to bits--and then + Remould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!'" + +"It's shattered all right," said Bob, crunching some glass under his +heel. + +In some dungeon below the accurate ear of Mrs. Pickens, the +landlady, located the smash. + +"It's that wild Mr. Babbitt coming home soused again," she said. +"And he's got such a nice little wife, too!" + + + + +THE PENDULUM + + +"Eighty-first street--let 'em out, please," yelled the shepherd in +blue. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"Now, where are you going, I'd like to know, John Perkins?" + +"Thought I'd drop up to McCloskey's," he would answer, "and play a +game or two of pool with the fellows." + +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. + +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." + +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: + +"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. +Hastily, KATY." + +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. + +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 butterscotch 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +John Perkins was not accustomed to analyzing his emotions. But as he +sat in his Katy-bereft 10x12 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? + +"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." + +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. + +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? + +The door opened. Katy walked in carrying a little hand satchel. John +stared at her stupidly. + +"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." + +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. + +John Perkins looked at the clock. It was 8.15. He reached for his +hat and walked to the door. + +"Now, where are you going, I'd like to know, John Perkins?" asked +Katy, in a querulous tone. + +"Thought I'd drop up to McCloskey's," said John, "and play a game or +two of pool with the fellows." + + + + +TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN + + +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. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +superbountiful 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. + +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. + +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. + +For the Old Gentleman was coming across Fourth avenue toward his +bench. + +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. + +The Old Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the +Institution that he was rearing. Truly, the annual feeling 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Thankee, sir. I'll go with ye, and much obliged. I'm very hungry, +sir." + +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. + +The Old Gentleman led his annual protege southward to the +restaurant, and to the table where the feast had always occurred. +They were recognized. + +"Here comes de old guy," said a waiter, "dat blows dat same bum to a +meal every Thanksgiving." + +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. + +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 aniphrisins had ever brought to it--and he had not the +heart to see it wane. + +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. + +They parted as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman +going south, Stuffy north. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + + + + +THE ASSESSOR OF SUCCESS + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +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 lie lingered, undecided. + +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. + +Morley stopped him with his winning smile and soft speech. + +"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." + +"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?" + +Morley entered the drug store leading the child by the hand. He +presented the prescription that had been wrapped around the money. + +On his face was a smile, predatory, parental, politic, profound. + +"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 H2O in the Croton reservoir, and +I always use the other ingredient on my potatoes." + +"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." + +"To gulls," said Morley, smilingly. + +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. + +"Look out for the cars, sonny," he said, cheerfully, to his small +victim. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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"-- + +"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." + +"If yez t'inks it's on de bum," said the waiter, "Oi'll"-- + +Morley lifted his hand in protest--slightly martyred protest. + +"It will do," he said, magnanimously. "And now, green Chartreuse, +frappe and a demi-tasse." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +The white plume tossed, and the quartet danced like midges around an +arc light down the frolicsome way. + +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!" + +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. + +"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." + +"I do not, sir," said Morley, half closing his eyes to veil the joy +in them. "You had better apply to the police." + +"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"-- + +"I told you I did not," said Morley, coldly. "I know no one by the +name of Smithers, and I advise you to"-- + +"Smothers not Smithers," interrupted the old man hopefully. "A +heavy-sot man, sandy complected, about twenty-nine, two front teeth +out, about five foot"-- + +"Oh, 'Smothers!'" exclaimed Morley. "Sol Smothers? Why, he lives in +the next house to me. I thought you said `Smithers.'" + +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. + +"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"-- + +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. + +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. + +"Kind sir," he whined, "if you could spare a dime or even a few +pennies to one who"-- + +Morley cut short his stereotyped appeal by throwing him a dollar. + +"God bless you!" said the old man. "I've been trying to find work +for"-- + +"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." + +"God has blessed you," said the old man. "It is only work that I +have known. And now I can get no more." + +"I must go home," said Morley, rising and buttoning his coat. "I +stopped here only for a smoke. I hope you may find work." + +"May your kindness be rewarded this night," said the old man. + +"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 goodnight to you." 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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"God! I wish I could die." + + + + +THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"John," he said, to his junior partner, "you shall go on this year +to buy the goods." + +Platt looked tired. + +"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." + +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 tile wholesale cloak and +suit establishment of Zizzbaum--Son, on lower Broadway. + +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. + +"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." + +"A bull's eye," said Platt, "and I'd give forty acres of unirrigated +Pecos County land to know how you did it." + +"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 +tomorrow. 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." + +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. + +"Abey," lie 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." + +"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." + +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. + +"And what did you think of our little town?" asked Zizzbaum, with +the fatuous smile of the Manhattanite. + +"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." + +"We've got a few lights on Broadway, don't you think, Mr. Platt?" + +"And a good many shadows," said Platt. "I think I like your horses +best. I haven't seen a crowbait since I've been in town." + +Zizzbaum led him up stairs to show the samples of suits. + +"Ask Miss Asher to come," he said to a clerk. + +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 canon 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Would she go?" repeated Zizzbaum, with uplifted eyebrows. "Sure, +she would go. I will introduce you. Sure, she would go." + +He called Miss Asher loudly. + +She came, calm and slightly contemptuous, in her white shirt waist +and plain black skirt. + +"Mr. Platt would like the pleasure of your company to dinner this +evening," said Zizzbaum, walking away. + +"Sure," said Miss Asher, looking at the ceiling. "I'd be much +pleased. Nine-eleven West Twentieth street. What time?" + +"Say seven o'clock." + +"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." + +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. + +With the unobtrusive aid of a good waiter he managed to order a +respectable dinner, minus the usual Broadway preliminaries. + +Miss Asher flashed upon him a dazzling smile. + +"Mayn't I have something to drink?" she asked. + +"Why, certainly," said Platt. "Anything you want." + +"A dry Martini," she said to the waiter. + +When it was brought and set before her Platt reached over and took +it away. + +"What is this?" he asked. + +"A cocktail, of course." + +"I thought it was some kind of tea you ordered. This is liquor. You +can't drink this. What is your first name?" + +"To my intimate friends," said Miss Asher, freezingly, "it is +'Helen.'" + +"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." + +He flicked a two-carat diamond solitaire ring across the table. Miss +Asher flipped it back to him with her fork. + +"Don't get fresh," she said, severely. + +"I'm worth a hundred thousand dollars," said Platt. "I'll build you +the finest house in West Texas." + +"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." + +"All who?" asked Platt. + +"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." + +Platt struck his fingers on the table with a gesture of sudden, +illuminating satisfaction. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"How long have you been working, Helen?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Oh, cut that out. If you knew how sick I am of hearing such talk." + +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. + +"I don't like that," said Platt. "What's the matter?" + +"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?" + +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. + +As he stepped back a ring fell from somewhere and bounded on the +tiled floor. Platt groped for it and found it. + +"Now, take your useless diamond and go, Mr. Buyer," she said. + +"This was the other one--the wedding ring," said the Texan, holding +the smooth gold band on the palm of his hand. + +Miss Asher's eyes blazed upon him in the half darkness. + +"Was that what you meant?--did you"-- + +Somebody opened the door from inside the house. + +"Good-night," said Platt. "I'll see you at the store to-morrow." + +Miss Asher ran up to her room and shook the school teacher until she +sat up in bed ready to scream "Fire!" + +"Where is it?" she cried. + +"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?" + +"How dare you wake me up for that?" said the school teacher." +Caracas is in Venezuela, of course." + +"What's it like?" + +"Why, it's principally earthquakes and negroes and monkeys and +malarial fever and volcanoes." + +"I don't care," said Miss Asher, blithely; "I'm going there to- +morrow." + + + +THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O'ROON + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Get me a job, Remsen," he said. "I've just handed a barber my last +shilling." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +It came just as Remsen was strolling into Fifth avenue from his club +a few doors away. + +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 flunk 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Look at me," said Remsen, who was his smiling self, pointing to his +own face; "whom do you see here?" + +"Goo' fellow," said O'Roon, dizzily, "Goo' old Remsen." + +"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 table +d'hote 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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!" + +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 +hears 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. + +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. + +He opened his lips to speak and closed them again. + +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. + +Remsen touched his cap, looked between the chestnut's ears, and took +refuge in vernacularity. + +"Don't mention it," he said stolidly. "We, policemen are paid to do +these things. It's our duly." + +And he rode away--rode away cursing noblesse oblige, but knowing he +could never have clone anything else. + +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. + +"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 BRUT without +getting upset were at the devil," said Remsen feelingly. + +O'Roon smiled with evident satisfaction. + +"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." + + + + +BRICKDUST ROW + + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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- +-" + +"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." + +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 pilling up in banks for him to spend. + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +The joke pleased Symons. He laughed within a sixteenth of a note of +the audibility permitted by the laws governing employees. + +"Certainly, sir," he tittered. "Of course, sir, I think I can see +you at Coney, Mr. Blinker." + +Blinker got a pager 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. + +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. + +"How dare you raise your hat to me?" she asked, with a smile- +redeemed severity. + +"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." + +"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. + +"I guess you weren't going far," she declared, with beauty's +magnificent self-confidence. + +"Are you going to Coney Island?" asked Blinker. + +"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. + +"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." "It depends," said the girl, "on how nicely you +behave. I'll consider your application until we get there." + +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. + +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 Elia, 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." + +"Well," she said. "It certainly slows that you have imagination. It +gives the 'Smiths' a chance for a little rest, anyhow." + +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. + +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 grain 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. + +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? + +Blinker did not read her look accurately, but by some miracle he +suddenly saw Coney aright. + +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 trough 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. + +Almost humbled, Blinker rolled up the shirt sleeves of his mind and +joined the idealists. + +"You are the lady doctor," he said to Florence. "How shall we go +about doing this jolly conglomeration of fairy tales, incorporated?" + +"We will begin there," said the Princess, pointing to a fun pagoda +on the edge of the sea, "and we will take there all in, one by one." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The boat began to sink at its stern, but moved slowly toward the +slip. The passengers were a frantic mob, unpleasant to behold. + +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. + +"It looks like breakfast food," she said. "Take it off. They're no +good." + +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. + +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. + +"Florence," said Blinker, as she held him close by an arm and hand, +"I love you." + +"That's what they all say," she replied, lightly. + +"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." + +"That's what they all say," said the girl again, weaving the words +into her little, reckless song. + +"Don't say that again," said Blinker in a tone that made her look at +him in frank surprise. + +"Why shouldn't I say it?" she asked calmly. "They all do." + +"Who are 'they'?" he asked, jealous for the first time in his +existence. + +"Why, the fellows I know." + +"Do you know so many?" + +"Oh, well, I'm not a wall flower," she answered with modest +complacency. + +"Where do you see these--these men? At your home?" + +"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." + +"What do you mean by 'fresh?'" + +"Why, try to kiss you--me, I mean." + +"Do any of them try that?" asked Blinker, clenching his teeth. + +"Sure. All men do. You know that." + +"Do you allow them?" + +"Some. Not many. They won't take you out anywhere unless you do." + +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. + +"What's wrong about my meeting fellows?" she asked, wonderingly. + +"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?" + +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?" + +"Yes," he said, hoarsely. "A girl has got to meet a--has got to meet +the men." + +"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?" + +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. + +"I live just one more block over," she said. "Thank you for a very +pleasant afternoon." + +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. + +"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." + +At eleven the next day Blinker signed his name thirty times with a +new pen provided by Lawyer Oldport. + +"Now let me go to the woods," he said surlily. + +"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--" + +Blinker interrupted him with a loud, discordant laugh. + +"Brickdust Row for an even hundred," he cried. "And I own it. Have I +guessed right?" + +"The tenants have some such name for it," said Lawyer Oldport. + +Blinker arose and jammed his hat down to his eyes. + +"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." + + + + +THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Pittsburg impressed hint 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. + +New Orleans had simply gazed down upon him from a balcony. He could +see her pensive, starry eves 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! + +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. + +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! + +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. + +Raggles landed from a ferry-boat one morning and walked into the +core of the town with the blase air of a cosmopolite. He was dressed +with care to play the role 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 speciments of raiment, self-measured, that are railroaded to +you by transcontinental tailors with a suit case, suspenders, sills +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 frapped +contumely. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 cafe hurried the by-product with the vast +jowl and baby complexion, bearing a glass full of a crimson fluid +that suggested delightful possibilities. + +"Drink dis, sport," said the by-product, holding the glass to +Raggles's lips. + +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. + +A bell clanged importantly, and the ambulance cleaned a lane through +the crowd. A cool surgeon slipped into the midst of affairs. + +"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. + +"Me?" said Raggles, with a seraphic smile, "I feel fine." + +He had found the heart of his new city. + +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. + +"What's all this about?" inquired the head nurse. + +"He was runnin' down me town," said Raggles. + +"What town?" asked the nurse. + +"Noo York," said Raggles. + + + + +VANITY AND SOME SABLES + + +When "Kid" Brady was sent to the rope 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. + +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. Tae chefs in "Hell's +Kitchen" are many, and the "Stovepipe" gang, wears the cordon blue. + +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. + +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. + +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 confess 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." + +"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. + +But they witnessed his fall to a virtuous life with-out protest. +For, in the Kitchen it is considered neither unmanly nor improper +for a guy to do as his girl advises. + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +The Kid looked down at his speckless cuffs and shining patent +leathers with a suspicion of melancholy. + +"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 roan with the big shears." + +"Never mind, Kid. I'll like you just as much in a, blue jumper as I +would in a red automobile." + +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. + +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. + +One evening he brought a mysterious bundle with him to Molly's +house. + +"Open that, Moll!" he said in his large, quiet way. "It's for you." + +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. + +Again Molly shrieked, and something dark and long and sinuous flew +and enveloped her neck like an anaconda. + +"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." + +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 checks and a bewitching smile: Recipe--one +set Russian sables. Apply. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +He knew what every look of hers meant; and he laughed with a faint +flush upon his face. + +"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." + +"Out of the money you worked for, Kid? Out of $75 a month?" + +"Sure. I been saving up." + +"Let's see--saved $425 in eight months, Kid?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"What's the excitement down the street?" asked Ransom of a pale +youth in a red sweater. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +Ransom overtook the strolling couple on an empty street near the +river bank. He touched the Kid's arm from behind. + +"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. + +"Did you go to Mrs. Hethcote's on West 7--th street yesterday to fix +a leaky water pipe?" asked Ransom. + +"I did," said the Kid. "What of it?" + +"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." "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--" + +The Kid stopped short. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +Molly, with anguish in her face, hung upon the Kid's arm. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"Satre," said Kohen. "I hear about those saples dat vas stole. You +say you have dem here?" + +Policeman Kohen took the end of Molly's late scarf in his hands and +looked at it closely. + +"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--" + +"Biff!" came the palm of the Kid's powerful hand upon the +policeman's mouth. Kohen staggered and rallied. Molly screamed. The +detective threw him-self upon Brady and with Kohen's aid got the +nippers on his wrist. + +"The scarf is vort $12 and the muff is vort $9," persisted the +policeman. "Vot is dis talk about $1,000 saples?" + +The Kid sat upon a pile of lumber and his face turned dark red. + +"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." + +Molly cast herself upon his neck. + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"A gouple of young vools," said Policeman Kohen to Ransom; "come on +away." + + + + +THE SOCIAL TRIANGLE + + +At the stroke of six Ikey Snigglefritz laid down his goose. Ikey was +a tailor's apprentice. Are there tailor's apprentices nowadays? + +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. + +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. + +For each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, +whether it be love or pinochle or lobster a la Newburg, or the sweet +silence of the musty bookshelves. + +Behold Ikey as he ambles up the street beneath the roaring "El" +between the rows of reeking sweatshops. 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. + +Ikey's legs carried him to and into that famous place of +entertainment known as the Cafe 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. + +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. + +Ikey slunk along the bar and gazed, breath-quickened, at his idol. + +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! + +The Cafe 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. + +He stepped forward into the little cleared space in which majesty +moved, and held out his hand. + +Billy McMahan grasped it unhesitatingly, shook it and smiled. + +Made mad now by the gods who were about to destroy him, Ikey threw +away his scabbard and charged upon Olympus. + +"Have a drink with me, Billy," he said familiarly, "you and your +friends?" + +"Don't mind if I do, old man," said the great leader, "just to keep +the ball rolling." + +The last spark of Ikey's reason fled. + +"Wine," he called to the bartender, waving a trembling hand. + +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. + +Ikey threw his week's wages in a crumpled roll upon the bar. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +He had shaken the hand of Billy McMahan. + + * * * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Van Duyckink's rather sombre eyes lighted up. He rose to his lank +height and grasped Billy McMahan's hand. + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +Billy McMahan was happy. + +He had shaken the hand of Cortlandt Van Duyckink. + + * * * * * * * + +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. + +"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!" + +Van Duyckink turned his solemn eyes upon her. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Obeying a sudden impulse, Van Duyckink stepped out and warmly +grasped the hand of what seemed to him a living rebuke. + +"I want to know you people," he said, sincerely. "I am going to help +you as much as I can. We shall be friends." + +As the auto crept carefully away Cortlandt Van Duyckink felt an +unaccustomed glow about his heart. He was near to being a happy man. + +He had shaken the hand of Ikey Snigglefritz. + + + + +THE PURPLE DRESS + + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"Oh, are you," said Grace, putting away some 7-1/2 gloves into the +6-3/4 box. "Well, it's me for red. You see more red on Fifth avenue. +And the men all seem to like it." + +"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--" + +"Sly boots!" said Grace with an educated wink. + +"--soutache braid over a surpliced white vest; and a plaited basque +and--" + +"Sly boots--sly boots!" repeated Grace. + +"--plaited gigot sleeves with a drawn velvet ribbon over an inside +cuff. What do you mean by saying that?" + +"You think Mr. Ramsay likes purple. I heard him say yesterday he +thought some of the dark shades of red were stunning." + +"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." + +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. + +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? + +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-- + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Grace lived in the same house. She occupied the hall room above +Maida's. + +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. + +"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." + +"You had some yesterday," said Maida. + +"I paid it on my dress," said Grace. "I thought she'd wait till next +week for the rent." + +Sniffle, sniffle, sob, sniffle. + +Out came--out it had to come--Maida's $4. + +"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." + +Thanksgiving. + +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. + +"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?" + +"My dress didn't get finished in time," said Maida. "I'm not going +to the dinner." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +Some one turned a corner and blocked her way. She looked up into Mr. +Ramsay's eyes, sparkling with admiration and interest. + +"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?" + +And Maida blushed and sneezed. + + + + +THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99 + + +John Byrnes, hose-cart driver of Engine Company No. 99, was +afflicted with what his comrades called Japanits. + +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 be moved about from day to day in conformity with the war news +in the daily papers. + +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?" + +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. + +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, guilding Erebus and Joe, the +finest team in the whole department--according to the crew of 99. + +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. + +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 tallow 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. + +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--sendi--kopecks--pfennigs--pilasters--whatever the financial +nomenclature of his unknown country nay have been. + +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 +cruelest atom in all the silt of the stream that emptied into the +reservoir of Liberty. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +Sloviski kept a delicatessen store around the corner on Third +avenue, and was reputed to be a linguist. + +One of the men fetched him--a fat, cringing man, with a discursive +eye and the odors of many kinds of meats upon him. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Looks like short hand," said the desk man. + +"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." + +"Would you call him a Dago or a Polocker, or what?" asked Mike, +frowning at the polyglot description. + +"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." + +"Whatever he is, he's a bird," said Mike Dowling; "and you want to +watch him fly." + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"The heathen rides like a Cossack," remarked a fireman who had seen +a Wild West show--"they're the greatest riders in the world." + +The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever. + +"Yas--yas--me Cossack," he spluttered, striking his chest. + +"Cossack!" repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, "ain't that a kind of +a Russian?" + +"They're one of the Russian tribes, sure," said the desk man, who +read books between fire alarms. + +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: + +"Hello there, Jimmy, me boy--how's the war coming along? Japs still +got the bear on the trot, have they?" + +"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." + + + + +THE LOST BLEND + + +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. + +Con Lantry worked on the sober side of the bar in Kenealy's cafe. +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. + +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. + +Over the cafe 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Down the back stairs came Katherine with her smile like sunrise on +Gweebarra Bay. + +"Good evening, Mr. Lantry," says she. "And what is the news to-day, +if you please?" + +"It looks like r-rain," stammered the shy one, backing to the wall. + +"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. + +"Sit down," said Riley to Con, "and I'll tell you." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 tobasco sauce, and he's getting even. Barrelled goods is +free." + +"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 stud away." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"'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." + +All the while McQuirk lead 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. + +"'Tis a strange story, even if true," said Con. "I'll be going now +along to my supper." + +"Take a drink," said Riley. "We've all kinds except the lost blend." + +"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.'" + +When Con had left them Riley almost felled McQuirk by a blow on the +back. + +"Did ye hear that?" he shouted. "Two fools are we. The six dozen +bottles of 'pollinaris we had on the slip--ye opened them yourself-- +which barrel did ye pour them in--which barrel, ye mudhead?" + +"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." + +"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." + +An hour later Con strolled down the sidewalk toward Kenealy's cafe. +Thus faithful employees haunt, during their recreation hours, the +vicinity where they labor, drawn by some mysterious attraction. + +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. + +"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." + +Con sauntered into the back room to view the battlefield. As he went +through the hall Katherine was just coming down the stairs. + +"Good evening again, Mr. Lantry," said she. "And is there no news +from the weather yet?" + +"Still threatens r-rain," said Con, slipping past with red in his +smooth, pale cheek. + +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. + +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. + +Con smelled it. He tasted it. He drank it. + +As he returned through the hall Katherine was just going up the +stairs. + +"No news yet, Mr. Lantry?" she asked with her teasing laugh. + +Con lifted her clear from the floor and held her there. + +"The news is," he said, "that we're to be married." + +"Put me down, sir!" she cried indignantly, "or I will--Oh, Con, +where, oh, wherever did you get the nerve to say it?" + + + + +A HARLEM TRAGEDY + + +Harlem. + +Mrs. Fink had dropped into Mrs. Cassidy's flat one flight below. + +"Ain't it a beaut?" said Mrs. Cassidy. + +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. + +"My husband wouldn't ever think of doing that to me," said Mrs. +Fink, concealing her envy. + +"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." + +"I should hope," said Mrs. Fink, assuming complacency, "that Mr. +Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me." + +"Oh, go on, Maggie!" said Mrs. Cassidy, laughing and applying witch +hazel, "you're only jealous. Your old man is too frapped 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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Don't it hurt when he soaks you?" asked Mrs. Fink, curiously. + +"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." + +"But what does he beat you for?" inquired Mrs. Fink, with wide-open +eyes. + +"Silly!" said Mrs. Cassidy, indulgently. "Why, because he's full. +It's generally on Saturday nights." + +"But what cause do you give him?" persisted the seeker after +knowledge. + +"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." + +Mrs. Fink was thinking deeply. + +"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." + +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!" + +Mrs. Fink sighed. + +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. + + "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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Like the supper, Mart?" asked Mrs. Fink, who had striven over it. + +"M-m-m-yep," grunted Mr. Fink. + +After supper he gathered his newspapers to read. He sat in his +stocking feet. + +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? + +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. + +Mrs. Fink took Mrs. Cassidy's pattern down early. Maine 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Suddenly she turned like a fury upon the man reading. + +"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?" + +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 hire 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! + +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. + +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 shufing, a chair overturned--unmistakable sounds of +domestic conflict. + +"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?" + +One of Mrs. Cassidy's eyes sparkled like a diamond. The other +twinkled at least like paste. + +"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." + +Up the stairs she sped. As her foot struck the hallway above out +from the kitchen door of her flat wildly flounced Mrs. Fink. + +"Oh, Maggie," cried Mrs. Cassidy, in a delighted whisper; "did he? +Oh, did he?" + +Mrs. Fink ran and laid her face upon her chum's shoulder and sobbed +hopelessly. + +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. + +"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?" + +Mrs. Fink's face went down again despairingly on the bosom of her +friend. + +"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!" + + + + +"THE GUILTY PARTY" + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +A little girl of twelve came up timidly to the man reading and +resting by the window, and said: + +"Papa, won't you play a game of checkers with me if you aren't too +tired?" + +The red-haired, unshaven, untidy man sitting shoeless by the window +answered, with a frown. + +"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?" + +The woman who was cooking came to the door. + +"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." + +"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." + +* * * + +"You're on," said Kid Mullaly. "Fifty dollars to $25 I take Annie to +the dance. Put up." + +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. + +"And, oh, what'll be done to you'll be a plenty," said a bettor, +with anticipatory glee. + +"That's my lookout," said the "Kid," sternly. "Fill 'em up all +around, Mike." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"You're engaged, ain't you?" asked Burke. + +"Sure. We'll get married next year, maybe." + +"I saw you make her drink her first glass of beer," said Burke. +"That was two years ago, when she used to came 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The "Family Entrance" of the Blue Jay Cafe 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. + +"Whiskey, Tommy," she said as her sisters further uptown murmur, +"Champagne, James." + +"Sure, Miss Lizzie. What'll the chaser be?" + +"Seltzer. And say, Tommy, has the Kid been around to-day?" + +"Why, no, Miss Lizzie, I haven't saw him to-day." + +Fluently came the "Miss Lizzie," for the Kid was known to be one who +required rigid upholdment of the dignity of his fiancee. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"Let me show you how to make a cat's-cradle, kid," she said, tucking +her green silk skirt under her rusty shoes. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Out from the circle of spectators in the hall leaped Fate in a green +silk skirt, under the nom de guerre 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. + +And next came the primal instinct of self-preservation--or was it +self-annihilation, the instinct that society has grafted on the +natural branch? + +Liz ran out and down the street swift, and true as a woodcock flying +through a grove of saplings at dusk. + +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. + +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. + +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 taut +quickly, and settled in five minutes the problem that keeps lights +burning o' nights in thousands of pastorates and colleges. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"Case No. 99,852,743." + +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! + +The court officer took her inside and closed the door. I went up to +Mr. Fly-Cop and inquired about the case. + +"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." + +The court officer opened the door and stepped out. + +"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"-- + +"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 not 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." + +Now, wasn't that a silly dream? + + + + +ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 irritation of Reginald Vanderbilt driving +his coach--what good are them airs doing you now? Think of some +place we can get something to chew." + +"You forget, my dear Captain," said Murray, without moving, "that +our last attempt at dining was at my suggestion." + +"You bet it was," groaned the Captain, "you bet your life it was. +Have you got any more like that to make--hey?" + +"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." + +"I had this hand," said the Captain, extending the unfortunate +member--"I had this hand on the drum stick of a turkey and two +sardine sandwiches when them waiters grabbed us." + +"I was within two inches of the olives," said Murray. "Stuffed +olives. I haven't tasted one in a year." + +"What'll we do?" grumbled the Captain. "We can't starve." + +"Can't we?" said Murray quietly. "I'm glad to hear that. I was +afraid we could." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Why are ye asking?" inquired the sergeant, with a frown. + +"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--" + + "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." + +Murray gazed at the officer with serene and virtuous dignity. + +"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 ofenders." + +Murray hurried back to the bench in the park. He folded his arms and +shrank within his clothes to his ghost-like presentment. + +Ten minutes afterward the Captain arrived at the rendezvous, windy +and thunderous as a clog-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. + +"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"-- + +"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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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"-- + +"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." + +Through the park stepped a large man scanning the benches where the +electric light fell. + +"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." + +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. + +"You know, Mac," he said, "they're trying Inspector Pickering on +graft charges." + +"He was my inspector," said the Captain. + +"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." + +"He was"--began the Captain. + +"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"-- + +"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." + +Finnegan drifted out by another walk. The Captain turned to his +seat. + +"I couldn't avoid hearing," said Murray, drearily. "I think you are +the biggest fool I ever saw." + +"What would you have done?" asked the Captain. + +"Nailed Pickering to the cross," said Murray. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"And the little matrimonial arrangement?" said Murray, with his head +turned sidewise. + +"Why.--er--well, of course, your uncle under-stands--expects that +the engagement between you and Miss Vanderhurst shall be"-- + +"Good night," said Murray, moving away. + +"You madman!" cried the other, catching his arm. "Would you give up +two millions on account of"-- + +"Did you ever see her nose, old man?" asked Murray, solemnly. + +"But, listen to reason, Jerry. Miss Vanderhurst is an heiress, and"- +- + +"Did you ever see it?" + +"Yes, I admit that her nose isn't"-- + +"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." + +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. + +"Twenty feet longer than it was last night," said Murray, looking up +at his measuring angle of Grace Church. + +"Half an hour," growled the Captain, "before we get our punk." + +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. + + + + +A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT'S DREAM + + +"The knights are dead; +Their swords are rust. +Except a few who haze to hust- +Le all the time +To raise the dust." + +Dear Reader: 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-- + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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: + +"I wonder what kind of bait Harding used." + + * * * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Mamma was thinking of going back week after next," said Miss Mary +with a lovely frown. + +"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." + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You are a gallant knight," said Miss Mary. + +"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. + +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-- + + * * * * * * * + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gaines," said Adkins. + +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. + +"I--I believe I was asleep," he said. + +"It's the heat," said Adkins. "It's something awful in the city +these"-- + +"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." + +"Some letters just came," said Adkins. "I thought you might like to +glance at them before you go." + +Let us look over his shoulder and read just a few lines of one of +them: + + My Dear, Dear Husband: 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, + +MARY. + +The man who said he thought New York the finest summer resort in the +country dropped into a cafe on his way home and had a glass of beer +under an electric fan. + +"Wonder what kind of a fly old Harding used," he said to himself. + + + + +THE LAST LEAF + + +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! + +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." + +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 table d'hote of an Eighth +street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad +and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted. + +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." + +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. + +One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a +shaggy, gray eyebrow. + +"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?" + +"She--she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue. + +"Paint?--bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about +twice--a man, for instance?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her +face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was +asleep. + +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. + +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. + +Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and +counting--counting backward. + +"Twelve," she said, and a little later "eleven;" and then "ten," and +"nine;" and then "eight" and "seven," almost together. + +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. + +"What is it, dear?" asked Sue. + +"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." + +"Five what, dear. Tell your Sudie." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly. + +"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Besides I don't want you to +keep looking at those silly ivy leaves." + +"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 went to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing +down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Old Behrman, with his red eyes, plainly streaming, shouted his +contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper. + +Wearily Sue obeyed. + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the +shade be raised. + +The ivy leaf was still there. + +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. + +"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." + +An hour later she said. + +"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples." + +The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into +the hallway as he left. + +"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." + +The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've +won. Nutrition and care now--that's all." + +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. + +"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." + + + + +THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST + + +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. + +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. + +Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore a night-black +dress of crepe de--crepe de--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. + +Gather the idea, girls--all black, you know, with the preference for +crepe de--oh, crepe de Chine-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. + +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. + +"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. + +"To them that has the heart to enjoy it, it is, Mr. Donovan," said +Miss Conway, with a sigh. + +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. + +"I hope none of your relatives--I hope you haven't sustained a +loss?" ventured Mr. Donovan. + +"Death has claimed," said Miss Conway, hesitating--"not a relative, +but one who--but I will not intrude my brief upon you, Mr. Donovan." + +"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." + +Miss Conway smiled a little smile. And oh, it was sadder than her +expression in repose. + +"'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." + +He had passed her the pepper twice at the table. + +"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--" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Three days ago I got a letter from Italy, forwarded from P'kipsee, +saying that Fernando had been killed in a gondola accident." + +"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?" + +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 crepe de Chine. Dead men certainly get the worst +of it from all sides. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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 or the undertaking +did not seem to weigh upon his spirits. The sympathetic but cheerful +friend was the role 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 wars no diminution of the +sadness in Miss Conway's large gray eyes. + +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. + +"He gave me this the night he left for Italy," said Miss Conway. "I +had the one for the locket made from this." + +"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?" + +A month later they announced their engagement to Mrs. Scott and the +other boarders. Miss Conway continued to wear black. + +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. + +"What's the matter, Andy, you are so solemn and grouchy to-night?" + +"Nothing, Maggie." + +"I know better. Can't I tell? You never acted this way before. What +is it?" + +"It's nothing much, Maggie." + +"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." + +"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." + +"No, I haven't," said Maggie. "And I don't want to, if he makes you +act like this. Who is he?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Why don't you invite him, then, if he's so much to the mustard?" +said Maggie, lightly. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Maggie," said Andy, presently, "do you think as much of me as you +did of your--as you did of the Count Mazzini?" + +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 crepe de Chine +with tears. + +"There, there, there!" soothed Andy, putting aside his own trouble. +"And what is it, now?" + +"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." + +But instead of being pushed away, she found Andy's arm folding her +closer. She looked up and saw his face cleared and smiling. + +"Could you--could you forgive me, Andy?" + +"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!" + +"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?" + +"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." + + + + +THE COUNTRY OF ELUSION + + +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. + +Grainger, sub-editor of Doc's Magazine, closed his roll-top desk, +put on his hat, walked into the hall, punched the "down" button, and +waited for the elevator. + +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. + +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 expose. Consequently his mind +was in a whirl of icebergs, Maupassant, and trichinosis. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. 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 "^e" it +belongs to Gallic witchery and diaphanous dreams; with an "e" it +drapes lamentation and woe. + +That evening they went to the Cafe Andre. And, as people would +confide to you in a whisper that Andre's was the only truly Bohemian +restaurant in town, it may be well to follow them. + +Andre 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 table d'hote in Eighth (or Ninth) Street. One afternoon +Andre 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 Andre 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 Andre 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. + +There is a large round table in the northeast corner of Andre'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 Ladies' Notathome Magazine. 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. + +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. + +The walls of the Cafe Andre 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 Andre's. + +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: + +Age, somewhere between twenty-seven and highneck evening dresses. +Camaraderie in large bunches--whatever the fearful word may mean. +Habitat--anywhere from Seattle to Terra 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 entree; brag with the roast; knocks for +Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the +slapsticks with the cordials. + +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, mot, 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 "Laisser faire." 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. + +As the dinner waned, hands reached for the pepper eruct 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. + +"Now while you are fed and in good humor," she said, "I want to make +a suggestion to you about a new cover." + +"A good idea," said Grainger, mopping the tablecloth with his +napkin. "I'll speak to the waiter about it." + +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 CHANSON in the cafes 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." + +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, falling the street with +gay laughter, to be barked at by hopeful cabmen and enviously eyed +by the dull inhabitants of an uninspired world. + +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. + +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. "How +are you, father?" said Mary timidly. + +"I am as well as Providence permits, Mary Ann. You will find your +mother in the kitchen." + +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. + +For breakfast there were grace, cold bread, potatoes, bacon, and +tea. + +"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. + +"Yes," said Mary, "I am still reviewing books for the same +publication." + +After breakfast she helped wash the dishes, and then all three sat +in straigh-back chairs in the bare-floored parlor. + +"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." + +"I know it," said Mary blissfully, folding her hands. + +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?" + +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. + +She took the three-o'clock train back to the city. At nine she sat +at the round table for dinner in the Cafe Andre. Nearly the same +crowd was there. + +"Where have you been to-day?" asked Mrs. Pothunter. "I 'phoned to +you at twelve." + +"I have been away in Bohemia," answered Mary, with a mystic smile. + +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. + +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 "Laisser faire." 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + "I didn't quite catch the trains," said she. "How long was Mary in +Crocusville?" + +"Ten hours and five minutes," I replied. + +"Well, then, the story may do," said Minnie. + +"But if she had stayed there a week Kappelman would have got his +kiss." + + + + +THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There came to her side a strong man, browned and dressed carelessly +in the best of clothes, with his hat in his hand. + +"Lady," said the Man from Nome, respectfully, "excuse me for +speaking to you, but I--I--I saw you on the street, and--and--" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"My name's Blayden," said he--"Henry Blayden." + +"Are you real sure it ain't Jones?" asked the girl, leaning toward +him, with delicious, knowing raillery. + +"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." + +"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." + +"You didn't see me on the street to-day when I saw you." + +"I never look at fellows on the street." + +"Well, I looked at you; and I never looked at anything before that I +thought was half as pretty." + +"Shall I keep the change?" + +"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 um +while I was there." + +"Goodness!" exclaimed Miss Colby, obligingly sympathetic. "It must +be an awful dirty place, wherever it is." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 tine, 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?" + +"Cash!" + +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. + +Her head suddenly bobbed over sideways. She awoke, sat straight, and +rubbed her eyes. The Man from Nome was gone. + +"Gee! I believe I've been asleep," said Miss Colby "Wonder what +became of the White Wings!" + + + + +THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER + + +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 sotto voce 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I never heard of a pocketbook like that," says I. "Who carried +you?" + +"A shopgirl," says the five-spot. + +"What's that?" I had to ask. + +"You'll never know till their millennium comes," says the fiver. + +Just then a two-dollar bill behind me with a George Washington head, +spoke up to the fiver: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 tooks me and a lot of +other notes and rolled us into what is termed a "wad" among the +money tainters. + +"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." + +I found myself between two $20 gold certificates. One of 'em says to +me: + +"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." + +"Explain," says I. "I'm used to joints, but I don't care for filet +mignon with the kind of sauce you serve." + +"`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." + +"What is a church?" I asked. + +"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." + +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. + +Old Jack certainly was a gild-edged sport. When it came his time to +loosen up he never referred the waiter to an actuary. + +By and by it got around that be 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. + +At last we floated into an uptown cafe 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. 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I 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." + +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. + +Old Jack, gets up, peels me off the roll and hands me to her with a +bow. + +"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." + +The woman took me with a trembling hand. + +"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." + +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. + +A week afterward I butted up against one of the one-dollar bills the +baker had given the woman for change. + +"Hallo, E35039669," says I, "weren't you in the change for me in a +bakery last, Saturday night?" + +"Yep," says the solitaire in his free and easy style. + +"How did the deal turn out?" I asked. + +"She blew E17051431 for mills 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." + +"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." + +"This note is a legal tender at its face value for all debts public +and private." + +"This talk about tainted money makes me tired," says I. + + + + +ELSIE IN NEW YORK + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +Elsie hesitated. + +"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?" + +"Why, no," said Elsie, in frightened tones. "How could I do that?" + +"Ruin," 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." + +"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?" + +"Decline the position," said the lady, "and come with me. I will +tell you what to do." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +She was about to enter, when a solemn man, dressed all in black, +laid his hand on her arm. + +"My dear girl," he said, "I entreat you not to enter that dressing- +room of the devil." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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 hearing the words, "Five hundred girls wanted to learn trade. +Good wages from the start. Apply one flight up." + +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. + +"Say, you'se," said the girl, "are you'se goin' in there after a +job?" + +"Yes," said Elsie; "I must have work." + +"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?" + +"I'll try somewhere else," said Elsie. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Mr. Otter struck a bell. A long-nosed clerk thrust a portion of +himself inside the door. + +"Send Miss Hawkins in," said Mr. Otter. Miss Hawkins came. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Trimmed Lamp, et al by O Henry + |