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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41817 ***
+
+                  JOHN MARVEL
+
+                   ASSISTANT
+
+             BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE
+
+
+    ILLUSTRATED BY
+    JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG
+
+    NEW YORK
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+    1909
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+    Published October, 1909
+
+
+
+
+                   TO
+            THOSE LOVED ONES
+    WHOSE NEVER FAILING SYMPATHY HAS
+         LED ME ALL THESE YEARS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "To ply your old trade?" I asked.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                                       PAGE
+
+         I. MY FIRST FAILURE                                         1
+
+        II. THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN                                5
+
+       III. THE FIGHT                                               16
+
+        IV. DELILAH                                                 26
+
+         V. THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE                               36
+
+        VI. THE METEOR                                              44
+
+       VII. THE HEGIRA                                              55
+
+      VIII. PADAN-ARAM                                              67
+
+        IX. I PITCH MY TENT                                         84
+
+         X. A NEW GIRL                                             103
+
+        XI. ELEANOR LEIGH                                          114
+
+       XII. JOHN MARVEL                                            138
+
+      XIII. MR. LEIGH                                              147
+
+       XIV. MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK                                  154
+
+        XV. THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS                                172
+
+       XVI. THE SHADOW OF SHAM                                     186
+
+      XVII. THE GULF                                               198
+
+     XVIII. THE DRUMMER                                            215
+
+       XIX. RE-ENTER PECK                                          227
+
+        XX. MY FIRST CLIENT                                        245
+
+       XXI. THE RESURRECTION OF DIX                                259
+
+      XXII. THE PREACHER                                           275
+
+     XXIII. MRS. ARGAND                                            286
+
+      XXIV. WOLFFERT'S MISSION                                     305
+
+       XXV. FATE LEADS                                             319
+
+      XXVI. COLL MCSHEEN'S METHODS                                 339
+
+     XXVII. THE SHADOW                                             354
+
+    XXVIII. THE WALKING DELEGATE                                   361
+
+      XXIX. MY CONFESSION                                          381
+
+       XXX. SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST                              398
+
+      XXXI. JOHN MARVEL'S RAID                                     416
+
+     XXXII. DOCTOR CAIAPHAS                                        430
+
+    XXXIII. THE PEACE-MAKER                                        453
+
+     XXXIV. THE FLAG OF TRUCE                                      465
+
+      XXXV. MR. LEIGH HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE MADE HIM          493
+
+     XXXVI. THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM                                507
+
+    XXXVII. WOLFFERT'S NEIGHBORS                                   517
+
+   XXXVIII. WOLFFERT'S PHILOSOPHY                                  527
+
+     XXXIX. THE CONFLICT                                           539
+
+        XL. THE CURTAIN                                            563
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+_"To ply your old trade?" I asked_ Frontispiece
+
+_Wolffert ... was cursing me with all the eloquence of a rich
+vocabulary_ 20
+
+_"Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered_ 60
+
+_"But you must not come in"_ 140
+
+_"Perhaps, you are the man yourself?" she added insolently_ 302
+
+_"Speak her soft, Galley"_ 412
+
+_"I suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear to be
+exchanging the ordinary inanities"_ 468
+
+_I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found retreat_ 556
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+MY FIRST FAILURE
+
+
+I shall feel at liberty to tell my story in my own way; rambling along
+at my own gait; now going from point to point; now tearing ahead; now
+stopping to rest or to ruminate, and even straying from the path
+whenever I think a digression will be for my own enjoyment.
+
+I shall begin with my college career, a period to which I look back now
+with a pleasure wholly incommensurate with what I achieved in it; which
+I find due to the friends I made and to the memories I garnered there in
+a time when I possessed the unprized treasures of youth: spirits, hope,
+and abounding conceit. As these memories, with the courage (to use a
+mild term) that a college background gives, are about all that I got out
+of my life there, I shall dwell on them only enough to introduce two or
+three friends and one enemy, who played later a very considerable part
+in my life.
+
+My family was an old and distinguished one; that is, it could be traced
+back about two hundred years, and several of my ancestors had
+accomplished enough to be known in the history of the State--a fact of
+which I was so proud that I was quite satisfied at college to rest on
+their achievements, and felt no need to add to its distinction by any
+labors of my own.
+
+We had formerly been well off; we had, indeed, at one time prior to the
+Revolutionary War, owned large estates--a time to which I was so fond of
+referring when I first went to college that one of my acquaintances,
+named Peck, an envious fellow, observed one day that I thought I had
+inherited all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them. My
+childhood was spent on an old plantation, so far removed from anything
+that I have since known that it might almost have been in another
+planet.
+
+It happened that I was the only child of my parents who survived, the
+others having been carried off in early childhood by a scourge of
+scarlet fever, to which circumstance, as I look back, I now know was due
+my mother's sadness of expression when my father was not present. I was
+thus subjected to the perils and great misfortune of being an only
+child, among them that of thinking the sun rises and sets for his
+especial benefit. I must say that both my father and mother tried
+faithfully to do their part to counteract this danger, and they not only
+believed firmly in, but acted consistently on, the Solomonic doctrine
+that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. My father, I must say, was
+more lenient, and I think gladly evaded the obligation as interpreted by
+my mother, declaring that Solomon, like a good many other persons, was
+much wiser in speech than in practice. He was fond of quoting the
+custom of the ancient Scythians, who trained their youth to ride, to
+shoot, and to speak the truth. And in this last particular he was
+inexorable.
+
+Among my chief intimates as a small boy was a little darkey named
+"Jeams." Jeams was the grandson of one of our old servants--Uncle Ralph
+Woodson. Jeams, who was a few years my senior, was a sharp-witted boy,
+as black as a piece of old mahogany, and had a head so hard that he
+could butt a plank off a fence. Naturally he and I became cronies, and
+he picked up information on various subjects so readily that I found him
+equally agreeable and useful.
+
+My father was admirably adapted to the conditions that had created such
+a character, but as unsuited to the new conditions that succeeded the
+collapse of the old life as a shorn lamb would be to the untempered wind
+of winter. He was a Whig and an aristocrat of the strongest type, and
+though in practice he was the kindest and most liberal of men, he always
+maintained that a gentleman was the choicest fruit of civilization; a
+standard, I may say, in which the personal element counted with him far
+more than family connection. "A king can make a nobleman, sir," he used
+to say; "but it takes Jehovah to make a gentleman." When the war came,
+though he was opposed to "Locofocoism" as he termed it, he enlisted as a
+private as soon as the State seceded, and fought through the war, rising
+to be a major and surrendering at Appomattox. When the war closed, he
+shut himself up on his estate, accepting the situation without
+moroseness, and consoling himself with a philosophy much more
+misanthropic in expression than in practice.
+
+My father's slender patrimony had been swept away by the war, but, being
+a scholar himself, and having a high idea of classical learning and a
+good estimate of my abilities--in which latter view I entirely agreed
+with him--he managed by much stinting to send me to college out of the
+fragments of his establishment. I admired greatly certain principles
+which were stamped in him as firmly as a fossil is embedded in the solid
+rock; but I fear I had a certain contempt for what appeared to me his
+inadequacy to the new state of things, and I secretly plumed myself on
+my superiority to him in all practical affairs. Without the least
+appreciation of the sacrifices he was making to send me to college, I
+was an idle dog and plunged into the amusements of the gay set--that set
+whose powers begin below their foreheads--in which I became a member and
+aspired to be a leader.
+
+My first episode at college brought me some _éclat_.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN
+
+
+I arrived rather late and the term had already begun, so that all the
+desirable rooms had been taken. I was told that I would either have to
+room out of college or take quarters with a young man by the name of
+Wolffert--like myself, a freshman. I naturally chose the latter. On
+reaching my quarters, I found my new comrade to be an affable,
+gentlemanly fellow, and very nice looking. Indeed, his broad brow, with
+curling brown hair above it; his dark eyes, deep and luminous; a nose
+the least bit too large and inclining to be aquiline; a well-cut mouth
+with mobile, sensitive lips, and a finely chiselled jaw, gave him an
+unusual face, if not one of distinction. He was evidently bent on making
+himself agreeable to me, and as he had read an extraordinary amount for
+a lad of his age and I, who had also read some, was lonely, we had
+passed a pleasant evening when he mentioned casually a fact which sent
+my heart down into my boots. He was a Jew. This, then, accounted for the
+ridge of his well-carved nose, and the curl of his soft brown hair. I
+tried to be as frank and easy as I had been before, but it was a
+failure. He saw my surprise as I saw his disappointment--a coolness took
+the place of the warmth that had been growing up between us for several
+hours, and we passed a stiff evening. He had already had one room-mate.
+
+Next day, I found a former acquaintance who offered to take me into his
+apartment, and that afternoon, having watched for my opportunity, I took
+advantage of my room-mate's absence and moved out, leaving a short note
+saying that I had discovered an old friend who was very desirous that I
+should share his quarters. When I next met Wolffert, he was so stiff,
+that although I felt sorry for him and was ready to be as civil as I
+might, our acquaintance thereafter became merely nominal. I saw in fact,
+little of him during the next months, for he soon forged far ahead of
+me. There was, indeed, no one in his class who possessed his
+acquirements or his ability. I used to see him for a while standing in
+his doorway looking wistfully out at the groups of students gathered
+under the trees, or walking alone, like Isaac in the fields, and until I
+formed my own set, I would have gone and joined him or have asked him to
+join us but for his rebuff. I knew that he was lonely; for I soon
+discovered that the cold shoulder was being given to him by most of the
+students. I could not, however, but feel that it served him right for
+the "airs" he put on with me. That he made a brilliant exhibition in his
+classes and was easily the cleverest man in the class did not affect our
+attitude toward him; perhaps, it only aggravated the case. Why should he
+be able to make easily a demonstration at the blackboard that the
+cleverest of us only bungled through? One day, however, we learned that
+the Jew had a room-mate. Bets were freely taken that he would not stick,
+but he stuck--for it was John Marvel. Not that any of us knew what John
+Marvel was; for even I, who, except Wolffert, came to know him best,
+did not divine until many years later what a nugget of unwrought gold
+that homely, shy, awkward John Marvel was!
+
+It appeared that Wolffert had a harder time than any of us dreamed of.
+
+He had come to the institution against the advice of his father, and for
+a singular reason: he thought it the most liberal institution of
+learning in the country! Little he knew of the narrowness of youth! His
+mind was so receptive that all that passed through it was instantly
+appropriated. Like a plant, he drew sustenance from the atmosphere about
+him and transmuted what was impalpable to us to forms of beauty. He was
+even then a man of independent thought; a dreamer who peopled the earth
+with ideals, and saw beneath the stony surface of the commonplace the
+ideals and principles that were to reconstruct and resurrect the world.
+An admirer of the Law in its ideal conception, he reprobated, with the
+fury of the Baptist, the generation that had belittled and cramped it to
+an instrument of torture of the human mind, and looked to the millenial
+coming of universal brotherhood and freedom.
+
+His father was a leading man in his city; one who, by his native ability
+and the dynamic force that seems to be a characteristic of the race, had
+risen from poverty to the position of chief merchant and capitalist of
+the town in which he lived. He had been elected mayor in a time of
+stress; but his popularity among the citizens generally had cost him,
+as I learned later, something among his own people. The breadth of his
+views had not been approved by them.
+
+The abilities that in the father had taken this direction of the
+mingling of the practical and the theoretical had, in the son, taken the
+form I have stated. He was an idealist: a poet and a dreamer.
+
+The boy from the first had discovered powers that had given his father
+the keenest delight, not unmingled with a little misgiving. As he grew
+up among the best class of boys in his town, and became conscious that
+he was not one of them, his inquiring and aspiring mind began early to
+seek the reasons for the difference. Why should he be held a little
+apart from them? He was a Jew. Yes, but why should a Jew be held apart?
+They talked about their families. Why, his family could trace back for
+two thousand and more years to princes and kings. They had a different
+religion. But he saw other boys with different religions going and
+playing together. They were Christians, and believed in Christ, while
+the Jew, etc. This puzzled him till he found that some of them--a
+few--did not hold the same views of Christ with the others. Then he
+began to study for himself, boy as he was, the history of Christ, and
+out of it came questions that his father could not answer and was angry
+that he should put to him. He went to a young Rabbi who told him that
+Christ was a good man, but mistaken in His claims.
+
+So, the boy drifted a little apart from his own people, and more and
+more he studied the questions that arose in his mind, and more and more
+he suffered; but more and more he grew strong.
+
+The father, too proud of his son's independence to coerce him by an
+order which might have been a law to him, had, nevertheless, thrown him
+on his own resources and cut him down to the lowest figure on which he
+could live, confident that his own opinions would be justified and his
+son return home.
+
+Wolffert's first experience very nearly justified this conviction. The
+fact that a Jew had come and taken one of the old apartments spread
+through the college with amazing rapidity and created a sensation. Not
+that there had not been Jews there before, for there had been a number
+there at one time or another. But they were members of families of
+distinction, who had been known for generations as bearing their part in
+all the appointments of life, and had consorted with other folk on an
+absolute equality; so that there was little or nothing to distinguish
+them as Israelites except their name. If they were Israelites, it was an
+accident and played no larger part in their views than if they had been
+Scotch or French. But here was a man who proclaimed himself a Jew; who
+proposed that it should be known, and evidently meant to assert his
+rights and peculiarities on all occasions. The result was that he was
+subjected to a species of persecution which only the young Anglo-Saxon,
+the most brutal of all animals, could have devised.
+
+As college filled rapidly, it soon became necessary to double up, that
+is, put two men in one apartment. The first student assigned to live
+with Wolffert was Peck, a sedate and cool young man--like myself, from
+the country, and like myself, very short of funds. Peck would not have
+minded rooming with a Jew, or, for that matter, with the Devil, if he
+had thought he could get anything out of him; for he had few prejudices,
+and when it came to calculation, he was the multiplication-table. But
+Peck had his way to make, and he coolly decided that a Jew was likely to
+make him bear his full part of the expenses--which he never had any mind
+to do. So he looked around, and within forty-eight hours moved to a
+place out of college where he got reduced board on the ground of
+belonging to some peculiar set of religionists, of which I am convinced
+he had never heard till he learned of the landlady's idiosyncrasy.
+
+I had incurred Peck's lasting enmity--though I did not know it at the
+time--by a witticism at his expense. We had never taken to each other
+from the first, and one evening, when someone was talking about
+Wolffert, Peck joined in and said that that institution was no place for
+any Jew. I said, "Listen to Peck sniff. Peck, how did you get in?" This
+raised a laugh. Peck, I am sure, had never read "Martin Chuzzlewit"; but
+I am equally sure he read it afterward, for he never forgave me.
+
+Then came my turn and desertion which I have described. And then, after
+that interval of loneliness, appeared John Marvel.
+
+Wolffert, who was one of the most social men I ever knew, was sitting in
+his room meditating on the strange fate that had made him an outcast
+among the men whom he had come there to study and know. This was my
+interpretation of his thoughts: he would probably have said he was
+thinking of the strange prejudices of the human race--prejudices to
+which he had been in some sort a victim all his life, as his race had
+been all through the ages. He was steeped in loneliness, and as, in the
+mellow October afternoon, the sound of good-fellowship floated in at his
+window from the lawn outside, he grew more and more dejected. One
+evening it culminated. He even thought of writing to his father that he
+would come home and go into his office and accept the position that
+meant wealth and luxury and power. Just then there was a step outside,
+and someone stopped and after a moment, knocked at the door. Wolffert
+rose and opened it and stood facing a new student--a florid,
+round-faced, round-bodied, bow-legged, blue-eyed, awkward lad of about
+his own age.
+
+"Is this number ----?" demanded the newcomer, peering curiously at the
+dingy door and half shyly looking up at the occupant.
+
+"It is. Why?" Wolffert spoke abruptly.
+
+"Well, I have been assigned to this apartment by the Proctor. I am a new
+student and have just come. My name is Marvel--John Marvel." Wolffert
+put his arms across the doorway and stood in the middle of it.
+
+"Well, I want to tell you before you come in that I am a Jew. You are
+welcome not to come, but if you come I want you to stay." Perhaps the
+other's astonishment contained a query, for he went on hotly:
+
+"I have had two men come here already and both of them left after one
+day. The first said he got cheaper board, which was a legitimate
+excuse--if true--the other said he had found an old friend who wanted
+him. I am convinced that he lied and that the only reason he left was
+that I am a Jew. And now you can come in or not, as you please, but if
+you come you must stay." He was looking down in John Marvel's eyes with
+a gaze that had the concentrated bitterness of generations in it, and
+the latter met it with a gravity that deepened into pity.
+
+"I will come in and I will stay; Jesus was a Jew," said the man on the
+lower step.
+
+"I do not know him," said the other bitterly.
+
+"But you will. I know Him."
+
+Wolffert's arms fell and John Marvel entered and stayed.
+
+That evening the two men went to the supper hall together. Their table
+was near mine and they were the observed of all observers. The one
+curious thing was that John Marvel was studying for the ministry. It
+lent zest to the jokes that were made on this incongruous pairing, and
+jests, more or less insipid, were made on the Law and the Prophets; the
+lying down together of the lion and the lamb, etc.
+
+It was a curious mating--the light-haired, moon-faced, slow-witted
+Saxon, and the dark, keen Jew with his intellectual face and his
+deep-burning eyes in which glowed the misery and mystery of the ages.
+
+John Marvel soon became well known; for he was one of the slowest men
+in the college. With his amusing awkwardness, he would have become a
+butt except for his imperturbable good-humor. As it was, he was for a
+time a sort of object of ridicule to many of us--myself among the
+number--and we had many laughs at him. He would disappear on Saturday
+night and not turn up again till Monday morning, dusty and disheveled.
+And many jests were made at his expense. One said that Marvel was
+practising preaching in the mountains with a view to becoming a second
+Demosthenes; another suggested that, if so, the mountains would probably
+get up and run into the sea.
+
+When, however, it was discovered later that he had a Sunday-school in
+the mountains, and walked twelve miles out and twelve miles back, most
+of the gibers, except the inveterate humorists like myself, were silent.
+
+This fact came out by chance. Marvel disappeared from college one day
+and remained away for two or three weeks. Wolffert either could not or
+would not give any account of him. When Marvel returned, he looked worn
+and ill, as if he had been starving, and almost immediately he was taken
+ill and went to the infirmary with a case of fever. Here he was so ill
+that the doctors quarantined him and no one saw him except the
+nurse--old Mrs. Denny, a wrinkled and bald-headed, old, fat woman,
+something between a lightwood knot and an angel--and Wolffert.
+
+Wolffert moved down and took up his quarters in the infirmary--it was
+suggested, with a view to converting Marvel to Judaism--and here he
+stayed. The nursing never appeared to make any difference in Wolffert's
+preparation for his classes; for when he came back he still stood easily
+first. But poor Marvel never caught up again, and was even more
+hopelessly lost in the befogged region at the bottom of the class than
+ever before. When called on to recite, his brow would pucker and he
+would perspire and stammer until the class would be in ill-suppressed
+convulsions, all the more enjoyable because of Leo Wolffert's agonizing
+over his wretchedness. Then Marvel, excused by the professor, would sit
+down and mop his brow and beam quite as if he had made a wonderful
+performance (which indeed, he had), while Wolffert's thin face would
+grow whiter, his nostrils quiver, and his deep eyes burn like coals.
+
+One day a spare, rusty man with a frowzy beard, and a lank, stooping
+woman strolled into the college grounds, and after wandering around
+aimlessly for a time, asked for Mr. Marvel. Each of them carried a
+basket. They were directed to his room and remained with him some time,
+and when they left, he walked some distance with them.
+
+It was at first rumored and then generally reported that they were
+Marvel's father and mother. It became known later that they were a
+couple of poor mountaineers named Shiflett, whose child John Marvel had
+nursed when it had the fever. They had just learned of his illness and
+had come down to bring him some chickens and other things which they
+thought he might need.
+
+This incident, with the knowledge of Marvel's devotion, made some
+impression on us, and gained for Marvel, and incidentally for Wolffert,
+some sort of respect.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE FIGHT
+
+
+All this time I was about as far aloof from Marvel and Wolffert as I was
+from any one in the college.
+
+I rather liked Marvel, partly because he appeared to like me and I
+helped him in his Latin, and partly because Peck sniffed at him, and
+Peck I cordially disliked for his cold-blooded selfishness and his
+plodding way.
+
+I was strong and active and fairly good-looking, though by no means so
+handsome as I fancied myself when I passed the large plate-glass windows
+in the stores; I was conceited, but not arrogant except to my family and
+those I esteemed my inferiors; was a good poker-player; was open-handed
+enough, for it cost me nothing; and was inclined to be kind by nature.
+
+I had, moreover, several accomplishments which led to a certain measure
+of popularity. I had a retentive memory, and could get up a recitation
+with little trouble; though I forgot about as quickly as I learned. I
+could pick a little on a banjo; could spout fluently what sounded like a
+good speech if one did not listen to me; could write, what someone has
+said, looked at a distance like poetry and, thanks to my father, could
+both fence and read Latin. These accomplishments served to bring me into
+the best set in college and, in time, to undo me. For there is nothing
+more dangerous to a young man than an exceptional social accomplishment.
+A tenor voice is almost as perilous as a taste for drink; and to play
+the guitar, about as seductive as to play poker.
+
+I was soon to know Wolffert better. He and Marvel, after their work
+became known, had been admitted rather more within the circle, though
+they were still kept near the perimeter. And thus, as the spring came
+on, when we all assembled on pleasant afternoons under the big trees
+that shaded the green slopes above the athletic field, even Wolffert and
+Marvel were apt to join us. I would long ago have made friends with
+Wolffert, as some others had done since he distinguished himself; for I
+had been ashamed of my poltroonery in leaving him; but, though he was
+affable enough with others, he always treated me with such marked
+reserve that I had finally abandoned my charitable effort to be on easy
+terms with him.
+
+One spring afternoon we were all loafing under the trees, many of us
+stretched out on the grass. I had just saved a game of baseball by
+driving a ball that brought in three men from the bases, and I was
+surrounded by quite a group. Marvel, who was as strong as an ox, was
+second-baseman on the other nine and had missed the ball as the
+center-fielder threw it wildly. Something was said--I do not recall
+what--and I raised a laugh at Marvel's expense, in which he joined
+heartily. Then a discussion began on the merits in which Wolffert
+joined. I started it, but as Wolffert appeared excited, I drew out and
+left it to my friends.
+
+Presently, at something Wolffert said, I turned to a friend, Sam
+Pleasants, and said in a half-aside, with a sneer: "He did not see it;
+Sam, _you_--" I nodded my head, meaning, "You explain it."
+
+Suddenly, Wolffert rose to his feet and, without a word of warning,
+poured out on me such a torrent of abuse as I never heard before or
+since. His least epithet was a deadly insult. It was out of a clear sky,
+and for a moment my breath was quite taken away. I sprang to my feet
+and, with a roar of rage, made a rush for him. But he was ready, and
+with a step to one side, planted a straight blow on my jaw that,
+catching me unprepared, sent me full length on my back. I was up in a
+second and made another rush for him, only to be caught in the same way
+and sent down again.
+
+When I rose the second time, I was cooler. I knew then that I was in for
+it. Those blows were a boxer's. They came straight from the shoulder and
+were as quick as lightning, with every ounce of the giver's weight
+behind them. By this time, however, the crowd had interfered. This was
+no place for a fight, they said. The professors would come on us.
+Several were holding me and as many more had Wolffert; among them, John
+Marvel, who could have lifted him in his strong arms and held him as a
+baby. Marvel was pleading with him with tears in his eyes. Wolffert was
+cool enough now, but he took no heed of his friend's entreaties.
+Standing quite still, with the blaze in his eyes all the more vivid
+because of the pallor of his face, he was looking over his friend's head
+and was cursing me with all the eloquence of a rich vocabulary. So far
+as he was concerned, there might not have been another man but myself
+within a mile.
+
+[Illustration: Wolffert ... was cursing me with all the eloquence of a
+rich vocabulary]
+
+In a moment an agreement was made by which we were to adjourn to a
+retired spot and fight it out. Something that he said led someone to
+suggest that we settle it with pistols. It was Peck's voice. Wolffert
+sprang at it. "I will, if I can get any gentleman to represent me," he
+said with a bitter sneer, casting his flashing, scornful eyes around on
+the crowd. "I have only one friend and I will not ask him to do it."
+
+"I will represent you," said Peck, who had his own reasons for the
+offer.
+
+"All right. When and where?" said I.
+
+"Now, and in the railway-cut beyond the wood," said Wolffert.
+
+We retired to two rooms in a neighboring dormitory to arrange matters.
+Peck and another volunteer represented Wolffert, and Sam Pleasants and
+Harry Houston were my seconds. I had expected that some attempt at
+reconciliation would be made; but there was no suggestion of it. I never
+saw such cold-blooded young ruffians as all our seconds were, and when
+Peck came to close the final cartel he had an air between that of a
+butcher and an undertaker. He looked at me exactly as a butcher does at
+a fatted calf. He positively licked his chops. I did not want to shoot
+Wolffert, but I could cheerfully have murdered Peck. While, however,
+the arrangements were being made by our friends, I had had a chance for
+some reflection and I had used it. I knew that Wolffert did not like me.
+He had no reason to do so, for I had not only left him, but had been
+cold and distant with him. Still, I had always treated him civilly, and
+had spoken of him respectfully, which was more than Peck had always
+done. Yet, here, without the least provocation, he had insulted me
+grossly. I knew there must be some misunderstanding, and I determined on
+my "own hook" to find out what it was. Fortune favored me. Just then
+Wolffert opened the door. He had gone to his own room for a few moments
+and, on his return, mistook the number and opened the wrong door. Seeing
+his error, he drew back with an apology, and was just closing the door
+when I called him.
+
+"Wolffert! Come in here a moment. I want to speak to you alone."
+
+He re-entered and closed the door; standing stiff and silent.
+
+"Wolffert, there has been some mistake, and I want to know what it is."
+He made not the least sign that he heard, except a flash, deep in his
+eyes, like a streak of lightning in a far-off cloud.
+
+"I am ready to fight you in any way you wish," I went on. "But I want to
+know what the trouble is. Why did you insult me out of a clear sky? What
+had I done?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"What! Specify. What was it?"
+
+"You have made my life Hell--all of you!" His face worked, and he made a
+wild sweep with his arm and brought it back to his side with clenched
+fist.
+
+"But I?"
+
+"You were the head. You have all done it. You have treated me as an
+outcast--a Jew! You have given me credit for nothing, because I was a
+Jew. I could have stood the personal contempt and insult, and I have
+tried to stand it; but I will put up with it no longer. It is appointed
+once for a man to die, and I can die in no better cause than for my
+people."
+
+He was gasping with suppressed emotion, and I was beginning to gasp
+also--but for a different reason. He went on:
+
+"You thought I was a coward because I was a Jew, and because I wanted
+peace--treated me as a poltroon because I was a Jew. And I made up my
+mind to stop it. So this evening my chance came. That is all."
+
+"But what have I done?"
+
+"Nothing more than you have always done; treated the Jew with contempt.
+But they were all there, and I chose you as the leader when you said
+that about the Jew."
+
+"I said nothing about a Jew. Here, wait! Did you think I insulted you as
+a Jew this afternoon?" I had risen and walked over in front of him.
+
+"Yes." He bowed.
+
+"Well, I did not."
+
+"You did--you said to Sam Pleasants that I was a 'damned Jew.'"
+
+"What! I never said a word like it--yes, I did--I said to Sam Pleasants,
+that you did not see the play, and said, '_Sam, you_--' meaning, you,
+tell him. Wait. Let me think a moment. Wolffert, I owe you an apology,
+and will make it. I know there are some who will think I do it because I
+am afraid to fight. But I do not care. I am not, and I will fight Peck
+if he says so. If you will come with me, I will make you a public
+apology, and then if you want to fight still, I will meet you."
+
+He suddenly threw his right arm up across his face, and, turning his
+back on me, leaned on it against the door, his whole person shaken with
+sobs.
+
+I walked up close to him and laid my hand on his shoulder, helplessly.
+
+"Calm yourself," I began, but could think of nothing else to say.
+
+He shook for a moment and then, turning, with his left arm still across
+his face, he held out his right hand, and I took it.
+
+"I do not want you to do that. All I want is decent treatment--ordinary
+civility," he faltered between his sobs. Then he turned back and leant
+against the door, for he could scarcely stand. And so standing, he made
+the most forcible, the most eloquent, and the most burning defence of
+his people I have ever heard.
+
+"They have civilized the world," he declared, "and what have they gotten
+from it but brutal barbarism. They gave you your laws and your
+literature, your morality and your religion--even your Christ; and you
+have violated every law, human and divine, in their oppression. You
+invaded our land, ravaged our country, and scattered us over the face of
+the earth, trying to destroy our very name and Nation. But the God of
+Israel was our refuge and consolation. You crucified Jesus and then
+visited it on us. You have perpetuated an act of age-long hypocrisy, and
+have, in the name of the Prince of Peace, brutalized over his people.
+The cross was your means of punishment--no Jew ever used it. But if we
+had crucified him it would have been in the name of Law and Order; your
+crucifixion was in the name of Contempt; and you have crucified a whole
+people through the ages--the one people who have ever stood for the one
+God; who have stood for Morality and for Peace. A Jew! Yes, I am a Jew.
+I thank the God of Israel that I am. For as he saved the world in the
+past, so he will save it in the future."
+
+This was only a part of it, and not the best part; but it gave me a new
+insight into his mind.
+
+When he was through I was ready. I had reached my decision.
+
+"I will go with you," I said, "not on your account, but on my own, and
+make my statement before the whole crowd. They are still on the hill.
+Then, if any one wants to fight, he can get it. I will fight Peck."
+
+He repeated that he did not want me to do this, and he would not go;
+which was as well, for I might not have been able to say so much in his
+presence. So I went alone with my seconds, whom I immediately sought.
+
+I found the latter working over a cartel at a table in the next room,
+and I walked in. They looked as solemn as owls, but I broke them up in a
+moment.
+
+"You can stop this infernal foolishness. I have apologized to Wolffert.
+I have treated him like a pig, and so have you. And I have told him so,
+and now I am going out to tell the other fellows."
+
+Their astonishment was unbounded and, at least, one of the group was
+sincerely disappointed. I saw Peck's face fall at my words and then he
+elevated his nose and gave a little sniff.
+
+"Well, it did not come from _our_ side," he said in a half undertone
+with a sneer.
+
+I suddenly exploded. His cold face was so evil.
+
+"No, it did not. I made it freely and frankly, and I am going to make it
+publicly. But if you are disappointed, I want to tell you that you can
+have a little affair on your own account. And in order that there may be
+no want of pretext, I wish to tell you that I believe you have been
+telling lies on me, and I consider you a damned, sneaking hypocrite."
+
+There was a commotion, of course, and the others all jumped in between
+us. And when it was over, I walked out. Three minutes later I was on the
+hill among the crowd, which now numbered several hundred, for they were
+all waiting to learn the result; and, standing on a bench, I told them
+what I had said to Wolffert and how I felt I owed him a public apology,
+not for one insult, but for a hundred. There was a silence for a second,
+and then such a cheer broke out as I never got any other time in my
+life! Cheers for Wolffert--cheers for Marvel, and even cheers for me.
+And then a freckled youth with a big mouth and a blue, merry eye broke
+the tension by saying:
+
+"All bets are off and we sha'n't have a holiday to-morrow at all." The
+reprobates had been betting on which of us would fall, and had been
+banking on a possible holiday.
+
+Quite a crowd went to Wolffert's room to make atonement for any possible
+slight they had put on him; but he was nowhere to be found. But that
+night, he and Marvel sat at our table and always sat there afterward. He
+illustrated George Borrow's observation that good manners and a
+knowledge of boxing will take one through the world.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+DELILAH
+
+
+My career at college promised at one time after that to be almost
+creditable, but it ended in nothing. I was not a good student, because,
+I flattered myself, I was too good a fellow. I loved pleasure too much
+to apply myself to work, and was too self-indulgent to deny myself
+anything. I despised the plodding ways of cold-blooded creatures like
+Peck even more than I did the dullness of John Marvel. Why should I
+delve at Latin and Greek and Mathematics when I had all the poets and
+novelists. I was sure that when the time came I could read up and easily
+overtake and surpass the tortoise-like monotony of Peck's plodding. I
+now and then had an uneasy realization that Peck was developing, and
+that John Marvel, to whom I used to read Latin, had somehow come to
+understand the language better than I. However, this was only an
+occasional awakening, and the idea was too unpleasant for me to harbor
+it long. Meantime, I would enjoy myself and prepare to bear off the more
+shining honors of the orator and society-medalist.
+
+At the very end I did, indeed, arouse myself, for I had a new incentive.
+I fell in love. Toward the mid-session holiday the place always filled
+up with pretty girls. Usually they came just after "the exams"; but
+occasionally some of them came a little in advance: those who were bent
+on conquest. At such times, only cold anchorites like Marvel, or
+calculating machines like Peck, stuck to their books. Among the fair
+visitants this year was one whose reputation for beauty had already
+preceded her: Miss Lilian Poole. She was the daughter of a banker in the
+capital of the State, and by all accounts was a tearing belle. She had
+created a sensation at the Mardi Gras the year before, and one who could
+do that must be a beauty. She was reported more beautiful than Isabelle
+Henderson, the noted beauty of the Crescent city, whom she was said to
+resemble. Certainly, she was not lacking in either looks or
+intelligence; for those who had caught a glimpse of her, declared her a
+Goddess. I immediately determined that I would become her cavalier for
+the occasion. And I so announced to the dozen or more fellows who
+composed our set. They laughed at me.
+
+"Why, you do not know her."
+
+"But I shall know her."
+
+"You are not on speaking terms with Professor Sterner"--the Professor of
+Mathematics at whose house she was stopping. The Professor, a
+logarithmic machine, and I had had a falling out not long before. He had
+called on me for a recitation, one morning after a dance, and I had
+said, "I am not prepared, sir."
+
+"You never are prepared," he said, which the class appeared to think
+amusing. He glanced over the room.
+
+"Mr. Peck."
+
+Peck, also, had been at the dance the night before, though he said he
+had a headache, and caused much amusement by his gambols and antics,
+which, were like those of a cow; I therefore expected him to say,
+"unprepared" also. But not so.
+
+"I was unwell last night, sir."
+
+"Ah! Well, I am glad, at least, that you have some sort of a legitimate
+excuse."
+
+I flamed out and rose to my feet.
+
+"Are you alluding to me, sir?"
+
+"Take your seat, sir. I deny your right to question me."
+
+"I will not take my seat. I do not propose to sit still and be insulted.
+I demand an answer to my question."
+
+"Take your seat, I say. I will report you to the Faculty," he shouted.
+
+"Then you will have to do so very quickly; for I shall report you
+immediately." And with that, I stalked out of the room. The Faculty met
+that afternoon and I laid my complaint before them, and as the students,
+knowing the inside facts, took my side, the Faculty held that the
+Professor committed the first breach and reprimanded us both. I was well
+satisfied after I had met and cut the Professor publicly.
+
+I now acknowledge the untowardness of the situation; but when the boys
+laughed, I pooh-poohed it.
+
+"I do not speak to old Sterner, but I will speak to her the first time I
+meet her."
+
+"I will bet you do not," cried Sam Pleasants.
+
+"Supper for the crowd," chimed in several. They were always as ready to
+bet as their long-haired ancestors were in the German forests, where
+they bet themselves away, and kept their faith, to the amazement of a
+Roman gentleman, who wrote, "_istam vocant fidem_."
+
+We were all in a room, the windows of which looked across the lawn
+toward the pillared portico of Professor Sterner's house, and some of
+the boys were gazing over toward the mansion that sheltered the subject
+of our thoughts. And as it happened, at that moment, the door opened and
+out stepped the young lady herself, in a smart walking costume, topped
+by a large hat with a great, drooping, beguiling, white ostrich feather.
+An exclamation drew us all to the window.
+
+"There she is now!" Without doubt, that was she.
+
+"Jove! What a stunner!"
+
+"She is alone. There is your chance."
+
+"Yes, this is the first time you have seen her; now stop jawing and play
+ball."
+
+"Or pay up."
+
+"Yes, supper for the crowd: porterhouse steak; chicken, and waffles to
+end with."
+
+So they nagged me, one and all.
+
+"Done," I said, "I will do it now."
+
+"You have never seen her before?"
+
+"Never." I was arranging my tie and brushing my hair.
+
+"You swear it?"
+
+But I hurried out of the door and slammed it behind me.
+
+I turned down the walk that led across the campus to the point whither
+Miss Poole was directing her steps, and I took a gait that I judged
+should meet her at the intersection of the walks. I was doing some hard
+thinking, for I knew the window behind me was crowded with derisive
+faces.
+
+As I approached her, I cut my eye at her, and a glance nearly overthrew
+my resolution. She was, indeed, a charming picture as she advanced,
+though I caught little more than a general impression of a slim,
+straight, statuesque figure, a pink face, surmounted by a profusion of
+light hair, under a big hat with white feathers, and a pair of bluish
+eyes. I glanced away, but not before she had caught my eye. Just then a
+whistle sounded behind me, and my nerve returned. I suddenly quickened
+my pace, and held out my hand.
+
+"Why, how do you do?" I exclaimed with well-feigned surprise and
+pleasure, plumping myself directly in front of her. She paused; looked
+at me, hesitated, and then drew back slightly.
+
+"I think--, I--. You have made a mistake, I think."
+
+"Why, do you not remember Henry Glave? Is this not Miss Belle
+Henderson?" I asked in a mystified way.
+
+"No, I am not Miss Henderson."
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon--I thought--" I began. Then, as I moved back a
+little, I added, "Then you must be Miss Lilian Poole; for there cannot
+be more than two like you on earth. I beg your pardon."
+
+I backed away.
+
+"I am," she said. Her mounting color showed that she was at least not
+angry, and she gave proof of it.
+
+"Can you tell me? Is not that the way to Dr. Davis's house?"
+
+"Yes--I will show you which it is." My manner had become most
+respectful.
+
+"Oh! Don't trouble yourself, I beg you."
+
+"It is not the least trouble," I said sincerely, and it was the only
+truth I had told. I walked back a few steps, hat in hand, pointing
+eagerly to the house. And as I left, I said, "I hope you will pardon my
+stupid mistake."
+
+"Oh! I do not think it stupid. She is a beauty."
+
+"_I_ think so." I bowed low. I saw the color rise again as I turned
+away, much pleased with myself, and yet a good deal ashamed, too.
+
+When I returned to "the lair," as we termed Sam Pleasants's room, the
+boys seized me. They were like howling dervishes. But I had grown
+serious. I was very much ashamed of myself. And I did the only decent
+thing I could--I lied, or as good as lied.
+
+"I will give the supper if you will stop this yelling. Do you suppose I
+would make a bet about a girl I did not know?"
+
+This took the spirit out of the thing, and only one of them knew the
+truth. Marvel, who was present, looked at me seriously, and that night
+said to me half sadly,
+
+"You ought not to have done that."
+
+"What? I know it. It was an ungentlemanly thing."
+
+"I do not mean that. You ought not to have told a story afterward."
+
+How he knew it I never knew.
+
+But I had gotten caught in my own mesh. I had walked into the little
+parlor without any invitation, and I was soon hopelessly entangled in
+the web at which I had hitherto scoffed. I fell violently in love.
+
+I soon overcame the little difficulty that stood in my way. And, indeed,
+I think Miss Lilian Poole rather helped me out about this. I did not
+allow grass to grow under my feet, or any impression I had made to
+become effaced. I quickly became acquainted with my Diana-like young
+lady; that is, to speak more exactly, I got myself presented to her, for
+my complete acquaintance with her was of later date, when I had spent
+all the little patrimony I had. I saw immediately that she knew the
+story of the wager, though she did not at that time refer to it, and so
+far as I could tell, she did not resent it. She, at least, gave no sign
+of it. I asked her to allow me to escort her to a German, but she had an
+engagement.
+
+"Who is it?" I inquired rather enviously.
+
+She had a curious expression in her eyes--which, by the way, were a cool
+blue or gray, I never could be sure which, and at times looked rather
+like steel.
+
+She hesitated a moment and her little mouth drew in somewhat closely.
+
+"Mr. Peck." Her voice was a singular instrument. It had so great a
+compass and possessed some notes that affected me strangely; but it also
+could be without the least expression. So it was now when she said,
+"Mr. Peck," but she colored slightly, as I burst out laughing.
+
+"Peck! Pecksniff? Did you ever see him dance? I should as soon have
+thought of your dancing with a clothes-horse."
+
+She appeared somewhat troubled.
+
+"Does he dance so badly as that? He told me he danced."
+
+"So he does--like this." I gave an imitation of Peck's gyrations, in
+which I was so earnest that I knocked over a table and broke a fine
+lamp, to my great consternation.
+
+"Well, you are realistic," observed Miss Poole, calmly, who struck me as
+not so much concerned at my misfortune as I might have expected. When,
+however, she saw how really troubled I was, she was more sympathetic.
+
+"Perhaps, if we go out, they will not know who did it," she observed.
+
+"Well, no, I could not do that," I said, thinking of Peck, and then as
+her expression did not change, I fired a shot that I meant to tell.
+"Peck would do that sort of thing. _I_ shall tell them."
+
+To this she made no reply. She only looked inscrutably pretty. But it
+often came back to me afterward how calmly and quite as a matter of
+course she suggested my concealing the accident, and I wondered if she
+thought I was a liar.
+
+She had a countenance that I once thought one of the most beautiful in
+the world; but which changed rarely. Its only variations were from an
+infantile beauty to a statuesque firmness.
+
+Yet that girl, with her rather set expression and infantile face, her
+wide open, round eyes and pink prettiness, was as deep as a well, and an
+artesian well at that.
+
+I soon distanced all rivals. Peck was quickly disposed of; though, with
+his nagging persistence, he still held on. This bored me exceedingly and
+her too, if I could judge by her ridicule of him and her sarcasm which
+he somehow appeared too stupid to see. He succumbed, however, to my
+mimicry of his dancing; for I was a good mimic, and Peck, in a very high
+collar and with very short trousers on his dumpy legs, was really a fair
+mark. Miss Poole was by no means indifferent to public opinion, and a
+shaft of satire could penetrate her mail of complacency. So when she
+returned later to the classic shades of the university, as she did a
+number of times for Germans and other social functions, I made a good
+deal of hay. A phrase of Peck's, apropos of this, stuck in my memory.
+Some one--it was, I think, Leo Wolffert--said that I appeared to be
+making hay, and Peck said, "Yes, I would be eating it some day." I often
+wondered afterward how he stumbled on the witticism.
+
+Those visits of my tall young dulcinea cost me dear in the sequel. While
+the other fellows were boning I was lounging in the drawing-room
+chattering nonsense or in the shade of the big trees in some secluded
+nook, writing her very warm poems of the character which Horace says is
+hated both of Gods and men. Several of these poems were published in the
+college magazine. The constant allusions to her physical charms caused
+Peck to say that I evidently considered Miss Poole to be "composed
+wholly of eyes and hair." His observation that a man was a fool to write
+silly verses to a girl he loved, because it gave her a wrong idea of her
+charms, I, at the time, set down to sheer envy, for Peck could not turn
+a rhyme; but since I have discovered that for a practical person like
+Peck, it has a foundation, of truth.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE
+
+
+Meantime, my studies--if any part of my desultory occupation could be so
+termed--suffered undeniably. My appearance at the classroom door with a
+cigarette, which I flung away just in time not to carry it into the
+room, together with my chronic excuse of being "unprepared," moved the
+driest of my professors to the witticism that I "divided my time between
+a smoke and a flame." It was only as the finals drew near that I began
+to appreciate that I would have the least trouble in "making my
+tickets," as the phrase went. Sam Pleasants, Leo Wolffert and my other
+friends had begun to be anxious for me for some time before--and both
+Wolffert and John Marvel had come to me and suggested my working, at
+least, a little: Wolffert with delicacy and warmth; John Marvel with
+that awkward bluntness with which he always went at anything. I felt
+perfectly easy in my mind then and met their entreaties scornfully.
+
+"Why, I did well enough at the Intermediates," I said.
+
+"Yes, but," said John Marvel, "Delilah was not here then----"
+
+I was conscious, even though I liked the reference to Samson, of being a
+little angered; but John Marvel looked so innocent and so hopelessly
+friendly that I passed it by with a laugh and paid Miss Poole more
+attention than ever.
+
+The Debater's Medal had for a long time been, in the general estimation,
+as good as accorded me; for I was a fluent, and I personally thought,
+eloquent speaker, and had some reading. But when Wolffert entered the
+debate, his speeches so far outshone mine that I knew at once that I was
+beat. They appeared not so much prepared for show, as mine were, as to
+come from a storehouse of reading and reflection. Wolffert, who had
+begun to speak without any design of entering the contest for the Medal,
+would generously have retired, but I would not hear of that. I called
+Peck to account for a speech which I had heard of his making: that "the
+contest was between a Jew and a jug"; but he denied making it, so I lost
+even that satisfaction.
+
+I worked for the Magazine Medal; but my "poems"--"To Cynthia" and "To
+Felicia," and my fanciful sketches, though they were thought fine by our
+set, did not, in the estimation of the judges, equal the serious and
+solemn essays on Julius Cæsar and Alexander Hamilton, to which the prize
+was awarded. At least, the author of those essays had worked over them
+like a dog, and in the maturer light of experience, I think he earned
+the prizes.
+
+I worked hard--at least, at the last, for my law degree, and every one
+was sure I would win--as sure as that Peck would lose; but Peck scraped
+through while mine was held up--because the night before the degrees
+were posted I insisted on proving to the professor who had my fate in
+his hands, and whom I casually ran into, that a "gentleman drunk was a
+gentleman sober," the idea having been suggested to my muddled brain by
+my having just been good-natured enough to put to bed Peck. I finally
+got the degree, but not until I had been through many tribulations, one
+of which was the sudden frost in Miss Poole's manner to me. That girl
+was like autumn weather. She could be as warm as summer one minute and
+the next the thermometer would drop below the freezing point. I remember
+I was her escort the evening of the Final Ball. She looked like Juno
+with the flowers I had gone out in the country to get for her from an
+old garden that I knew. Her face was very high bred and her pose
+majestic. I was immensely proud of her and of myself as her escort--and
+as Peck stalked in with a new and ill-fitting suit of "store-clothes"
+on, I fancy I put on my toppiest air. But Peck had a shaft and he came
+there to shoot it. As he passed near us, he said in a loud voice to
+someone, "The B. L. list is posted."
+
+"Are you through?" demanded the other.
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Anybody failed 't we expected to get through?"
+
+"'T depends on who you expected to get through. Glave's not on it."
+
+His shaft came home. I grew cold for a minute and then recovered myself.
+I saw my partner's face change. I raised my head and danced on
+apparently gayer than ever, though my heart was lead. And she played
+her part well, too. But a few minutes later when Peck strutted up, a
+decided cock to his bullet head, I heard her, as I turned away,
+congratulate him on his success.
+
+I slipped out and went over to the bulletin-board where the degree-men
+were posted, and sure enough, I was not among them. A curious crowd was
+still standing about and they stopped talking as I came up, so I knew
+they had been talking about me. I must say that all showed concern, and
+sympathy was written on every face. It was, at least, sweet to know that
+they all considered it a cursed shame, and set my failure down to
+hostility on the part of one of the professors. I was determined that no
+one should know how hard hit I was, and I carried my head high till the
+ball was out, and was so lofty with Miss Poole that she was mystified
+into being very receptive. I do not know what might have happened that
+night if it had not been for old John Marvel. I learned afterward that I
+was pretty wild. He found me when I was wildly denouncing the law
+professor who had failed to put me through in some minor course, and was
+vowing that I would smash in his door and force my diploma from him. I
+might have been crazy enough to attempt it had not old John gotten hold
+of me. He and Wolffert put me to bed and stayed with me till I was
+sober. And sober enough I was next day.
+
+As I have said, I received my diploma finally; but I lost all the
+prestige and pleasure of receiving it along with my class, and I passed
+through some of the bitterest hours that a young man can know.
+
+Among my friends at college--I might say among my warmest friends--was
+my old crony "Jeams," or, as he spoke of himself to those whom he did
+not regard as his social equals, or whom he wanted to amuse himself
+with, "Mister Woodson"; a little later changed to "Professor Woodson,"
+as more dignified and consonant with the managing class of the
+institution. When I left for college he followed me, after a brief
+interval, and first appeared as a waiter at the college boarding-house
+where I boarded, having used my name as a reference, though at home he
+had never been nearer the dining-room than the stable. Here he was
+promptly turned out, and thereupon became a hanger-on of mine and a
+"Factotum" for me and my friends.
+
+He was now a tall, slim fellow, with broad shoulders and the muscles of
+Atlas--almost but not quite black and with a laugh that would have wiled
+Cerberus. He had the shrewdness of a wild animal, and was as imitative
+as a monkey, and this faculty had inspired and enabled him to pick up
+all sorts of acquirements, ranging from reading and writing to
+sleight-of-hand tricks, for which he showed a remarkable aptitude.
+Moreover, he had a plenty of physical courage, and only needed to be
+backed by someone, on whom he relied, to do anything.
+
+I was naturally attached to him and put up with his rascalities, though
+they often taxed me sorely, while he, on his part, was so sincerely
+attached to me, that I believe he would have committed any crime at my
+bidding.
+
+He considered my old clothes his property, and what was far more
+inconvenient, considered himself the judge of the exact condition and
+moment when they should pass from my possession to his.
+
+He was a handsome rascal, and took at times such pride in his appearance
+that, as he was about my size, I had often to exercise a close watch on
+my meagre wardrobe. He had not only good, but really distinguished
+manners, and, like many of his race, prided himself on his manners.
+Thus, on an occasion when he passed Peck at college, and touched his hat
+to him, a civility which Peck ignored, Wolffert said to him, "Jeams, Mr.
+Peck don't appear to recognize you."
+
+"Oh! yes," said Jeams, "he recognizes me, but he don't recognize what's
+due from one gent'man to another."
+
+"Are you going to keep on touching your hat to him?" asked Wolffert.
+
+"Oh! yes, suh," said Jeams, "I takes keer o' my manners, and lets him
+take keer o' hisn'."
+
+Such was "Jeams," my "body servant," as he styled himself, on occasions
+when he had an eye to some article of my apparel or stood in especial
+need of a donation.
+
+He hated Peck with as much violence as his easygoing nature was capable
+of, and had no liking for Wolffert. The fact that the latter was a Jew
+and yet my friend, staggered him, though he put up with him for my sake,
+and on the night of my fight with Wolffert, I think he would, had he had
+a chance, have murdered him, as I am sure he would have murdered the
+professor who threw me on my degree. He got much fuller than I got that
+night, and his real grief and shame were among the heaviest burdens I
+had to bear.
+
+Miss Poole returned home the next afternoon after the delivery of the
+diplomas, and I heard that Peck went off on the same train with her.
+
+I expected some sympathy from the girl for whom my devotion had cost me
+so much; but she was as cool and sedate over my failure as if it had
+been Peck's.
+
+All she said was, "Why did not you win the honors?"
+
+"Because I did not work enough for them."
+
+"Why did not you work more?"
+
+I came near saying, "Because I was fooling around you"; but I simply
+said, "Because I was so certain of winning them."
+
+"You showed rather bad judgment." That was all the sympathy I received
+from her.
+
+The old law professor when he took leave of me said--and I remember said
+it gravely--"Mr. Glave, you have the burden of too many gifts to carry."
+
+I was pleased by the speech and showed it. He looked at me keenly from
+under his bushy eyebrows. "I commend to you the fable of the hare and
+the tortoise. We shall hear of Peck."
+
+I wondered how he knew I was thinking of Peck with his common face, hard
+eyes, and stumpy legs.
+
+"You shall hear of me, too," I declared with some haughtiness.
+
+He only smiled politely and made no answer.
+
+Nettled, I asked arrogantly, "Don't you think I have more sense--more
+intellect than Peck?"
+
+"More intellect--yes--much more.--More sense? No. Remember the fable.
+'There are ways that you know not and paths that you have not tried.'"
+
+"Oh! that fable--it is as old as----"
+
+"Humanity," he said. "'To scorn delights and live laborious days.' You
+will never do that--Peck will."
+
+I left him, angry and uncomfortable.
+
+I had rather looked forward to going to the West to a near cousin of my
+father's, who, if report were true, had made a fortune as a lawyer and
+an investor in a Western city. He and my father had been boys together,
+but my cousin had gone West and when the war came, he had taken the
+other side. My father, however, always retained his respect for him and
+spoke of him with affection. He had been to my home during my early
+college-life--a big, stolid, strong-faced man, silent and cold, but
+watchful and clear-minded--and had appeared to take quite a fancy to me.
+
+"When he gets through," he had said to my father, "send him out to me.
+That is the place for brains and ambition, and I will see what is in him
+for you."
+
+Now that I had failed, I could not write to him; but as he had made a
+memorandum of my graduation year, and as he had written my father
+several times, I rather expected he would open the way for me. But no
+letter came. So I was content to go to the capital of the State.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE METEOR
+
+
+I am convinced now that as parents are the most unselfish creatures,
+children are the veriest brutes on earth. I was too self-absorbed to
+think of my kind father, who had sacrificed everything to give me
+opportunities which I had thrown under the feet of Lilian Poole and who
+now consoled and encouraged me without a word of censure. Though I was
+deeply grieved at the loss of my parents, I did not know until years
+afterward what an elemental and life-long calamity that loss was.
+
+My father appeared as much pleased with my single success as if I had
+brought him home the honors which I had been boasting I would show him.
+He gave me only two or three bits of advice before I left home. "Be
+careful with other people's money and keep out of debt," he said. "Also,
+have no dealings with a rascal, no matter how tightly you think you can
+tie him up." And his final counsel was, "Marry a lady and do not marry a
+fool."
+
+I wondered if he were thinking of Lilian Poole.
+
+However, I had not the least doubt in my mind about winning success both
+with her and with that even more jealous Mistress--The Law. In fact, I
+quite meant to revolutionize things by the meteoric character of my
+career.
+
+I started out well. I took a good office fronting on the street in one
+of the best office-buildings--an extravagance I could not afford. Peck
+had a little dark hole on the other side of the hall. He made a half
+proposal to share my office with me, but I could not stand that. I,
+however, told him that he was welcome to use my office and books as much
+as he pleased, and he soon made himself so much at home in my office
+that I think he rather fell into the habit of thinking my clients his
+own.
+
+Before I knew many people I worked hard; read law and a great deal of
+other literature. But this did not last long, for I was social and made
+acquaintances easily. Moreover, I soon began to get cases; though they
+were too small to satisfy me--quite below my abilities, I thought. So,
+unless they promised me a chance of speaking before a jury, I turned
+them over to Peck, who would bone at them and work like a horse, though
+I often had to hunt up the law for him, a labor I never knew him to
+acknowledge.
+
+At first I used to correspond with both John Marvel and Wolffert; but
+gradually I left their letters unanswered. John, who had gone West, was
+too full of his country parish to interest me, and Wolffert's
+abstractions were too altruistic for me.
+
+Meantime, I was getting on swimmingly. I was taken into the best social
+set in the city, and was soon quite a favorite among them. I was made a
+member of all the germans as well as of the best club in town; was
+welcomed in the poker-game of "the best fellows" in town, and was
+invited out so much that I really had no time to do much else than enjoy
+my social success. But the chief of the many infallible proofs I had was
+my restoration to Lilian Poole's favor. Since I was become a sort of
+toast with those whose opinion she valued highly, she was more cordial
+to me than ever, and I was ready enough to let by-gones be by-gones and
+dangle around the handsomest girl in the State, daughter of a man who
+was president of a big bank and director of a half-dozen corporations. I
+was with her a great deal. In fact, before my second winter was out, my
+name was coupled with hers by all of our set and many not in our set.
+And about three evenings every week I was to be found basking in her
+somewhat steady smile, either at some dance or other social
+entertainment; strolling with her in the dusk on our way home from the
+fashionable promenade of ---- Street--which, for some reason, she always
+liked, though I would often have preferred some quieter walk--or
+lounging on her plush-covered sofa in her back drawing-room. I should
+have liked it better had Peck taken the hint that most of my other
+friends had taken and kept away from her house on those evenings which
+by a tacit consent of nearly every one were left for my visits. But
+Peck, who now professed a great friendship for me, must take to coming
+on precisely the evenings I had selected for my calls. He never wore a
+collar that fitted him, and his boots were never blacked. Miss Lilian
+used to laugh at him and call him "the burr"--indeed, so much that I
+more than once told her, that while I was not an admirer of Peck
+myself, I thought the fact that he was really in love with her ought to
+secure him immunity from her sarcasm. We had quite a stiff quarrel over
+the matter, and I told her what our old law professor had said of Peck.
+
+I had rather thought that, possibly, Mr. Poole, knowing of the growing
+relation of intimacy between myself and his daughter, would throw a
+little of his law business my way; but he never did. He did, in fact,
+once consult me at his own house about some extensive interests that he
+owned and represented together in a railway in a Western city; but
+though I took the trouble to hunt up the matter and send him a brief on
+the point carefully prepared, he did not employ me, and evidently
+considered that I had acted only as a friend. It was in this
+investigation that I first heard of the name Argand and also of the P.
+D. and B. D. R.R. Co. I heard long afterward that he said I had too many
+interests to suit him; that he wanted a lawyer to give him all his
+intellect, and not squander it on politics, literature, sport, and he
+did not know what besides. This was a dig at my rising aspirations in
+each of these fields. For I used to write now regularly for the
+newspapers, and had one or two articles accepted by a leading monthly
+magazine--a success on which even Peck congratulated me, though he said
+that, as for him, he preferred the law to any other entertainment. My
+newspaper work attracted sufficient attention to inspire me with the
+idea of running for Congress, and I began to set my traps and lay my
+triggers for that.
+
+Success appeared to wait for me, and my beginning was "meteoric."
+
+Meteoric beginnings are fatal. The meteor soon fades into outer
+darkness--the outer darkness of the infinite abyss. I took it for
+success and presumed accordingly, and finally I came down. I played my
+game too carelessly. I began to speculate--just a little at first; but
+more largely after awhile. There I appeared to find my proper field; for
+I made money almost immediately, and I spent it freely, and, after I had
+made a few thousands, I was regarded with respect by my little circle.
+
+I began to make money so much more easily by this means than I had ever
+done by the law that I no longer thought it worth while to stay in my
+office, as I had done at first, but spent my time, in a flock of other
+lambs, in front of a blackboard in a broker's office, figuring on
+chances which had already been decided in brokers' offices five hundred
+miles away. Thus, though I worked up well the cases I had, and was
+fairly successful with them, I found my clients in time drifting away to
+other men not half as clever as I was, who had no other aim than to be
+lawyers. Peck got some of my clients. Indeed, one of my clients in
+warning me against speculating, which, he said, ruined more young men
+than faro and drink together, told me he had learned of my habit through
+Peck. Peck was always in his office or mine. I had made some reputation,
+however, as a speaker, and as I had taken an active part in politics and
+had many friends, I stood a good chance for the commonwealth's
+attorneyship; but I had determined to fly higher: I wanted to go to
+Congress.
+
+I kept a pair of horses now, since I was so successful, and used to hunt
+in the season with other gay pleasure-lovers, or spend my afternoons
+riding with Miss Poole, who used to look well on horseback. We often
+passed Peck plodding along alone, stolid and solemn, "taking his
+constitutional," he said. I remember once as we passed him I recalled
+what the old professor had said of him, and I added that I would not be
+as dull as Peck for a fortune. "Do you know," said Miss Poole, suddenly,
+"I do not think him so dull; he has improved." Peck sat me out a few
+nights after this, and next day I nearly insulted him; but he was too
+dull to see it.
+
+I knew my young lady was ambitious; so I determined to please her, and,
+chucking up the fight for the attorneyship, I told her I was going to
+Congress, and began to work for it. I was promised the support of so
+many politicians that I felt absolutely sure of the nomination.
+
+Peck told me flatly that I did not stand the ghost of a show; and began
+to figure. Peck was always figuring. He advised me to stand for the
+attorneyship, and said I might get it if I really tried. I knew better,
+however, and I knew Peck, too, so I started in. To make a fight I wanted
+money, and it happened that a little trip I had taken in the summer,
+when I was making a sort of a splurge, together with an unlooked-for and
+wholly inexplicable adverse turn in the market had taken all my cash.
+So, to make it up, I went into the biggest deal I ever tried. What was
+the use of fooling about a few score dollars a point when I could easily
+make it a thousand? I would no longer play at the shilling-table. I had
+a "dead-open-and-shut thing" of it. I had gotten inside information of a
+huge railroad deal quietly planned, and was let in as a great favor by
+influential friends, who were close friends of men who were manipulating
+the market, and especially the P. D. and B. D., a North-western road
+which had been reorganized some years before. Mr. Poole had some
+interest in it and this made me feel quite safe as to the deal. I knew
+they were staking their fortunes on it. I was so sure about it that I
+even advised Peck, for whom I had some gratitude on account of his
+advice about the attorneyship, to let me put him in for a little. But he
+declined. He said he had other use for his money and had made it a rule
+not to speculate. I told him he was a fool, and I borrowed all I could
+and went in.
+
+It was the most perfectly managed affair I ever saw. We--our
+friends--carried the stock up to a point that was undreamed of, and
+money was too valuable to pay debts with, even had my creditors wanted
+it, which they did not, now that I had recouped and was again on the
+crest of the wave. I was rich and was doubling up in a pyramid, when one
+of those things happened that does not occur once in ten million times
+and cannot be guarded against! We were just prepared to dump the whole
+business, when our chief backer, as he was on his way in his carriage to
+close the deal, was struck by lightning! I was struck by the same bolt.
+In twenty minutes I was in debt twenty thousand dollars. Telegrams and
+notices for margin began to pour in on me again within the hour. None of
+them bothered me so much, however, as a bank notice that I had
+overchecked an account in which I had a sum of a few hundred dollars
+belonging to a client of mine--an old widowed lady, Mrs. Upshur, who had
+brought it to me to invest for her, and who trusted me. She had been
+robbed by her last agent and this was really all that was left her. I
+remembered how she had insisted on my keeping it for her against the
+final attack of the wolf, she had said. "But suppose I should spend it,"
+I had said jesting. "I'm not afraid of your spending it, but of
+myself--I want so many things. If I couldn't trust you, I'd give up."
+And now it was gone. It came to me that if I should die at that moment
+she would think I had robbed her, and would have a right to think so. I
+swear that at the thought I staggered, and since then I have always
+known how a thief must sometimes feel. It decided me, however. I made up
+my mind that second that I would never again buy another share of stock
+on a margin as long as I lived, and I wrote telegrams ordering every
+broker I had to sell me out and send me my accounts, and I mortgaged my
+old home for all I could get. I figured that I wanted just one hundred
+dollars more than I had. I walked across the hall into Peck's little
+dark office. He was poring over a brief. I said, "Peck, I am broke."
+
+"What? I am sorry to hear it--but I am not surprised." He was perfectly
+cool, but did look sorry.
+
+"Peck," I went on, "I saw you pricing a watch the other day. Here is one
+I gave three hundred dollars for." I showed him a fine chronometer
+repeater I had bought in my flush time.
+
+"I can't give over a hundred dollars for a watch," he said.
+
+"How much will you give me for this?"
+
+"You mean with the chain?"
+
+"Yes"--I had not meant with the chain, but I thought of old Mrs. Upshur.
+
+"I can't give over a hundred."
+
+"Take it," and I handed it to him and he gave me a hundred-dollar bill,
+which I took with the interest and handed, myself, to my old lady, whom
+I advised to let Peck invest for her on a mortgage. This he did, and I
+heard afterward netted her six per cent--for a time.
+
+That evening I went to see Lilian Poole. I had made up my mind quickly
+what to do. That stroke of lightning had showed me everything just as it
+was, in its ghastliest detail. If she accepted me, I would begin to work
+in earnest, and if she would wait, as soon as I could pay my debts, I
+would be ready; if not, then--! However, I walked right in and made a
+clean breast of it, and I told her up and down that if she would marry
+me I would win. I shall never forget the picture as she stood by the
+heavy marble mantel in her father's rich drawing-room, tall and
+uncompromising and very handsome. She might have been marble herself,
+like the mantel, she was so cold, and I, suddenly aroused by the shock,
+was on fire with resolve and fierce hunger for sympathy. She did not
+hesitate a moment; and I walked out. She had given me a deep wound. I
+saw the sun rise in the streets.
+
+Within two weeks I had made all my arrangements; had closed up my
+affairs; given up everything in the world I had; executed my notes to my
+creditors and told them they were not worth a cent unless I lived, in
+which case they would be worth principal and interest; sold my law books
+to Peck for a price which made his eyes glisten, had given him my office
+for the unexpired term, and was gone to the West.
+
+The night before I left I called to see the young lady again--a piece of
+weakness. But I hated to give up.
+
+She looked unusually handsome.
+
+I believe if she had said a word or had looked sweet at me I might have
+stayed, and I know I should have remained in love with her. But she did
+neither. When I told her I was going away, she said, "Where?" That was
+every word--in just such a tone as if she had met me on the corner, and
+I had said I was going to walk. She was standing by the mantel with her
+shapely arm resting lightly on the marble. I said, "God only knows, but
+somewhere far enough away."
+
+"When are you coming back?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Oh, yes, you will," she said coolly, arranging a bracelet, so coolly
+that it stung me like a serpent and brought me on my feet.
+
+"I'll be--! No, I will not," I said. "Good-by."
+
+"Good-by." She gave me her hand and it was as cool as her voice.
+
+"Good-by." And mine was as cold as if I were dead. I swear, I believe
+sometimes I did die right there before her and that a new man took my
+place within me. At any rate my love for her died, slain by the ice in
+her heart; and the foolish fribble I was passed into a man of
+resolution.
+
+As I walked out of her gate, I met Peck going in, and I did not care. I
+did not even hate him. I remember that his collar was up to his ears. I
+heard afterward that she accepted him that same week. For some
+inexplicable reason I thought of John Marvel as I walked home. I
+suddenly appeared nearer to him than I had done since I left college,
+and I regretted not having answered his simple, affectionate letters.
+
+I started West that night.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE HEGIRA
+
+
+In my ménage was a bull-terrier puppy--brindled, bow-legged and bold--at
+least, Jeams declared Dix to be a bull-pup of purest blood when he sold
+him to me for five dollars and a suit of clothes that had cost sixty. I
+found later that he had given a quarter for him to a negro stable-boy
+who had been sent to dispose of him. Like the American people, he was of
+many strains; but, like the American people, he proved to have good
+stuff in him, and he had the soul of a lion. One eye was bleared, a
+memento of some early and indiscreet insolence to some decisive-clawed
+cat; his ears had been crookedly clipped and one perked out, the other
+in, and his tail had been badly bobbed; but was as expressive as the
+immortal Rab's eloquent stump. He feared and followed Jeams, but he
+adored me. And to be adored by woman or dog is something for any man to
+show at the last day. To lie and blink at me by the hour was his chief
+occupation. To crawl up and lick my hand, or failing that, my boot, was
+his heaven.
+
+I always felt that, with all my faults, which none knew like myself,
+there must be some basic good in me to inspire so devoted a love.
+
+When I determined to leave for the West the night of my final break with
+Lilian Poole, in my selfishness I forgot Dix; but when I reached home
+that night, sobered and solitary, there was Dix with his earnest,
+adoring gaze, his shrewd eye fixed on me, and his friendly twist of the
+back. His joy at my mere presence consoled me and gave me spirit, though
+it did not affect my decision.
+
+Jeams, who had followed me from college, at times hung around my office,
+carried Miss Poole my notes and flowers and, in the hour of my
+prosperity, blossomed out in a gorgeousness of apparel that partly
+accounted for my heavy expense account, as well as for the rapid
+disappearance of the little private stock I occasionally kept or tried
+to keep in a deceptive-looking desk which I used as a sideboard for
+myself and friends. He usually wore an old suit of mine, in which he
+looked surprisingly well, but on occasions he wore a long-tailed coat, a
+red necktie and a large soft, light hat which, cocked on the side of his
+head, gave him the air of an Indian potentate. I think he considered
+himself in some sort a partner. He always referred to me and my business
+as "us" and "our" business, and, on some one's asking him derisively if
+he were a partner of mine, he replied, "Oh, no, sir, only what you might
+term a minor connectee of the Captain." He was, however, a very useful
+fellow, being ready to do anything in the world I ordered, except when
+he was tight or had some piece of rascality on foot--occasions by no
+means rare. He wore, at election time, a large and flaming badge
+announcing that he was something in his party--the opposite party to
+mine; but I have reason to believe that when I was in politics he
+perjured himself freely and committed other crimes against the purity
+of the ballot on which economists declare all Representative Government
+is founded. One of my ardent friends once informed me that he thought I
+ought not to allow Jeams to wear that badge--it was insulting me openly.
+I told him that he was a fool, that I was so afraid Jeams would insist
+on my wearing one, too, I was quite willing to compromise. In fact, I
+had gotten rather dependent on him. Then he and I held such identical
+views as to Peck, not to mention some other mutual acquaintances, and
+Jeams could show his contempt in such delightfully insolent ways.
+
+I had intimated to Jeams some time before, immediately after my first
+serious reverse in the stock market, that I was no longer as flush as I
+had been, and that unless affairs looked up I might move on to fresh
+pastures--or, possibly, I put it, to a wider field for the exercise of
+my powers; whereupon he promptly indicated his intention to accompany me
+and share my fortune. But I must say, he showed plainly his belief that
+it was a richer pasture which I was contemplating moving into, and he
+viewed the prospect with a satisfaction much like that of a cat which,
+in the act of lapping milk, has cream set before it. The only thing that
+puzzled him was that he could not understand why I wanted more than I
+had. He said so plainly.
+
+"What you want to go 'way for, Cap'n? Whyn't you stay where you is? You
+done beat 'em all--evy one of 'em----"
+
+"Oh! no, I haven't."
+
+"Go 'way f'om here--you is an' you know you is--dthat's the reason you
+carry yo' head so high." (He little knew the true reason.) "An' if you
+hadn't, all you got to do is to walk in yonder--up yonder (with a toss
+of his head in the direction of Miss Poole's home), an' hang up your
+hat, and den you ain got nuthin' to do but jus' write yo' checks."
+
+I laughed at Jeams's idea of the situation, and of old Poole's
+son-in-law's position. But it was rather a bitterer laugh than he
+suspected. To soothe my conscience and also to draw him out, I said,
+though I did not then really think it possible:
+
+"Why, she's going to marry Peck."
+
+Jeams turned around and actually spat out his disgust.
+
+"What, dthat man!" Then, as he looked at me to assure himself that I was
+jesting, and finding a shade less amusement in my countenance than he
+had expected, he uttered a wise speech.
+
+"Well, I tell you, Cap'n--if dthat man gits her he ought to have her,
+'cause he done win her an' you ain't know how to play de game. You done
+discard de wrong card."
+
+I acknowledged in my heart that he had hit the mark, and I laughed a
+little less bitterly, which he felt--as did Dix, lying against my foot
+which he suddenly licked twice.
+
+"An' I'll tell you another thing--you's well rid of her. Ef she likes
+dthat man bes', let him have her, and you git another one. Der's plenty
+mo,' jes' as good and better, too, and you'll meck her sorry some day.
+Dthat's de way I does. If dey wants somebody else, I let's 'em have 'em.
+It's better to let 'em have 'em befo' than after."
+
+When Jeams walked out of my room, he had on a suit which I had not had
+three months, and a better suit than I was able to buy again in as many
+years. But he had paid me well for it. I had in mind his wise saying
+when I faced Lilian Poole without a cent on earth, with all gone except
+my new-born resolution and offered her only myself, and as I walked out
+of her gate I consoled myself with Jeams's wisdom.
+
+When I left Miss Poole I walked straight home, and having let nobody
+know, I spent the evening packing up and destroying old letters and
+papers and odds and ends; among them, all of Lilian Poole's letters and
+other trash. At first, I found myself tending to reading over and
+keeping a few letters and knickknacks; but as I glanced over the letters
+and found how stiff, measured, and vacant her letters were as compared
+with my burning epistles, in which I had poured out my heart, my wrath
+rose, and I consigned them all to the flames, whose heat was the only
+warmth they had ever known.
+
+I was in the midst of this sombre occupation, with no companion but my
+angry reflections and no witness but Dix, who was plainly aware that
+something unusual was going on and showed his intense anxiety, in the
+only method that dull humanity has yet learned to catalogue as Dog-talk:
+by moving around, wagging his stump of a twist-tail and making odd,
+uneasy sounds and movements. His evident anxiety about me presently
+attracted my attention, and I began to think what I should do with him.
+I knew old Mrs. Upshur would take and care for him as she would for
+anything of mine; but Dix, though the best tempered of canines, had his
+standards, which he lived up to like a gentleman, and he brooked no
+insolence from his inferiors or equals and admitted no superiors.
+Moreover, he needed out-door exercise as all sound creatures do, and
+this poor, old decrepit Mrs. Upshur could not give him. I discarded for
+one reason or another my many acquaintances, and gradually Jeams took
+precedence in my mind and held it against all reasoning. He was drunken
+and worthless--he would possibly, at times, neglect Dix, and at others,
+would certainly testify his pride in him and prove his confidence by
+making him fight; but he adored the dog and he feared me somewhat. As I
+wavered there was a knock and Jeams walked in. He was dressed in my long
+frock coat and his large, gray hat was on the back of his head--a sure
+sign that he was tight, even had not his dishevelled collar and necktie
+and his perspiring countenance given evidence of his condition. As he
+stood in the door, his hand went up to his hat; but at sight of the
+room, he dropped it before he could reach the hat and simply stared at
+me in blank amazement.
+
+"Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.
+
+[Illustration: "Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.]
+
+"Packing up."
+
+"Where you goin'?"
+
+"Going away."
+
+"When you comin' back?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"What! Well, damned if I ain' gwine wid you, then."
+
+The tone was so sincere and he was evidently so much in earnest that a
+lump sprang into my throat. I turned away to keep him from seeing that I
+was moved, and it was to keep him still from finding it out, that I
+turned on him with well feigned savageness as he entered the room.
+
+"You look like going with me, don't you! You drunken scoundrel! Take
+your hat off, sir"--for in his confusion he had wholly forgotten his
+manners. They now came back to him.
+
+"Ixcuse me--Cap'n" (with a low bow). "Ixcuse me, suh. I al'ays removes
+my hat in the presence of the ladies and sech distinguished gent'mens as
+yourself, suh; but, Cap'n----"
+
+"Drunken rascal!" I muttered, still to hide my feeling.
+
+"Cap'n--I ain' drunk--I'll swear I ain' had a drink not in--" He paused
+for an appropriate term and gave it up. "--Not in--I'll swear on a stack
+of Bibles as--as high as Gen'l Washin's monument--you bring it heah--is
+you got a Bible? You smell my breath!"
+
+"Smell your breath! I can't smell anything but your breath. Open that
+window!"
+
+"Yes, suh," and the window was meanderingly approached, but not reached,
+for he staggered slightly and caught on a chair.
+
+"Cap'n, I ain' had a drink for a year--I'll swear to dthat. I'll prove
+it to you. I ain' had a cent to buy one wid in a month--I was jus'
+comin' roun' to ast you to gi' me one--jus' to git de dust out o' my
+throat."
+
+"Dust! Clean those things up there and get some dust in your throat."
+
+"Yes, suh--yes, suh--Cap'n"--insinuatingly, as his eye fell on Dix, who
+was standing looking attentively first at me and then at Jeams,
+completely mystified by my tone, but ready to take a hand if there was
+any need for him. "Cap'n----"
+
+"Well, what is it? What do you want now?"
+
+"Will you lend me a hundred?"
+
+"A hundred dollars?"
+
+"Yes, suh--you see----"
+
+"No. I'll give you a hundred licks if you don't get to work and clean up
+that floor."
+
+"Cap'n--yes, suh--I'm gwine to clean 't up--but, Cap'n----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'll let you in--jes' len' me ten--or five--or jes' one dollar--hit's a
+cinch--Lord! I can meck ten for one jist as easy--Dee don' know him--Dee
+think he ain' nuthing but a cur dawg--dats what I told 'em. And I'll
+meck you all de money in the worl'--I will dat."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"Well, you see, hits dthis away--I wouldn't bother you if dat yaller
+bar-keeper nigger hadn' clean me up wid them d----d loaded bones of
+hisn--jis' stole it from me--yes, suh--jis'----"
+
+"Cleaned you up? When?"
+
+"Dthis very evenin'--I had seventeen dollars right in my pocket, heah.
+You ax Mr. Wills if I didn't. He seen me have it--I had jes' got it,
+too----"
+
+"You liar--you just now told me you hadn't had a cent in a month, and
+now you say you had seventeen dollars this evening." Jeams reared
+himself up.
+
+"I toll you dthat?" He was now steadying himself with great gravity and
+trying to keep his eyes fixed on me.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No, sir. I never toll you dthat in this worl'! 'Cause 'twould a been a
+lie--and I wouldn' tell you a lie for nuthin' on earth--I never had no
+seventeen dollars."
+
+"I know you didn't--I know that's true, unless you stole it; but you
+said----"
+
+"No, sir--what I said was--dthat if you'd len' me seventeen dollars I'd
+take Dix there and kill any dawg dthat yaller nigger up yonder in the
+Raleigh Hotel could trot out--I didn' keer what he was--and I said
+I'd--give you a hundred dollars out of the skads I picked up--dthat's
+what I said, and you got it wrong."
+
+"You'll do what?"
+
+"You see, hit's this away--dthat big-moufed, corn-fed yaller nigger--he
+was allowin' dthat Mr. Mulligan had a dawg could chaw up any dawg dis
+side o' torment, and I 'lowed him a ten dthat I had one 's could lick
+H--l out o' any Mulligan or Mulligan's dawg top o' groun'--'n' dthat
+you'd len' me th' ten to put up."
+
+"Well, you've lost one ten anyway--I won't lend you a cent, and if I
+catch you fighting Dix, I'll give you the worst lambing you ever had
+since Justice John had you skinned for stealing those chickens."
+
+Jeams threw up his eyes in reprobation.
+
+"Now, Cap'n--you know I never stole dem stags--dthat old jestice he jes'
+sentenced me 'cause you was my counsel an' cause' I was a nigger an' he
+had'n had a chance at me befo'--I bet if I'd give' him half de money
+'sted o' payin' you, he'd a' let me off mighty quick."
+
+"Pay me! you never paid me a cent in your life."
+
+"Well, I promised to pay you, didn' I? An' ain't dthat de same thin'?"
+
+"Not by a big sight----"
+
+"Dthat's de way gent'mens does."
+
+"Oh! do they?"
+
+Jeams came back to the main theme.
+
+"Mr. Hen, ain' you gwine let me have dem ten dollars, sho' 'nough? Hit's
+jes' like pickin' money up in de road: Dix kin kill dat dawg befo' you
+ken say Jack Roberson."
+
+"Jeams," I said, "look at me!"
+
+"Yes, suh, I'm lookin'," and he was.
+
+"I am going away to-night----"
+
+"Well, I'm gwine width you, I ain' gwine stay heah by myself after you
+and Dix is gone."
+
+"No, you can't do that. I don't know yet exactly where I am going, I
+have not yet decided. I am going West--to a big city."
+
+"Dthat's where I want to go--" interrupted Jeams.
+
+"And when I get settled I'll send for Dix--I'm going to leave him with
+you."
+
+"Yes, suh, I'll teck keer of him sure. I'll match him against any dawg
+in dthis town--he can kill dthat dawg of dthat yaller nigger's----"
+
+"No, if you put him in a fight, I'll kill you the first time I see
+you--d'you hear?"
+
+"Yes, suh--I ain' gwine put him in no fight. But ef he gits in a
+fight--you know he's a mighty high-spirited dawg--he don' like dawgs to
+come nosin' roun' him. Hit sort o' aggrivates him. An' ef he
+should----?"
+
+"I'll whip you as sure as you live----"
+
+"Jes' ef he should?"
+
+"Yes--if you let him."
+
+"No, suh, I ain' gwine let him. You lef him wid me."
+
+And though I knew that he was lying, I was content to leave the dog with
+him; for I was obliged to leave him with someone, and I knew he loved
+this dog and hoped my threat would, at least, keep him from anything
+that might hurt him.
+
+I drifted out to the Club later and casually dropped the information
+that I was going away. I do not think it made much impression on my
+friends there--in fact, I hardly think they took the information
+seriously. They were a kindly lot, but took life and me lightly.
+
+When I left town at midnight, the rain was pouring down and there was no
+one at the dreary station to see me off but Jeams and Dix, and as the
+train pulled out I stood on the platform to say good-by to Jeams, who
+was waving his right hand sadly, while with the other he gripped the
+collar of the dejected Dix who, with his eyes on me, struggled
+spasmodically and viciously.
+
+Suddenly Dix turned on his captor with a snarl and snap which startled
+Jeams so that he let him go, then whirling about, he tore after the
+train which was just beginning to quicken its speed. He had to rush over
+ties and switch-rods, but he caught up and made a spring for the step.
+He made good his footing, but Jeams was running and waving wildly and,
+with his voice in my ears, I pushed the dog off with my foot and saw him
+roll over between the tracks. Nothing daunted, however, he picked
+himself up, and with another rush, sprang again for the step. This time
+only his forefeet caught and he hung on by them for a second, then began
+to slip--inch by inch he was slipping off as I stood watching him, when,
+under an impulse, fearing that he might be killed, I hastily, and with a
+sudden something in my throat, reached down and caught him just in time
+to pull him up, and taking him in my arms I bore him into the car. I
+confess that, as I felt him licking my hands, a warmer feeling than I
+had had for some time came around my heart which had been like a lump of
+ice during these last days, and I was glad no one was near by who knew
+me. I made up my mind that, come what might, I would hold on to my one
+faithful friend.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+PADAN-ARAM
+
+
+I first went to the town in which lived the relative, the cousin of my
+father's whom I have mentioned. It was a bustling, busy city and he was
+reputed the head of the Bar in his State--a man of large interests and
+influence. I knew my father's regard for him. I think it was this and
+his promise about me that made me go to him now. I thought he might help
+me, at least with advice; for I had his name.
+
+I left my trunk and Dix at the hotel and called on him at his large
+office. In my loneliness, I was full of a new-born feeling of affection
+for this sole kinsman. I thought, perhaps, he might possibly even make
+me an offer to remain with him and eventually succeed to his practice. I
+had not seen him two seconds, however, before I knew this was folly.
+When I had sent in my name by an obtrusive-eyed office-boy, I was kept
+waiting for some time in the outer office where the office-boy loudly
+munched an apple, and a couple of clerks whispered to each other with
+their eyes on the private office-door. And when I was ushered in, he
+gave me a single keen look as I entered and went on writing without
+asking me to sit down, and I would not sit without an invitation. When
+he had finished he looked up, and nodded his head with a sort of jerk
+toward a chair. He was a large man with a large head, short gray hair,
+a strong nose, a heavy chin, and gray eyes close together, without the
+kindliness either of age or of youth. I took a step toward him and in
+some embarrassment began to speak rapidly. I called him "Cousin," for
+blood had always counted for a great deal with us, and I had often heard
+my father speak of him with pride. But his sharp look stopped me.
+
+"Take a seat," he said, more in a tone of command than of invitation,
+and called me "Mister." It was like plunging me into a colder
+atmosphere. I did not sit down, but I was so far into my sentence I
+could not well stop. So I went on and asked him what he thought of my
+settling there, growing more and more embarrassed and hot with every
+word.
+
+"Have you any money?" he asked shortly.
+
+"Not a cent."
+
+"Well, I have none to lend you. You need not count on me. I would
+advise--" But I did not wait for him to finish. I had got hold of myself
+and was self-possessed enough now.
+
+"I did not ask you to lend me any money, either," I said, straightening
+myself up. "I did ask you to give me some advice; but now I do not want
+that or anything else you have, d----n you! I made a mistake in coming
+to you, for I am abundantly able to take care of myself."
+
+Of course, I know now that he had something on his side. He supposed me
+a weak, worthless dog, if not a "dead-beat." But I was so angry with him
+I could not help saying what I did. I stalked out and slammed the door
+behind me with a bang that made the glass in the sash rattle; and the
+two or three young men, busy in the outer office, looked up in wonder. I
+went straight to the hotel and took the train to the biggest city my
+money would get me to. I thought a big city offered the best chances for
+me, and, at least, would hide me. I think the fact that I had once
+written a brief for Mr. Poole in the matter of his interest in car lines
+there influenced me in my selection.
+
+I travelled that night and the next day and the night following, and
+partly because my money was running low and partly on Dix's account, I
+rode in a day-coach. The first night and day passed well enough, but the
+second night I was tired and dusty and lonely.
+
+On the train that night I spent some serious hours. Disappointment is
+the mother of depression and the grandmother of reflection. I took stock
+of myself and tried to peer into the dim and misty future, and it was
+gloomy work. Only one who has started out with the world in fee, and
+after throwing it away in sheer recklessness of folly, suddenly hauls up
+to find himself bankrupt of all he had spurned in his pride: a homeless
+and friendless wanderer on the face of the earth, may imagine what I
+went through. I learned that night what the exile feels; I dimly felt
+what the outcast experiences. And I was sensible that I had brought it
+all on myself. I had wantonly wasted all my substance in riotous living
+and I had no father to return to--nothing, not even swine to keep in a
+strange land. I faced myself on the train that night, and the effigy I
+gazed on I admitted to be a fool.
+
+The train, stuffy and hot, lagged and jolted and stopped, and still I
+was conscious of only that soul-shifting process of self-facing. The
+image of Peck, the tortoise, haunted me. At times I dozed or even slept
+very soundly; though doubled up like a jack-knife, as I was, I could not
+efface myself even in my sleep. But when I waked, there was still
+myself--grim, lonely, homeless--haunting me like a stabbed corpse
+chained to my side.
+
+I was recalled to myself at last by the whimpering of children packed in
+a seat across the aisle from me. They had all piled in together the
+first night somewhere with much excitement. They were now hungry and
+frowsy and wretched. There were five of them, red-cheeked and dirty;
+complaining to their mother who, worn and bedraggled herself, yet never
+lost patience with one or raised her voice above the soothing pitch in
+all her consoling.
+
+At first I was annoyed by them; then I was amused; then I wondered at
+her, and at last, I almost envied her, so lonely was I and so content
+was she with her little brood.
+
+Hitched on to the train the second night was a private car, said to be
+that of someone connected with a vice-president of the road. The name of
+the official, which I learned later, was the same as that of an old
+college friend of my father's, and I had often heard my father mention
+him as his successful rival with his first sweetheart, and he used to
+tease my mother by recalling the charms of Kitty MacKenzie, the young
+lady in question, whose red golden hair he declared the most beautiful
+hair that ever crowned a mortal head--while my mother, I remember,
+insisted that her hair was merely carroty, and that her beauty, though
+undeniable, was distinctly of the milkmaid order--a shaft which was will
+aimed, for my mother's beauty was of the delicate, aristocratic type.
+The fact was that Mr. Leigh had been a suitor of hers before my father
+met her, and having been discarded by her, had consoled himself with the
+pretty girl, to whom my father had been attentive before he met and fell
+"head over heels in love" with a new star at a college ball.
+
+Mr. Leigh, I knew, had gone West, and grown up to be a banker, and I
+wondered vaguely if by any chance he could be the same person.
+
+The train should have reached my destination in time for breakfast, and
+we had all looked forward to it and made our arrangements accordingly.
+The engine, however, which had been put on somewhere during the night,
+had "given out," and we were not only some hours late, but were no
+longer able to keep steadily even the snail's pace at which we had been
+crawling all night. The final stop came on a long upgrade in a stretch
+of broken country sparsely settled, and though once heavily wooded, now
+almost denuded. Here the engine, after a last futile, gasping effort,
+finally gave up, and the engineer descended for the dozenth time to see
+"what he could do about it." To make matters worse, the water in our
+car had given out, and though we had been passing streams a little
+before, there was no water in sight where we stopped. It soon became
+known that we should have to wait until a brakeman could walk to the
+nearest telegraph station, miles off, and have another engine despatched
+to our aid from a town thirty or more miles away. So long as there had
+been hope of keeping on, however faint, there had been measurable
+content, and the grumbling which had been heard at intervals all the
+latter part of the night had been sporadic and subdued; but now, when
+the last hope was gone, and it was known that we were at last "stuck"
+for good, there was an outbreak of ill-humor from the men, though the
+women in the car still kept silent, partly subdued by their dishevelled
+condition and partly because they were content for once, while listening
+to the men. Now and then a man who had been forward would come back into
+the car, and address someone present, or speak to the entire car, and in
+the silence that fell every one listened until he had delivered himself.
+But no one had yet given a satisfactory explanation of the delay.
+
+At last, a man who sat near me gave an explanation. "The engine lost
+time because it had too heavy a load. It's a heavy train, anyway, and
+they put a private car on and the engine could not pull it, that's all
+that's the matter." He spoke with the finality of a judge, and sat back
+in his seat, and we all knew that he had hit the mark, and given the
+true cause. Henceforward he was regarded with respect. He really knew
+things. I insensibly took note of him. He was a middle-sized,
+plain-looking man with bright eyes and a firm mouth. Whether by a
+coincidence or not, just at that moment something appeared to have given
+way in the car: babies began to cry; children to fret, and the elders to
+fume and grumble. In a short time every one in the car was abusing the
+railroad and its management. Their inconsiderateness, their indifference
+to the comfort of their passengers.
+
+"They pay no more attention to us and take no more care of us than if we
+were so many cattle," growled a man. "I couldn't get a single berth last
+night." He was a big, sour-looking fellow, who wore patent-leather shoes
+on his large feet, and a silk hat, now much rubbed--and a dirty silk
+handkerchief was tucked in his soiled collar, and in his soiled shirt
+front showed a supposititious diamond. He was, as I learned later, named
+Wringman, and was a labor-leader of some note.
+
+"Not as much as of cattle--for, at least, they water them," said
+another, "they care nothing about our comfort."
+
+"Unless they ride in a Pullman," interjected the man near me, who had
+explained the situation.
+
+The woman with the five children suddenly turned. "And that's true,
+too," she said, with a glance of appreciation at him and a sudden flash
+of hate at the big man with the diamond. Off and on all night the
+children had, between naps, begged for water, and the mother had trudged
+back and forth with the patience of an Egyptian water-carrier, but now
+the water had given out, and the younger ones had been whimpering
+because they were hungry.
+
+I went forward, and about the engine, where I stood for a time, looking
+on while we waited, I heard further criticism of the road, but along a
+different line, from the trainmen:
+
+"Well, I'll have to stand it," said one of them, the engineer, a man
+past middle-age. "No more strikes for me. That one on the C. B. and B.
+D. taught me a lesson. I was pretty well fixed then--had a nice house
+and lot 'most paid for in the Building Company, and the furniture all
+paid for, except a few instalments, and it all went. I thought we'd 'a'
+starved that winter--and my wife's been sick ever since."
+
+"I know," said his friend, "but if they cut down we've got to fight. I'm
+willin' to starve to beat 'em."
+
+"You may be; but you ain't got little children and a sick wife."
+
+A little later I saw the flashily dressed man with the dirty
+handkerchief talking to him, and insisting that they should fight the
+company: "We'll bring 'em to their knees," he said, with many oaths. The
+engineer kept silence, the younger man assented warmly.
+
+I went back to my car. Presently matters grew so bad in the car that my
+sympathies for the children were aroused, and I determined to see if I
+could not ameliorate the conditions somewhat. I went back to the Pullman
+car to see if there was any chance of buying some food: but the haggard
+looking porter said there was nothing on the car. "They usually go in to
+breakfast," he explained. My only chance would be the private car
+behind. So, after I had been forward and ascertained that we would not
+get away for at least an hour more, I went back and offered to look
+after the older children of the little family. "I am going to take my
+dog for a run; I'll take the little folks too." The mother with a baby
+in her arms and a child, hardly more than a baby, tugging at her, looked
+unutterably tired, and was most grateful to me. I took the older
+children and went down the bank, and turning back, began to pick the
+straggling wild flowers beside the track. As we passed the private car,
+the door opened, and the cook tossed a waiterful of scraps out on the
+ground on which both Dixie and the children threw themselves. But,
+though there was plenty of bread, it had all been ruined by being in the
+slop-water; so Dixie was soon left in undisturbed possession.
+
+A little beyond the end of the train we came on a young girl engaged in
+the same occupation as ourselves. Her back was toward us, but her figure
+was straight and supple, and her motions easy and full of spring. The
+sight of the young lady so fresh and cool, with the morning sun shining
+on a thick coil of shining hair, quite revived me. I drew near to get a
+good look at her and also to be within shot of a chance to speak to her
+should opportunity offer. If I were a novelist trying to describe her I
+should say that she was standing just at the foot of a bank with a clump
+of green bushes behind her, her arms full of flowers which she had
+gathered. For all these were there, and might have been created there
+for her, so harmonious were they with the fresh young face above them
+and the pliant form which clasped them. I might further have likened her
+to Proserpine with her young arms full of blossoms from Sicilian meads;
+for she resembled her in other ways than in embracing flowers and
+breathing fragrance as she stood in the morning light. But truth to
+tell, it was only later that I thought of these. The first impression I
+received, as it will be the last, was of her eyes. Dimples, and
+snow-white teeth; changing expression where light and shadow played,
+with every varying feeling, and where color came and went like roses
+thrown on lilies, and lilies on roses, all came to me later on. But that
+was in another phase. Her eyes were what I saw at first, and never since
+have I seen the morning or the evening star swimming in rosy light but
+they have come back to me. I remember I wore a blue suit and had on an
+old yachting cap, which I had gotten once when on a short cruise with a
+friend. I was feeling quite pleased with myself. She suddenly turned.
+
+"Are you the brakeman?"
+
+"No, I am not." I could scarcely help laughing at my sudden fall. "But
+perhaps I can serve you?" I added.
+
+"Oh! I beg pardon! No, I thank you. I only wanted to ask--However, it is
+nothing."
+
+Dix had, on being let out, and satisfying himself that I was coming
+along, made a wild dash down the bank and alongside the train, and now
+on his return rush, catching sight of the young lady in her fresh frock,
+without waiting for the formality of an introduction, he made a dash
+for her and sprang up on her as if he had known her all his life. I
+called to him, but it was too late, and before I could stop him, he was
+up telling her what after my first look at her I should have liked to
+tell her myself: what a sweet charming creature we thought her.
+
+Dixie had no scruples of false pride inculcated by a foolish convention
+of so-called society. He liked her and said so, and she liked him for
+it, while I was glad to shine for a moment in the reflected glory of
+being his master.
+
+"What a fine dog!" she exclaimed as she patted him, addressing the
+children, who, with soiled clothes and tousled heads, were gazing at the
+spick-and-span apparition in open-mouthed wonder. "How I envy you such a
+dog."
+
+"He ain't ours, he belongs to him," said the child, pointing to me, as I
+stooped at a little distance pretending to pull blossoms while I
+listened.
+
+"Oh! Who is he? Is he your father?" My face was averted.
+
+"Oh! no. We don't know who he is; he just took us so."
+
+"Took you so?"
+
+"You see," explained the next older one, "our mother, she's got the baby
+and Janet, and the gentleman, he said he would take us and get some wild
+flowers, because we hadn't had any breakfast, and that dog"--But the dog
+was forgotten on the instant.
+
+"Have not had any breakfast!" exclaimed the young lady with
+astonishment.
+
+"No; you see, we had some bread last night, but that's given out. _She_
+ate the last piece last night--" (she pointed at the smallest
+child)--"and we were so hungry; she cried, and Mamma cried, and that
+gentleman----"
+
+By this time I had turned and I now stepped forward. I confess, that as
+I turned, wrath was in my heart, but at sight of that horrified face, in
+its sympathy, my anger died away.
+
+"Oh! and to think what I wasted! How did it happen?"
+
+"The train was late and they had expected to get in to breakfast, but
+the engine gave out," I explained.
+
+"And they have not had any breakfast?"
+
+"No one on the train."
+
+"You see," chimed in the oldest girl, glad to be able to add
+information, "the train's heavy anyway, and they put a private car on,
+and it was more than the engine could pull, that's all that's the
+matter."
+
+The young lady turned to me:
+
+"Do you mean that our car has caused all this trouble?"
+
+I nodded. "I don't know about 'all,' but it helped."
+
+"You poor little dears!" she said, rushing to the children, "come with
+me." And, taking the youngest child by the hand, she hurried to the rear
+steps of the car, with the others close behind, while Dixie, who
+appeared to know what was in store, walked close beside her knee, as
+much as to say, "Don't leave me out."
+
+As the train stood on an embankment, the step was too high for her to
+climb up, so I offered to put the children up on the top step for her.
+Then came the difficulty of her getting up herself. She called the
+porter, but the door was shut and there was no answer.
+
+"Let me help you up, too," I said. "Here, you can reach the rail, and
+step in my hand and spring up. I can help you perfectly well--as though
+you were mounting a horse," I added, seeing her hesitate. And, without
+giving her time to think, I stooped and lifted her to the step. As she
+sprang up, the door opened, and a portly lady, richly dressed and with
+several diamond rings on, came out on the platform. She gazed on the
+little group with astonishment.
+
+"Why, Eleanor, what is this? Who are these?"
+
+"They are some poor children, Aunt, who have had no breakfast, and I am
+going to give them some."
+
+"Why, they can't come in here, my dear. Those dirty little brats come in
+our car! It is impossible, my dear."
+
+"Oh, no, it is not, Aunty," said the young girl with a laugh, "they have
+had no breakfast."
+
+"Give them food, my dear, if you please, but I beg you not to bring them
+into this car. Look how dirty they are! Why, they might give us all some
+terrible disease!"
+
+But Miss Eleanor had closed her ears to the plump lady's expostulations,
+and was arranging with a surly servant for something to eat for the
+children. And just then the question of their invasion of the car was
+settled by the train's starting. I undertook to run forward alongside
+the car, but seeing an open ravine ahead spanned by a trestle, and that
+the train was quickening its speed, I caught Dixie and threw him up on
+the rear platform, and then swung myself up after him. The rear door was
+still unlocked, so I opened it to pass through the car. Just inside, the
+elderly lady was sitting back in an arm-chair with a novel in her lap,
+though she was engaged at the moment in softly polishing her nails. She
+stopped long enough to raise her jewelled lorgnette, and take a shot at
+me through it:
+
+"Are you the brakeman?" she called.
+
+"No, Madame," I said grimly, thinking, "Well, I must have a brakeman's
+air to-day."
+
+"Oh! Will you ring that bell?"
+
+"Certainly." I rang and, passing on, was met by the porter coming to
+answer the bell.
+
+"This is a private car," he said shortly, blocking my way.
+
+"I know it." I looked him in the eye.
+
+"You can't go th'oo this car."
+
+"Oh! yes, I can. I have got to go through it. Move out of my way."
+
+My tone and manner impressed him sufficiently, and he surlily moved
+aside, muttering to himself; and I passed on, just conscious that the
+stout lady had posted herself at the opening of the passage-way behind,
+and had beckoned to the porter, who sprang toward her with alacrity. As
+I passed through the open saloon, the young lady was engaged in
+supplying my little charges with large plates of bread and butter, while
+a grinning cook, in his white apron and cap, was bringing a yet further
+supply. She turned and smiled to me as I passed.
+
+"Won't you have something, too? It is a very poor apology for a
+breakfast; for we had finished and cleared away, but if----"
+
+"These little tots don't appear to think so," I said, my ill-humor
+evaporating under her smile.
+
+"Well, won't you have something?"
+
+I declined this in my best Chesterfieldian manner, alleging that I must
+go ahead and tell their mother what a good fairy they had found.
+
+"Oh! it is nothing. To think of these poor little things being kept
+without breakfast all morning. My father will be very much disturbed to
+find that this car has caused the delay."
+
+"Not if he is like his sister," I thought to myself, but I only bowed,
+and said, "I will come back in a little while, and get them for their
+mother." To which she replied that she would send them to their mother
+by the porter, thereby cutting off a chance which I had promised myself
+of possibly getting another glimpse of her. But the sight of myself at
+this moment in a mirror hastened my departure. A large smudge of black
+was across my face, evidently from a hand of one of the children. The
+prints of the fingers in black were plain on my cheek, while a broad
+smear ran across my nose. No wonder they thought me a brakeman.
+
+As I reached the front door of the car I found it locked and I could not
+open it. At the same moment the porter appeared behind me.
+
+"Ef you'll git out of my way, I'll open it," he said in a tone so
+insolent that my gorge rose.
+
+I stood aside and, still muttering to himself, he unlocked the door, and
+with his hand on the knob, stood aside for me to pass. As I passed I
+turned to look for Dixie, who was following me, and I caught the words,
+"I'se tired o' po' white folks and dogs in my car." At the same moment
+Dixie passed and he gave him a kick, which drew a little yelp of
+surprise from him. My blood suddenly boiled. The door was still open
+and, quick as light, I caught the porter by the collar and with a yank
+jerked him out on the platform. The door slammed to as he came, and I
+had him to myself. With my hand still on his throat I gave him a shake
+that made his teeth rattle.
+
+"You black scoundrel," I said furiously. "I have a good mind to fling
+you off this train, and break your neck." The negro's face was ashy.
+
+"Indeed, boss," he said, "I didn' mean no harm in the world by what I
+said. If I had known you was one of dese gentlemens, I'd 'a' never said
+a word; nor suh, that I wouldn'. An' I wouldn' 'a' tetched your dorg for
+nuthin', no suh."
+
+"Well, I'll teach you something," I said. "I'll teach you to keep a
+civil tongue in your head, at least."
+
+"Yes, suh, yes, suh," he said, "I always is, I always tries to be, I
+just didn't know; nor suh, I axes your pardon. I didn' mean nuthin' in
+the worl'."
+
+"Now go in there and learn to behave yourself in the future," I said.
+
+"Yes, suh, I will." And, with another bow, and a side look at Dix, who
+was now growling ominously, he let himself in at the door and I passed
+on forward.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+I PITCH MY TENT
+
+
+When, a little later, my small charges were brought back to their mother
+(to whom I had explained their absence), it was by the young lady
+herself, and I never saw a more grateful picture than that young girl,
+in her fresh travelling costume, convoying those children down the car
+aisle. Her greeting of the tired mother was a refreshment, and a minute
+after she had gone the mother offered me a part of a substantial supply
+of sandwiches which she had brought her, so that I found myself not
+quite so much in sympathy as before with the criticism of the road that
+was now being freely bandied about the car, and which appeared to have
+made all the passengers as one.
+
+Not long after this we dropped the private car at a station and
+proceeded on without it. We had, however, not gone far when we stopped
+and were run into a siding and again waited, and after a time, a train
+whizzed by us--a special train with but two private cars on it. It was
+going at a clipping rate, but it did not run so fast that we did not
+recognize the private car we had dropped some way back, and it soon
+became known throughout our train that we had been side-tracked to let a
+special with private cars have the right-of-way. I confess that my
+gorge rose at this, and when the man in front of me declared that we
+were the most patient people on earth to give public franchises, pay for
+travelling on trains run by virtue of them, and then stand being shoved
+aside and inconvenienced out of all reason to allow a lot of bloated
+dead-heads to go ahead of us in their special trains, I chimed in with
+him heartily.
+
+"Well, the road belongs to them, don't it?" inquired a thin man with a
+wheezing voice. "That was Canter's private train, and he took on the
+Argand car at that station back there."
+
+"'They own the road!' How do they own it? How did they get it?" demanded
+the first speaker warmly.
+
+"Why, you know how they got it. They got it in the panic--that is, they
+got the controlling interest."
+
+"Yes, and then ran the stock down till they had got control and then
+reorganized and cut out those that wouldn't sell--or couldn't--the
+widows and orphans and infants--that's the way they got it."
+
+"Well, the court upheld it?"
+
+"Yes, under the law they had had made themselves to suit themselves. You
+know how 'twas! You were there when 'twas done and saw how they flung
+their money around--or rather the Argand money--for I don't believe
+Canter and his set own the stock at all. I'll bet a thousand dollars
+that every share is up as collateral in old Argand's bank."
+
+"Oh! Well, it's all the same thing. They stand in together. They run the
+bank--the bank lends money; they buy the stock and put it up for the
+loan, and then run the road."
+
+"And us," chipped in the other; for they had now gotten into a high
+good-humor with each other--"they get our franchises and our money, and
+then side-track us without breakfast while they go sailing by--in cars
+that they call theirs, but which we pay for. I do think we are the
+biggest fools!"
+
+"That's Socialistic!" said his friend again. "You've been reading that
+fellow's articles in the Sunday papers. What's his name?"
+
+"No, I've been thinking. I don't care what it is, it's the truth, and
+I'm tired of it."
+
+"They say he's a Jew," interrupted the former.
+
+"I don't care what he is, it's the truth," asserted the other doggedly.
+
+"Well, I rather think it is," agreed his friend; "but then, I'm hungry,
+and there isn't even any water on the car."
+
+"And they guzzle champagne!" sneered the other, "which we pay for," he
+added.
+
+"You're a stockholder?"
+
+"Yes, in a small way; but I might as well own stock in a paving-company
+to Hell. My father helped to build this road and used to take great
+pride in it. They used to give the stockholders then a free ride once a
+year to the annual meeting, and it made them all feel as if they owned
+the road."
+
+"But now they give free passes not to the stockholders, but to the
+legislators and the judges."
+
+"It pays better," said his friend, and they both laughed. It appeared,
+indeed, rather a good joke to them--or, at least, there was nothing
+which they could do about it, so they might as well take it
+good-humoredly.
+
+By this time I had learned that my neighbor with the five children was
+the wife of a man named McNeil, who was a journeyman machinist, but had
+been thrown out of work by a strike in another city, and, after waiting
+around for months, had gone North to find employment, and having at last
+gotten it, had now sent for them to come on. She had not seen him for
+months, and she was looking forward to it now with a happiness that was
+quite touching. Even the discomforts of the night could not dull her joy
+in the anticipation of meeting her husband--and she constantly
+enheartened her droopy little brood with the prospect of soon seeing
+their "dear Daddy."
+
+Finally after midday we arrived.
+
+I shall never forget the sight and smells of that station, if I live to
+be a thousand years old. It seemed to me a sort of temporary
+resting-place for lost souls--and I was one of them. Had Dante known it,
+he must have pictured it, with its reek and grime. The procession of
+tired, bedraggled travellers that streamed in through the black gateways
+to meet worn watchers with wan smiles on their tired faces, or to look
+anxiously and in vain for friends who had not come, or else who had come
+and gone. And outside the roar of the grimy current that swept through
+the black street.
+
+I had no one to look for; so, after helping my neighbor and her
+frowsy little brood off, I sauntered along with Dix at my heel,
+feeling about as lonely as a man can feel on this populated earth.
+After gazing about and refusing sternly to meet the eye of any of
+the numerous cabmen who wildly waved their whips toward me, shouting:
+"Kebsuh--kebsuh--keb--keb--keb?" with wearying iteration, I had about
+made up my mind to take the least noisy of them, when I became conscious
+that my fellow-traveller, Mrs. McNeil with her little clan, was passing
+out of the station unescorted and was looking about in a sort of lost
+way. On my speaking to her, her face brightened for a moment, but
+clouded again instantly, as she said, "Oh! sir, he's gone! He came to
+meet me this morning; but the train was late and he couldn't wait or
+he'd lose his job, so he had to go, and the kind man at the gate told me
+he left the message for me. But however shall I get there with all the
+children, for I haven't a cent left!"
+
+The tears welled up in her eyes as she came to her sad little
+confession. And I said, "Oh! Well, I think we can manage it somehow. You
+have his address?"
+
+"Oh! yes, sir, I have it here," and she pulled out an empty little
+pocket-book from the breast of her worn frock, and while she gave the
+baby to the eldest girl to hold, tremblingly opened the purse. In it was
+only a crumpled letter and, besides this, a key--these were all. She
+opened the letter tenderly and handed it to me. I read the address and
+fastened it in my memory.
+
+"Now," I said, "we'll straighten this out directly." I turned and called
+a hackman. "I want a carriage."
+
+There was a rush, but I was firm and insisted on a hack. However, as
+none was to be had, I was fain to content myself with a one-horse cab of
+much greater age than dimension.
+
+Bundling them in and directing the driver to go around and get the trunk
+from the baggage-room, I mounted beside him and took Dix between my feet
+and one of the children in my arms, and thus made my entry into the city
+of my future home. My loneliness had somehow disappeared.
+
+My protégée's destination turned out to be a long way off, quite in one
+of the suburbs of the city, where working people had their little
+homes--a region I was to become better acquainted with later. As we
+began to pass bakeries and cook-shops, the children began once more to
+clamor to their mother for something to eat, on which the poor thing
+tried to quiet them with promises of what they should have when they
+reached home. But I could perceive that her heart was low within her,
+and I stopped at a cook-shop and bought a liberal allowance of bread and
+jam and cookies, on which the young things fell to like famished wolves,
+while their mother overwhelmed me with blessings.
+
+We had not gone far, and were still in the centre of the city, when a
+handsome open carriage drove by us, and as it passed, there sat in it
+the young lady I had seen on the train, with a pleasant looking elderly
+man, whom I conjectured to be her father, and who appeared in a very
+good-humor with her or himself. As I was gazing at them, her eyes fell
+full into mine, and after a half-moment's mystification, she recognized
+me as I lifted my hat, and her face lit up with a pleasant smile of
+recognition. I found my feelings divided between pleasure at her sweet
+return of my bow and chagrin that she should find me in such a
+predicament; for I knew what a ridiculous figure I must cut with the dog
+between my feet and a frowsy child, thickly smeared with jam, in my
+arms. In fact, I could see that the girl was talking and laughing
+spiritedly with her father, evidently about us. I confess to a feeling
+of shame at the figure I must cut, and I wondered if she would not think
+I had lied to her in saying that I had never met them before. I did not
+know that the smile had been for Dix.
+
+When we reached, after a good hour's drive, the little street for which
+we were bound, I found my forecast fairly correct. The dingy little
+house, on which was the rusted number given Mrs. McNeil in her husband's
+letter, was shut up and bore no evidence of having been opened, except a
+small flower-pot with a sprig of green in it in a dusty, shutterless
+window. It was the sort of house that is a stove in summer and an
+ice-box in the winter. And there was a whole street of them. After we
+had knocked several times and I had tried to peep over the fence at the
+end of the street, the door of an adjoining tenement opened, and a
+slatternly, middle-aged woman peeped out.
+
+"Are you Mrs. McNeil?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, here's your key. Your man told me to tell you 't if you came
+while he was at work, you'd find something to eat in the back room 't
+he'd cooked this mornin' before he went to work. The train was late, he
+said, and he couldn't wait; but he'd be home to-night, and he'd bring
+some coal when he came. What a fine lot o' children you have. They ought
+to keep you in cinders and wood. I wish I had some as big as that; but
+mine are all little. My two eldest died of scarlet fever two years ago.
+Drainage, they said."
+
+She had come out and unlocked the door and was now turning away.
+
+"I think your man had someone to take the up-stairs front room; but he
+didn't come--you'll have to get someone to do it and you double up. The
+Argand Estate charges such rent, we all have to do that. Well, if I can
+help you, I'm right here."
+
+I was struck by her kindness to the forlorn stranger, and the latter's
+touching recognition of it, expressed more in looks and in tone than in
+words.
+
+Having helped them into the house, which was substantially empty, only
+one room having even a pretence of furniture in it, and that merely a
+bed, a mattress and a broken stove, I gave the poor woman a little of my
+slender stock of money and left her murmuring her thanks and assurances
+that I had already done too much for them. In fact, I had done nothing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As my finances were very low, I determined to find a boarding-house
+instead of wasting them at a hotel. I accordingly stopped at a sizable
+house which I recognized as a boarding-house on a street in a
+neighborhood which might, from the old houses with their handsome doors
+and windows, have once been fashionable, though fashion had long since
+taken its flight to a newer and gaudier part of the town, and the
+mansions were now giving place to shops and small grocers' markets. A
+wide door with a fan-shaped transom gave it dignity. A large wistaria
+vine coiled up to the top of a somewhat dilapidated porch with classical
+pillars lent it distinction. The landlady, Mrs. Kale, a pleasant
+looking, kindly woman, offered me a small back-room on reasonable terms,
+it being, as she said, the dull season; and, having arranged for Dix in
+a dingy little livery stable near by, I took it "temporarily," till I
+could look around.
+
+I found the company somewhat nondescript--ranging all the way from old
+ladies with false fronts and cracked voices to uppish young travelling
+men and their rather sad-looking wives.
+
+Among the boarders, the two who interested me most were two elderly
+ladies, sisters, whose acquaintance I made the day after my arrival.
+They did not take their meals at the common table, but, as I understood,
+in their own apartment in the third story. They were a quaint and
+pathetic pair, very meagre, very shabby, and manifestly very poor. There
+was an air of mystery about them, and Mrs. Kale treated them with a
+respect which she paid to no others of her variegated household. They
+occasionally honored the sitting-room with their presence on Sunday
+evenings, by Mrs. Kale's especial invitation, and I was much diverted
+with them. They were known as the Miss Tippses; but Mrs. Kale always
+spoke of them as "Miss Pansy" and "Miss Pinky." It seems that she had
+known them in her youth, "back East."
+
+My acquaintance with the two old ladies at this time was entirely
+accidental. The morning after my arrival, as I started out to look
+around for an office, and also to take Dix for a walk, as well as to
+take a look at the city, I fell in with two quaint-looking old women who
+slipped out of the door just ahead of me, one of them slightly lame, and
+each with a large bundle in her arms. They were dressed in rusty black,
+and each wore a veil, which quite concealed her features. But as they
+limped along, engaged in an animated conversation, their voices were so
+refined as to arrest my attention, and I was guilty of the impropriety
+of listening to them, partly out of sheer idleness, and partly because I
+wanted to know something of my boarding-house and of my fellow boarders.
+They were talking about a ball of the night before, an account of which
+they had read in the papers, or rather, as I learned, in a copy of a
+paper which they had borrowed, and they were as much interested in it as
+if they had been there themselves. "Oh, wouldn't you have liked to see
+it?" said one. "It must have been beautiful. I should have liked to see
+Miss ----" (I could not catch the name). "She must have been exquisite
+in chiffon and lace. She is so lovely anyhow. I did not know she had
+returned."
+
+"I wonder Mr. ---- did not tell us." Again I failed to hear the name.
+
+"For a very good reason, I suppose. He did not know."
+
+"He is dead in love with her."
+
+"Oh, you are so romantic!" said the other, whom I took from her figure
+and her feebleness to be the elder of the two.
+
+"No; but any one can tell that at a glance."
+
+"What a pity he could not marry her. Then we should be sure to see her
+as a bride."
+
+The other laughed. "What an idea! We have nothing fit to go even to the
+church in."
+
+"Why, we could go in the gallery. Oh, this bundle is so heavy! I don't
+believe I can ever get there to-day."
+
+"Oh, yes, you can. Now come on. Don't give up. Here, rest it on the
+fence a moment."
+
+As the lame one attempted to lift the bundle to rest it on the fence, it
+slipped to the ground, and she gave a little exclamation of fear.
+
+"Oh, dear! suppose it should get soiled!"
+
+I stepped forward and lifted it for her, and to my surprise found it
+very heavy. Then, as they thanked me, it occurred to me to offer to
+carry the bundle for them to the street car for which I supposed them
+bound. There was a little demur, and I added, "I am at Mrs. Kale's also.
+I have just come." This appeared to relieve one of them at least, but
+the other said, "Oh, but we are not going to the street car. We don't
+ride in street cars."
+
+"Yes; it is so unhealthy," said the younger one. "People catch all sorts
+of diseases on the car."
+
+Thinking them rather airy, I was about to hand the bundle back, but as I
+was going their way I offered to carry the bundles for both of them as
+far as I was going. This proved to be quite twenty blocks, for I could
+not in decency return the bundles. So we went on together, I feeling at
+heart rather ashamed to be lugging two large bundles through the streets
+for two very shabby-looking old women whose names I did not know. We
+soon, however, began to talk, and I drew out from them a good deal about
+Mrs. Kale and her kindness. Also, that they had seen much better days,
+to which one of them particularly was very fond of referring. It seemed
+that they had lived East--they carefully guarded the exact place--and
+had once had interests in a railroad which their father had built and
+largely owned. They were manifestly anxious to make this clearly
+understood. After his death they had lived on their dividends, until, on
+a sudden, the dividends had stopped. They found that the railroad with
+which their road connected had passed into new hands--had been "bought
+up" by a great syndicate, their lawyer had informed them, and refused
+any longer to make traffic arrangements with the road. This had
+destroyed the value of their property, but they had refused to sell
+their holdings at the low price offered--"As we probably ought to have
+done," sighed one of them.
+
+"Not at all! I am glad we didn't," asserted the other.
+
+"Well, sister, we got nothing--we lost everything, didn't we?"
+
+"I don't know. I am only glad that we held out. That man knows that he
+robbed us."
+
+"Well, that doesn't help us."
+
+"Yes, it does. It helps me to know that he knows it."
+
+"Who was it?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, there was a syndicate. I only know the names of two of them--a man
+named Argand, and a man named Canter. And our lawyer was named McSheen."
+
+Argand was a name which I recalled in connection with Mr. Poole's
+interest in the Railways in the case I have mentioned.
+
+"Well, you held on to your stock. You have it now, then?" I foresaw a
+possible law-case against Argand, and wondered if he was the owner of
+the Argand Estate, which I had already heard of twice since my arrival.
+
+"No," said one of them, "they bought up the stock of all the other
+people, and then they did something which cut us out entirely. What was
+it they did, sister?"
+
+"Reorganized."
+
+"And then we came on here to see about it, and spent everything else
+that we had in trying to get it back, but we lost our case. And since
+then----"
+
+"Well, sister, we are keeping the gentleman. Thank you very much," said
+the younger of the two quickly, to which her sister added her thanks as
+well. I insisted at first on going further with them, but seeing that
+they were evidently anxious to be rid of me, I gave them their bundles
+and passed on.
+
+Among the boarders one of those I found most interesting was a young man
+named Kalender, by whom I sat at the first meal after my arrival, and
+with whom I struck up an acquaintance. He was a reporter for a morning
+paper of very advanced methods, and he was pre-eminently a person fitted
+for his position: a cocky youth with a long, keen nose and a bullet head
+covered with rather wiry, black hair, heavy black brows over keen black
+eyes, and an ugly mouth with rather small yellowish teeth. He had as
+absolute confidence in himself as any youth I ever met, and he either
+had, or made a good pretence of having, an intimate knowledge of not
+only all the public affairs of the city, but of the private affairs of
+every one in the city. Before we had finished smoking our cigarettes he
+had given me what he termed "the lay out" of the entire community, and
+by his account it was "the rottenest ---- town in the universe"--a view
+I subsequently had reason to rectify--and he proposed to get out of it
+as soon as he could and go to New York, which, to his mind, was the only
+town worth living in in the country (he having, as I learned later,
+lived there just three weeks).
+
+His paper, he said frankly, paid only for sensational articles, and was
+just then "jumping on a lot of the high-flyers, because that paid," but
+"they" gave him a latitude to write up whatever he pleased, because they
+knew he could dress up anything--from a murder to a missionary meeting.
+"Oh! it don't matter what you write about," said he airily, "so you know
+how to do it"--a bit of criticism suggestive of a better-known critic.
+
+I was much impressed by his extraordinary and extensive experience. In
+the course of our conversation I mentioned casually the episode of the
+delayed train and the private car.
+
+"The Argands' car, you say?"
+
+I told him that that was what some one had said.
+
+"That would make a good story," he declared. "I think I'll write that
+up--I'd have all the babies dying and the mothers fainting and an
+accident just barely averted by a little girl waving a red shawl,
+see--while the Argand car dashed by with a party eating and drinking and
+throwing champagne-bottles out of the window. But I've got to go and see
+the Mayor to ascertain why he appointed the new city comptroller, and
+then I've got to drop by the theatre and give the new play a roast--so
+I'll hardly have time to roast those Argands and Leighs, though I'd like
+to do it to teach them not to refuse me round-trip passes next time I
+ask for them. I tell you what you do," he added, modestly, "you write it
+up--you say you have written for the press?"
+
+"Oh! yes, very often--and for the magazines. I have had stories
+published in----"
+
+"Well, that's all right." (Kalender was not a good listener.) "I'll look
+it over and touch it up--put the fire in it and polish it off. You write
+it up, say--about a column. I can cut it down all right--and I'll call
+by here for it about eleven, after the theatre."
+
+It was a cool request--coolly made; but I was fool enough to accede to
+it. I felt much aggrieved over the treatment of us by the railway
+company, and was not sorry to air my grievance at the same time that I
+secured a possible opening. I accordingly spent all the afternoon
+writing my account of the inconvenience and distress occasioned the
+travelling public by the inconsiderateness of the railway management,
+discussing, by the way, the fundamental principle of ownership in
+quasi-public corporations, and showing that all rights which they
+claimed were derived from the people. I mentioned no names and veiled my
+allusions; but I paid a tribute to the kind heart of the Angel of Mercy
+who succored the children. I spent some hours at my composition and took
+much pride in it when completed. Then, as I had not been out at all to
+see the town, I addressed the envelope in which I had placed my story to
+Mr. Kalender, and leaving it for him, walked out into the wilderness.
+
+On my return the paper was gone.
+
+Next morning I picked up one paper after another, but did not at first
+find my contribution. An account of a grand ball the night before, at
+which an extraordinary display of wealth must have been made, was given
+the prominent place in most of them. But as I did not know the persons
+whose costumes were described with such Byzantine richness of
+vocabulary, I passed it by. The only thing referring to a railway
+journey was a column article, in a sensational sheet called _The
+Trumpet_, headed, BRUTALITY OF MILLIONAIRE BANKER. RAILWAY PRESIDENT
+STARVES POOR PASSENGERS. There under these glaring headlines, I at last
+discovered my article, so distorted and mutilated as to be scarcely
+recognizable. The main facts of the delay and its cause were there as I
+wrote them. My discussion of derivative rights was retained. But the
+motive was boldly declared to be brutal hatred of the poor. And to make
+it worse, the names of both Mr. Leigh and Mrs. Argand were given as
+having been present in person, gloating over the misery they had caused,
+while a young lady, whose name was not given, had thrown scraps out of
+the window for starving children and dogs to scramble for.
+
+To say that I was angry expresses but a small part of the truth. The
+allusion to the young lady had made my blood boil. What would she think
+if she should know I had had a hand in that paper? I waited at red heat
+for my young man, and had he appeared before I cooled down, he would
+have paid for the liberty he took with me. When he did appear, however,
+he was so innocent of having offended me that I could scarcely bear to
+attack him.
+
+"Well, did you see our story?" he asked gayly.
+
+"Yes--your story--I saw----"
+
+"Well, I had to do a little to it to make it go," he said
+condescendingly, "but you did very well--you'll learn."
+
+"Thank you. I don't want to learn that," I said hotly, "I never saw
+anything so butchered. There was not the slightest foundation for all
+that rot--it was made up out of whole cloth." I was boiling about Miss
+Leigh.
+
+"Pooh-pooh! My dear boy, you'll never make an editor. I never fake an
+interview," he said virtuously. "Lots of fellows do; but I don't. But if
+a man will give me two lines, I can give him two columns--and good ones,
+too. Why, we had two extras--what with that and the grand ball last
+night. The newsboys are crying it all over town."
+
+"I don't care if they are. I don't want to be an editor if one has to
+tell such atrocious lies as that. But I don't believe editors have to do
+that, and I know reputable editors don't. Why, you have named a man who
+was a hundred miles away."
+
+He simply laughed.
+
+"Well, I'm quite willing to get the credit of that paper. That's
+business. We're trying to break down the Leigh interests, and the
+Argands are mixed up with 'em. Coll McSheen was in the office last
+night. He's counsel for the Argands, but--you don't know Coll McSheen?"
+
+"I do not," I said shortly.
+
+"He's deep. You know you write better than you talk," he added
+patronizingly. "I tell you what I'll do--if you'll write me every day on
+some live topic----"
+
+"I'll never write you a line again on any topic, alive or dead, unless
+you die yourself, when I'll write that you are the biggest liar I ever
+saw except my Jeams."
+
+I had expected he would resent my words, but he did not. He only
+laughed, and said, "That's a good line. Write on that."
+
+I learned later that he had had a slight raise of salary on the paper he
+palmed off as his. I could only console myself with the hope that Miss
+Leigh would not see the article.
+
+But Miss Leigh did see the appreciation of her father in the writing of
+which I had had a hand, and it cost me many a dark hour of sad
+repining.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+A NEW GIRL
+
+
+This is how the young lady heard of it. Miss Leigh had been at home but
+an hour or two and had only had time to change her travelling costume
+for a suit of light blue with a blue hat to match, which was very
+becoming to her, and order the carriage to drive down and get her
+father, when a visitor was announced: Miss Milly McSheen, an old
+schoolmate--and next moment a rather large, flamboyante girl of about
+Miss Leigh's own age or possibly a year or two older, bounced into the
+room as if she had been shot in out of one of those mediæval engines
+which flung men into walled towns.
+
+She began to talk volubly even before she was actually in the room; she
+talked all through her energetic if hasty embrace of her friend, and all
+the time she was loosening the somewhat complicated fastening of a
+dotted veil which, while it obscured, added a certain charm to a round,
+florid, commonplace, but good-humored face in which smiled two round,
+shallow blue eyes.
+
+"Well, my dear," she began while yet outside the door, "I thought you
+never were coming back! Never! And I believe if I hadn't finally made up
+my mind to get you back you would have stayed forever in that nasty,
+stuck-up city of Brotherly Love."
+
+Miss Leigh a little airily observed that that title applied to
+Philadelphia, and she had only passed through Philadelphia on a train
+one night.
+
+"Oh! well, it was some kind of love, I'll be bound, and some one's else
+brother, too, that kept you away so long."
+
+"No, it was not--not even some one else's brother," replied Miss Leigh.
+
+"Oh! for Heaven's sake, don't tell me that's wrong. Why, I've been
+practising that all summer. It sounds so grammatical--so New Yorkish."
+
+"I can't help it. It may be New Yorkish, but it isn't grammatical," said
+Miss Leigh. "But I never expected to get back earlier. My Aunt had to
+look into some of her affairs in the East and had to settle some matters
+with a lawyer down South, a friend of my father's--an old gentleman who
+used to be one of her husband's partners and is her trustee or
+something, and I had to wait till they got matters settled."
+
+"Well, I'm glad you are here in time. I was so afraid you wouldn't be,
+that I got Pa to telegraph and have your car put on the president's
+special train that was coming through and had the right-of-way. I told
+him that I didn't see that because your father had resigned from the
+directory was any reason why you shouldn't be brought on the train."
+
+"Were we indebted to you for that attention?" Eleanor Leigh's voice had
+a tone of half incredulity.
+
+"Yep--I am the power behind the throne just at present. Pa and old Mr.
+Canter have buried the hatchet and are as thick as thieves since their
+new deal, and Jim Canter told me his car was coming through on a
+special. Oh! you ought to hear him the way he says, _My car_, and throws
+his chest out! So I said I wanted him to find out where you were on the
+road--on what train, I mean--and pick you up, and he said he would."
+
+"Oh! I see," said Miss Leigh, looking somewhat annoyed.
+
+"He did, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, you know Jim Canter is a very promising young man, much more so
+than he is a fulfiller. What are you so serious about? You look as----"
+
+"Nothing--only I don't wish to be beholden to--I was just wondering what
+right we have to stop trains full of people who have paid for their
+tickets and----"
+
+"What!" exclaimed the other girl in astonishment, "what right? Why, our
+fathers are directors, aren't they--at least, my father is--and own a
+block of the stock that controls----?"
+
+"Yes; but all these people--who pay--and who had no breakfast?"
+
+"Oh! don't you worry about them--they'll get along somehow--and if they
+pay they'll look out for themselves without your doing it. My way is to
+make all I can out of them and enjoy it while I can--that's what Pa
+says."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Leigh acquiescingly, "but I'm not sure that it's
+right."
+
+"You've been reading that man's articles," declared Miss McSheen. "I
+know--I have, too--everybody has--all the girls. I am a
+socialist--aren't they terribly striking! He's so good-looking. Pa says
+he's a Jew and an anarchist, and ought to be in jail."
+
+"Are you speaking of Mr. Wolffert?"
+
+"Yes, of course. Now you need not make out you don't know him; because
+they say----"
+
+"Yes, I know him very well," said Miss Leigh, so stiffly that her guest
+paused and changed her tone.
+
+"Well, anyhow, my dear, you are just in time. We are going to have the
+biggest thing we've ever had in this town. I've almost died laughing
+over it already."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Wait. I'm going to tell you all about it. You know it was all my idea.
+Harriet Minturn claims the whole credit for it now that I've made it
+go--says she first suggested it, and I assure you, my dear, she never
+opened her head about it till I had all the girls wild about it, and had
+arranged for the costumes and had gotten the Count to promise----"
+
+"What is it?" interrupted her hostess again, laughing.
+
+"Wait, my dear, I'm going to tell you all about it. The Count's a
+socialist, too. He says he is--but you mustn't tell that; he told me in
+the strictest confidence. Well, the Count's to go as courtier of the
+court of--what's the name of that old king or emperor, or whatever he
+was, that conquered that country--you know what I mean----"
+
+"No, indeed, I do not--and I haven't the least idea what you are talking
+about."
+
+"Oh! pshaw! I know perfectly well, and you do, too. The Count bet me I'd
+forget it and I bet him a gold cigar-holder I wouldn't--what _is_ his
+name? Won't the Count look handsome with lace ruffles and gold braid all
+over his chest and coat-tails, and a cocked hat. He's been showing me
+the way they dance in his country. I almost died laughing over it--only
+it makes me so dizzy, they never reverse--just whirl and whirl and
+whirl. You know he's a real count? Yes, my father's taken the trouble to
+hunt that up. He said he wasn't 'going to let a d----d dago come around
+me without anybody knowing who or what he is.' Ain't that like Pa?"
+
+"I--I--don't think I ever met your father," said Eleanor stiffly.
+
+"Oh! that's a fact. Well, 'tis--'tis just exactly like him. As soon as
+the Count began to come around our house--a good deal--I mean, really,
+quite a good deal--you understand?" said the girl, tossing her blonde
+head, "what must Pa do but go to work and hunt him up. He thinks Jim
+Canter is a winner, but I tell him Jimmy's bespoke." She looked at her
+hostess archly.
+
+"What did he find out?" inquired Miss Leigh coldly, "and how did he do
+it?"
+
+"Why, he just ran him down," explained the girl easily, "just as he does
+anybody he wants to know about--put a man on him, you know."
+
+"Oh! I see." Miss Leigh froze up a little; but the other girl did not
+notice it.
+
+"Only this one was somebody on the other side, of course, and he found
+out that he's all right. He's a real count. He's the third son of Count
+Pushkin, who was--let me see--a counsellor of his emperor, the Emperor
+of Sweden."
+
+"I didn't know they had an emperor in Sweden. He's a new one."
+
+"Haven't they? Oh! well, maybe it was the King of Sweden, or the Emperor
+of Russia--I don't know--they are all alike to me. I never could keep
+them apart, even at Miss de Pense's. I only know he's a real count, and
+I won a hundred dollars from Pa on a bet that he was. And he hated to
+pay it! He bet that he was a cook or a barber. And I bet he wasn't. And,
+oh! you know it's an awfully good joke on him--for he was a waiter in
+New York for a while."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A waiter--oh, just for a little while after he came over--before his
+remittances arrived. But I made Pa pay up, because he said cook or
+barber. I put it in this hat, see, ain't it a wonder?" She turned
+herself around before a mirror and admired her hat which was, indeed as
+Miss Leigh was forced to admit, "a wonder."
+
+"You know it's just like the hat Gabrielle Lightfoot wears in the 'Star
+of the Harem' when she comes in in the balloon. I got her to let me copy
+it--exactly."
+
+"You did? How did you manage that?"
+
+"Why, you see, Jimmy Canter knows her, and he asked Harriet and me to
+supper to meet her, and I declare she nearly made me die laughing--you
+know she's a real sweet girl--Jimmy says she----"
+
+"Who chaperoned you?" asked Miss Leigh, as she began to put on her
+gloves.
+
+"Chaperon? My dear, that's where the fun came in--we didn't have any
+chaperon. I pretended that Harriet and the Count were married and called
+her Countess, and she was so flattered at being given the title that she
+was pleased to death--though you know, she's really dead in love with
+Jimmy Canter, and he hardly looks at her. If he's in love with any
+one--except Mr. James Canter, Jr.--it's with some one else I know." She
+nodded her head knowingly.
+
+"I'm afraid I have to go now," said Miss Leigh, "my father expects me to
+come for him," she glanced at a jewelled watch. She had stiffened up
+slightly.
+
+"Well, of course, you'll come?"
+
+"To what?"
+
+"To our ball--that's what it is, you know, though it's for a charity,
+and we make others pay for it. Why shouldn't they? I haven't decided yet
+what charity. Harriet wants it to be for a home for cats. You'd know
+she'd want that now, wouldn't you? She'll be in there herself some day.
+But I'm not going to let it go for anything she wants. She's claiming
+now that she got it up, and I'm just going to show her who did. I'm
+thinking of giving it to that young preacher you met in the country two
+years ago and got so interested in 't you got Dr. Capon to bring him
+here as his assistant."
+
+"You couldn't give it to a better cause," said Miss Leigh. "I wonder how
+he is coming on?"
+
+"I guess you know all right. But Pa says," pursued Miss McSheen without
+heeding further the interruption, "we are ruining the poor, and the
+reason they won't work is that we are always giving them money. You know
+they're striking on our lines--some of them? I haven't decided yet what
+to give it to. Oh! you ought to see the Doctor. He's the gayest of the
+gay. He came to see me the other day. It almost made me die laughing.
+You know he's dead in love with your Aunt. I used to think it was you;
+but Pa says I'm always thinking everybody is in love with you--even the
+Count--but he says--However----"
+
+"I'll tell you what!" said Miss Leigh suddenly, "I'll come to the ball
+if you'll give the proceeds to Mr. Marvel for his poor people."
+
+"Done! See there! what did I tell you! I thought you weren't so pious
+for nothing all on a sudden----"
+
+"Milly, you're a goose," said Miss Leigh, picking up her sunshade.
+
+"I'm a wise one, though--what was it our teacher used to tell us about
+the geese giving the alarm somewhere? But I don't care. I'm the
+treasurer and pay the bills. Pa says the man that holds the bag gets the
+swag. Bring your father. We'll get something grand out of him. He always
+gives to everything. I'll call him up and tell him to be sure and come.
+You know they've landed the deal. Pa says every one of them has made a
+pile. Your father might have made it, too, if he'd come in, but I think
+he was fighting them or something, I don't quite understand it--anyhow
+it's all done now, and I'm going to hold Pa up for the pearl necklace he
+promised to give me. There's a perfect beauty at Setter & Stoneberg's,
+only seventeen thousand, and I believe they'll take ten if it's planked
+down in cold cash. Pa says the way to get a man is to put down the cold
+cash before him and let him fasten his eye on it. If he's a Jew he says
+he'll never let it go. I tell him by the same token he must be a Jew
+himself; because he holds on to all the money he ever lays his eye on."
+
+"Can I take you down-town anywhere?" inquired Miss Leigh, in a rather
+neutral voice.
+
+"No, my dear, just let me fix my hat. I have to go the other way. In
+fact, I told the Count that I was going up to the park for a little
+spin, and he asked if he couldn't come along. I didn't want him, of
+course--men are so in the way in the morning, don't you think so? Is
+that quite right?" She gave her head a toss to test the steadiness of
+her hat.
+
+"Quite," said Miss Leigh.
+
+"Well, good-by. I'll count on you then. Oh! I tell you--among the
+entertainments, the Count is going to perform some wonderful
+sleight-of-hand tricks with cards. My dear, he's a magician!
+He can do anything with cards. Heavens! it's after one. The
+Count--good-by--good-by."
+
+And as Miss Leigh entered her victoria the young lady rushed off, up
+the street, straining her eyes in the direction of the park.
+
+That night "the ball," as Miss McSheen called it, came off and was a
+huge success, as was duly chronicled in all the morning papers next day
+with an elaboration of description of millinery in exact proportion to
+the degree of prominence of the wearer in the particular circle in which
+the editor or his reporter moved or aspired to move. Mrs. Argand stood
+first in "Wine-colored velvet, priceless lace," of the sort that
+reporters of the female sex deem dearest, and "diamonds and rubies" that
+would have staggered Sinbad, the sailor. Miss McSheen ran her a close
+second, in "rose-colored satin, and sapphires," spoken of as "priceless
+heirlooms." Miss Leigh shone lower down in "chiffon, lace, and pearls of
+great price." So they went columns-full, all priceless, all beautiful,
+all superlative, till superlatives were exhausted, and the imagination
+of the reporters ran riot in an excess of tawdry color and English.
+
+Among the men especially lauded were, first, a certain Mr. James Canter,
+son and partner of "the famous Mr. Canter, the capitalist and
+financier," who gave promise of rivalling his father in his "notorious
+ability," and, secondly, a Count Pushkin, the "distinguished scion of a
+noble house of international reputation who was honoring the city with
+his distinguished presence, and was generally credited with having led
+captive the heart of one of the city's fairest and wealthiest
+daughters." So ran the record. And having nothing to do, I read that
+morning the account and dwelt on the only name I recognized, the young
+lady of the white chiffon and pearls, and wondered who the men were
+whose names stood next to hers.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ELEANOR LEIGH
+
+
+Miss Leigh also read the papers that morning and with much amusement
+till in one of them--the most sensational of all the morning
+journals--she came on an article which first made her heart stop beating
+and then set it to racing with sheer anger. To think that such a slander
+could be uttered! She would have liked to make mince-meat of that
+editor. He was always attacking her father.
+
+A little later she began to think of the rest of the article! What was
+the truth? Did they have the right to stop the train and hold it back?
+This sort of thing was what a writer whom she knew denied in a series of
+papers which a friend of hers, a young clergyman who worked among the
+poor, had sent her and which the press generally was denouncing.
+
+She had for some time been reading these papers that had been appearing
+in the press periodically. They were written by a person who was
+generally spoken of as "a Jew," but who wrote with a pen which had the
+point of a rapier, and whose sentences ate into the steely plate of
+artificial convention like an acid. One of the things he had said had
+stuck in her memory. "As the remains of animalculæ of past ages furnish,
+when compressed in almost infinite numbers, the lime-food on which the
+bone and muscle of the present race of cattle in limestone regions are
+built up, so the present big-boned race of the wealthy class live on the
+multitudinous class of the poor."
+
+The summer before she had met the writer of these articles and he had
+made an impression on her which had not been effaced. She had not
+analyzed her feelings to ascertain how far this impression was due to
+his classical face, his deep, luminous eyes, and his impassioned manner,
+yet certain it is that all of these had struck her.
+
+Perhaps, I should give just here a little more of Miss Eleanor Leigh's
+history as I came to know of it later on. How I came to know of it may
+or may not be divulged later. But, at least, I learned it. She was the
+daughter of a gentleman who, until she came and began to tyrannize over
+him, gave up all of his time and talents to building up enterprises of
+magnitude and amassing a fortune. He had showed abilities and ambition
+at college "back East," where he came from, and when he first struck for
+the West and started out in life, it was in a region and amid
+surroundings which were just becoming of more than local importance as
+they a little later grew under the guidance of men of action like
+himself, to be of more than sectional importance. The new West as it was
+then had called to him imperiously and he had responded. Flinging
+himself into the current which was just beginning to take on force, he
+soon became one of the pilots of the development which, changing a vast
+region where roamed Indians and buffalo into a land of cities and
+railways, shortly made its mark on the Nation and, indeed, on the
+world, and he was before long swept quite away by it, leaving behind all
+the intellectual ambitions and dreams he had ever cherished and giving
+himself up soul and body to the pleasure he got out of his success as an
+organizer and administrator of large enterprises. Wealth at first was
+important to him, then it became, if not unimportant, at least of
+secondary importance to the power he possessed. Then it became of
+importance again--indeed of supreme importance; for the power he wielded
+was now dependent on wealth and great wealth. His associates were all
+men of large interests, and only one with similar interests could lead
+them. New conditions had come about of late and new methods which he
+could neither employ nor contend against successfully.
+
+As he looked back on it later it appeared a feverish dream through which
+he had passed. Its rewards were undeniable: luxury, reputation and power
+beyond anything he had ever conceived of. Yet what had he not sacrificed
+for them! Everything that he had once held up before his mind as a noble
+ambition: study, reading, association with the great and noble of all
+time; art and love of art; appreciation of all except wealth that men
+have striven for through the ages; friendship--domestic joy--everything
+except riches and the power they bring. For as he thought over his past
+in his growing loneliness he found himself compelled to admit that he
+had sacrificed all the rest. He had married a woman he loved and
+admired. He had given her wealth and luxury instead of himself, and she
+had pined and died before he awakened to the tragic fact. He had
+grieved for her, but he could not conceal from himself the brutal fact
+that she had ceased years before to be to him as necessary as his
+business. She had left him one child. Two others had died in infancy,
+and he had mourned for them and sympathized with her; but he never knew
+for years, and until too late, how stricken she had been over their
+loss. The child she had left him had in some way taken hold on him and
+had held it even against himself. She had so much of himself in her that
+he himself could see the resemblance; his natural kindness, his good
+impulses, his wilfulness, his resolution and ambition to lead and to
+succeed in all he undertook.
+
+Even from the earliest days when she was left to him, Mr. Leigh was made
+aware by Eleanor that he had something out of the ordinary to deal with.
+The arrangement by which, on the death of her mother, she was taken by
+her half-aunt, Mrs. Argand, to be cared for, "because the poor child
+needed a mother to look after her," fell through promptly when the
+little thing who had rebelled at the plan appeared, dusty and
+dishevelled but triumphant, in her father's home that first evening, as
+he was preparing, after leaving his office, to go and see her. It was
+doubtless an auspicious moment for the little rebel; for her father was
+at the instant steeped in grief and loneliness and self-reproach. He had
+worked like fury all day to try to forget his loss; but his return home
+to his empty house had torn open his wounds afresh, and the echoing of
+his solitary foot-fall on the stair and in the vacant rooms had almost
+driven him to despair. Every spot--every turn was a red-hot brand on the
+fresh wound. No man had loved his wife more; but he awoke now when too
+late to the torturing fact that he had left her much alone. He had
+worked for her, leaving the enjoyment to the future; and she had died
+before the future came, in that desolate present which was to be linked
+forever to the irretrievable past. It was at this moment that he heard a
+familiar step outside his door. His heart almost stopped to listen. It
+could not be Eleanor--she was safe at her Aunt's, blocks away, awaiting
+the fulfilment of his promise to come to see her--and it was now dark.
+Could it be a delusion? His over-wrought brain might have fancied it.
+Next second the door burst open, and in rushed Eleanor with a cry--"Oh!
+Papa!"
+
+"Why, Nelly! How did you come!"
+
+"Slipped out and ran away! You did not come and I could not stay."
+
+When the emotion of the first greeting was over, Mr. Leigh, under the
+strong sense of what he deemed his duty to the child, and also to the
+dear dead--which had led him at first to make the sacrifice of yielding
+to his sister-in-law's urgency, began to explain to the little girl the
+impropriety of her action, and the importance of her returning to her
+Aunt, when she had been so kind. But he found it a difficult task. Mr.
+Leigh believed in discipline. He had been brought up in a rigid school,
+and he knew it made for character; but it was uphill work with the
+little girl's arms clasped about his neck and her hot, tear-streaked
+little face pressed close to his as she pleaded and met his arguments
+with a promptness and an aptness which astonished him. Moreover, she had
+a strong advocate in his own heart, and from the first moment when she
+had burst in on his heart-breaking loneliness he had felt that he could
+not let her go again if she were unhappy.
+
+"She would not go back," she asserted defiantly. "She hated her Aunt,
+anyhow--she was a hateful old woman who scolded her servants; and sent
+her up-stairs to her supper."
+
+When to this her father promptly replied that she must go back, and he
+would take her, she as promptly changed her note.
+
+"Very well, she would go back; he need not come with her; but she would
+die."
+
+"Oh, no, you will not die. You will soon grow very fond of her."
+
+"Then I shall grow very worldly, like her," said Miss Precocity.
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"Because she is a worldly old woman--and you said so yourself."
+
+"I said so! When?" demanded her father, with a guilty feeling of vague
+recollection.
+
+"To Mamma once--when Mamma said something against her husband, you said
+that, and Mamma said you ought not to say that about her sister--and you
+said she was only her half-sister, anyhow, and not a bit like her--and
+now you want to send me back to her as if I were only your half-child."
+
+The father smiled sadly enough as he drew the anxious little face close
+to his own.
+
+"Oh! no--You are all mine, and my all. I only want to do what is right."
+
+"Mamma wants me to stay with you--so it must be right."
+
+The present tense used by the child struck the father to the heart.
+
+"What makes you think that?" he asked with a sigh. The little girl was
+quick to catch at the new hope.
+
+"She told me so the day before she died, when I was in the room with
+her; she said you would be lonely, and I must be a comfort to you."
+
+Mr. Leigh gave a gasp that was almost a groan, and the child flung her
+arms about his neck.
+
+"And I sha'n't leave you, my all-Papa, unless you drive me; I promised
+Mamma I would stay and take care of you, and I will. And you won't make
+me--will you? For I am your all-daughter--You won't, will you?"
+
+"No, d----d if I do!" said the father, catching her to his heart, and
+trying to smother the oath as it burst from his lips.
+
+As soon as she had quieted down, he went to her Aunt's to make the
+necessary explanation. He found it not the easiest task, for the good
+lady had her own ideas and had formed her plans, and the change was a
+blow to her _amour propre_. It was, in fact, the beginning of the breach
+between Mr. Leigh and his sister-in-law which led eventually to the
+antagonism between them.
+
+"You are going to spoil that child to death!" exclaimed the affronted
+lady. This Mr. Leigh denied, though in his heart he thought it possible.
+It was not a pleasant interview, for Mrs. Argand was deeply offended.
+But Mr. Leigh felt that it was well worth the cost when, on his return
+home, he was greeted by a cry of joy from the top of the stair where the
+little girl sat in her dressing gown awaiting him. And when with a cry
+of joy she came rushing down, Cinderella-like, dropping her slipper in
+her excitement, and flung herself into his arms, he knew that life had
+begun for him anew.
+
+Mr. Leigh was quite aware of the truth of Mrs. Argand's prophecy; but he
+enjoyed the spoiling of his daughter, which she had foretold, and he
+enjoyed equally the small tyrannies which the child exercised over him,
+and also the development of her mind as the budding years passed.
+
+"Papa," she said one day, when she had asked him to take her somewhere,
+and he had pleaded, "business," "why do you go to the office so much?"
+
+"I have to work to make money for my daughter," said her father, stating
+the first reason that suggested itself.
+
+"Are you not rich enough now?"
+
+"Well, I don't know that I am, with a young lady growing up on my
+hands," said her father smiling.
+
+"Am I very expensive?" she asked with a sudden little expression of
+gravity coming over her face.
+
+"No, that you are not, my dear--and if you were, there is no pleasure on
+earth to me like giving it to you. That is one of my chief reasons for
+working so steadily, though there are others."
+
+"I have plenty of money," said Eleanor.
+
+"Then you are happier than most people, who don't know when they have
+plenty."
+
+"Yes--you see, all I have to do when I want anything is to go into a
+store and ask for it, and tell them I am your daughter, and they let me
+have it at once."
+
+"Oh ho!" said her father, laughing, "so that is the way you buy things,
+is it? No wonder you have plenty. Well, you'd better come to me and ask
+for what you want."
+
+"I think the other is the easier way, and as you say you like to give it
+to me, I don't see that it makes any difference."
+
+Mr. Leigh decided that he had better explain the difference.
+
+"I hate rich people," said Eleanor suddenly. "They are so vulgar."
+
+"For example?" enquired her father looking with some amusement at the
+girl whose face had suddenly taken on an expression of severe
+priggishness.
+
+"Oh! Aunt Sophia and Milly McSheen. They are always talking about their
+money."
+
+Mr. Leigh's eyes were twinkling.
+
+"You must not talk that way about your Aunt Sophia--she is very fond of
+you."
+
+"She is always nagging at me--correcting me."
+
+"She wants you to grow up to be a fine woman."
+
+"Like her?" said Miss Eleanor pertly.
+
+Mr. Leigh felt that it was wise to check this line of criticism, and he
+now spoke seriously.
+
+"You must not be so critical of your Aunt. She is really very fond of
+you--and she was your mother's half-sister. You must respect her and
+love her."
+
+"I love her, but I don't like her. She and Milly McSheen are just
+alike--always boasting of what they have, and do, and running down what
+others have, and do."
+
+"Oh, well, it takes a great many people to make a world," said Mr. Leigh
+indulgently. Eleanor felt a want of sympathy and made another bid for
+it.
+
+"Milly McSheen says that her father is going to be the richest man in
+this town."
+
+"Ah! who is talking about money now?" said Mr. Leigh, laughing.
+
+"I am not--I am merely saying what she said."
+
+"You must not tell the silly things your friends say."
+
+"No--only to you--I thought you said I must tell you everything. But, of
+course, if you don't wish me to--I won't."
+
+Mr. Leigh laughed and took her on his knee. He was not quite sure
+whether she was serious or was only laughing at him, but, as he began to
+explain, she burst into a peal of merriment over her victory.
+
+In appearance she was like her mother, only he thought her fairer--as
+fair as he had thought her mother in the days of his first devotion; and
+her deeper eyes and firmer features were an added beauty; the
+well-rounded chin was his own. Her eyes, deep with unfathomable depths,
+and mouth, firm even with its delicate beauty, had come from some
+ancestor or ancestress who, in some generation past, had faced life in
+its most exacting form with undaunted resolution and, haply, had faced
+death with equal calm for some belief that now would scarcely have given
+an hour's questioning. So, when she grew each year, developing new
+powers and charm and constancy, he began to find a new interest in life,
+and to make her more his companion and confidante than he had ever made
+her mother. He left his business oftener to see her than he had left it
+to see her mother; he took her oftener with him on his trips, and took
+more trips, that he might have her company. She sat at the head of his
+table, and filled her place with an ability that was at once his
+astonishment and his pride.
+
+At one time, as she changed from a mere child to a young girl, he had
+thought of marrying again, rather with a view to giving her a guide and
+counsellor than for any other purpose. Her storminess, however, at the
+mere suggestion, and much more, her real grief, had led him to defer the
+plan from time to time, until now she was a young lady, and he could see
+for himself that she needed neither chaperon nor counsellor. He
+sometimes smiled to think what the consequences would have been had he
+taken to wife the soft, kindly, rather commonplace lady whom he had once
+thought of as his daughter's guardian. A domestic fowl in the clutches
+of a young eagle would have had an easier time.
+
+One phase alone in her development had puzzled and baffled him. She had
+gone off one spring to a country neighborhood in another State, where
+she had some old relatives on her mother's side. Mr. Leigh had been
+called to Europe on business, and she had remained there until well into
+the summer. When she returned she was not the same. Some change had
+taken place in her. She had gone away a rollicking, gay,
+pleasure-loving, and rather selfish young girl--he was obliged to admit
+that she was both wilful and self-indulgent. Even his affection for her
+could not blind his eyes to this, and at times it had given him much
+concern, for at times there was a clash in which, if he came off victor,
+he felt it was at a perilous price--that, possibly, of a strain on her
+obedience. She returned a full-grown woman, thoughtful and
+self-sacrificing and with an aim--he was glad it was not a mission--and
+as her aim was to be useful, and she began with him, he accepted it with
+contentment. She talked freely of her visit; spoke warmly, and indeed,
+enthusiastically, of those she had met there. Among these were a young
+country preacher and a friend of his, a young Jew. But, though she spoke
+of both with respect, the praise she accorded them was so equal that he
+dismissed from his mind the possibility that she could have been
+seriously taken with either of them. Possibly, the Jew was the one she
+was most enthusiastic over, but she spoke of him too openly to cause her
+father disquietude. Besides, he was a Jew.
+
+The preacher she plainly respected most highly, yet her account of his
+appearance was too humorous to admit a serious feeling for him, even
+though she had gotten him called to be one of Dr. Capon's assistants.
+
+What had happened was that the girl, who had only "lain in the lilies
+and fed on the roses of life," had suddenly been dropped in an
+out-of-the-way corner in a country neighborhood in an old State, where
+there were neither lilies nor roses of the metaphorical kind, though a
+sufficiency of the real and natural kind, with which nature in
+compensatory mood atones to those who have of the metaphorical sort but
+thistles and brambles and flinty soil.
+
+When she first landed there, after the very first excitement of being
+thrown into a wholly new situation, among strangers whom, though her
+relatives, she had always regarded much as she had regarded geographical
+places in distant lands, was over, she found herself, as it were, at a
+loss for occupation. Everything was so quiet and calm. She felt lost and
+somewhat bored. But after a little time she found occupation in small
+things, as on looking closely she discovered beauties in Nature which
+her first glance had failed to catch. The people appeared so novel, so
+simple, so wholly different from all whom she had known; the excitements
+and amusements and interests of her life in the city, or at summer
+watering-places, or in travelling, were not only unknown to them--as
+unknown as if they were in another planet, but were matters of absolute
+indifference. Their interest was in their neighbors, in the small
+happenings about them; and occurrences an hundred miles away were as
+distant to them as though they had taken place in another era. Among the
+few notabilities in this rural community was a young clergyman whom she
+always heard spoken of with respect--as much respect, indeed, as if he
+had been a bishop. What "Mr. Marvel thought" and what he said was
+referred to, or was quoted as something to be considered--so much so
+that she had insensibly formed a picture in her own mind of a quite
+remarkable looking and impressive person. When, at last, she met John
+Marvel, what was her amusement to discover, in place of her young
+Antinous, a stout, strapping young fellow, with rather bristly hair,
+very near-sighted and awkward, and exceedingly shy, a person as far from
+a man of the world as a stout, country-bred cart-horse would be from a
+sleek trick-pony. His timidity in her presence caused her endless
+amusement, and for lack of some better diversion and partly to
+scandalize her staid kinswomen, she set herself to tease him in every
+way that her fertile brain could devise.
+
+Visiting the young clergyman at the time was a friend who came much
+nearer being in appearance what Eleanor had imagined John Marvel to be:
+a dark, slender young man with a classical face, but that its lines were
+stronger and more deeply graven, and unforgettable eyes. He had just
+come to visit Mr. Marvel and to get a needed rest, John Marvel said. He
+had been a worker among the poor, and his views were so different from
+any that Eleanor Leigh had ever heard as to appear almost shocking. He
+was an educated man, yet he had lived and worked as an artisan. He was a
+gentleman, yet he denounced vehemently the conditions which produced the
+upper class. But an even greater surprise awaited her when he announced
+that he was a Jew.
+
+When John Marvel brought his friend to see Miss Eleanor Leigh, the first
+impression that she received was one of pleasure. He was so striking and
+unusual looking--with deep, burning eyes under dark brows. Then she was
+not sure that she liked him, she even thought she was sensible of a sort
+of repulsion. She had a feeling as if he were weighing her in his mind
+and, not approving of her, treated her at times with indifference, at
+times with a certain disdain. She was conscious of an antagonism as
+Wolffert showed scorn of conditions and things which she had been
+brought up to believe almost as much a necessary part of life as air and
+light. She promptly began to argue with him, but when she found that he
+usually had the best of the argument, she became more careful how she
+opened herself to his attack. He aroused in her the feeling of
+opposition. His scorn of the money-making spirit of the day led her to
+defend what she secretly held in contempt. And once when he had been
+inveighing against commercialism that set up Gods of Brass to worship,
+and declared that it was the old story of Nebuchadnezzar over again--and
+was the fore-runner to brotherhood with the beasts of the field, she
+wheeled on him, declaring that it was "only people who had no power to
+make money who held such views."
+
+"Do you think that I could not make money if I wished to do so?" said
+Wolffert quietly, with an amused light in his eyes as they rested on her
+with an expression which was certainly not hostile; for her eagerness
+had brought warm blood to her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with
+the glow of contention.
+
+"Yes, if you were able you would be as rich as a Jew."
+
+A yet more amused look came into Wolffert's eyes.
+
+"Are all Jews rich?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--all who are capable--you know they are."
+
+"No, for I am a Jew and I am not rich," said Wolffert.
+
+"What! You!--You a--Oh, I beg your pardon! I--" she blushed deeply.
+
+"Pray don't apologize--don't imagine that I am offended. Would you be
+offended if I charged you with coming from a race of poets and
+philosophers and scientists--of a race that had given the world its
+literature and its religion?"
+
+She burst out laughing.
+
+"No; but I was such a fool--pray forgive me." She held out her hand and
+Wolffert took it and pressed it firmly--and this was the beginning of
+their friendship.
+
+Wolffert walked home slowly that evening, that is, across the fields to
+the little farmhouse where John Marvel lived. He had food for thought.
+
+When Eleanor Leigh saw John Marvel a few days later she told him of her
+conversation and the speech she had made to his friend. "You know," said
+John, "that he is rich or could be, if he chose to go home. His father
+is very rich."
+
+"He is a new Jew to me," said Eleanor Leigh; "he is quite different from
+the typical Jew."
+
+"I wonder if there is a typical Jew," questioned John to himself, and
+this set Eleanor wondering too.
+
+But Eleanor Leigh found other causes for wonder in Wolffert besides the
+salient fact of his race which she had mentioned to her cousins, and
+they forced upon her the consciousness that she would have to readjust
+her ideas of many things as she had been compelled to do in regard to
+the appearance and aims of this singular people. Her idea of the
+Israelites had always been curiously connoted with hooked noses, foreign
+speech of a far from refined type, and a persistent pursuit of shekels
+by ways generally devious and largely devoted to shops containing
+articles more or less discarded by other people. Here she found a
+cultivated gentleman with features, if not wholly classical, at least
+more regular and refined than those of most young men of her
+acquaintance; speech so cultivated as to be quite distinguished, and an
+air and manner so easy and gracious as to suggest to her complete
+knowledge of the great world. No matter what subject was discussed
+between them, he knew about it more than any one else, and always threw
+light on it which gave it a new interest for her. He had a knowledge of
+the Literature and Art, not only of the ancients, but of most modern
+nations, and he talked to her of things of which she had never so much
+as heard. He had not only travelled extensively in Europe, but had
+travelled in a way to give him an intimate knowledge not merely of the
+countries, but of the people and customs of the countries which no one
+she had ever met possessed. He had crossed in the steerage of
+ocean-liners more than once and had stoked across both to England and
+the Mediterranean.
+
+"But what made you do it?" she asked. "Did not you find it terrible?"
+
+"Yes--pretty bad." Wolffert was at the moment showing her how tea was
+made in certain provinces along the Caspian Sea which he had visited not
+long before. "About as bad as it could be."
+
+"Then what made you do it?"
+
+"Well, I saved money by it, too."
+
+What the other reason was she did not press him to give. She only
+thought, "That is the Jew of it." But after she had seen more of him she
+discovered that the other reason was that he might learn by personal
+experience what the condition was in the emigrant ships and the holes
+where the stokers lived deep down amid the coal-bunkers and the roaring
+furnaces, and further, that he might know the people themselves.
+Incidentally, he had learned there and elsewhere Italian and Russian,
+with the strange Hebraic faculty of absorbing whatever he came in touch
+with, but he thought no more of knowing that than of knowing Yiddish.
+
+It was this study of conditions that finally gave her the key to his
+design in life, for it developed as their acquaintance grew that this
+clear-headed, cultivated, thoughtful man held strange views as to the
+ordinary things of life, the things which she had always accepted as
+fundamental and unchangeable as the solid earth or the vaguely
+comprehended but wholly accepted revolution of the spheres. In fact, he
+held that the conditions of modern life, the relations of people in
+mass, which she had somehow always considered as almost perfect and,
+indeed, divinely established, were absolutely outworn and fundamentally
+unrighteous and unjust. She at first did not take him seriously. She
+could not. To find a pleasant and, indeed, rather eloquent-spoken young
+man denounce as wicked and vile usurpation the establishment of
+competitive enterprises, and the accumulation of capital by captains of
+industry, appeared to her almost impious. Yet, there he sat with burning
+eyes and thrilling voice denouncing the very things she had always
+considered most commendable. "Why, that is Socialism, isn't it?" she
+asked, feeling that if she could convict him of this somewhat vaguely
+comprehended term she would prove her old foundations unshaken.
+
+Wolffert smiled. He was very good-looking when he smiled. "No, not
+exactly--if it is, it is only an elementary and individual kind of
+Socialism; but it is Socialism so far as it is based on a profound
+desire to reconstruct society and to place it on a natural and equitable
+social foundation where every one shall have a chance to work and to
+reap the fruit of such work."
+
+"What is Socialism?" she demanded suddenly.
+
+"It is not what you mean by the term," he laughed. "It is not taking the
+property of those who have worked for it and giving to those who neither
+have worked nor will work--that is what you have in mind."
+
+"Precisely," she nodded.
+
+"It is--at least, the Socialism I mean--the application of the same
+method of general order by the people at large to labor and the product
+of labor: property--that is now employed in Government. The
+reconstruction of the present methods so that all should participate
+both in the labor, and in the product." He went on to picture glowingly
+the consequences of this Utopian scheme when all men should work and all
+should reap. But though he made it appear easy enough to him, Eleanor
+Leigh's practical little head saw the difficulties and the flaws much
+more readily than the perfect result which he appeared to find so
+certain.
+
+"You cannot reconstruct human nature," she protested, "and when you
+shall have gotten your system thoroughly under way, those who have
+gotten in positions of power will use their advantage for their own
+benefit, and then you will still have to begin all over again." But
+Wolffert was certain of the result and pointed out the work of his
+friend John Marvel as a proof of his theory.
+
+While, at first, the broad-shouldered young clergyman fled from her
+presence with a precipitation which was laughable, it was not long
+before he appeared to have steeled himself sufficiently against her
+shafts of good-natured persiflage to be able to tolerate her presence,
+and before a great while had passed, her friends began to tease her on
+the fact that wherever she went Mr. Marvel was pretty sure to appear.
+One of her old cousins, half-rallyingly and half-warningly, cautioned
+her against going too far with the young man, saying, "Mr. Marvel, my
+dear, is too good a man for you to amuse yourself with, and then fling
+away. What is simply the diversion of an hour for you, may become a
+matter of real gravity with him. He is already deeply interested in you
+and unless you are interested in him----"
+
+"Why, I am interested in him," declared the girl, laughing. "Why, he
+tells me of all the old sick women and cats in the parish and I have an
+engagement to go around with him and see some old women to-morrow. You
+ought to see some that we went to visit the other day!"
+
+"I know, my dear, but you must not make fun of his work. He is happy in
+it and is accomplishing a great deal of good, and if you should get him
+dissatisfied----"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed; I gave him some money last week for a poor family to
+get some clothes so that they could come to church. They were named
+Banyan. They live near the mines. The whole family were to be christened
+next Sunday, and what do you suppose they did? As soon as they got the
+clothes they went last Sunday to a big baptizing and were all immersed!
+I was teasing him about that when you heard me laughing at him."
+
+"The wretches!" exclaimed her cousin. "To think of their deceiving him
+so!"
+
+"I know," said the girl. "But I think he minded the deception much more
+than the other. Though I charged him with being disappointed at not
+getting them into his fold, really, I don't think he minded it a bit. At
+least, he said he would much rather they had gone where they would be
+happy."
+
+"Now, Mr. Marvel's friend, Mr. Wolffert, is a different matter. He
+appears quite able to take care of himself."
+
+"Quite," said Miss Leigh dryly.
+
+"But, my dear," said her cousin, lowering her voice, "they say he is a
+Jew."
+
+"He is," said Eleanor.
+
+"You know it?"
+
+"Yes, he told me so himself."
+
+"Told you himself! Why, I thought--! How did he come to tell you?"
+
+"Why, I don't know. We were talking and I said something foolish about
+the Jews--about some one being 'as rich and stingy as a Jew,' and he
+smiled and said, 'Are all Jews rich--and stingy?' And I said, 'If they
+have a chance,' and he said, 'Not always. I am a Jew and I am not rich.'
+Well, I thought he was fooling, just teasing me--so I went on, and do
+you know he is not only a Jew, but Mr. Marvel says he is rich, only he
+does not claim his money because he is a Socialist. Mr. Marvel says he
+could go home to-morrow and his father would take him and lavish money
+on him; but he works--works all the time among the poor."
+
+"Well, I must say I always liked him," said her cousin.
+
+"But he isn't such good fun to tease as Mr. Marvel--he is too intense.
+Mr. Marvel does get so red and unhappy-looking when he is teased."
+
+"Well, you have no right to tease him. He is a clergyman and should be
+treated with respect. You wouldn't dare to tease your rector in
+town--the great Dr.--What is his name?"
+
+"Oh! wouldn't I? Dr. Bartholomew Capon. Why, he is one of the greatest
+beaux in town. He's always running around to see some girl--ogling them
+with his big blue eyes."
+
+"Eleanor!" exclaimed her cousin reprovingly.
+
+"Why, he'd marry any one of the Canter girls who would have him, or Aunt
+Sophia, or----"
+
+"Eleanor, don't be profane."
+
+The old lady looked so shocked that the girl ran over and kissed her,
+with a laugh.
+
+"Why, I've told him so."
+
+"Told him? You haven't!"
+
+"Yes, I have. I told him so when he tried to marry me. Then he tried
+Aunt Sophia."
+
+"What! Eleanor, you are incorrigible. You really are. But do tell me
+about it. Did he really court you? Why, he's old enough to be your----"
+
+"Grandfather," interrupted the girl. "That's what I told him,
+substantially."
+
+"Served him right, too. But he must be a fine preacher from what my old
+friend, Pansy Tipps, once wrote me. Did you ever meet Pansy Tipps? She
+and her sister live in your city. They went there years ago to press a
+claim they had to a large fortune left them by their father, Colonel
+Tipps, who used to be a very rich man, but left his affairs somewhat
+complicated, I gather from what Pansy writes me, or did write, for she
+does not write very often now. I wish you'd go and see them when you go
+back."
+
+"I will," said Eleanor. "Where do they live?"
+
+"At a Mrs. Kale's--she keeps a boarding-house--I don't know the exact
+location, and mislaid Pansy's letter a year or more ago, but you will
+have no difficulty in finding it. It must be in the fashionable quarter
+and I should think any one could tell you where she lives."
+
+"I will find her," said Eleanor, laughing.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+JOHN MARVEL
+
+
+When, a little later, a scourge of diphtheria broke out in a little
+mining camp not far from the home of Miss Leigh's relatives and she
+learned that John Marvel spent all his time nursing the sick and
+relieving their necessities as far as possible, she awakened to a
+realization of the truth of what her cousin had said, that under his
+awkward exterior lay a mine of true gold.
+
+Day by day reports came of the spread of the deadly pestilence, making
+inroads in every family, baffling the skill and outstripping the utmost
+efforts of the local physician; day by day, the rumor came that wherever
+illness appeared there was John Marvel.
+
+One afternoon Miss Leigh, who had ridden over in the direction of the
+mining village to try and get some information about the young
+clergyman, who, a rumor said, had been stricken himself the day before,
+came on him suddenly in a by-path among the hills. At sight of her he
+stopped and held up his hand in warning, and at the warning she reined
+in her horse.
+
+"Don't come nearer," he called to her.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked. "How are you?" For even at that
+distance--perhaps, some fifty paces--she could see that he looked
+wretchedly worn and wan.
+
+"Oh, I'm doing very well," he replied. "How are you? You must not come
+this way! Turn back!"
+
+She began to rein her horse around and then, on a sudden, as his arm
+fell to his side, and, stepping a little out of the path, he leant
+against a tree, the whole situation struck her. Wheeling her horse back,
+she rode straight up to him though he stiffened up and waved her back.
+
+"You are ill," she said.
+
+"Oh, no. I am not ill, I am only a bit tired; that is all. You must not
+come this way--go back!"
+
+"But why?" she persisted, sitting now close above him.
+
+"Because--because--there is sickness here. A family there is down." He
+nodded back toward the curve around which he had just come. "The Banyan
+family are all ill, and I am just going for help."
+
+"I will go--I, at least, can do that. What help? What do you want?"
+
+She had tightened the rein on her horse and turned his head back.
+
+"Everything. The mother and three children are all down; the father died
+a few days ago. Send the doctor and anything that you can
+find--food--clothing--medicine--some one to nurse them--if you can find
+her. It is the only chance."
+
+"I will." She hesitated a moment and looked down at him, as if about to
+speak, but he waved her off. "Go, you must not stay longer."
+
+He had moved around so that the wind, instead of blowing from him toward
+her, blew from the other side of her.
+
+A moment later Eleanor Leigh was galloping for life down the steep
+bridle-path. It was a breakneck gait, and the path was rough enough to
+be perilous, but she did not heed it. It was the first time in all her
+life that she had been conscious that she could be of real use. She felt
+that she was galloping in a new world. From house to house she rode, but
+though all were sympathetic, there was no one to go. Those who might
+have gone, were elsewhere--or were dead. The doctor was away from home
+attending at other bedsides and, by the account given, had been working
+night and day until he could scarcely stand. Riding to the nearest
+telegraph station, the girl sent a despatch to a doctor whom she knew in
+the city where she lived, begging him to come or to send some one on the
+first train and saying that he would be met and that she would meet all
+his expenses. Then she sat down and wrote a note to her cousin. And two
+hours later, just as the dusk was falling, she rode up to the door of a
+country cabin back among the hills. As she softly pushed open the door,
+with her arm full of bundles, a form rose from the side of a bed and
+stood before her in the dusk of the room.
+
+"My God! you must not come in here. Why have you come here?"
+
+"To help you," said the girl.
+
+"But you must not come in. Go out. You must," said John Marvel.
+
+[Illustration: "But you must not come in."]
+
+"No, I have come to stay. I could not live if I did not stay now." She
+pushed her way in. "Here are some things I have brought. I have
+telegraphed for a doctor."
+
+It was long before she could satisfy John Marvel, but she staid, and all
+that night she worked with him over the sick and the dying. All that
+night they two strove to hold Death at bay, across those wretched beds.
+Once, indeed, he had struck past their guard and snatched a life; but
+they had driven him back and saved the others. Ere morning came one of
+the children had passed away; but the mother and the other children
+survived; and Eleanor Leigh knew that John Marvel, now on his knees, now
+leaning over the bed administering stimulants, had saved them.
+
+As Eleanor Leigh stepped out into the morning light, she looked on a new
+earth, as fair as if it had just been created, and it was a new Eleanor
+Leigh who gazed upon it. The tinsel of frivolity had shrivelled and
+perished in the fire of that night. Sham had laid bare its shallow face
+and fled away. Life had taken on reality. She had seen a man, and
+thenceforth only a man could command her.
+
+The physician came duly, sent up by the one she had telegraphed to; rode
+over to the Banyan house, and later to the village, where he pronounced
+the disease diphtheria and the cause probably defective drainage and
+consequent impregnation of the water supply; wrote a prescription;
+commended the country doctor, returned home, and duly charged nearly
+half as much as the country doctor got in a year, which Miss Leigh duly
+paid with thoughts of John Marvel. This was what made the change in the
+girl which her father had noted.
+
+No novelist can give all of a hero's or a heroine's life. He must take
+some especial phase and develop his characters along that line,
+otherwise he would soon overload his boat and swamp his reader's
+patience. He is happy who having selected his path of action does not
+wear out the reader in asking him to follow even this one line. Thus, it
+is possible to give only a part of Miss Eleanor Leigh's relation to
+life, and naturally the part selected is that which had also its
+relation to John Marvel.
+
+If it be supposed by any one that Miss Eleanor Leigh devoted her entire
+time and thought to working among the poor he is greatly mistaken. John
+Marvel and Leo Wolffert did this: but Miss Leigh was far from living the
+consecrated life. She only made it a part of her life, that is all, and
+possibly this was the best for her to do. The glimpse which she got at
+the death-bed in the Banyan cottage that night when she went to help
+John Marvel fight death, tore the veil from her eyes and gave her a
+revelation of a life of which she had never dreamed till then, though it
+lay all about her in its tragic nakedness--but while it gave her pause
+and inspired her with a sincere wish to help the poor--or, possibly, to
+help John Marvel and Leo Wolffert, it did not change her nature or make
+her a missionary. An impulse, whatever its ultimate action, does not
+revolutionize. She still retained the love of pleasure natural to all
+young creatures. The young tree shoots up by nature into the sun. She
+still took part in the gay life about her, and, if possible, found a
+greater zest in it for the consciousness that she had widened her
+horizon and discovered more interests outside of the glittering little
+brazen circle in which her orbit had been hitherto confined. She had
+immediately on returning home interested herself to secure for John
+Marvel an invitation from Dr. Capon, her rector, to become one of his
+assistants and take charge of an outlying chapel which he had built in
+the poorest district of the town, moved thereto by a commendable feeling
+that the poor should have the gospel preached to them and that his
+church should not allow all the honors to go to other churches,
+particularly that of Rome. Dr. Capon prided himself and was highly
+esteemed by his fellows--that is, the upper officials, clergy, and laity
+alike--on his ability to obtain from his people the funds needed to
+extend what was known as "the work of the Parish," by which was
+signified mainly the construction of buildings, additions thereto,
+embellishments thereof, and stated services therein, and, incidentally,
+work among the poor for whom the buildings were supposed to have been
+planned. The buildings having all been erected and paid for and due
+report and laudation thereof having been made, it was found rather more
+difficult to fill them than had been previously anticipated. And it was
+set down somewhat to the perversity of the poor that they refused the
+general invitation extended them to come and be labelled and patronized
+with words and smiles quite as unctuous as benignant.
+
+Dr. Capon had not the reputation of getting on quite comfortably with
+his assistants. The exactions of his type of success had made him a
+business man. As his power of organization increased, spirituality
+dwindled. He dealt more with the rich and less with the poor. He had the
+reputation of being somewhat exacting in his demands on them, and of
+having a somewhat overweening sense of his own importance and authority.
+Bright young men either declined altogether his suggestions of the
+whiteness of the harvest in the purlieus of the city, or, having been
+led into accepting positions under him, soon left him for some country
+parish or less imposing curacy--an exotic word which the Doctor himself
+had had something to do with importing from over seas. It thus happened
+that his chapel recently built for the poor with funds elicited from Dr.
+Capon's wealthy parishioners was vacant when Miss Eleanor Leigh
+consulted the Reverend Doctor as to a good church for a peculiarly good
+young clergyman, and the Doctor being at that time in his second
+mourning and likewise in that state of receptivity incident to clerical
+widowers of a year and a half's standing, yielded readily to his fair
+parishioner's solicitations, and the position was tendered to John
+Marvel and after some hesitation was accepted--his chief motive being
+that his old friend Wolffert was there doing a work in which he had
+greatly interested him. If the fact that Miss Eleanor Leigh also lived
+in that city influenced him, it would simply prove that John Marvel,
+like the rest of Humanity was only mortal. The tender was made without
+the usual preliminary examination of the young man by the Doctor, so
+impressed had he been by the young girl's enthusiastic accounts of John
+Marvel's work and influence among the poor. Thus it was, that when John
+Marvel finally presented himself, the Doctor was more than surprised at
+his appearance--he was, indeed, almost shocked.
+
+The Doctor was not only fond of his own appearance--which was certainly
+that of a gentleman and a very well-fed and clerical looking one as
+well--but he took especial pride in having his assistants also
+good-looking and clerical. He loved to march in processional and
+recessional at the end of a stately procession with two or three
+fine-looking young priests marching before him. It had a solemnizing
+effect--it made the church appear something important. It linked him
+with the historic and Apostolic Church of the ages. With the swelling
+organ pouring forth its strains to soar and die among the groined arches
+above him, he sometimes felt as he glanced along the surpliced line
+before him as if he were borne away, and had any one cried to him from
+the side he might almost have been able to heal with his blessing. But
+this short, broad, bow-legged, near-sighted man in his shabby,
+ill-fitting clothes! Why, it would never do to have him about him! He
+would mar the whole harmony of the scene. If it had not been too late
+and if the young man had not had such a potent influence behind him, the
+Doctor might have suggested some difficulties in the way of carrying
+through the arrangements he had proposed; but though Mrs. Argand and her
+brother-in-law were understood to have had some differences over certain
+business matters, she was very fond of her niece and she was the
+wealthiest woman who came to his church. The Doctor reflected,
+therefore, that he need not have the awkward young man about him much:
+and when a little later it appeared that this gawky young man was
+filling his chapel and neighborhood-house, poor-club and night-schools
+and was sending in reports which showed that real work was being done,
+the Doctor was well satisfied to let him remain--so well, indeed, that
+he never invited him to his house socially, but only held official
+relations with him. The report that among John Marvel's chief assistants
+in the work of organizing his poor-clubs and night-school was a Jew
+Socialist disturbed the Doctor slightly, but he reflected that when one
+showed such notable results it was in a way necessary to employ many
+curious agencies, and, after all, the association with Jews in secular
+affairs was a matter of taste.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+MR. LEIGH.
+
+
+Now, to recur to the period of my arrival in the West--the day after
+Miss Leigh's return home her father paid her the unusual honor of
+leaving his office to take lunch with her.
+
+Her mind was full of the subject of the paper she had read in the press
+that morning, giving a lurid picture of the inconvenience and distress
+entailed on the passengers and scoring the management of the company for
+permitting what was claimed to be "so gross a breach of the rights of
+the public."
+
+Ordinarily, she would have passed it over with indifference--a shrug of
+her white shoulders and a stamp of her little foot would have been all
+the tribute she would have paid to it. But of late she had begun to
+think.
+
+It had never before been brought so clearly to the notice of the girl
+how her own pleasures--not the natural but the created pleasures--of
+which she was quite as fond as other healthy girls of her age and class,
+were almost exclusively at the expense of the class she had been
+accustomed to regard with a general sort of vague sympathy as "the
+Poor."
+
+The attack on her father and herself enraged her; but, as she cooled
+down, a feeling deeper than mere anger at an injustice took possession
+of her mind.
+
+To find that she herself had, in a way, been the occasion of the
+distress to women and children, startled her and left in her mind a
+feeling of uneasiness to which she had hitherto been a stranger.
+
+"Father," she began, "did you see that dreadful article in the _Trumpet_
+this morning?"
+
+Mr. Leigh, without looking up, adopted the natural line of special
+pleading, although he knew perfectly well instantly the article to which
+she referred.
+
+"What article?" he asked.
+
+"That story about our having delayed the passenger train with women and
+children on it and then having side-tracked them without breakfast, in
+order to give our car the right-of-way."
+
+"Oh! yes. I believe I saw that. I see so many ridiculous things in the
+newspapers, I pay no attention to them."
+
+"But, father, that was a terrible arraignment," said the girl.
+
+"Of whom?" asked Mr. Leigh, with a little twinkle in his eye.
+
+"Why, of you; of Aunt Sophia, of----"
+
+"Of me!"
+
+"Yes, and of me--of everybody connected with the road."
+
+"Not of you, my dear," said Mr. Leigh, with the light of affection
+warming up his rather cold face. "Surely no one, even the anarchistic
+writers of the anarchistic press, could imagine anything to say against
+you."
+
+"Yes, of me, too, though not by name, perhaps; but I was there and I was
+in a way the cause of the trouble, because the car was sent after me
+and Aunt Sophia, and I feel terribly guilty about it."
+
+"Guilty of what, my dear?" smiled her father. "Of simply using your own
+property in a way satisfactory to you?"
+
+"That is just it, father; that is the point which the writer raises. Is
+it our own property?"
+
+"It certainly is, my love. Property that I have paid for--my associates
+and I--and which I control, or did control, in conjunction with the
+other owners, and propose to control to suit myself and them so long as
+we have the controlling interest, every socialistic writer, speaker and
+striker to the contrary notwithstanding."
+
+"Well," said the girl, "that sounds all right. It looks as if you ought
+to be able to do what you like with your own; but, do you know, father,
+I am not sure that it is our own. That is just the point--he says----"
+
+"Oh! nonsense!" said her father lightly. "Don't let this Jew go and fill
+your clear little head with such foolishness as that. Enjoy life while
+you can. Make your mind easy, and get all the use you can out of what I
+have amassed for you. I only hope you may have as much pleasure in using
+it as I have had in providing it."
+
+The banker gazed over at his daughter half-quizzically, half-seriously,
+took out a cigar, and began to clip the end leisurely. The girl laughed.
+She knew that he had something on his mind.
+
+"Well, what is it?" she asked smiling.
+
+He gave a laugh. "Don't go and imagine that because that Jew can write
+he is any the less a--don't go and confound him and his work. It is the
+easiest thing in the world to pick flaws--to find the defects in any
+system. The difficult thing is constructive work."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Did that foreigner go down there while you were there?"
+
+"The Count?"
+
+"The No-Count."
+
+"No, of course not. Where did you get such an idea?"
+
+He lighted his cigar with a look of relief, put it in his mouth, and sat
+back in his chair.
+
+"Don't let your Aunt Sophia go and make a fool of you. She is a very
+good business woman, but you know she is not exactly--Solomon, and she
+is stark mad about titles. When you marry, marry a man."
+
+"Mr. Canter, for example?" laughed the girl. "He is Aunt Sophia's second
+choice. She is always talking about his money."
+
+"She is always talking about somebody's money, generally her own. But
+before I'd let that fellow have you I'd kill him with my own hand. He's
+the worst young man I know. Why, if I could tell you half--yes,
+one-tenth, of the things I have heard about him--But I can't tell
+you--only don't go and let anybody pull the wool over your eyes."
+
+"No fear of that," said the girl.
+
+"No, I don't know that there is. I think you've got a pretty clear
+little head on your shoulders. But when any one gets--gets--why, gets
+her feelings enlisted you can't just count on her, you know. And with
+your Aunt Sophy ding-donging at you and flinging her sleek Count and
+her gilded fools at you, it takes a good head to resist her."
+
+The girl reassured him with a smile of appreciation.
+
+"I don't know where she got that from," continued her father. "It must
+have been that outside strain, the Prenders. Your mother did not have a
+trace of it in her. I never saw two half-sisters so different. She'd
+have married anybody on earth she cared for--and when she married me I
+had nothing in the world except what my father chose to give me and no
+very great expectations. She had a rich fellow from the South tagging
+after her--a big plantation and lots of slaves and all that, and your
+Aunt Sophy was all for her marrying him--a good chap, too--a gentleman
+and all that; but she turned him down and took me. And I made my own
+way. What I have I made afterward--by hard work till I got a good start,
+and then it came easy enough. The trouble since has been to keep others
+from stealing it from me--and that's more trouble than to make it, I can
+tell you--what between strikers, gamblers, councilmen, and other knaves,
+I have a hard time to hold on to what I have."
+
+"I know you have to work very hard," said the girl, her eyes on him full
+of affection. "Why, this is the first time I've had you up to lunch with
+me in months. I felt as much honored as if it had been the King of
+England."
+
+"That's it--I have to stay down there to keep the robbers from running
+off with my pile. That young fellow thought he'd get a little swipe at
+it, but I taught him a thing or two. He's a plunger. His only idea is to
+make good by doubling up--all right if the market's rising and you can
+double. But it's a dangerous game, especially if one tries to recoup at
+the faro table."
+
+"Does he play faro?" asked the girl.
+
+"He plays everything, mainly Merry H--l. I beg your pardon--I didn't
+mean to say that before you, but he does. And if his father didn't come
+to his rescue and plank up every time he goes broke, he'd have been in
+the bankrupt court--or jail--and that's where he'll wind up yet if he
+don't look out."
+
+"I don't believe you like him," laughed the girl.
+
+"Oh! yes, I do. I like him well enough--he is amusing rather, he is gay,
+careless, impudent--he's the main conduit through which I extract money
+from old Prender's coffers. He never spends anything unless you pay him
+two gold dollars down for one paper one on the spot. But I want him to
+keep away from you, that's all; I suppose I've got to lose you some
+time, but I'll be hanged if I want to give you up to a blackguard--a
+gambler--a rou--a lib--a d----d blackguard like that."
+
+"Well, you will never have that to do," said the girl; "I promise you
+that."
+
+"How is the strike coming on?" asked his daughter. "When I went away it
+was just threatening, and I read in the papers that the negotiations
+failed and the men were ordered out; but I haven't seen much about it in
+the papers since, though I have looked."
+
+"Oh! Yes--it's going on, over on the other lines across town, in a
+desultory sort of way," said her father wearily--"the fools! They won't
+listen to any reason."
+
+"Poor people!" sighed the girl. "Why did they go out?"
+
+"Poor fools!" said Mr. Leigh warmly; "they walked out for nothing more
+than they always have had."
+
+"I saw that they had some cause; what was it?"
+
+"Oh! they've always some cause. If they didn't have one they'd make it.
+Now they are talking of extending it over our lines."
+
+"Our lines! Why?"
+
+"Heaven knows. We've done everything they demanded--in reason. They talk
+about a sympathetic strike. I hear that a fellow has come on to bring it
+about. Poor fools!"
+
+The girl gave him a smile of affection as he pushed back his chair. And
+leaning over her as he walked toward the door, he gave her a kiss of
+mingled pride and affection. But when he had left the room she sat still
+for some moments, looking straight ahead of her, her brow slightly
+puckered with thought which evidently was not wholly pleasant, and then
+with a sweeping motion of her hand she pushed her chair back, and, as
+she arose from the table, said: "I wish I knew what is right!" That
+moment a new resolution entered her mind, and, ringing the bell for the
+servant, she ordered her carriage.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK
+
+
+She drove first to Dr. Capon's church and, going around, walked in at
+the side door near the east end, where the robing rooms and the rector's
+study were. She remembered to have seen on a door somewhere there a sign
+on which was painted in gilded letters the fact that the rector's office
+hours were from 12 to 1 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and this
+was Thursday. The hour, however, was now nearly three, and she had
+called only on a chance of catching him, a chance which a stout and
+gloomy looking verger, who appeared from somewhere at her foot-fall,
+told her at first was lost; but when he recognized her, he changed his
+air, grew quite interested, and said he would see if the doctor was in.
+He had been there he knew after lunch, but he might have left. He
+entered and closed the door softly behind him, leaving the girl in the
+gloom, but a moment later he returned and showed her in. The rector,
+with a smile of unfeigned pleasure on his face, was standing just beside
+a handsome mahogany writing desk, near a window, awaiting her entry, and
+he greeted her with cordiality.
+
+"Oh! my dear young lady, come in. I was just about going off, and I'm
+glad I happened to have lingered a little--getting ready to launch a new
+year-book." He laid his fingers on a batch of printer's proof lying on
+the desk beside a stock bulletin. "I was just thinking what a bore it
+is and lo! it turned into a blessing like Balaam's curse. What can I do
+for you?" The rector's large blue eyes rested on his comely parishioner
+with a spark in them that was not from any spiritual fire.
+
+"Well, I don't know," said the girl doubtfully.
+
+"I see you were at the grand ball, or whatever it was last night, and I
+was so delighted to see that it was for a charitable object--and the
+particular object which I saw."
+
+"Yes, it is for Mr. Marvel's work out among the poor," said Miss Leigh.
+The rector's expression changed slightly.
+
+"Oh! yes, that is our work. You know that is our chapel. I built it. The
+ball must have been a great success. It was the first knowledge I had
+that you and your dear aunt had returned." His voice had a tone of faint
+reproach in it.
+
+"Yes, we returned yesterday. I wish the papers would leave me alone,"
+she added.
+
+"Ah! my dear young lady, there are many who would give a great deal to
+be chronicled by the public prints as you are. The morning and evening
+star is always mentioned while the little asteroids go unnoticed."
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said the girl, "but I do wish the
+papers would let me alone--and my father too."
+
+"Oh! yes, to be sure. I did not know what you were referring to. That
+was an outrageous attack. So utterly unfounded, too, absolutely untrue.
+Such scurrilous attacks deserve the reprobation of all thinking men."
+
+"The trouble is that the attack was untrue; but the story was not
+unfounded."
+
+"What! What do you mean?" The clergyman's face wore a puzzled
+expression.
+
+"That our car was hitched on to the train----"
+
+"And why shouldn't it be, my dear young lady? Doesn't the road belong to
+your father; at least, to your family--and those whom they represent?"
+
+"I don't know that it does, and that is one reason why I have come to
+see you."
+
+"Of course, it does. You will have to go to a lawyer to ascertain the
+exact status of the title; but I have always understood it does. Why,
+your aunt, Mrs. Argand, owns thousands of shares, doesn't she, and your
+father?" A grave suspicion suddenly flitted across his mind relative to
+a rumor he had heard of heavy losses by Mr. Leigh and large gains by Mr.
+Canter, the president of the road, and his associates who, according to
+this rumor, were hostile to Mr. Leigh.
+
+"I don't know, but even if they do, I am not sure that that makes them
+owners. Did you read that article?"
+
+"No--well, not all of it--I glanced over a part of it, enough to see
+that it was very scurrilous, that's all. The headlines were simply
+atrocious. The article itself was not so wickedly----"
+
+"I should like to do some work among the poor," said the girl
+irrelevantly.
+
+"Why, certainly--just what we need--the earnest interest and assistance
+of just such persons as yourself, of your class; the good, earnest,
+representatives of the upper class. If we had all like you there would
+be no cry from Macedonia."
+
+"Well, how can I go about it?" demanded the girl rather cutting in on
+the rector's voluble reply.
+
+"Why, you can teach in the Sunday-school--we have a class of nice girls,
+ladies, you know, a very small one--and I could make my superintendent
+arrange for Miss--for the lady who now has them to take another
+class--one of the orphan classes."
+
+"No, I don't mean that kind of thing. If I taught at all I should like
+to try my hand at the orphan class myself."
+
+"Well, that could be easily arranged--" began the rector; but his
+visitor kept on without heeding him.
+
+"Only I should want to give them all different hats and dresses. I can't
+bear to see all those poor little things dressed exactly in the same
+way--sad, drab or gray frocks, all cut by the same pattern--and the same
+hats, year in and year out."
+
+"Why, they have new hats every year," expostulated the rector.
+
+"I mean the same kind of hat. Tall and short; stout and thin; slim or
+pudgy; they all wear the same horrible, round hats--I can't bear to look
+at them. I vow I'd give them all a different hat for Christmas."
+
+"Oh! my dear, you can't do that--you would spoil them--and it's against
+the regulations. You must remember that these children are orphans!"
+
+"Being orphans is bad enough," declared the girl, "but those hats are
+worse. Well, I can't teach them, but I might try some other poor
+class?"
+
+"Why, let me see. The fact is that we haven't any"--he was speaking
+slowly, casting his mind over his field--"very poor people in this
+church. There used to be a number; but they don't come any more. They
+must have moved out of the neighborhood. I must make my assistant look
+them up."
+
+"You have no poor, then?"
+
+"Not in this congregation. The fact is this church is not very well
+suited to them. They don't mix with our people. You see our class of
+people--of course, we are doing a great work among the poor, our
+chapels--we have three, one of them, indeed, is a church and larger than
+many independent churches. Another has given me some anxiety, but the
+third is doing quite a remarkable work among the working people out in
+the east end--that under my assistant, the young man you interested
+yourself so much in last year--and which your ball committee was good
+enough to consider in selecting the object of its benevolence."
+
+"Yes, I know--Mr. Marvel. I will go out there."
+
+"Oh! my dear, you couldn't go out there!"
+
+"Why not? I want to see him."
+
+"Why, it is away out on the edge of the city--what you might call the
+jumping-off place--among manufactories and railroad shops."
+
+"Yes, I know. I have been out there."
+
+"You have--why, it is away out. It is on--I don't recall the name of the
+street. It's away out. I know it's near the street-car terminus that
+your family own. It's a very pretty chapel indeed. Don't you think so?
+It is natural that you should take an interest in it, as your aunt, Mrs.
+Argand, helped us to build it. She gave the largest contribution toward
+it. I don't know what we should do without charitable women like her."
+
+"Yes, I know. And Mr. Marvel is coming on well?"
+
+A change came over the face of the rector. "Oh, very well--rather an
+ungainly fellow and very slow, but doing a very good work for our
+parish. I have been wanting to get the Bishop to go there all this year
+as there are a number of candidates for me to present; but he has been
+so busy and I have been so busy----"
+
+"I will go there," said Miss Leigh, rising.
+
+"I don't think you will like it," urged the rector. "It is a very bad
+part of the town--almost dangerous, indeed--filled with working people
+and others of that sort, and I don't suppose a carriage ever----"
+
+"I will go in the street cars," said the girl.
+
+"The street cars! Yes, you could go that way, but why not come here and
+let me assign you a class?"
+
+"I wish to work among the poor."
+
+"The happy poor!" said the rector, smiling. "Why not come and help me in
+my work--who need you so much?" His voice had changed suddenly and he
+attempted to possess himself of the gloved hand that rested on his
+table, but it was suddenly withdrawn.
+
+"I thought we had settled that finally last year," said Miss Leigh
+firmly.
+
+"Ah, yes; but the heart is not so easily regulated."
+
+"Oh! yes, yours is. Why don't you try Aunt Sophia again?"
+
+"Try--again?--who?" The rector was manifestly somewhat embarrassed.
+
+"Why, Aunt Sophia--'the evening star,'" said Miss Leigh, laughing.
+
+"Who says--? Did she say I had--ah--addressed her?"
+
+"No--I got it from you. Come on now----"
+
+"Which way are you going? That is just my way. May I have the pleasure
+of driving up with you? I must go and see your aunt and welcome her
+back. One moment." He had shown the young lady out of the door. He now
+turned back and folding up the stock bulletin placed it carefully in his
+pocket.
+
+As the carriage with its smart team turned into one of the broader
+streets, two young men were standing in a window of a large building
+highly decorated, looking idly out on the street. They had just been
+talking of the threatened strike which the newspapers were discussing,
+as to which they held similar views.
+
+"I tell you what is the matter with those scoundrels," said the elder of
+the two, a large, pampered young fellow; "they need cold steel--they
+ought to be made to work."
+
+"How would that suit us?" laughed the other.
+
+"We don't have to."
+
+"Hello! What's old Bart after?" observed the first one.
+
+"Shekels," said the other, and yawned.
+
+"After her--he's taking notice."
+
+"Oh! no; he's wedded to the tape--goes into the Grand five times a day
+and reads the tape."
+
+"Bet you, he courts her."
+
+"How'll you prove it?"
+
+"Ask her."
+
+"Bet you you daren't ask her."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"What you like."
+
+"I don't want to win your money."
+
+"Don't you? Then hand me back that little fifteen hundred you picked up
+from me last week."
+
+"That was square, but this is a certainty."
+
+"I'd chance it--bet you a thousand, Jim, you daren't ask her to her face
+if old Bart isn't courting her and hasn't asked her to marry him."
+
+"Oh! that's different. You want to make me put up and then make my bet
+for me. I tell you what I'll bet--that she's the only girl I know I
+wouldn't ask that."
+
+"That may be. Now, I tell you what I'll bet--that you want a drink--ring
+the bell."
+
+"That's a certainty, too," laughed his friend, and they turned and sank
+wearily in deep chairs till a drink should give them energy to start a
+fresh discussion.
+
+Having put down the Rev. Bartholomew at the door of her aunt's imposing
+mansion, Eleanor Leigh, after a moment of indecision, directed her
+coachman to drive to a certain street in the section known as
+"down-town," and there she stopped at a pleasant looking old house, and
+jumping out of the carriage, ran up the worn stone steps and rang the
+bell. It was a street that had once been fashionable, as the ample,
+well-built houses and the good doors and windows testified. But that
+fickle jade, Fashion, had long since taken her flight to other and more
+pretentious sections and shops, loan-offices, and small grocers' markets
+had long engulfed the mansions of the last generation. Had any gauge of
+the decadence of the quarter been needed it might have been found in the
+scornful air of Miss Leigh's stout coachman as he sat on his box. He
+looked unutterably disgusted, and his chin was almost as high as the
+chins of his tightly reined-up horses.
+
+Miss Leigh asked of the rather slatternly girl who came to the door, if
+the Miss Tippses were in, and if so, would they see her. When the maid
+went to see if they were at home, Miss Leigh was shown into a large and
+very dark room with chairs of many patterns, all old, placed about in
+it, a horsehair sofa on one side, a marble-topped table in the centre;
+an upright piano on the other side, and on a small table a large piece
+of white coral under a glass cover. Where the fireplace had once been, a
+large register now stood grating off the heat that might try in vain to
+escape through it.
+
+Presently the maid returned. "Miss Pansy" was in, and would the lady
+please walk up. It was in the third story, back, at the top of the
+stairs. Miss Leigh ran up and tapped on the door, waited and tapped
+again. Then, as there was no answer, she opened the door cautiously and
+peeped in. It was a small hall-room, bare of furniture except two
+chairs, a sewing-machine, a table on which was an ironing-board at which
+at the moment stood a little old lady with a forehead so high as to be
+almost bald. She was clad in a rusty black skirt, a loose morning sacque
+of blue cotton, and she wore loose bedroom-slippers. Her sleeves were
+rolled up, and her arms were thin and skinny. She held a flat-iron in
+her hand, with which she had evidently been ironing a white
+under-garment which lay on the board, and another one was on a little
+gas-stove which stood near a stationary wash-stand. As Miss Leigh opened
+the door, the old lady gave a little exclamation of dismay and her hand
+went involuntarily to her throat.
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon!" said the girl, starting to retire and close the
+door; "I thought the servant told me----"
+
+By this time the other had recovered herself.
+
+"Oh! come in, won't you?" she said, with a smile and in a voice
+singularly soft and refined. "My sister will be ready to receive you in
+a moment. I was only a little startled. The fact is," she said laughing,
+"I thought the door was bolted; but sometimes the bolt does not go quite
+in. My sister--Won't you take a chair? Let me remove those things." She
+took up the pile of under-garments that was on one chair and placed it
+on top of a pile of dishes and other things on the other.
+
+"Oh! I am so sorry," protested the girl, who observed that she was
+concealing the dishes; "I was sure the girl told me it was the door at
+the head of the stairs."
+
+"She is the stupidest creature--that girl. I must really get my sister
+to speak to Mrs. Kale about her. I would, except that I am afraid the
+poor thing might lose her place. There is another door just off the
+little passage that she probably meant."
+
+"Yes--probably. It was I that was stupid."
+
+"Oh! no, not at all. You must excuse the disorder you find. The fact is,
+this is our work-room, and we were just--I was just doing a little
+ironing to get these things finished. When your card was brought
+up--well, we both were--and as my sister is so much quicker, she ran to
+get ready and I thought I would just finish this when I was at it, and
+you would excuse me."
+
+"Oh! I am so sorry. I wouldn't for anything have interrupted you,"
+repeated the girl, observing how all the time she was trying
+unobtrusively to arrange her poor attire, rolling down her sleeves and
+smoothing her darned skirt, all the while with a furtive glance of her
+eye toward the door.
+
+"Oh! my dear, I wouldn't have had you turned away for anything in the
+world. My sister would be _désolée_. We have a better room than this,
+where we usually receive our visitors. You will see what a nice room it
+is. We can't very well afford to have two rooms; but this is too small
+for us to live in comfortably and we have to keep it because it has a
+stationary wash-stand with hot water, which enables us to do our
+laundering."
+
+"Yes, I see," murmured Miss Leigh softly.
+
+"You see, we earn our living by making underclothes for--for a firm----"
+
+"I see, and what nice work you do." She was handling a garment softly.
+
+"Yes, my sister does beautiful work; and I used to do pretty well, too;
+but I am troubled a little with my eyes lately. The light isn't very
+good at night--and the gas is so expensive. I don't see quite as well as
+I used to do."
+
+"How much can you do?" asked her visitor, who had been making a mental
+calculation.
+
+"Why, I--It is hard to tell. I do the coarser work and my sister does
+the finishing; then she usually launders and I iron when I am able. I
+suffer with rheumatism so that I can't help her very much."
+
+"I hope you make them pay you well for it," blurted out the girl.
+
+"Why, we used to get a very good price. We got till recently seven cents
+apiece, but now it has been cut down--that was for everything,
+laundering and ironing, too. We are glad to get that."
+
+"How on earth do you manage to live on it?"
+
+"Oh! we live very well--very well, indeed," said the little lady
+cheerfully. "Mrs. Kale is very good to us. She lets us have the rooms
+cheaper than she would any one else. You see she used to know us when we
+lived back in the East. Her father was a clerk in our father's office,
+and her mother went to school with us. Then when we lost everything and
+were turned out, we found we had to make our own living and we came here
+to see about our case, and she found we were here--and that's the way we
+came to be here. But don't you let my sister know I told you about the
+sewing," she said, dropping her voice, as a brisk step was heard outside
+the door. "Ah! here she is now!" as at the moment the door opened and a
+brisk little old lady, almost the counterpart of her sister, except that
+she might have been ten years her junior, that is, sixty instead of
+seventy years of age, tripped into the room.
+
+"Oh! my dear Miss Leigh, how good of you to come all the way out here to
+call on us! Sister, what in the world are you doing? Why will you do
+this? I can't keep her from amusing herself! (This with a shake of the
+head and a comical appeal for sympathy from her visitor.) Won't you walk
+into our sitting-room? Now, sister, do go and make yourself presentable.
+You know she will slave over all sorts of queer things. She really loves
+sewing and ironing. I'm quite ashamed to have you come into this
+pig-sty. Walk in, won't you?" And she led the way into a larger room
+adjoining the work-room, leaving Miss Leigh in doubt which was the more
+pathetic, the little old lady still delving over the ironing-board,
+making no pretence to conceal their poverty, or the other in her poor
+"best," trying to conceal the straits in which they were fallen.
+
+Eleanor had observed that the older sister's gaze had constantly rested
+on the rose she wore, and as they were going out, the latter called her
+sister's attention to it. She said, she thought it possibly the most
+beautiful rose she had ever seen.
+
+"Won't you have it?" said Eleanor, and unpinned it.
+
+"Oh! no, indeed, I wouldn't deprive you of it for anything. It is just
+where it ought to be."
+
+Eleanor persisted, and finally overcame both her reluctance and her
+sister's objection.
+
+She was struck with the caressing way in which she took and held it,
+pressing it against her withered cheek.
+
+"Sister, don't you remember the Giant-of-Battles we used to have in our
+garden at Rosebank? This reminds me of it so--its fragrance is just the
+same."
+
+"Yes. We used to have a great many roses," explained the younger sister,
+as she led the way into the next room as if she were asking Eleanor into
+a palace, though this room was almost as bare of furniture as the other,
+the chief difference being an upright case which was manifestly a
+folding-bed, and a table on which were a score of books, and a few old
+daguerreotypes.
+
+"Your friend, Mr. Marvel, was here the other day. What a nice young man
+he is."
+
+"Yes," said Eleanor. "I am going out to see him. Where has he moved to?"
+Miss Pansy said she did not know the street; but her sister had the
+address. She would go and see. When she came back, she went over and
+opened the old Bible lying on the table. "Here is where we keep the
+addresses of those we especially value," she said, smiling. "Oh! here it
+is. When he was here the other day, he brought us a treat; a whole
+half-dozen oranges; won't you let me prepare you one? They are so
+delicious."
+
+Eleanor, who had been holding a bank-note clutched in her hand, thanked
+her with a smile, but said she must go. She walked across the room, and
+took up the Bible casually, and when she laid it down it gaped a little
+in a new place.
+
+"Oh, you know we have had quite an adventure," said Miss Pansy.
+
+"An adventure? Tell me about it."
+
+"Why, you must know there is a young man here I am sure must be some one
+in disguise. He is so--well, not exactly handsome, but really
+distinguished looking, and he knows all about railroads and things like
+that."
+
+"You'd better look out for him," said Miss Leigh.
+
+"Oh, do you think so? My sister and I were thinking of consulting him
+about our affairs--our railroad case, you know."
+
+"Oh! Well, what do you know about him?"
+
+"Nothing yet. You see, he has just come; but he joined us on the street
+this morning when we were going out--just shopping--and offered to take
+our bundles--just two little bundles we had in our hands, and was so
+polite. My dear, he has quite the grand air!"
+
+"Oh, I see. Well, that does not necessarily make him a safe adviser. Why
+not let me ask my father about your matter? He is a railroad man, and
+could tell you in a minute all about it."
+
+"Oh, could you? That would be so kind in you."
+
+"But you must tell me the name of the road in which you had the stock."
+
+"Oh, my dear. I don't know that I can do that. I only know that it was
+the Transcontinental and something and something else. I know that much,
+because it was only about sixty miles long, and we used to say that the
+name was longer than the road. My father used to say that it would some
+day be a link in a transcontinental chain--that's where it got its name,
+you know."
+
+"Well, look out for your prince in disguise," said the girl, smiling as
+she rose to take her leave.
+
+That evening at dinner, after Eleanor had given her father an account of
+her day, with which she always beguiled him, including a description of
+her visit to the two old ladies, she suddenly asked, "Father, what
+railroad was it that used to be known as the Transcontinental Something
+and Something?'"
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The 'Transcontinental Something and Something Else?' It was about sixty
+miles long, and was bought up by some bigger road and reorganized."
+
+"I suppose you mean the 'Transcontinental, North-western and Great Iron
+Range Road.' That about meets the condition you mention. What do you
+know about it?"
+
+"Was it reorganized?"
+
+"Yes; about twenty years ago, and again about ten years ago. I never
+quite understood the last reorganization. Mr. Argand had it done--and
+bought up most of the stock."
+
+"Was any one squeezed out?"
+
+"Sure--always are in such cases. That is the object of a
+reorganization--partly. Why are you so interested in it?" Mr. Leigh's
+countenance wore an amused look.
+
+"I have two friends--old ladies--who lost everything they had in it."
+
+"I guess it wasn't much. What is their name?"
+
+"It was all they had. They are named Tipps."
+
+Mr. Leigh's expression changed from amusement to seriousness.
+"Tipps--Tipps?" he repeated reminiscently. "Bassett Tipps? I wonder if
+they were connected with Bassett Tipps?"
+
+"They were his daughters--that was their father's name. I remember now,
+Miss Pansy told me once."
+
+"You don't say so! Why, I used to know Colonel Tipps when he was the big
+man of this region. He commanded this department before I came out here
+to live, and the old settlers thought he was as great a man as General
+Washington. He gave old Argand his start. He built that road,--was, in
+fact, a man of remarkable foresight, and if he had not been
+killed--Argand was his agent and general factotum--They didn't come
+into the reorganization, I guess?"
+
+"That's it--they did not--and now they want to get their interest back."
+
+"Well, tell them to save their money," said Mr. Leigh. "It's gone--they
+can't get it back."
+
+"They want you to get it back for them."
+
+"Me!" exclaimed Mr. Leigh. "They want me to get it back! Oh, ho-ho!
+They'd better go after your Aunt Sophia and Canter."
+
+"Yes; I told them you would."
+
+"You did?" Mr. Leigh's eyes once more lit up with amusement.
+
+"Yes: you see they were robbed of every cent they had in the world, and
+they have not a cent left."
+
+"Oh! no, they were not robbed. Everything was properly done and
+absolutely regular, as I remember. It must have been. I think there was
+some sort of claim presented afterward by the Tipps Estate which was
+turned down. Let me see; McSheen had the claim, and he gave it up--that
+was when? Let me see. He became counsel for your Uncle Argand in--what
+year was it?--you were a baby--it must have been eighteen years ago."
+
+"That was nineteen years ago, sir. I am now twenty," said his daughter,
+sitting up with a very grand air.
+
+The father's eyes lit up with pride and affection as he gazed at the
+trim, straight figure and the glowing face.
+
+"You were just a little baby--so big." He measured a space of about two
+span with his hands. "That was your size then, for I know I thought your
+Uncle Argand might have made me counsel instead of McSheen. But he
+didn't. And that was McSheen's start."
+
+"He sold out," said the girl with decision.
+
+"Oh, no--I don't think he would do that. He is a lawyer."
+
+"Yes, he would. He's a horrid, old, disreputable rascal. I've always
+thought it, and now I know it. And I want you to get my old ladies'
+interest back for them."
+
+"I can't do that. No one can. It's too long ago. If they ever had a
+claim it's all barred, long ago."
+
+"It oughtn't to be--if it was stolen," persisted his daughter, "and it
+was."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS
+
+
+Having decided that Mrs. Kale's did not present the best advantages, I
+determined to move to more suitable quarters. I chose a boarding-house,
+partly by accident and partly because it was in a semi-fashionable
+quarter which I liked, and I paid Mrs. Starling, the landlady, a
+decisive person, two weeks' board in advance, so as to have that long a
+lease at any rate, and a point from which to take my bearings. I had
+learned of the place through Kalender, who was deeply enamored of Miss
+Starling, a Byzantine-hued young lady, and who regarded the house
+somewhat as Adam is assumed to have regarded Eden after his banishment.
+Mrs. Starling was, in this case, the angel of the flaming sword. She had
+higher ambitions for Miss Starling.
+
+I had less than forty dollars left, and fifteen of that was borrowed
+next day by a fellow-boarder named Pushkin, who occupied the big front
+room adjoining my little back hall-room, and who had "forgotten to draw
+any money out of bank," he said, but would "return it the next day at
+dinner time," a matter he also forgot. I was particularly struck with
+him not because he had a title and was much kotowed to by our landlady
+and her boarders--especially the ladies, as because I recalled his name
+in juxtaposition with Miss Leigh's in the flamboyant account of the ball
+the night after I arrived.
+
+I was now ensconced in a little pigeon-hole of an office in a big
+building near the court-house, where, with a table, two chairs, and a
+dozen books, I had opened what I called my "law office," without a
+client or an acquaintance; but with abundant hopes.
+
+I found the old principle on which I had been reared set at naught, and
+that life in its entirety was a vast struggle based on selfishness.
+
+I was happy enough at first, and it was well I was. It was a long time
+before I was happy again. Having in mind Miss Leigh, I wrote and secured
+a few letters of introduction; but they were from people who did not
+care anything for me to people who did not care anything about
+them--semi-fashionable folk, mainly known in social circles, and I had
+no money to throw away on society. One, indeed, a friend of mine had
+gotten for me from Mr. Poole to a man of high standing both in business
+and social circles, the president of a manufacturing company, with
+which, as I learned later, Mr. Poole had formerly some connection. This
+gentleman's name was Leigh, and I wondered if he were the same person
+who had been posted by Kalender at the head of my story of the delayed
+train. I thought of presenting the letter. It, however, was so guarded
+that I thought it would not do me the least good, and, besides, I did
+not wish to owe anything to Lilian Poole's father, for I felt sure his
+influence had always been against me, and I was still too sore to be
+willing to accept a favor at his hands.
+
+It was well I did not present it, for Mr. Poole with well-considered and
+characteristic prudence, had written a private letter restricting the
+former letter to mere social purposes, and had intimated that I had been
+a failure in my profession and was inclined to speculate. This character
+he had obtained, as I subsequently learned, from Peck.
+
+The new conditions with which I was confronted had a singular effect on
+me. I was accustomed to a life where every one knew me and I knew, if
+not every one, at least something good or bad about every one.
+
+Here I might have committed anything short of murder or suicide without
+comment, and might have committed both without any one outside of the
+reporters and the police and Dix caring a straw about it.
+
+I felt peculiarly lonely because I was inclined to be social and
+preferred to associate with the first man I met on the street to being
+alone. In fact, I have always accounted it one of my chief blessings
+that I could find pleasure and entertainment for a half-hour in the
+company of any man in the world except a fool or a man of fashion, as
+the old writers used to speak of them, or as we call them now, members
+of the smart set.
+
+The first things that struck me as I stepped out into the thronged
+streets of the city were the throngs that hurried, hurried, hurried
+along, like a torrent pouring through a defile, never stopping nor
+pausing--only flowing on, intent on but one thing--getting along. Their
+faces, undistinguished and indistinguishable in the crowd, were not
+eager, but anxious. There was no rest, and no room for rest, more than
+in the rapids of Niagara. It was the bourgeoisie at flood, strong,
+turgid, and in mass, ponderant; but inextinguishably common. As I stood
+among them, yet not of them, I could not but remark how like they were
+in mass and how not merely all distinction but all individuality
+perished in the mixing. I recalled a speech that my father had once
+made. "I prefer countrymen," he said, "to city men. The latter are as
+like as their coats. The ready-made-clothing house is a great civilizer,
+but also a great leveler. Like the common school of which you boast, it
+may uplift the mass, but it levels--it destroys all distinction."
+
+This came home to me now.
+
+I had a proof of its truth, and, I may add, of the effect of urban
+influences not long after I launched on the restless sea of city life. I
+was passing one day along a street filled with houses, some much finer
+than others, when my way was blocked by a child's funeral in front of a
+small but neat house beside one much more pretentious. The white hearse
+stood at the door and the little white coffin with a few flowers on it
+was just about to be borne out as I came up. A child's funeral has
+always appealed to me peculiarly. It seems so sad to have died on the
+threshold before even opening the door. It appeared to me suddenly to
+have brought me near to my kind. And I stopped in front of the adjoining
+house to wait till the sorrowing little cortege had entered the
+carriage which followed behind the hearse. A number of other persons had
+done the same thing. At this moment, the door of the larger house next
+door opened, and a woman, youngish and well-dressed, appeared and stood
+on her steps waiting for her carriage which stood at some little
+distance.
+
+As I was standing near her, I turned and asked her in an undertone:
+
+"Can you tell me whose funeral this is?"
+
+"No, I cannot," she said, so sharply that I took a good look at her as
+she stood trying to button a tight glove.
+
+"Oh! I thought, perhaps, you knew as they are your next-door neighbors."
+
+"Well, I do not. It's no concern of mine," she said shortly. She
+beckoned to her carriage across the way. The coachman who had been
+looking at the funeral caught sight of her and with a start wheeled his
+horses around to draw up. The number of persons, however, who had
+stopped like myself prevented his coming up to her door, which appeared
+to annoy the lady.
+
+"Can't you move these people on?" she demanded angrily of a stout
+officer who stood like the rest of us, looking on.
+
+"It's a funeral," he said briefly.
+
+"Well, I know it is. I don't expect you to interfere with that. It's
+these idlers and curiosity mongers who block the way that I want moved
+to clear a way for my carriage. And if you can't do it, I'll ask Mr.
+McSheen to put a man on this beat who can. As it happens I am going
+there now." Insolence could go no farther.
+
+"Let that carriage come up here, will you?" said the officer without
+changing his expression. "Drive up, lad," he beckoned to the coachman
+who came as near as he could.
+
+"To Mrs. McSheen's," said the lady in a voice evidently intended for the
+officer to hear, "and next time, don't stand across the street staring
+at what you have no business with, but keep your eyes open so that you
+won't keep me waiting half an hour beckoning to you." She entered the
+carriage and drove off, making a new attack on her glove to close it
+over a pudgy wrist. I glanced at the coachman as she closed the door and
+I saw an angry gleam flash in his eye. And when I turned to the officer
+he was following the carriage with a look of hate. I suddenly felt drawn
+to them both, and the old fight between the People and the Bourgeoisie
+suddenly took shape before me, and I found where my sympathies lay. At
+this moment the officer turned and I caught his eye and held it. It was
+hard and angry at first, but as he gave me a keen second glance, he saw
+something in my face and his eye softened.
+
+"Who is Mr. McSheen?" I asked.
+
+"The next mayor," he said briefly.
+
+"Oh!" I took out my card under an impulse and scribbled my office
+address on it and handed it to him. "If you have any trouble about this
+let me know."
+
+He took it and turning it slowly gazed at it, at first with a puzzled
+look. Then as he saw the address his expression changed.
+
+He opened his coat and put it carefully in his pocket.
+
+"Thank you, sir," he said finally.
+
+I turned away with the consciousness that I had had a new light thrown
+on life, and had found it more selfish than I had dreamed. I had begun
+with high hopes. It was, indeed, ever my nature to be hopeful, being
+healthy and strong and in the prime of vigorous youth. I was always rich
+when at my poorest, only my heavy freighted ship had not come in. I knew
+that though the larder was lean and storms were beating furiously off
+the coast, somewhere, beating her way against the contrary winds, the
+argosy was slowly making headway, and some day I should find her moored
+beside my pier and see her stores unladen at my feet. The stress and
+storm of the struggle were not unwelcome to me. I was always a good
+fighter when aroused; but I was lazy and too indolent to get aroused.
+Now, however, I was wide awake. The greatness of the city stirred my
+pulses. Its blackness and its force aroused my sleeping powers, and as I
+stepped into the surf and felt the rush of the tides as they swept about
+and by me, I felt as a fair swimmer might who steps for the first time
+in a fierce current and feels it clutch his limbs and draw him in. I was
+not afraid, only awakened and alive to the struggle before me, and my
+senses thrilled as I plunged and rose to catch my breath and face the
+vast unknown. Later on I found that the chief danger I had not counted
+on: the benumbing of the senses, the slow process under which spirit,
+energy, courage, and even hope finally die.
+
+One who has never had the experience of starting in a big city alone,
+without a connection of any kind, cannot conceive what it means: the
+loneliness--utter as in a desert--the waiting--the terrible
+waiting--being obliged to sit day after day and just wait for business
+to come, watching your small funds ooze out drop by drop, seeing men
+pass your door and enter others' offices and never one turn in at yours,
+till your spirit sinks lower and lower and your heart dies within you.
+One who has not felt it does not know what it is to be out of work and
+not able to get it. The rich and fat and sleek--the safe and
+secure--what know they of want! Want, not of money, but of work: the
+only capital of the honest and industrious poor! It is the spectre that
+ever haunts the poor. It makes the world look as though the whole system
+of society were out of joint--as if all men were in conspiracy against
+you--as if God had forgotten you. I found men in a harder case than
+mine--men in multitude, with wives and children, the babe perishing at
+the mother's withered breast, the children dying for food, staggering
+along the streets seeking work in vain, while wealth in a glittering
+flood poured through the streets in which they perished. This bitter
+knowledge I came to learn day after day till I grew almost to hate
+mankind. The next step is war against society. Not all who wage it hate
+the men they fight. It is the cause they hate. There I sat day after
+day, full of hope and eagerness and--now that my conceit was somewhat
+knocked out of me--with not only abundant ability, but the stern resolve
+to transact any business which might be entrusted to me, and just
+rotted to despair. No wonder men go to the devil, and enlist to fight
+the whole establishment of organized society. I almost went. When I look
+back at it now it seems like a miracle that I did not go wholly. Pride
+saved me. It survived long after hope died. Sometimes, I even thought of
+the pistol I had in my trunk. But I had made up my mind to live and win.
+There, too, came in Pride. I could not bear to think of Lilian Poole and
+Peck. How she would congratulate herself and how Peck would gloat! No, I
+could not give him that satisfaction. Peck did me a good turn there. A
+strong enmity, well based, is not always without good results; but Peck
+should not smear my memory with pretended pity. So I starved, but held
+on. When I got so that I could endure it no longer, I used to go out and
+walk up and down the streets--sometimes the fashionable streets--and
+look at the handsome residences and the fine carriages and automobiles
+flashing by and the handsomely dressed people passing, and recall that I
+was as good as they--in my heart, I thought, better. Some of them with
+kind faces I used to fancy my friends; but that they did not know I was
+in town. This conceit helped me. And at times I used to fancy that I
+lived in a particular house, and owned a particular team: thus living
+for a brief moment like a child in "making pictures." A house is
+sometimes personal and well-nigh human to me. It appears to have
+qualities almost human and to express them on its face: kindness,
+hostility, arrogance, breadth or narrowness, and brutal selfishness are
+often graven on its front. I have often felt that I could tell from the
+outside of a house the characteristics of the people within. Arrogance,
+ignorance, want of tact, pretentiousness and display, spoke from every
+massy doorway and gaudy decoration with a loudness which would have
+shocked a savage. This being so, what characters some of the wealthy
+people of our cities must have! It must be one of the compensations of
+the poor that the houses of the rich are often so hideous and
+unhome-like.
+
+The mansion I selected finally as mine was a light stone mansion, simple
+in its style, but charming in its proportions; not one of the largest,
+but certainly one of the prettiest in the whole city. Amid a waste of
+splendid vulgarity it was almost perfect in its harmonious architectural
+design and lines, and had a sunny, homelike look. It stood in an ample
+lot with sun and air all around it, and grass and flowers about it. Our
+fathers used to say, "seated," which has a more established and restful
+sound. It looked a home of refinement and ease. Its stable was set back
+some distance behind and a little to one side, so that I could see that
+it was of the same stone with the mansion and just enough of the same
+general style to indicate that it belonged to the mansion, and the teams
+that came out of it were the nattiest and daintiest in the city.
+
+One day as I was walking, trying to divert myself from my loneliness, a
+brougham rolled out of this stable with a pair of airy, prancing bays,
+shining like satin, and drew up to the carriage-block a little before
+me, and a young lady came out of the house as I passed by. My heart gave
+a leap, for it was the girl I had seen on the train. I took her in,
+rather than scanned her as she tripped down the stone steps, and she
+glanced at me for a second as if she thought I might be an acquaintance.
+She made as she stood there one of the loveliest pictures I had ever
+laid eyes on: her trim, slim figure, exquisitely dressed, in the
+quietest way; soft, living brown hair, brushed back from a white, broad
+forehead; beautiful, speaking eyes under nearly straight brows; and a
+mouth neither too big for beauty nor too small for character; all set
+off by a big black hat with rich plumes that made a background for what
+I thought the loveliest face I had ever seen.
+
+Something pleasant had evidently just happened within; for she came out
+of the door smiling, and I observed at the same moment her eyes and her
+dimples. I wondered that people did not always smile: that smile
+suddenly lit up everything for me. I forgot my loneliness, my want of
+success, myself. Her hands were full of parcels as she came down the
+steps, and just as I passed the wind lifted the paper from one--a bunch
+of flowers, and in trying to recover it she dropped another and it
+rolled down to my feet. I picked it up and handed it to her. It was a
+ball, one of those big, squashy, rubber balls with painted rings around
+it, that are given to small children because they cannot do anything
+with them. She thanked me sweetly and was turning to her carriage, when
+under a sudden impulse, I stepped to the door, just as I should have
+done at home, and, lifting my hat, said, "I beg your pardon, but mayn't
+I open your door for you?"
+
+She bowed, looking, perhaps, just the least shade surprised. But, having
+handed her in, I was afraid of embarrassing her, and was backing away
+and passing on when she thanked me again very graciously. Again I lifted
+my hat and again got a look into her deep eyes. As the carriage rolled
+off, she was leaning back in it, and I felt her eyes upon me from under
+the shade of that big hat with a pleasant look, but I had assumed an
+unconscious air, and even stopped and picked up, as though carelessly, a
+couple of violets she had dropped as she crossed the sidewalk; and after
+a sniff of their fragrance, dropped them into my pocket-book, because
+they reminded me of the past and because I hated to see them lie on the
+hard pavement to be crushed by passing feet. The book was empty enough
+otherwise, but somehow I did not mind it so much after the violets were
+there.
+
+"Who lives in that house?" I asked of an officer.
+
+"Mr. Leigh, the banker and big west-side street-car man--runs all the
+lines out that way--all the Argand estate don't run," he added. He waved
+his arm to include a circle that might take in half the town or half the
+world. "The big house in the middle of the block is Mrs. Argand's--the
+great Philanthropist, you know? Everybody knows her." I did not, but I
+did not care; I knew all I wanted to know--I knew who Miss Leigh was. I
+reflected with some concern that this was the name of the vice-president
+of the Railway whom I had attacked through Kalender and of the man to
+whom Mr. Poole's perfunctory letter was addressed. I went back to my
+office in better spirits, and, having no brief to work on, even wrote a
+poem about the violets--about her leaving a track of violets behind her.
+
+I was drawn to that street a number of times afterward, but I saw her no
+more.
+
+I don't believe that love often comes at first sight; but that it may
+come thus, or at least, at second sight, I have my own case to prove. It
+may be that my empty heart, bruised and lonely in that great city, was
+waiting with open door for any guest bold enough to walk in and claim
+possession. It may be that that young lady with her pleasant smile, her
+high-bred face and kindly air, crossing my path in that
+stranger-thronged wilderness, was led by Providence; it may be that her
+grace and charm were those I had pictured long in the Heavenward dreams
+of youth and but now found. However it was, I went home in love with an
+ideal whose outward semblance was the girl with the children's
+toys--truly in love with her. And the vision of Lilian Poole never came
+to me again in any guise that could discomfort me. From this time the
+vision that haunted me and led me on was of a sweet-eyed girl who
+dimpled as she smiled and dropped her violets. The picture of Lilian
+Poole, standing by the marble mantel in her plush-upholstered parlor,
+adjusting her bracelet so as to set off her not too small wrist, while
+I faced my fate, flitted before my mind, but she was a ghost to me, and
+my heart warmed as I thought of the lady of the violets and the
+children's toys.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE SHADOW OF SHAM
+
+
+I soon changed back to my first boarding-house. After my two weeks were
+out for which I had prepaid, I went to my landlady, Mrs. Starling, a
+tall, thin woman with high cheek bones, a cold eye and a close mouth,
+and told her frankly I could not pay any more in advance, and that,
+though I would certainly pay her within a short time, it might not be
+convenient for me to pay her by the week, and I left it with her whether
+she would keep me on these terms. She did not hesitate a second. Her
+first duty was to herself and family, she said, by which she meant her
+daughter, "Miss Starling," as she always spoke of her, but whom the
+irreverent portion of the boarders whom I associated with always spoke
+of as "Birdy," a young woman who dressed much in yellow, perhaps because
+it matched her blondined hair, played vehemently on the piano, and
+entertained the young men who boarded there. "Besides, she wanted the
+room for a dressing-room for a gentleman who wished a whole suite," she
+added, with what I thought a little undue stress on the word
+"gentleman," as the "gentleman" in question was the person who had
+borrowed my money from me and never returned it: Count Pushkin, who
+occupied the big room next my little one. He had, as I learned, cut
+quite a dash in town for a while, living at one of the most fashionable
+hotels, and driving a cart and tandem, and paying assiduous attention to
+a young heiress in the city, daughter of a manufacturer and street-car
+magnate; but latterly he had taken a room at Mrs. Starling's, "in
+order," he gave out, "that he might be quiet for a time," as a duke or
+duchess or something--I am not sure he did not say a king--who was his
+relative, had died in Europe. He had taken the greater part of the
+boarding-house by storm, for he was a tall, showy-looking fellow, and
+would have been handsome but for a hard and shifty eye. And I found
+myself in a pitiful minority in my aversion to him, which, however,
+after a while, gained some recruits among the young men, one of them, my
+young reporter, Kalender, who had moved there from Mrs. Kale's.
+
+The boarding-house keeper's daughter was desperately in love with
+Pushkin, and, with her mother's able assistance, was making a dead set
+for him, which partiality the count was using for what it was worth,
+hardly attempting meantime to disguise his amusement at them. He sang
+enough to be passable, though his voice was, like his eye, hard and
+cold; and he used to sing duets with Miss Starling: the method by which,
+according to a vivacious young Jew, named Isadore Ringarten, who lived
+in the house, he paid his board. I never knew how he acquired his
+information, but he was positive.
+
+"I vish," said Isadore, "I could pay my board in vind--vith a little
+song. Now, I can sing so the Count he would give me all he is vorth to
+sing so like I sing; but I am not a count--efen on this side."
+
+However this was, Pushkin paid the girl enough attention to turn the
+poor thing's head, and made her treat harshly my reporter, Kalender, who
+was deeply in love with her, and spent all his salary on her for
+flowers, and lavished theatre tickets on her.
+
+The evening before I left I had to call Pushkin down, who had been
+drinking a little, and I must say, when I called, he came promptly. It
+was after dinner in "the smoking room," as the apartment was called, and
+he began to ridicule poor Victoria cruelly, saying she had told him her
+hair was yellow like that of the girls of his own country, and he had
+told her, no, that hers was natural, while theirs was always dyed, and
+she swallowed it.
+
+"She is in loaf mit me. She swallow whatefer I gif her--" he laughed.
+The others laughed, too. But I did not. I thought of Lilian Poole and
+Peck. Perhaps, I was thinking of my money, and I know I thought of the
+account of the ball which took place the day I arrived. I told him what
+I thought of his ridiculing a girl he flattered so to her face. He
+turned on me, his eyes snapping, his face flushed, but his manner cool
+and his voice level.
+
+"Ha-ah! Are you in loaf mit her, too, like poor Kalender, who spent all
+hees moneys on her, and what she laugh at to make me amused? I gif her
+to you, den. I too not want her--I haf had her, you can take her."
+
+He made a gesture as if tossing something contemptuously into my arms,
+and put his cigarette back in his teeth and drew a long breath. There
+were none but men present, and some of them had stopped laughing and
+were looking grave.
+
+"No, I am not in love with her," I said quietly, standing up. "I only
+will not allow you to speak so of any lady in my presence--that is all."
+I was thinking of a girl who lived in a sunny house, and had once taken
+a lot of little dirty-faced children to feed them, and once had smiled
+into my eyes. I only knew her name, but her violets were in my pocket
+near my heart. I was perfectly calm in my manner and my face had
+whitened, and he mistook it, for he blurted out:
+
+"Oh! I vill nod? I vill nod speaks in your presence. You vill gif me one
+little lesson? You who know te vorl so vell. I tank you, Millot!"
+
+He bowed low before me, spreading out his arms, and some of the others
+tittered. It encouraged him and he straightened up and stepped in front
+of me.
+
+"I vill tell you vat I vill does," he proceeded. "I vill say vat I tam
+please before you about anybodies." He paused and cast about for
+something which would prove his boast. "Tere is nod a woman in tis town
+or in America, py tam! that vill nod gif herself to fon title--to me if
+I hax her, and say, 'tank you, Count.' Ha, ah?" He bent his body forward
+and stuck his face almost into mine with a gesture as insulting as he
+could make it, and as I stepped back a pace to get a firm stand, he
+stuck out his tongue and wagged his head in derision. The next second he
+had turned almost a somersault. I had taken boxing lessons since
+Wolffert thrashed me. I saw the bottom of his boots. He was at precisely
+the right distance for me and I caught him fairly in the mouth. His head
+struck the floor and he lay so still that for a few moments I thought I
+had killed him. But after a little he came to and began to rise.
+
+"Get up," I said, "and apologize to these gentlemen and to me." I caught
+him and dragged him to his feet and faced him around.
+
+"You haf insulted me. I vill see about tis," he spluttered, turning
+away. But I caught him with a grip on his shoulder and steadied him. The
+others were all on my side now; but I did not see them, I saw only him.
+
+"Apologize, or I will fling you out of the window." He apologized.
+
+The affair passed. The Count explained his bruises by some story that he
+had been run down by a bicycle, to which I learned he afterward added a
+little fiction about having stopped a runaway and having saved some one.
+But I had left before this little touch occurred to him. Mrs. Starling
+must have had some idea of the collision, though not of the original
+cause; for she was very decided in the expression of her wishes to have
+possession of "the dressing room" that night for the "gentleman," and I
+yielded possession.
+
+The curious thing about it was that one reason I could not pay Mrs.
+Starling again in advance was that he still had my money which he had
+borrowed the day after I had arrived.
+
+From Mrs. Starling's I went back to my old boarding-house, kept by Mrs.
+Kale, as a much cheaper one, in a much poorer neighborhood, where I was
+not asked to pay in advance, but paid at the end of the month by pawning
+my scarf-pins and shirt studs, and gradually everything else I had.
+
+I was brought up to go to church, my people having all been earnest
+Christians and devoted church people; but in my college years I had gone
+through the usual conceited phase of callow agnosticism; and partly from
+this intellectual juvenile disease and partly from self-indulgence, I
+had allowed the habit to drop into desuetude, and later, during my first
+years at the bar, I had been gradually dropping it altogether. My
+conscience, however, was never quite easy about it. My mother used to
+say that the promise as to training up a child in the way he should go
+was not to be fulfilled in youth, but in age, and as my years advanced,
+I began to find that the training of childhood counted for more and
+more. Lilian Poole, however, had no more religion than a cat. She wished
+to be comfortable and to follow the general habit of the feline class to
+which she belonged. She went to the Episcopal Church because it was
+fashionable, and whenever she had half an excuse she stayed away from
+church unless it were on a new-bonnet Sunday, like Easter or some such
+an occasion, when she made up by the lowness of her genuflexions and the
+apparent devoutness of her demeanor for all omissions. I must confess
+that I was very easily influenced by her at that time, and was quite as
+ready to absent myself from church as she was, though I should have had
+a much deeper feeling for her if she had not violated what I esteemed a
+canon of life, that women, at least, should profess religion, and if she
+had not pretended to have questionings herself as to matters as far
+beyond her intellect as the Copernican system or Kepler's laws. I
+remember quoting to her once Dr. Johnson's reply to Boswell, when the
+latter asked if Poole, the actor, were not an atheist: "Yes, sir, as a
+dog is an atheist; he has not thought on the matter at all."
+
+"Dr. Samuel Johnson?" she asked. "You mean the one who wrote the
+Dictionary?" and I saw that she was so pleased with her literary
+knowledge in knowing his name that she never gave a thought to the
+matter that we were discussing, so let it drop.
+
+As David said, that in his trouble he called upon the Lord, so now, in
+my solitude and poverty, I began once more to think on serious things,
+and when Sunday came I would dress up and go to church, partly in
+obedience to the feeling I speak of, and partly to be associated with
+people well dressed and good mannered, or passably so. The church I
+selected was a large stone edifice, St. ----'s, with a gilded cross on
+its somewhat stumpy spire, toward which I saw a richly clad congregation
+wending their way Sunday morning.
+
+The rector, as was stated in gilded letters on a large sign, was the
+Rev. Dr. Bartholomew Capon. I cannot say that the congregation were
+especially refined looking or particularly cordial; in fact, they were
+very far from cordial, and the solemn verger to whom I spoke, after
+turning a deaf ear to my request for a seat, took occasion, as soon as
+he had bowed and scraped a richly dressed, stout lady up the aisle, to
+look me over on the sly, not omitting my shoes, before he allowed me to
+take a seat in one of the rear pews.
+
+The preacher--"The Rector," as he spoke of himself in the notices, when
+he occasionally waived the rather frequent first personal pronoun--was a
+middle-aged gentleman with a florid complexion, a sonorous voice, a
+comfortable round person, and fair hands of which he was far from
+ashamed; for he had what, but for my reverence for the cloth, I should
+call a trick of using his hand with a voluminous, fine cambric
+handkerchief held loosely in it. His face was self-contained rather than
+strong, and handsome rather than pleasing. He was so good-looking that
+it set me on reflecting what relation looks bear to the rectorship of
+large and fashionable churches; for, as I recalled it, nearly all the
+rectors of such churches were men of looks, and it came to me that when
+Sir Roger de Coverley requested his old college friend to send him down
+a chaplain, he desired him to find out a man rather of plain sense than
+much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and,
+if possible, a man who knew something of backgammon. His sermon was
+altogether a secondary consideration, for he could always read one of
+the Bishop of St. Asaph's or Dr. South's or Dr. Tillotson's. Possibly,
+it is something of the same feeling that subordinates the sermons to the
+looks of rectors of fashionable churches. However, I did not have long
+to reflect on that idea, for my thoughts were given a new and
+permanently different, not to say pleasanter, direction, by the sudden
+appearance of a trim figure, clad in a gray suit and large gray hat,
+which, as it moved up the aisle, quite eclipsed for me "the priest and
+all the people." I was struck, first, by the easy grace with which the
+young girl moved. But, before she had turned into her pew and I caught
+sight of her face under the large hat which had hidden it, I knew it was
+my young lady, Miss Leigh, whom I had helped up on the train and
+afterward into her carriage. It is not too much to say that the Rev. Dr.
+Capon secured that moment a new permanent member of his congregation.
+Before the service was over, however, I had been solemnized by her
+simple and unaffected devoutness, and when, in one of the chants, I
+caught a clear liquid note perfectly sweet and birdlike, I felt as
+though I had made a new and charming discovery.
+
+The rector gave a number of notices from which I felt the church must be
+one of the great forces of the city for work among the poor, yet, when I
+glanced around, I could not see a poor person in the pews except myself
+and two old ladies in rusty black, who had been seated near the door. I
+was struck by the interest shown in the notices by my young lady of the
+large hat, from whose shapely little head with its well-coiled brown
+hair my eyes did not long stray.
+
+"I have," he said, "in addition to the notable work already mentioned,
+carried on, through my assistant in charge, the work of St. Andrew's
+chapel with gratifying success. This work has reached, and I am glad to
+be able to say, is reaching more than ever before, the great ignorant
+class that swarms in our midst, and exhibits a tendency to unrest that
+is most disturbing. This is the class which causes most of the
+uneasiness felt in the minds of the thoughtful."
+
+I observed that he did not mention the name of "the assistant in
+charge," and my sympathy rather went out to the nameless priest, doing
+his work without the reward of even being mentioned.
+
+As to the sermon, I can only say that it was twenty minutes long, and
+appeared aimed exclusively at the sins of Esau (whom I had always
+esteemed a quite decent sort of fellow), rather than at those of the
+doctor's congregation, whom he appeared to have a higher opinion of than
+of the Patriarchs. I recall the text: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God,
+and all these things shall be added unto you." He made it very plain
+that to be pious and prudent was the best way to secure wealth. He held
+up a worldly motive and guaranteed a worldly reward. Such a sermon as
+that would have eased the most uneasy conscience in Christendom.
+
+When the congregation came out I dawdled in the aisle until my young
+lady passed, when I feasted my eyes on her face and finely curved cheek,
+straight nose, and soft eyes veiled under their long lashes. My two old
+ladies in black were waiting in the end of a pew and, as I observed by
+their smiles when she approached, waiting like myself to see her. I had
+already recognized them as the old ladies of the bundles, whom I had
+once helped on the street. How I envied them the smile and cordial
+greeting they received in return! I made the observation then, which I
+have often had confirmed since, that tenderness to the aged, like that
+to the very young, is the mark of a gentle nature.
+
+I heard them say, "We know who has done the work out at the Chapel," and
+she replied, "Oh! no, you must not think that. My poor work has been
+nothing. Your friend has done it all, and I think that the Doctor ought
+to have said so," to which they assented warmly, and I did the same,
+though I did not know their friend's name.
+
+As I had nowhere to go in particular, I strolled slowly up the street,
+and then walked back again. And as I neared the church, I met the rector
+who had just left his robing-room. He was a fine-looking man on the
+street as well as in the chancel, and I was prompted to speak to him,
+and say that I had just heard him preach. He was, however, too impatient
+at my accosting him and so manifestly suspicious that I quickly
+regretted my impulse. His, "Well, what is it?" was so prompt on his lips
+and his suspicion of me was so clear in his cold, bluish eyes, that I
+drew myself up and replied: "Oh! nothing. I was only going to say that I
+had just heard you preach--that's all."
+
+"Oh! Ah! Well, I'm much obliged. I'm very glad if I've helped you." He
+pulled out his watch.
+
+"Helped me! You haven't," I said dryly and turned away.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, as I strolled along the street lonely and
+forlorn, I saw him hurrying up the steps of the large house which had
+been pointed out to me as Mrs. Argand's, the great philanthropist.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE GULF
+
+
+As I saw more of the city, its vastness, its might and its inhumanity
+grew on me. It was a world in itself, a world constructed on lines as
+different from that in which I had lived as if it had been Mars; a city
+as different from the smaller cities I had known as if it had been
+Babylon or Nineveh. The contrasts were as great as they could have been
+in the capitals Sardanapalus built--structures so vast that they must
+have dwarfed the towers of Sardis--so rich and splendid that the Hanging
+Gardens of Babylon must have been outshone--reared their stupendous bulk
+into the smoky air and cast into perpetual shade all that lay near them.
+Hard beside their towering mass lay a region filled with the wretched
+tenements of the poor, and a little further off the houses of the
+well-to-do. And there was not a greater contrast between the vastness of
+the one and the pitiful squalor of the other than between the life of
+the owners of the former and that of the denizens of the closely packed
+tenements which dwindled in their shadow. Splendor and squalor were
+divided often only by a brick wall. The roar of the tide that swept
+through the teeming streets drowned the cry of wretchedness, and only
+the wretched knew how loud it was. I had never seen such wealth, and I
+had never dreamed of such poverty.
+
+The vulgar make the parade; the refined pass so quietly as scarcely to
+be observed. The vulgarity of the display of riches began to oppress me.
+I discovered later the great store of refinement, goodness and sweetness
+that was hidden in the homes alike of an element of the wealthy, the
+merely well-to-do and the poor. But for a time it was all eclipsed by
+the glare of the vulgar and irresponsible rich. Arrogance, discontent,
+hardness, vulgarity, were stamped in many faces, and spoke in every
+movement of many of those I saw, even of the most richly dressed.
+
+I think it was more the vulgarity and insolence of those I saw decked in
+the regalia of wealth than anything else--than even my own poverty--that
+changed my views and turned me for a time from my easy indifference as
+to social conditions toward a recognition that those conditions are
+ridiculously antiquated, a bent I have never quite got over, though I
+was later drawn back to a more conservative point of view than, under
+the hatred of sham and the spur of want, I was driven to occupy for some
+time. They have no traditions and no ideals. They know no standard but
+wealth, and possess no ability to display it but through parade. They
+feel it necessary to prove their novel position by continual assertion.
+They think that wealth has exempted them from decency. They mistake
+civility for servility and rudeness for gentility. Their best effort is
+only a counterfeit, a poor imitation of what they imagine to be the
+manners of the upper class abroad whose indifferent manners they ape.
+
+"Misery loves company," and when I wanted comfort I left the section of
+splendor and display, of riotous extravagance and glittering wealth, and
+went to those poorer than myself; a practice I can commend from
+experience.
+
+When I got so desperate that I could not stand it any longer, and was
+afraid I might fall down dead or do myself violence, I used to turn my
+steps in another direction and walk through the poorer part of the
+city--not the worst part--where there was nothing but dirt and squalor
+and filth: that sickened me, and I had never had much sympathy with the
+class that lived there. They always appeared contented enough with their
+surroundings and rather to enjoy themselves in their own way. And not
+the successful workman's quarter. There was an assurance and assumption
+there that offended me. The assumption bred of sudden success, no matter
+in what class, is everywhere equally vulgar after its kind. It was the
+part of the city where the people were respectable, but where they could
+just hold on with all their struggling and striving, that I used to go
+into; the part where there were patches, not rags; and sometimes an
+effort to keep down the dirt, and where a bit of a plant in a little pot
+or a little cheap ornament in a window told of the spark of sentiment
+that could yet live amid the poverty and hardness about it. They always
+place them in the windows, partly, no doubt, to get the light, and
+partly, perhaps, to show passers-by that there is something within
+better than might be looked for next door. These people on their
+holidays always make toward the open country; they try to get away from
+their robuster, more successful brothers, and get back near to
+Nature--the old mother that cares nothing for success; and repays only
+according to the love her children bear her. Here I often walked as I
+grew more wretched.
+
+In this section I used to see people with whom I felt in touch: a man
+with the badgered look in his eye that made me know that he was at bay;
+or a woman with that resigned air which hopeless struggling stamps in
+the face and binds on the shoulders. These drew me nearer to my kind,
+and made me feel that there were others in a harder case than I, and
+gave me a desire to help them. I came to know some of them by sight and
+the houses in which they lived, and sometimes I spoke to them and
+exchanged a word or two, and the effort to take a cheerful view with
+them helped me, and sent me back to my little lonely cubby-hole cheered
+and in some sort comforted and resolute to hold out a little longer. But
+it was hungry work.
+
+This element composed the great body of the population, but deep down
+below them lay a yet lower element weltering in an infinite and hopeless
+misery to which even the poor class I speak of were alien. They were
+generically spoken of at times as the criminal classes. They were not
+this at all, though among them were many criminals--driven to crime by
+necessity--because there was no means for them to subsist, no possible
+means nor hope outside of their casual and occasional violation of the
+statute law by which they secure enough for empty bellies and freezing
+bodies merely to keep alive. They live among and on the poor, and one of
+the bitterest trials of poverty is the continual presence and preying of
+these parasites who like other vermin pursue them and cannot be kept
+off. Their only common crime is desperate, infinite poverty--poverty
+beyond hope, for they have nothing--not work, nor the hope of work--not
+even the power to work, if it should be offered them. As the well-to-do
+look with anxiety to the loss of their property and the consequent
+sinking to some lower plane of moderate poverty, so the poor look with
+shuddering or, at last, with despair to sinking into the slough of this
+hopeless state for which there is no name, because none has been devised
+adequate to describe its desperate misery. Often but a block, or even
+but a wall divides the reeking slum where they creep and fester and rot,
+from the broad, well-lighted, smooth-paved avenue where irresponsible
+wealth goes clattering by in its wild orgy of extravagance and reckless
+mirth. The eye of the mangy and starving wolf from his thicket gleams
+dully at the glittering pageant of heartless irresponsibility and waste.
+Should the pack ever find a leader bold enough to spring, what will be
+the end?
+
+At present they are hungry enough, but they have not organized; they are
+not yet a hunting pack, but only scattered bands, slinking about
+hungrily, fighting and preying on each other, the larger bands with the
+bolder leaders driving off the weaker and unorganized. But let them all
+organize once and the end will not be yet.
+
+Day after day I saw my last few dollars leak away, and, though I
+replenished my thin purse at times by pawning everything pawnable I had,
+yet this, too, gradually oozed away. Fortunately I had plenty of
+clothes, which I had bought in my flush days, so I could still make a
+respectable appearance.
+
+As money got low all sorts of schemes used to present themselves to me
+to replenish my pocket. One was to go out as a laborer on the streets,
+clean bricks, or do anything. I was not lazy. I would have walked around
+the world for a case. I do not think I was ashamed of it, for I knew it
+was respectable, but I was afraid some one I knew might pass by; I was
+afraid that Pushkin or Mrs. Starling might see me, and--yes, that that
+young girl from the colonial house might recognize me. I had often
+thought of her violets since I had dropped them into my pocket-book. And
+now, when this idea came to me, I took them out and looked at them. They
+still retained a faint fragrance. What would be the result if she should
+pass by and see me cleaning bricks--me a laborer, and Pushkin--the
+thoughts came together--should see me? I would win on my own line if it
+took me all my life.
+
+The idea of Pushkin suggested another plan. Why not gamble? Gambling was
+gentlemanly--at least, gentlemen gambled. But did they play for a
+living? I had gambled a little myself in the past; played poker, and,
+like most men, prided myself on my game, though I generally lost in the
+long run; and when I was making good resolutions after my failure, I had
+made up my mind never to play again anywhere. And I had always held to
+the opinion that, as soon as a man played for his living, he crossed the
+line and ceased to be a gentleman. Now, however, it began to appear to
+me as if this were the only plan by which I could make anything, and as
+if I should have a good excuse for breaking my resolution. I resisted
+the temptation for some time; but one night, when I had pawned nearly
+everything and had only three or four dollars left, I went out, and
+after a long but half-hearted battle gave up, as such are always lost,
+and turned into a street across an alley from my office where I knew
+there was a gambling place over a saloon kept by one Mick Raffity. I
+went boldly up the stairs. Even as I mounted them I felt a sort of
+exhilaration. I stopped at the door and my old resolution not to play
+again stirred and struggled a little. I caught it, however, with a sort
+of grip almost physical, and gave it a shake till it was quiet. I knew I
+should win. The blaze of light within cheered me, and, without
+hesitating an instant, I walked across the room to where a crowd stood
+watching the play of some one seated at a table. It was a large and
+richly decorated room, with a few rather daring pictures on the walls
+and much gilding about the ceiling. The hot air, heavy with tobacco
+smoke and fumes of one kind and another, met me in a blast as I entered,
+and involuntarily I thought of a sweat-shop I had once seen in my
+earlier days. But the sensation passed and left me warm and exhilarated.
+As I passed along, a man looked at me and half nodded. I knew he was the
+proprietor. I made my way in and caught the dealer's expressionless
+eye, and taking out a note as carelessly as if my pockets were stuffed
+with them, I glanced over the board to select my bet. At one end of the
+table sat the large, heavy-browed, middle-aged man I had run into one
+night on the stairway leading from the alley to the building where I had
+my office. He was somewhat tipsy and evidently in bad luck; for he was
+heated and was betting wildly. Near by sat a big, sour-looking fellow,
+flashily dressed, whom I recognized as having been one of my
+fellow-travellers on the side-tracked train, the one who had talked to
+the trainmen of their wrongs. He still wore his paste diamonds, his silk
+hat and patent-leather shoes. But I took little notice of these.
+Casually, as I dropped my note, my eye fell on the player at the middle
+of the table. He was surrounded by stacks of chips. As I looked he raked
+in a new pile; at least a hundred dollars, and he never changed a
+particle. He was calmer than the dealer before him. He was in evening
+dress and success had given him quite an air. I caught up my note
+without knowing it and fell back behind a group of young men who had
+just come up. Curious things happen sometimes. I found my note doubled
+up in my hand when I had got out of doors, a quarter of an hour later.
+All I remember is my revulsion at seeing that gambler sitting there
+raking in money so calmly, with my money for his stake in his pocket,
+and I turned out for him: an adventurer who said all American women were
+at his bidding. It recalled to me the girl I had seen on the train and
+had handed, later, into her carriage, and the good resolutions I had
+formed. And it strung me up like wine. I felt that I was a coward to
+have come there and as bad as Pushkin.
+
+Just as I turned to leave the place a party of young fellows entered the
+room. They had come from a dinner at Mr. Leigh's, as I understood from
+their talk, and were "going on" to a dance unless the luck should run to
+suit them. They were in high spirits, "Mr. Leigh's champagne" having
+done its work, and they were evidently habitués of the place, and good
+patrons, I judged, from the obsequious respect paid them by the
+attendants. The leader of them was a large, rather good-looking young
+fellow, but with marks of dissipation on a face without a line of
+refinement in it. The others all seemed to be his followers. They
+greeted familiarly and by name the eager attendants who rushed forward
+to take their coats, and the leader asked them casually who was in
+to-night.
+
+"The Count's here, I think, sir," said one whom they called Billy.
+
+"The Count! Coll McSheen's staked him again," said the young leader.
+"And he swore to me he'd never let him have another cent, with oaths
+enough to damn him deeper than he will be damned anyhow. Come on, I'll
+skin him clean."
+
+I lingered for a moment to see him "skin" Pushkin.
+
+They sauntered up to the table and, after a greeting to the Count, began
+to toss bills on the board as though they grew on trees. The least of
+them would have kept me going for months. I had never seen money
+handled so before and it staggered me.
+
+"Who is that young man?" I asked of a man near me, nodding toward the
+leader. "He must be pretty rich."
+
+"Rich! You bet. He's Jim Canter. Got all his daddy's money and going to
+get all the Argand and Leigh piles some day. He'll need it, too," added
+my informant.
+
+"I should think so." I recalled his name in connection with Miss Leigh's
+name in the account of the ball, and I was feeling a little bitter.
+
+"Why, he'd just as lief try to corner water as to bet a hundred dollar
+bill on a card. This is just play to him. He'd give all he'd win
+to-night to any one of his women."
+
+"His women?"
+
+"Yes. He's one of the real upper class."
+
+"The upper class!" So this was the idea of the upper class held by this
+man and his kind! My soul revolted at the thought of this man standing
+as the type of our upper class, and I was turning away when Pushkin
+shoved back his chair. As I turned he looked up and I saw him start,
+though I did not catch his glance. The dealer saw him, too, and as he
+looked at me I caught his eye. He motioned to me, but I took no notice.
+As I walked out the man near the door spoke to me.
+
+"There's supper in the next room."
+
+"Thank you. I don't want it."
+
+"Come in again. Better luck to-morrow."
+
+"For you, I hope," I said, and I saw his mystification.
+
+I had of late been having an uncomfortable thought which was beginning
+to worry me. The idea of doing away with myself had suggested itself to
+me from time to time. I do not mean that I ever thought I should really
+do it; for when I reflected seriously, I knew I should not. In the first
+place, I was afraid; and in the next place, I never gave up the belief
+that I should some day achieve success. When I analyzed my feelings I
+found that the true name for my unhappiness was egotism. But the idea
+would come up to me and now began to pester me. I had a pistol which I
+could never bring myself to pawn, though nearly everything else was
+pledged. I put the pistol away; but this did not help matters; it looked
+like cowardice. So that evening I had taken the pistol out and put it
+into my pocket when I went into the street. If I could only catch some
+burglar breaking into a bank, or some ruffian beating a woman, or some
+scoundrel committing any crime, it would attract attention, and I might
+get work. I often used to think thus, but nothing ever happened, and I
+knew nothing would happen that evening when I walked out of the gambling
+house. So presently the pistol began to be in my way, and my mind went
+to working again on the ease with which I could go to my office and lock
+myself in. Still I kept on, and presently I found myself near the river,
+a black stream that I had often thought of as the Styx. It was as black
+and silent now, as it slipped on in the darkness, as the River of
+Death.
+
+I was sauntering along, chewing the cud of fancy, wholly bitter--and
+sinking lower and lower every step in the slough of despond, working
+over what would come if I should suddenly chuck up the whole business
+and get out of life--pondering how I should destroy all marks by which
+there could be any possibility of identification, when the current of my
+thoughts, if that moody train of dismal reflection could be dignified
+with such a name, was turned aside by a small incident. As I wandered on
+in the darkness, the figure of a woman standing--a shadow in the
+shadow--at a corner of an alley arrested my attention. Even in the gloom
+the attitude of dejection was such as to strike me, and I saw or felt, I
+know not which, that her eyes were on me, and that in some dim, distant
+way they contained an appeal. I saw that she was young, and in the dusk
+the oval outline of a face that might have both refinement and beauty
+challenged my attention. Was she a beggar or only an unhappy outcast,
+waiting in the darkness for the sad reward which evil chance might fling
+to her wretchedness? I put my hand in my pocket, thinking that she might
+beg of me, and I would give her a small portion of my slender store, but
+she said nothing and I passed on. After a little, however, still
+thinking of her dejected air and with a sudden sympathy for her
+wretchedness, I turned back. She was still standing where I left her. I
+passed slowly by her, but she said nothing, though I felt again that her
+eyes were on me. Then my curiosity or possibly, I may say, my interest,
+being aroused, I turned again and walked by her.
+
+"Why so sad to-night?" I said, with words which might have appeared
+flippant, but in a tone which she instantly recognized for sympathy. She
+turned half away and said nothing and I stood silent watching her, for
+her face must once have been almost beautiful, though it was now sadly
+marred, and an ugly scar across her eye and cheek, as if it might have
+come from the slash of a razor, made that side drawn and distorted.
+
+"Do you want money?"
+
+She slowly shook her head without looking at me.
+
+"What is it, then? Maybe, I can help you?"
+
+She turned slowly and looked at me with such indescribable hopelessness
+in her face that my heart went out to her.
+
+"No, I'm past help now."
+
+"Oh, no, you're not." My spirits rose with the words, and I felt
+suddenly as if I had risen out of the slough which had been engulfing
+me, and as though I had gotten my feet on a firm place where I could
+reach out a hand to help this despairing and sinking sister.
+
+"Yes, past help now."
+
+"Come and walk with me." And as she did not stir, I took her hand and
+drew it through my arm and gently led her forward along the street. I
+had a strange feeling as I walked along. I somehow felt as though I had
+escaped from something which had been dragging me down. It was a strange
+walk and a strange and tragic story that she told me--of having left her
+home in the country, inspired by the desire to do something and be
+something more than she was, a simple farmer's daughter in another
+State, with some little education such as the country schools could
+give; of having secured a position in a big shop where, for a small sum,
+she worked all day and learned to see and love fine clothes and
+beautiful things; of having fallen in with one or two gay companions in
+this and other shops who wore the fine clothes and had the beautiful
+things she admired; of having been put forward because she was pretty
+and polite; and then of having met a young man, well dressed and with
+fine manners; of having fallen in love with him and of having accepted
+his attentions and his gifts; and then, of having been led astray by
+him; and then--of such an act of base betrayal as, had I not had it
+substantiated afterward in every horrid detail, I should never have
+believed. I had known something of the wickedness of men and the evil of
+an uncontrolled life in the city, where the vilest passions of the heart
+are given play, but I had never dreamed of anything so revolting as the
+story this girl told me that night. She had been deliberately and with
+malice aforethought lured not only to her destruction but to a life of
+slavery so vile as to be unbelievable. The man who had secured her heart
+used his power over her to seize and sell her into a slavery for which
+there is no name which could be used on the printed page. Here, stricken
+by the horror of her situation, she had attempted to escape from her
+captors, but had been bodily beaten into submission. Then she had made a
+wild dash for liberty and had been seized and slashed with a knife until
+she fell under her wounds and her life was in imminent danger.
+
+From this time she gave up and became the slave of the woman of the
+house: "Smooth Ally," she said they called her; but she would not give
+me her name or her address. She would have her killed, she feared, if
+she did so. Here she gradually had yielded to her fate and had lived in
+company with her other slaves, some willing, some as unwilling as
+herself, until finally her place was needed for one more useful to her
+owner, when she had been handed on from one owner to another, always
+sinking in the scale lower and lower, until at last she had been turned
+into the street with her choice limited only to the river or the gutter.
+Long before she had finished her story I had made up my mind that life
+still held for me something which I might do, however poor and useless I
+knew myself to be. The only person I could think of who might help her
+was Miss Leigh. How could I reach her? Could I write her of this poor
+creature? She could not go back to her home, she said, for she knew that
+they had heard of her life, and they were "good and Christian people."
+She used to write to and hear from them, but it had been two years and
+more since she had written or heard now. Still she gave me what she said
+was her father's address in another State, and I told her I would find
+out how they felt about her and would let her know. I gave her a part of
+what I had. It was very little, and I have often wished since then that
+I had had the courage to give her all.
+
+I was walking on with her, trying to think of some place where she might
+find a shelter and be taken care of until her friends could be informed
+where she was, when, in one of the streets in front of a bar-room, we
+heard mingled laughter and singing and found a group of young men,
+ruffians and loafers, standing on the sidewalk, laughing at the singers
+who stood in the street. As we drew near, I saw that the latter were a
+small group of the Salvation Army, and it appeared to me a providence.
+Here were some who might help her. At the moment that we approached they
+ended the dirge-like hymn they had been singing, and kneeling down in
+the street one of them offered a prayer, after which a woman handed
+around something like a tambourine, asking for a collection. The jeers
+that she encountered might have daunted a much bolder spirit than mine,
+and as each man either put in or pretended to put something in, one a
+cent, another a button or a cigarette-stump, she responded, "Thank you
+and God bless you." I was ashamed to make an appeal to them there for
+the poor girl, so I walked with her a little further on and waited until
+the blue-clad detachment came along and their tormentors retired to warm
+themselves, without and within, in the saloon in front of which they had
+been standing. I accosted the woman who had taken up the collection and
+asked her if she could take care of a poor girl who needed help badly,
+and I was struck by the kindness with which she turned and, after a
+moment's glance, held out her hand to the girl.
+
+"Come with us," she said, "and we will take you where you will find
+friends."
+
+Even then the young woman appeared too frightened to accept her
+invitation. She clung to me and seemed to rely upon me, asking me to go
+with her, but partly from shame and partly from what may possibly have
+been a better motive, I told her my way led elsewhere, and, after
+persuasion, she went with the Salvationists, and I walked home happier
+than I had been in some time.
+
+I even took some steps to call public attention to the horrible story
+the poor Magdalen had told me of her frightful experience, and actually
+wrote it up; but when I took it to a paper--the one that had published
+my first article--I was given to understand that the account was quite
+incredible. The editor, a fox-faced man of middle age, with whom my
+paper secured me the honor of an interview, informed me that the story
+was an old one, and that they had investigated it thoroughly, and found
+it without the slightest foundation. If I wanted further proof of this,
+he said, he would refer me to Mr. Collis McSheen, one of the leading
+lawyers in the city, who had conducted the investigation.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE DRUMMER
+
+
+I believe Mrs. Kale would have let me stay on free almost indefinitely;
+for she was a kind-hearted soul, much imposed on by her boarders. But I
+had been playing the gentleman there, and I could not bring myself to
+come down in her esteem. I really did not know whether I should be able
+to continue to pay her; so when my time was up, I moved again, to my
+landlady's great surprise, and she thought me stuck up and ungrateful,
+and was a little hurt over it, when, in fact, I only did not want to
+cheat her, and was moving out to the poorest part of the city, to a
+little house on which I had observed, one afternoon during one of my
+strolls, the notice of a room for rent at a dollar a week. I think a
+rose-bush carefully trained over the door decided me to take it. It gave
+me a bit of home-feeling. The violet, of course, is in color and
+delicacy the half-ethereal emblem of the tenderest sentiment of the
+heart. "The violets all withered when my father died," sighed poor
+Ophelia. And next to violets, a rose-bush, growing in the sun and dew,
+has ever stood to me for the purest sentiment that the heart can hold.
+
+I heard shortly afterward of the engagement of Miss Lilian Poole to the
+man she used to laugh at; but after a single wave of mortification that
+Peck should have won where I had lost, I did not mind it. I went out to
+look at the sunny house with the trees and the rose-bushes about it and
+wonder how I could meet Miss Leigh.
+
+The room I took when I left Mrs. Kale's was only a cupboard some nine
+feet by six in the little house I have mentioned; but it was spotlessly
+clean, like the kind-looking, stout, blue-eyed Teuton woman who, with
+skirt tucked up, came to the door when I applied for lodging, and, as
+the price was nearer my figure than any other I had seen, I closed with
+Mrs. Loewen, and the afternoon I left Mrs. Kale's sent my trunk over in
+advance. It held the entire accumulation of my life. There was something
+about the place and the woman that attracted me. As poor as the house
+was, it was beyond the squalid quarter and well out in the edge of the
+city, with a bit of grass before it, and there were not only plants in
+the windows well cared for; but there was even a rose-bush beside the
+door making a feeble attempt to clamber over it with the aid of strings
+and straps carefully adjusted.
+
+The only question my landlady asked me was whether I was a musician, and
+when I told her no, but that I was very fond of music, she appeared
+satisfied. Her husband, she said, was a drummer.
+
+I asked if I might bring my dog, and she assented even to this.
+
+"Elsa was fond of animals," she said.
+
+When I bade good-by to Mrs. Kale and my friends at the boarding-house, I
+was pleased at the real regret they showed at my leaving. Miss Pansy and
+Miss Pinky came down to the drawing-room in their "best" to say
+good-by; Miss Pinky with her "scratch" quite straight. And Miss Pansy
+said if they ever went back home she hoped very much I would honor them
+by coming to see them, while Miss Pinky, with a more practical turn,
+hoped I would come and see them "there--and you may even bring your dog
+with you," she added, with what I knew was a proof of real friendship. I
+promised faithfully to come, for I was touched by the kindness of the
+two old ladies who, like myself, had slipped from the sphere in which
+they had belonged, and I was rather grim at the reflection that they had
+been brought there by others, while I had no one to blame but myself--a
+solemn fact I was just beginning to face.
+
+When I walked out of the house I was in a rather low state of mind. I
+felt that it was the last day when I could make any pretension to being
+a gentleman. I had been slipping down, down, and now I was very near the
+bottom. So I wandered on in the street with Dix at my heels and my
+pistol in my pocket.
+
+Just then a notice of a concert, placarded on a wall, caught my eye, and
+I gave myself a shake together as an unmitigated ass, and determined
+suddenly that I needed some amusement and that a better use for the
+pistol would be to sell it and go to the concert. I would, at least, be
+a gentleman once more, and then to-morrow I could start afresh. So I
+hunted up a pawnshop and raising from the villain who kept it a few
+dollars on my pistol, had a good supper and then took Dix home and went
+to the symphony. As it happened, I got one of the best seats in the
+house. It was a revelation to me--a revolution in my thoughts and
+feelings: the great audience, gay with silks and flowers and jewels,
+filling up all the space about and above me rising up to the very top of
+the vast auditorium. I did not have time at first to observe them, I
+only felt them; for just as I entered the Director came out and the
+audience applauded. It exhilarated me like wine; I felt as if it had
+been myself they were applauding. Then the music began: The "Tannhauser
+Overture." It caught me up and bore me away: knighthood, and glory, and
+love were all about me; the splendor of the contest; the struggle in
+which a false step, a cowardly weakness might fling away the world; the
+reward that awaited the victor, and the curse if he gave way, till I
+found myself dazzled, amazed, and borne down by the deluge of harmonious
+sound--and could do nothing but lie drifting at the mercy of the
+whelming tide, and watch, half-drowned, whatever object caught my eye.
+The first thing I took in was the tall old Drummer who towered above the
+great bank of dark bodies with swaying arms. Still and solemn he
+appeared out of the mist, and seemed like some landmark which I must
+hold on to if I would not be swept away. No one appeared to pay much
+attention to him, and he appeared oblivious of all but his drums. Now he
+leant over them and listened to their throbbing, now he beat as if the
+whole world depended on it. I held on to him and felt somehow as if he
+were the one to whom the Director looked--the centre of all the music
+and pomp and mystery, and I must keep him in sight.
+
+I don't know much of what came on the programme after that; for I was
+wakened by the storm of applause which followed and during the
+intermission I looked about at the audience around me. They filled the
+house from floor to roof; every seat was occupied, and the boxes looked
+like banks of flowers. All the faces were strange to me, though, and I
+was beginning to feel lonely again, and was turning to my old Drummer,
+when, sweeping the boxes, my eye fell on a girl who caught me at once.
+She was sitting a little forward looking across toward the orchestra
+with so serious an expression on her lovely face that I felt drawn to
+her even before I took in that she was the girl I had seen on the train
+and whom I had handed into her carriage. As I gazed at her this came to
+me--and with it such a warm feeling about my heart as I had not had in a
+long time. I looked at the men about her, one of whom was the
+good-looking clergyman, Dr. Capon, and the next instant all my blood was
+boiling--there, bending down over her, talking into her ear, so close to
+her that she had to sit forward to escape his polluting touch, was the
+gambler whom I had heard say not three weeks before that every American
+girl was open to a proposal from him. I don't know really what happened
+after that. I only remember wishing I had my pistol back--and being glad
+that I had pawned it, not sold it; for I made up my mind anew in that
+theatre that night to live and succeed, and preserve that girl from that
+adventurer. When the concert was over I watched the direction they took,
+and made my way through the crowd to the exit by which they would go
+into the foyer. There I waited and presently they came along. She was
+surrounded by a little party and was laughing heartily over something
+one of them had just said, and was looking, in the rich pink wrap which
+enveloped her, like a rich pink rosebud. I was gazing at her intently,
+and caught her eye, and no doubt struck by my look of recognition, she
+bowed. She had not really thought of me, she was still thinking of what
+had been said, and it was only a casual bow to some one in a crowd who
+knows you and catches your eye; but it was a bow, and it was a smiling
+one, and again that warm feeling surged about my heart which had come
+when I met her on the street. The next second that fellow came along. He
+was taller than most of the crowd, and well dressed, was really a
+handsome enough fellow but for his cold eyes and hard look. The eyes
+were too bold and the chin not bold enough. He was walking beside a
+large, blondish girl with shallow blue eyes, who appeared much pleased
+with herself or with him, but at the moment he was bowing his adieux to
+her while she was manifestly trying to hold on to him.
+
+"I don't think you are nice a bit," I heard her say, petulantly, as they
+came up to me. "You have not taken the least notice of me to-night."
+
+This he evidently repudiated, for she pouted and smiled up at him.
+"Well, then, I'll excuse you this time, but you needn't be running after
+her. She won't----"
+
+I did not hear the rest. I was thinking of the girl before me.
+
+He was looking over the heads of the people before him, and the next
+moment was elbowing his way to overtake my young lady. Close to him in
+the crowd, as he came on, stood Mrs. Starling's daughter, painted, and
+in her best finery, and I saw her imploring eyes fastened on him
+eagerly. He glanced at her and she bowed with a gratified light dawning
+in her face. I saw his face harden. He cut her dead. Poor girl! I saw
+her pain and the look of disappointment as she furtively followed him
+with her eyes. He pushed on after my young lady. But I was ahead of him.
+Just before he reached her, I slipped in, and when he attempted to push
+by I stood firm before him.
+
+"Beg pardon," he said, trying to put me aside to step ahead of me. I
+turned my head and over my shoulder looked him in the face.
+
+"I beg _your_ pardon."
+
+"Oh!" he said. "How do? Let me by."
+
+"To ply your old trade?" I asked, looking into his eyes, over my
+shoulder.
+
+"Ah!" I saw the rage come into his face and he swore some foreign oath.
+He put his hand on my shoulder to push me aside; but I half turned and
+looked him straight in the eyes and his grasp relaxed. He had felt my
+grip once--and he knew I was not afraid of him, and thought I was a
+fool. And his hand fell.
+
+I walked in front of him and kept him back until the party with my young
+lady in it had passed quite out of the door, and then I let him by. For
+that evening, at least, I had protected her.
+
+I walked to my lodging with a feeling of more content than I had had in
+a long time. My heart had a home though I had none. It was as if the
+shell in which I had been cramped so long were broken and I should at
+last step out into a new world. I had a definite aim, and one higher
+than I ever had had before. I was in love with that girl and I made up
+my mind to win her. As I walked along through the gradually emptying
+streets my old professor's words came to me. They had been verified. I
+reviewed my past life and saw as clearly as if in a mirror my failures
+and false steps. I had moped and sulked with the world; I had sat in my
+cubby-hole of an office with all my talents as deeply buried as if I had
+been under the mounds of Troy, and had expected men to unearth me as
+though I had been treasure.
+
+It may appear to some that I exaggerated my feeling for a girl whom I
+scarcely knew at all. But love is the least conventional of passions;
+his victory the most unexpected and unaccountable. He may steal into the
+heart like a thief or burst in like a robber. The zephyr is not so
+wooing, the hurricane not so furious. Samson and Hercules lose their
+strength in his presence and, shorn of their power, surrender at
+discretion. Mightier than Achilles, wilier than Ulysses, he leads them
+both captive, and, behind them in his train, the long line of captains
+whom Petrarch has catalogued as his helpless slaves. Why should it then
+be thought strange that a poor, weak, foolish, lonely young man should
+fall before him at his first onset! I confess, I thought it foolish,
+and yet so weak was I that I welcomed the arrow that pierced my heart,
+and as I sauntered homeward through the emptying streets, I hugged to my
+breast the joy that I loved once more.
+
+As I was on the point of ringing the door-bell there was a heavy step
+behind me, and there was my old Drummer coming along. He turned in at
+the little gate. And I explained that I was his new lodger and had been
+to hear him play.
+
+"Ah! You mean to hear the orchestra?"
+
+"No, I don't. I meant, to hear you--I went to the concert, but I enjoyed
+you most."
+
+"Ah!" he chuckled at the flattery, and let me in, and taking a survey of
+me, invited me to come and have a bit of supper with him, which I
+accepted. His wife came in and waited on us, and he told her what I had
+said, with pleasure, and she laughed over it and rallied him and
+accepted it, and accepted me instantly as an old friend. It gave me a
+new feeling.
+
+A few minutes later there was another arrival. A knock on the street
+door, and the mother, smiling and winking at her husband, went and let
+in the newcomers: a plump, round-cheeked girl, the mingled likeness of
+her two parents, with red cheeks, blue eyes, smooth flaxen hair and that
+heifer-like look of shyness and content which Teuton maidens have, and
+behind her a strapping looking young fellow with powerful shoulders, and
+a neck cased in a net of muscles, a clear pink skin and blue eyes, and
+with a roll in his gait partly the effect of his iron muscles and
+partly of mere bashfulness. I was introduced and the first thing the
+mother did was to repeat delightedly the compliment I had paid the
+father. It had gone home, and the simple way the white teeth shone
+around that little circle and the pride the whole family took in this
+poor bit of praise, told their simplicity and warmed my heart. The
+father and mother were evidently pleased with their daughter's young
+man--for the mother constantly rallied the daughter about Otto and Otto
+about her, drawing the father in with sly looks and knowing tosses of
+her head, and occasionally glancing at me to see if I too took in the
+situation. Although I did not yet know a word of their language, I could
+understand perfectly what she was saying, and I never passed an evening
+that gave me a better idea of family happiness, or greater satisfaction.
+When I went up to my little room I seemed, somehow, to have gotten into
+a world of reality and content: a new world.
+
+I awaked in a new world--the one I had reached the night before: the
+land of hope and content--and when I came down-stairs I was as fresh as
+a shriven soul, and I walked out into the street with Dix at my heel, as
+though I owned the earth.
+
+The morning was as perfect as though God had just created light. The sky
+was as blue and the atmosphere as clear as though the rain that had
+fallen had washed away with the smoke all impurity whatsoever, and
+scoured the floor of Heaven afresh.
+
+Elsa, with her chequered skirt turned back and a white apron about her
+comely figure, was singing as she polished the outer steps, before going
+to her work in a box factory, and the sun was shining upon her bare head
+with its smooth hair, and upon the little rose-bush by the door, turning
+the rain-drops that still hung on it into jewels. She stopped and petted
+Dix, who had followed me down-stairs, and Dix, who, like his master,
+loved to be petted by a pretty woman, laid back his ears and rubbed his
+head against her. And, an hour later, a group of little muddy boys with
+their books in their hands had been beguiled by a broad puddle on their
+way to school and were wading in the mud and laughing over the spatters
+and splotches they were getting on their clothes and ruddy faces. As I
+watched them, one who had been squeezed out of the fun and stood on the
+sidewalk looking on and laughing, suddenly seized with fear or envy
+shouted that if they did "not come on, Mith Thelly would keep them in";
+and, stricken with a sudden panic, the whole flock of little sand-pipers
+started off and ran as hard as their dumpy legs would carry them around
+the corner. I seemed to be emancipated.
+
+I made my breakfast on a one-cent loaf of bread, taking a little street
+which, even in that section, was a back street, to eat it in, and for
+butter amused myself watching a lot of little children (among the last
+of whom I recognized my muddy boys, who must have found another puddle)
+lagging in at the door of a small old frame building, which I knew must
+be their school, though I could not understand why it should be in such
+a shanty when all the public schools I had seen were the most palatial
+structures.
+
+I took the trouble to go by that day and look at the house on the
+corner. It was as sunny as ever. And when on my way back to my office I
+passed Miss Leigh, the central figure of a group of fresh looking girls,
+I felt that the half shy smile of recognition which she gave me was a
+shaft of light to draw my hopes to something better than I had known.
+Dix was with me, and he promptly picked out his friend and received from
+her a greeting which, curiously enough, raised my hopes out of all
+reason. I began to feel that the dog was a link between us.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+RE-ENTER PECK
+
+
+It happened that the building in which I had taken an office bore a
+somewhat questionable reputation. I had selected it because it was
+cheap, and it was too late when I discovered its character. I had no
+money to move. The lawyers in it were a nondescript lot--criminal
+practitioners, straw-bail givers, haunters of police courts, etc.; and
+the other occupants were as bad--adventurers with wild-cat schemes,
+ticket-scalpers, cranks, visionaries with fads, frauds, gamblers, and
+thieves in one field or another, with doubtless a good sprinkling of
+honest men among them.
+
+It was an old building and rather out of the line of the best growth of
+the city, but in a convenient and crowded section. The lower floor was
+occupied with bucket-shops and ticket-scalpers' offices, on the street;
+and at the back, in a sort of annex on an alley, was a saloon known as
+Mick Raffity's; the owner being a solid, double-jointed son of Erin,
+with blue eyes as keen as tacks; and over this saloon was the gambling
+house where I had been saved by finding Pushkin.
+
+On the second floor, the best offices were a suite occupied by a lawyer
+named McSheen, a person of considerable distinction, after its own kind,
+as was the shark created with other fish of the sea after its kind: a
+lawyer of unusual shrewdness, a keen political boss, and a successful
+business man. I had, as happened, rented a cubby-hole looking out on a
+narrow well opposite the rear room of his suite.
+
+Collis McSheen was a large, brawny man, with a broad face, a big nose,
+blue eyes, grizzled black hair, a tight mouth and a coarse fist. He
+would have turned the scales at two hundred, and he walked with a step
+as light as a sick-nurse's. The first time I ever saw him was when I ran
+into him suddenly in a winding, unswept back stairway that came down on
+an alley from the floor below mine and was used mainly by those in a
+hurry, and I was conscious even in the dim light that he gave me a look
+of great keenness. As he appeared in a hurry I gave way to him, with a
+"Beg pardon" for my unintentional jostle, to which he made no reply
+except a grunt. I, however, took a good look at him as he passed along
+under a street lamp, with his firm yet noiseless step--as noiseless as a
+cat's--and the heavy neck and bulk gave me a sense of his brute
+strength, which I never lost afterward. I soon came to know that he was
+a successful jury-lawyer with a gift of eloquence, and a knack of
+insinuation, and that he was among the most potent of the political
+bosses of the city, with a power of manipulation unequalled by any
+politician in the community. He had good manners and a ready smile. He
+was the attorney or legal agent for a number of wealthy concerns, among
+them the Argand estate, and had amassed a fortune. He was also "the
+legal adviser" of one of the afternoon papers, the _Trumpet_, in which,
+as I learned later, he held, though it was not generally known, a large
+and potent interest. He was now looming up as the chief candidate of the
+popular party for Mayor, an office which he expected to secure a few
+months later. He was interested in a part of the street-car system of
+the city, that part in which "the Argand estate" held the controlling
+interest, and which was, to some extent, the rival system of that known
+as the "West Line," in which Mr. Leigh held a large interest. I mention
+these facts because, detached as they appear, they have a strong bearing
+on my subsequent relation to McSheen, and a certain bearing on my whole
+future. But, on occasion he was as ready for his own purposes to attack
+these interests secretly as those opposed to them. He always played his
+own hand. To quote Kalender "he was deep."
+
+My first real meeting with him gave me an impression of him which I was
+never able to divest myself of. I was in my little dark cupboard of an
+office very lonely and reading hard to keep my mind occupied with some
+other subject than myself, when the door half opened quietly, with or
+without a preliminary knock, I never could tell which, and a large man
+insinuated himself in at it and, after one keen look, smiled at me. I
+recalled afterward how catlike his entrance was. But at the moment I was
+occupied in gauging him. Still smiling he moved noiselessly around and
+took his stand with his back to the one window.
+
+"You are Mr. Glave?" he smiled. "Glad to see you?" He had not quite
+gotten rid of the interrogation.
+
+I expressed my appreciation of his good-will and with, I felt, even more
+sincerity than his; for I was glad to see any one.
+
+"Always pleased to see young lawyers--specially bright ones." Here I
+smiled with pleasure that he should so admirably have "sized me up," as
+the saying goes.
+
+"You are a lawyer also?" I hazarded.
+
+"Yes. Yes. I see you are studious. I always like that in a young
+man--gives him breadth--scope."
+
+I assented and explained that I had been in politics a little also, all
+of which he appeared to think in my favor. And so it went on till he
+knew nearly all about me. In fact, I became quite communicative. It had
+been so long since I had had a lawyer to talk with. I found him to be a
+remarkably well-informed man, and with agreeable, rather insinuating
+manners. He knew something of books too, and he made, I could not tell
+whether consciously or unconsciously, a number of literary allusions.
+One of them I recall. It was a Spanish proverb, he said: "The judge is a
+big man, but give your presents to the clerk."
+
+"Well, you'll do well here if you start right. The tortoise beats the
+hare, you know--every time--every time."
+
+I started, so apt was the allusion. I wondered if he could ever have
+known Peck.
+
+"Yes, I know that. That's what I mean to do," I said.
+
+"Get in with the right sort of folks, then when there's any sweeping
+done you'll be on the side of the handle." He was moving around toward
+the door and was looking out of the window reflecting.
+
+"I have a letter to a gentleman named Leigh," I said. "I have not yet
+presented it."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+I turned and glanced at him casually and was struck with the singular
+change that had come over his face. It was as if he had suddenly drawn a
+fine mask over it. His eyes were calmly fixed on me, yet I could hardly
+have said that they saw me. His countenance was absolutely
+expressionless. I have seen the same detached look in a big cat's eyes
+as he gazed through his bars and through the crowd before him to the far
+jungle, ocean spaces away. It gave me a sudden shiver and I may have
+shown that I was startled, but, as I looked, the mask disappeared before
+my eyes and he was smiling as before.
+
+"Got a pretty daughter?" he said with a manner which offended me, I
+could hardly tell why.
+
+"I believe so; but I do not know her." I was angry with myself for
+blushing, and it was plain that he saw it and did not believe me.
+
+"You know a man 't calls himself Count Pushkin?"
+
+"Yes, I know him."
+
+"He knows her and she knows him."
+
+"Does she? I know nothing about that."
+
+"Kind o' makin' a set for him, they say?"
+
+"Is she? I hardly think it likely, if she knows him," I said coldly. I
+wondered with what malignant intuition he had read my thoughts.
+
+"Oh! A good many people do that. They like the sound. It gives 'em
+power."
+
+"Power!"
+
+"Yes. Power's a pretty good thing to have. You can--" He looked out of
+the window and licked his lips in a sort of reverie. He suddenly opened
+and closed his hand with a gesture of crushing. "Power and money go
+togither?" And still smiling, with a farewell nod, he noiselessly
+withdrew and closed the door.
+
+When he was gone I was conscious of a feeling of intense relief, and
+also of intense antagonism--a feeling I had never had for but one man
+before--Peck: a feeling which I never got rid of.
+
+One evening a little later I missed Dix. He usually came home even when
+he strayed off, which was not often, unless as happened he went with
+Elsa, for whom he had conceived a great fondness, and who loved and
+petted him in return. It had come to be a great bond between the girl
+and me, and I think the whole family liked me the better for the dog's
+love of the daughter. But this evening he did not appear; I knew he was
+not with Elsa, for I remembered he had been in my office during the
+afternoon, and in consequence I spent an unhappy night. All sorts of
+visions floated before my mind, from the prize-ring to the vivisection
+table. I rather inclined to the former; for I knew his powerful chest
+and loins and his scarred shoulders would commend him to the fancy. I
+thought I remembered that he had gone out of my office just before I
+left and had gone down the steps which led to the alley I have
+mentioned. This he sometimes did. I recalled that I was thinking of Miss
+Eleanor Leigh and had not seen or thought of him between the office and
+my home.
+
+I was so disturbed about him by bedtime that I went out to hunt for him
+and returned to my office by the same street I had walked through in the
+afternoon. When I reached the building in which my office was, I turned
+into the alley I have mentioned and went up the back stairway. It was
+now after midnight and it was as black as pitch. When I reached my
+office, thinking that I might by a bare possibility have locked him in,
+I opened the door and walked in, closing it softly behind me. The window
+looked out on the well left for light and air, and was open, and as I
+opened the door a light was reflected through the window on my wall. I
+stepped up to close the window and, accidentally looking across the
+narrow well to see where the light came from, discovered that it was in
+the back office of Coll McSheen, in which were seated Mr. McSheen and
+the sour-looking man I had seen on the train with the silk hat and the
+paste diamond studs, and of all persons in the world, Peck! The name
+Leigh caught my ear and I involuntarily stopped without being aware that
+I was listening. As I looked the door opened and a man I recognized as
+the janitor of the building entered and with him a negro waiter, bearing
+two bottles of champagne and three glasses. For a moment I felt as
+though I had been dreaming. For the negro was Jeams. I saw the
+recognition between him and Peck, and Jeams's white teeth shone as Peck
+talked about him. I heard him say:
+
+"No, suh, I don' know nuthin' 't all about him. Ise got to look out for
+myself. Yes, suh, got a good place an' I'm gwine to keep it!"
+
+He had opened the bottles and poured out the wine, and McSheen gave him
+a note big enough to make him bow very low and thank him volubly. When
+he had withdrawn Peck said:
+
+"You've got to look out for that rascal. He's an awfully smart
+scoundrel."
+
+"Oh! I'll own him, body and soul," said McSheen.
+
+"I wouldn't have him around me."
+
+"Don't worry--he won't fool me. If he does--" He opened and closed his
+fist with the gesture I had seen him use the first day he paid me a
+visit.
+
+"Well, let's to business," he said when they had drained their glasses.
+He looked at the other men. "What do you say, Wringman?"
+
+"You pay me the money and I'll bring the strike all right," said the
+Labor-leader, "and I'll deliver the vote, too. In ten days there won't
+be a wheel turning on his road. I'll order every man out that wears a
+West Line cap or handles a West Line tool."
+
+The "West Line"! This was what the street-car line was called which ran
+out into the poor section of the city where I lived, which Mr. Leigh
+controlled.
+
+"That's all right. I'll keep my part. D----n him! I want to break him.
+I'll show him who runs this town. With his d----d airs."
+
+"That's it," said Peck, leaning forward. "It's your road or his. That's
+the way I figure it." He rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "I am with
+you, my friends. You can count on the Poole interest backing you."
+
+"You'll keep the police off?" said the Labor-leader.
+
+"Will I? Watch 'em!" McSheen poured out another glass, and offered the
+bottle to Peck, who declined it.
+
+"Then it's all right. Well, you'd better make a cash payment down at the
+start," said the Labor-leader.
+
+McSheen swore. "Do you think I have a bank in my office, or am a faro
+dealer, that I can put up a pile like that at midnight? Besides, I've
+always heard there're two bad paymasters--the one that don't pay at all
+and the one 't pays in advance. You deliver the goods."
+
+"Oh! Come off," said the other. "If you ain't a faro dealer, you own a
+bank--and you've a bar-keeper. Mick's got it down-stairs, if you ain't.
+So put up, or you'll want money sure enough. I know what that strike's
+worth to you."
+
+McSheen rose and at that moment I became aware of the impropriety of
+what I was doing, for I had been absolutely absorbed watching Peck, and
+I moved back, as I did so, knocking over a chair. At the sound the light
+was instantly extinguished and I left my office and hurried down the
+stairs, wondering when the blow was to fall.
+
+The afternoon following my surprise of the conference in McSheen's back
+room, there was a knock at my door and Peck walked into my office. I
+was surprised to see what a man-of-fashion air he had donned. He
+appeared really glad to see me and was so cordial that I almost forgot
+my first feeling of shame that he should find me in such manifestly
+straitened circumstances, especially as he began to talk vaguely of a
+large case he had come out to look after, and I thought he was on the
+verge of asking me to represent his client.
+
+"You know we own considerable interests out here both in the surface
+lines and in the P. D. & B. D.," he said airily.
+
+"No, I did not know you did. I remember that Mr. Poole once talked to me
+about some outstanding interests in the P. D. & B. D., and I made some
+little investigation at the time; I came to the conclusion that his
+interest had lapsed; but he never employed me."
+
+"Yes, that's a part of the interests I speak of. Mr. Poole is a very
+careful man."
+
+"Very. Well, you see I have learned my lesson. I have learned economy,
+at least," I laughed in reply to his question of how I was getting along
+in my new home. He took as he asked it an appraising glance at the poor
+little office.
+
+"A very important lesson to learn," he said sententiously. "I am glad I
+learned it early." He was so smug that I could not help saying,
+
+"You were always economical?"
+
+"Yes, I hope so. I always mean to be. You get much work?"
+
+"No, not much--yet; still, you know, I always had a knack of getting
+business," I said. "My trouble was that I used to disdain small things
+and I let others attend to them. I know better than that now. I don't
+think I have any right to complain."
+
+"Oh--I suppose you have to put in night work, too, then?" he added,
+after a pause.
+
+This then was the meaning of his call. He wished to know whether I had
+seen him in Coll McSheen's office the night before. He had delivered
+himself into my hands. So, I answered lightly.
+
+"Oh! yes, sometimes."
+
+I had led him up to the point and I knew now he was afraid to take a
+step further. He sheered off.
+
+"Well, tell me something," he said, "if you don't mind. Do you know Mr.
+Leigh?"
+
+"What Mr. Leigh?"
+
+"Mr. Walter Leigh, the banker."
+
+"I don't mind telling you at all that I do not."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+I thought he was going to offer me a case; but Peck was economical. He
+already had one lawyer.
+
+"I had a letter of introduction to him from Mr. Poole," I said. "But you
+can say to Mr. Poole that I never presented it."
+
+"Oh! Ah! Well--I'll tell him."
+
+"Do."
+
+"Do you know Mr. McSheen?"
+
+I nodded "Yes."
+
+"Do you know him well?"
+
+"Does any one know him well?" I parried.
+
+"He has an office in this building?"
+
+I could not, for the life of me, tell whether this was an affirmation or
+a question. So I merely nodded, which answered in either case. But I was
+pining to say to him, "Peck, why don't you come out with it and ask me
+plainly what I know of your conference the other night?" However, I did
+not. I had learned to play a close game.
+
+"Oh! I saw your nigger, Jeams--ah--the other day."
+
+"Did you? Where is he?" I wanted to find him, and asked innocently
+enough.
+
+"Back at home."
+
+"How is he getting on?"
+
+"Pretty well, I believe. He's a big rascal."
+
+"Yes, but a pleasant one, and an open one."
+
+Peck suddenly rose, "Well, I must be going. I have an engagement which I
+must keep." At the door he paused. "By the way, Mrs. Peck begged to be
+remembered to you."
+
+He had a way of blinking, like a terrapin--slowly. He did so now.
+
+He did not mean his tone to be insolent--only to be insolent
+himself--but it was.
+
+"I'm very much obliged to her. Remember me to her."
+
+That afternoon I strolled out, hoping to get a glimpse of Miss Leigh. I
+did so, but Peck was riding in a carriage with her and her father. So he
+won the last trick, after all. But the rubber was not over. I was glad
+that they did not see me, and I returned to my office filled with rage
+and determined to unmask Peck the first chance I should have, not
+because he was a trickster and a liar, but because he was applying his
+trickiness in the direction of Miss Leigh.
+
+That night the weather changed and it turned off cold. I remember it
+from a small circumstance. The wind appeared to me to have shifted when
+Miss Leigh's carriage drove out of sight with Peck in it. I went home
+and had bad dreams. What was Peck doing with the Leighs? Could I have
+been mistaken in thinking he and McSheen had been talking of Mr. Leigh
+in their conference? For some time there had been trouble on the
+street-car lines of the city and a number of small strikes had taken
+place on a system of lines running across the city and to some extent in
+competition with the West Line, which Mr. Leigh had an interest in.
+According to the press the West Line, which ran out into a new section,
+was growing steadily while the other line was falling back. Could it be
+that McSheen was endeavoring to secure possession of the West Line?
+This, too, had been intimated, and Canter, one of the richest men of the
+town, was said to be behind him. What should I do under the
+circumstances? Would Peck tell Miss Leigh any lies about me? All these
+suggestions pestered me and, with the loss of Dix, kept me awake, so
+that next morning I was in rather a bad humor.
+
+In my walk through the poorer quarter on my way to my office I used to
+see a great deal of the children, and it struck me that one of the
+saddest effects of poverty--the dire poverty of the slum--was the
+debasement of the children. Cruelty appears to be the natural instinct
+of the young as they begin to gain in strength. But among the well-to-do
+and the well-brought-up of all classes it is kept in abeyance and is
+trained out. But in the class I speak of at a certain age it appears to
+flower out into absolute brutality. It was the chief drawback to my
+sojourn in this quarter, for I am very fond of children, and the effect
+of poverty on the children was the saddest part of my surroundings. To
+avoid the ruder element, I used to walk of a morning through the little
+back street where I had discovered that morning the little school for
+very small children, and I made the acquaintance of a number of the
+children who attended the school. One little girl in particular
+interested me. She was the poorest clad of any, but her cheeks were like
+apples and her chubby wrists were the worst chapped of all; and with her
+sometimes was a little crippled girl, who walked with a crutch, whom she
+generally led by the hand in the most motherly way, so small that it was
+a wonder how she could walk, much more study.
+
+My little girls and I got to that point of intimacy where they would
+talk to me, and Dix had made friends with them and used to walk beside
+them as we went along.
+
+The older girl's first name was Janet, but she spoke with a lisp and I
+could not make out her name with a certainty. Her father had been out of
+work, she said, but now was a driver, and her teacher was "Mith
+Thellen." The little cripple's name was "Sissy"--Sissy Talman. This was
+all the information I could get out of her. "Mith Thellen" was evidently
+her goddess.
+
+On the cool, crisp morning after the turn in the weather, I started out
+rather earlier than usual, intending to hunt for Dix and also to look up
+Jeams. I bought a copy of the _Trumpet_ and was astonished to read an
+account of trouble among the employees of the West Line, for I had not
+seen the least sign of it. The piece went on further to intimate that
+Mr. Leigh had been much embarrassed by his extension of his line out
+into a thinly populated district and that a strike, which was quite sure
+to come, might prove very disastrous to him. I somehow felt very angry
+at the reference to Mr. Leigh and was furious with myself for having
+written for the _Trumpet_. I walked around through the street where the
+school was, though without any definite idea whatever, as it was too
+early for the children. As I passed by the school the door was wide open
+and I stopped and looked in. The fire was not yet made. The stove was
+open; the door of the cellar, opening outside, was also open, and at the
+moment a young woman--the teacher or some one else--was backing up the
+steps out of the cellar lugging a heavy coal-scuttle. One hand, and a
+very small one, was supporting her against the side of the wall, helping
+her push herself up. I stepped forward with a vague pity for any woman
+having to lift such a weight.
+
+"Won't you let me help you?" I asked.
+
+"Thank you, I believe I can manage it." And she pulled the scuttle to
+the top, where she planted it, and turned with quite an air of triumph.
+It was she! my young lady of the sunny house: Miss Leigh! I had not
+recognized her at all. Her face was all aglow and her eyes were filled
+with light at a difficulty overcome. I do not know what my face showed;
+but unless it expressed conflicting emotions, it belied my feelings. I
+was equally astonished, delighted and embarrassed. I hastened to say
+something which might put her at her ease and at the same time prove a
+plea for myself, and open the way to further conversation.
+
+"I was on my way to my law-office, and seeing a lady struggling with so
+heavy a burden, I had hoped I might have the privilege of assisting her
+as I should want any other gentleman to do to my sister in a similar
+case." I meant if I had had a sister.
+
+She thanked me calmly; in fact, very calmly.
+
+"I do it every morning; but this morning, as it is the first cold
+weather, I piled it a little too high; that is all." She looked toward
+the door and made a movement.
+
+I wanted to say I would gladly come and lift it for her every morning;
+that I could carry all her burdens for her. But I was almost afraid even
+to ask permission again to carry it that morning. As, however, she had
+given me a peg, I seized it.
+
+"Well, at least, let me carry it this morning," I said, and without
+waiting for an answer or even venturing to look at her, I caught up the
+bucket and swung it into the house, when seeing the sticks all laid in
+the stove, and wishing to do her further service, without asking her
+anything more, I poured half the scuttleful into the stove.
+
+"I used to be able to make a fire, when I lived in my old home," I said
+tentatively; then as I saw a smile coming into her face, I added: "But
+I'm afraid to try an exhibition of my skill after such boasting," and
+without waiting further, I backed out, bringing with me only a confused
+apparition of an angel lifting a coal-scuttle.
+
+I do not remember how I reached my office that day, whether I walked the
+stone pavements through the prosaic streets or trod on rosy clouds.
+There were no prosaic streets for me that day. I wondered if the article
+I had seen in the paper had any foundation. Could Mr. Leigh have lost
+his fortune? Was this the reason she taught school? I had observed how
+simply she was dressed, and I thrilled to think that I might be able to
+rescue her from this drudgery.
+
+The beggars who crossed my path that morning were fortunate. I gave them
+all my change, even relieving the necessities of several thirsty
+imposters who beset my way, declaring with unblushing, sodden faces that
+they had not had a mouthful for days.
+
+I walked past the little school-house that night and lingered at the
+closed gate, finding a charm in the spot. The little plain house had
+suddenly become a shrine. It seemed as if she might be hovering near.
+
+The next morning I passed through the same street, and peeped in at the
+open door. There she was, bending over the open stove in which she had
+already lighted her fire, little knowing of the flame she had kindled in
+my heart. How I cursed myself for being too late to meet her. And yet,
+perhaps, I should have been afraid to speak to her; for as she turned
+toward the door, I started on with pumping heart in quite a fright lest
+she should detect me looking in.
+
+I walked by her old home Sunday afternoon. Flowers bloomed at the
+windows. As I was turning away, Count Pushkin came out of the door and
+down the steps. As he turned away from the step his habitual simper
+changed into a scowl; and a furious joy came into my heart. Something
+had gone wrong with him within there. I wished I had been near enough to
+have crossed his path to smile in his face; but I was too distant, and
+he passed on with clenched fist and black brow.
+
+After this my regular walk was through the street of the baby-school,
+and when I was so fortunate as to meet Miss Leigh she bowed and smiled
+to me, though only as a passing acquaintance, whilst I on my part began
+to plan how I should secure an introduction to her. Her smile was
+sunshine enough for a day, but I wanted the right to bask in it and I
+meant to devise a plan. After what I had told Peck, I could not present
+my letter; I must find some other means. It came in an unexpected way,
+and through the last person I should have imagined as my sponsor.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+MY FIRST CLIENT
+
+
+But to revert to the morning when I made Miss Leigh's fire for her. I
+hunted for Dix all day, but without success, and was so busy about it
+that I did not have time to begin my search for Jeams. That evening, as
+it was raining hard, I treated myself to the unwonted luxury of a ride
+home on a street-car. The streets were greasy with a thick, black paste
+of mud, and the smoke was down on our heads in a dark slop. Like
+Petrarch, my thoughts were on Laura, and I was repining at the rain
+mainly because it prevented the possibility of a glimpse of Miss Leigh
+on the street: a chance I was ever on the watch for.
+
+I boarded an open car just after it started and just before it ran
+through a short subway. The next moment a man who had run after the car
+sprang on the step beside me, and, losing his footing, he would probably
+have fallen and might have been crushed between the car and the edge of
+the tunnel, which we at that moment were entering, had I not had the
+good fortune, being on the outer seat, to catch him and hold him up.
+Even as it was, his coat was torn and my elbow was badly bruised against
+the pillar at the entrance. I, however, pulled him over across my knees
+and held him until we had gone through the subway, when I made room for
+him on the seat beside me.
+
+"That was a close call, my friend," I said. "Don't try that sort of
+thing too often."
+
+"It was, indeed--the closest I ever had, and I have had some pretty
+close ones before. If you had not caught me, I would have been in the
+morgue to-morrow morning."
+
+This I rather repudiated, but as the sequel showed, the idea appeared to
+have become fixed in his mind. We had some little talk together and I
+discovered that, like myself, he had come out West to better his
+fortune, and as he was dressed very plainly, I assumed that, like
+myself, he had fallen on rather hard times, and I expressed sympathy.
+"Where have I seen you before?" I asked him.
+
+"On the train once coming from the East."
+
+"Oh! yes." I remembered now. He was the man who knew things.
+
+"You know Mr. McSheen?" he asked irrelevantly.
+
+"Yes--slightly. I have an office in the same building."
+
+I wondered how he knew that I knew him.
+
+"Yes. Well, you want to look out for him. Don't let him fool you. He's
+deep. What's that running down your sleeve? Why, it's blood! Where did
+it come from?" He looked much concerned.
+
+"From my arm, I reckon. I hurt it a little back there, but it is
+nothing."
+
+He refused to be satisfied with my explanation and insisted strongly on
+my getting off and going with him to see a doctor. I laughed at the
+idea.
+
+"Why, I haven't any money to pay a doctor," I said.
+
+"It won't cost you a cent. He is a friend of mine and as good a surgeon
+as any in the city. He's straight--knows his business. You come along."
+
+So, finding that my sleeve was quite soaked with blood, I yielded and
+went with him to the office of his friend, a young doctor named Traumer,
+who lived in a part of the town bordering on the working people's
+section, which, fortunately, was not far from where we got off the car.
+Also, fortunately, we found him at home. He was a slim young fellow with
+a quiet, self-assured manner and a clean-cut face, lighted by a pair of
+frank, blue eyes.
+
+"Doc," said my conductor, "here's a friend of mine who wants a little
+patching up."
+
+"That's the way with most friends of yours, Bill," said the doctor, who
+had given me a single keen look. "What's the matter with him? Shot? Or
+have the pickets been after him?"
+
+"No, he's got his arm smashed saving a man's life."
+
+"What! Well, let's have a look at it. He doesn't look very bad." He
+helped me off with my coat and, as he glanced at the sleeve, gave a
+little exclamation.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Whose life did he save?" he asked, as he was binding up the arm.
+"That's partly a mash."
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Oh! I see." He went to work and soon had me bandaged up. "Well, he's
+all right now. What were you doing?" he asked as he put on the last
+touches.
+
+"Jumping on a car."
+
+"Ah!" The doctor was manifestly amused. "You observe that our friend is
+laconic?" he said to me.
+
+"What's that?" asked the other. "Don't prejudice him against me. He
+don't know anything against me yet--and that's more than some folks can
+say."
+
+"Who was on that car that you were following?" asked the doctor, with a
+side glance at my friend. The latter did not change his expression a
+particle.
+
+"Doc, did you ever hear what the parrot said to herself after she had
+sicked the dog on, and the dog not seeing anything but her, jumped on
+her?"
+
+"No--what?"
+
+"'Polly, you talk too d----d much.'"
+
+The doctor chuckled and changed the subject. "What's your labor-friend,
+Wringman, doing now? What did he come back here for?"
+
+"Same old thing--dodging work."
+
+"He seems to me to work other people pretty well."
+
+The other nodded acquiescingly.
+
+"He's on a new line now. McSheen's got him. Yes, he has," as the doctor
+looked incredulous.
+
+"What's he after? Who's he working for?"
+
+"Same person--Coll McSheen. Pretty busy, too. Mr. Glave there knows him
+already."
+
+"Glave!--Glave!" repeated the doctor. "Where did I hear your name? Oh,
+yes! Do you know a preacher named John Marvel!"
+
+"John Marvel! Why, yes. I went to college with him. I knew him well."
+
+"You knew a good man then."
+
+"He is that," said the other promptly. "If there were more like him I'd
+be out of a job."
+
+"You know Miss Leigh, too?"
+
+"What Miss Leigh?" My heart warmed at the name and I forgot all about
+Marvel. How did he know that I knew her?
+
+"'The Angel of the Lost Children.'"
+
+"'The Angel--'? Miss Eleanor Leigh?" Then as he nodded--"Slightly." My
+heart was now quite warm. "Who called her so?"
+
+"She said she knew you. I look after some of her friends for her."
+
+"Who called her the 'Angel of the Lost Children'?"
+
+"A friend of mine--Leo Wolffert, who works in the slums--a writer. She's
+always finding and helping some one who is lost, body or soul."
+
+"Leo Wolffert! Do you know him?"
+
+"I guess we all know him, don't we, Doc?" put in the other man. "And so
+do some of the big ones."
+
+"Rather."
+
+"And the lady, too--she's a good one, too," he added.
+
+I was so much interested in this part of the conversation that I forgot
+at the moment to ask the doctor where he had known John Marvel and
+Wolffert.
+
+I, however, asked him what I owed him, and he replied,
+
+"Not a cent. Any of Langton's friends here or John Marvel's friends, or
+(after a pause) Miss Leigh's friends may command me. I am only too glad
+to be able to serve them. It's the only way I can help."
+
+"That's what I told him," said my friend, whose name I heard for the
+first time. "I told him you weren't one of these Jew doctors that
+appraise a man as soon as he puts his nose in the door and skin him
+clean."
+
+"I am a Jew, but I hope I am not one of that kind."
+
+"No; but there are plenty of 'em."
+
+I came away feeling that I had made two friends well worth making. They
+were real men.
+
+When I parted from my friend he took out of his pocket-book a card. "For
+my friends," he said, as he handed it to me. When I got to the light I
+read:
+
+"Wm. Langton, Private Detective."
+
+It was not until long afterward that I knew that the man he was
+following when he sprang on the car and I saved him was myself, and that
+I owed the attention to my kinsman and to Mr. Leigh, to whom Peck had
+given a rather sad account of me. My kinsman had asked him to ascertain
+how I lived.
+
+I called on my new friend, Langton, earlier than he had expected. In my
+distress about Dix I consulted him the very next day and he undertook to
+get him back. I told him I had not a cent to pay him with at present,
+but some day I should have it and then----
+
+"You'll never owe me a cent as long as you live," he said. "Besides, I'd
+like to find that dog. I remember him. He's a good one. You say you used
+the back stairway at times, opening on the alley near Mick Raffity's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He looked away out of the window with a placid expression.
+
+"I wouldn't go down that way too often at night," he said presently.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh! I don't know. You might stumble and break your neck. One or two men
+have done it."
+
+"Oh! I'll be careful," I laughed. "I'm pretty sure-footed."
+
+"You need to be--there. You say your dog's a good fighter?"
+
+"He's a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever saw. I never fought him, but I
+had a negro boy who used to take him off till I stopped him."
+
+"Well, I'll find him--that is, I'll find where he went."
+
+I thanked him and strolled over across town to try to get a glimpse of
+the "Angel of the Lost Children." I saw her in a carriage with another
+young girl, and as I gazed at her she suddenly turned her eyes and
+looked straight at me, quite as if she had expected to see me, and the
+smile she gave me, though only that which a pleasant thought wings,
+lighted my heart for a week.
+
+A day or two later my detective friend dropped into my office.
+
+"Well, I have found him." His face showed that placid expression which,
+with him, meant deep satisfaction. "The police have him--are holding him
+in a case, but you can identify and get him. He was in the hands of a
+negro dog-stealer and they got him in a raid. They pulled one of the
+toughest joints in town when there was a fight going on and pinched a
+full load. The nigger was among them. He put up a pretty stiff fight and
+they had to hammer him good before they quieted him. He'll go down for
+ninety days sure. He was a fighter, they said--butted men right and
+left."
+
+"I'm glad they hammered him--you're sure it's Dix?"
+
+"Sure; he claimed the dog; said he'd raised him. But it didn't go. I
+knew he'd stolen him because he said he knew you."
+
+"Knew me--a negro? What did he say his name was?"
+
+"They told me--let me see--Professor Jeams--something."
+
+"Not Woodson?"
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+"Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He sold me the dog. You
+say he's in jail? I must go and get him out."
+
+"You'll find it hard work. Fighting the police is a serious crime in
+this city. A man had better steal, rob, or kill anybody else than fight
+an officer."
+
+"Who has most pull down there?"
+
+"Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He runs the police. He may be next
+Mayor."
+
+I determined, of course, to go at once and see what I could do to get
+Jeams out of his trouble. I found him in the common ward among the
+toughest criminals in the jail--a massive and forbidding looking
+structure--to get into which appeared for a time almost as difficult as
+to get out. But on expressing my wish to be accorded an interview with
+him, I was referred from one official to another, until, with my back to
+the wall, I came to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who went by
+the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my request to him. I might as
+well have undertaken to argue with the stone images which were rudely
+carved as Caryatides beside the entrance. He simply puffed his big black
+cigar in silence, shook his head, and looked away from me; and my urging
+had no other effect than to bring a snicker of amusement from a couple
+of dog-faced shysters who had entered and, with a nod to him, had sunk
+into greasy chairs.
+
+"Who do you know here?"
+
+A name suddenly occurred to me, and I used it.
+
+"Among others, I know Mr. McSheen," and as I saw his countenance fall, I
+added, "and he is enough for the present." I looked him sternly in the
+eye.
+
+He got up out of his seat and actually walked across the room, opened a
+cupboard and took out a key, then rang a bell.
+
+"Why didn't you say you were a friend of his?" he asked surlily. "A
+friend of Mr. McSheen can see any one he wants here."
+
+I have discovered that civility will answer with nine-tenths or even
+nineteen-twentieths of the world, but there is a class of intractable
+brutes who yield only to force and who are influenced only by fear, and
+of them was this sodden ruffian. He led the way now subserviently
+enough, growling from time to time some explanation, which I took to be
+his method of apologizing. When, after going through a number of
+corridors, which were fairly clean and well ventilated, we came at
+length to the ward where my unfortunate client was confined, the
+atmosphere was wholly different: hot and fetid and intolerable. The air
+struck me like a blast from some infernal region, and behind the grating
+which shut off the miscreants within from even the modified freedom of
+the outer court was a mass of humanity of all ages, foul enough in
+appearance to have come from hell.
+
+At the call of the turnkey, there was some interest manifested in their
+evil faces and some of them shouted back, repeating the name of Jim
+Woodson; some half derisively, others with more kindliness. At length,
+out of the mob emerged poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, Oh, how changed!
+His head was bandaged with an old cloth, soiled and stained; his mien
+was dejected, and his face was swollen and bruised. At sight of me,
+however, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing forward tried to thrust
+his hands through the bars of the grating to grasp mine. "Lord, God!" he
+exclaimed. "If it ain't de Captain. Glory be to God! Marse Hen, I knowed
+you'd come, if you jes' heard 'bout me. Git me out of dis, fur de Lord's
+sake. Dis is de wuss place I ever has been in in my life. Dey done beat
+me up and put handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling me in de
+patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, and put me through the third
+degree, till I thought if de Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be
+gone for sho. Can't you git me out o' dis right away?"
+
+I explained the impossibility of doing this immediately, but assured him
+that he would soon be gotten out and that I would look after his case
+and see that he got justice.
+
+"Yes, sir, that is what I want--jestice--I don't ax nothin' but
+jestice."
+
+"How did you get here?" I demanded. And even in his misery, I could not
+help being amused to see his countenance fall.
+
+"Dey fetched me here in de patrol-wagon," he said evasively.
+
+"I know that. I mean, for what?"
+
+"Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly an' drunk, but you know I
+don' drink nothin'."
+
+"I know you do, you fool," I said, with some exasperation. "I have no
+doubt you were what they say, but what I mean is, where is Dix and how
+did you get hold of him?"
+
+"Well, you see, Marse Hen, it's dthis way," said Jeams falteringly. "I
+come here huntin' fur you and I couldn' fin' you anywheres, so then I
+got a place, and while I wus lookin' 'roun' fur you one day, I come 'pon
+Dix, an' as he wus lost, jes' like you wus, an' he didn't know where you
+wus, an' you didn't know where he wus, I tuk him along to tek care of
+him till I could fin' you."
+
+"And incidentally to fight him?" I said.
+
+Again Jeams's countenance fell. "No, sir, that I didn't," he declared
+stoutly. "Does you think I'd fight dthat dog after what you tol' me?"
+
+"Yes, I do. I know you did, so stop lying about it and tell me where he
+is, or I will leave you in here to rot till they send you down to the
+rockpile or the penitentiary."
+
+"Yes, sir; yes, sir, I will. Fur God's sake, don' do dat, Marse Hen.
+Jes' git me out o' here an' I will tell you everything; but I'll swear I
+didn't fight him; he jes' got into a fight so, and then jist as he hed
+licked de stuffin out of dat Barkeep Gallagin's dog, them d----d
+policemen come in an' hammered me over the head because I didn't want
+them to rake in de skads and tek Dix 'way from me."
+
+I could not help laughing at his contradictions.
+
+"Well, where is he now?"
+
+"I'll swear, Marse Hen, I don' know. You ax the police. I jes' know he
+ain't in here, but dey knows where he is. I prays night and day no harm
+won't happen to him, because dat dog can beat any dog in this sinful
+town. I jes' wish you had seen him."
+
+As the turnkey was now showing signs of impatience, I cut Jeams short,
+thereby saving him the sin of more lies, and with a promise that I would
+get him bailed out if I could, I came away.
+
+The turnkey had assured me on the way that he would find and return me
+my dog, and was so sincere in his declaration that nothing would give
+him more pleasure than to do this for any friend of Mr. McSheen's, that
+I made the concession of allowing him to use his efforts in this
+direction. But I heard nothing more of him.
+
+With the aid of my friend, the detective, I soon learned the names of
+the police officers who had arrested Jeams, and was enabled to get from
+them the particulars of the trouble which caused his arrest.
+
+It seemed that, by one of the strange and fortuitous circumstances which
+so often occur in life, Jeams had come across Dix just outside of the
+building in which was my law office, and being then in his glory, he had
+taken the dog into the bar-room of Mick Raffity, where he had on arrival
+in town secured a place, to see what chance there might be of making a
+match with Dix. The match was duly arranged and came off the following
+night in a resort not far from Raffity's saloon, and Dix won the fight.
+Just at this moment, however, the police made a raid, pulled the place
+and arrested as many of the crowd as could not escape, and held on to as
+many of those as were without requisite influence to secure their prompt
+discharge. In the course of the operation, Jeams got soundly hammered,
+though I could not tell whether it was for being drunk or for engaging
+in a scrimmage with the police. Jeams declared privately that it was to
+prevent his taking down the money.
+
+When the trial came off, I had prepared myself fully, but I feel
+confident that nothing would have availed to secure Jeams's acquittal
+except for two circumstances: One was that I succeeded in enlisting the
+interest of Mr. McSheen, who for some reason of his own showed a
+disposition to be particularly civil and complacent toward me at that
+time--so civil indeed that I quite reproached myself for having
+conceived a dislike of him. Through his intervention, as I learned
+later, the most damaging witness against my client suddenly became
+exceedingly friendly to him and on the witness-stand failed to remember
+any circumstance of importance which could injure him, and finally
+declared his inability to identify him.
+
+The result was that Jeams was acquitted, and when he was so informed, he
+arose and made a speech to the Court and the Jury which would certainly
+fix him in their memory forever. In the course of it, he declared that I
+was the greatest lawyer that had ever lived in the world, and I had to
+stop him for fear, in his ebullient enthusiasm, he might add also that
+Dix was the greatest dog that ever lived.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE RESURRECTION OF DIX
+
+
+Still, I had not got Dix back, and I meant to find him if possible! It
+was several days before I could get on the trace of him, and when I
+undertook to get the dog I found an unexpected difficulty in the way. I
+was sent from one office to another until my patience was almost
+exhausted, and finally when I thought I had, at last, run him down, I
+was informed that the dog was dead. The gapped-tooth official, with a
+pewter badge on his breast as his only insignia of official rank, on my
+pressing the matter, gave me a circumstantial account of the manner in
+which the dog came to his death. He had attempted, he said, to get
+through the gate, and it had slammed to on him accidentally, and, being
+very heavy, had broken his neck.
+
+I had given Dix up for lost and was in a very low state of mind, in
+which Jeams sympathized with me deeply, though possibly for a different
+reason. He declared that we had "lost a dog as could win a ten-dollar
+bill any day he could get a man to put it up."
+
+"Cap'n, you jes' ought to 'a' seen the way he chawed up that bar-keep
+Gallagin's dog! I was jes' gittin' ready to rake in de pile when dem
+perlice jumped in an' hammered me. We done los' dat dog, Cap'n--you an'
+I got to go to work," he added with a rueful look.
+
+It did look so, indeed. A few days later, a letter from him announced
+that he had gotten a place and would call on me "before long." As he
+gave no address, I assumed that his "place" was in some bar-room, and I
+was much disturbed about him. One day, not long after, Dix dashed into
+my office and nearly ate me up in his joy. I really did not know until
+he came back how dear he was to me. It was as if he had risen from the
+dead. I took him up in my arms and hugged him as if I had been a boy. He
+wore a fine new collar with a monogram on it which I could not decipher.
+Next day, as I turned into the alley at the back of the building on
+which opened Mick Raffity's saloon, with a view to running up to my
+office by the back way, I found Dix in the clutches of a man who was
+holding on to him, notwithstanding his effort to escape. He was a short,
+stout fellow with a surly face. At my appearance Dix repeated the
+man[oe]uvres by which he had escaped from Jeams the day I left him
+behind me back East, and was soon at my side.
+
+I strode up to the man.
+
+"What are you doing with my dog?" I demanded angrily.
+
+"He's Mr. McSheen's dog."
+
+"He's nothing of the kind. He's my dog and I brought him here with me."
+
+"I guess I know whose dog he is," he said, insolently. "He got him from
+Dick Gallagin."
+
+Gallagin! That was the name of the man who had put up a dog to fight
+Dix. A light began to break on me.
+
+"I guess you don't know anything of the kind, unless you know he's mine.
+He never heard of Gallagin. I brought him here when I came and he was
+stolen from me not long ago and I've just got him back. Shut up, Dix!"
+for Dix was beginning to growl and was ready for war.
+
+The fellow mumbled something and satisfied me that he was laboring under
+a misapprehension, so I explained a little further, and he turned and
+went into Raffity's saloon. Next day, however, there was a knock at my
+door, and before I could call to the person to come in, McSheen himself
+stood in the door. The knock itself was loud and insolent, and McSheen
+was glowering and manifestly ready for trouble.
+
+"I hear you have a dog here that belongs to me," he began.
+
+"Well, you have heard wrong--I have not."
+
+"Well--to my daughter. It is the same thing."
+
+"No, I haven't--a dog that belongs to your daughter?"
+
+"Yes, a dog that belongs to my daughter. Where is he?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know. I wasn't aware that you had a daughter, and I
+have no dog of hers or any one else--except my own."
+
+"Oh! That don't go, young man--trot him out."
+
+At this moment, Dix walked out from under my desk where he had been
+lying, and standing beside me, gave a low, deep growl.
+
+"Why, that's the dog now."
+
+I was angry, but I was quiet, and I got up and walked over toward him.
+
+"Tell me what you are talking about," I said.
+
+"I'm talking about that dog. My daughter owns him and I've come for
+him."
+
+"Well, you can't get this dog," I said, "because he's mine."
+
+"Oh! he is, is he?"
+
+"Yes, I brought him here with me when I came. I've had him since he was
+a puppy."
+
+"Oh! you did!"
+
+"Yes, I did. Go back there, Dix, and lie down!" for Dix, with the hair
+up on his broad back and a wicked look in his eye, was growling his low,
+ominous bass that meant war. At the word, however, he went back to his
+corner and lay down, his eye watchful and uneasy. His prompt obedience
+seemed to stagger Mr. McSheen, for he condescended to make his first
+attempt at an explanation.
+
+"Well, a man brought him and sold him to my daughter two months ago."
+
+"I know--he stole him."
+
+"I don't know anything about that. She paid for him fair and
+square--$50.00, and she's fond of the dog, and I want him."
+
+"I'm sorry, for I can't part with him."
+
+"You'd sell him, I guess?"
+
+"No."
+
+"If I put up enough?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Say, see here." He put his hand in his pocket. "I helped you out about
+that nigger of yours, and I want the dog. I'll give you $50.00 for the
+dog--more than he's worth--and that makes one hundred he's cost."
+
+"He's not for sale--I won't sell him."
+
+"Well, I'll make it a hundred." A hundred dollars! The money seemed a
+fortune to me; but I could not sell Dix.
+
+"No. I tell you the dog is not for sale. I won't sell him."
+
+"What is your price, anyhow?" demanded McSheen. "I tell you I want the
+dog. I promised my daughter to get the dog back."
+
+"Mr. McSheen, I have told you the dog is not for sale--I will not sell
+him at any price."
+
+He suddenly flared up.
+
+"Oh! You won't! Well, I'll tell you that I'll have that dog and you'll
+sell him too."
+
+"I will not."
+
+"We'll see. You think you're a pretty big man, but I'll show you who's
+bigger in this town--you or Coll McSheen. I helped you once and you
+haven't sense enough to appreciate it. You look out for me, young man."
+He turned slowly with his scowling eye on me.
+
+"I will."
+
+"You'd better. When I lay my hand on you, you'll think an earthquake's
+hit you."
+
+"Well, get out of my office now," I said.
+
+"Oh! I'm going now, but wait."
+
+He walked out, and I was left with the knowledge that I had one powerful
+enemy.
+
+I was soon to know Mr. Collis McSheen better, as he was also to know me
+better.
+
+A few days after this I was walking along and about to enter my office
+when a man accosted me at the entrance and asked if I could tell him of
+a good lawyer.
+
+I told him I was one myself, though I had the grace to add that there
+were many more, and I named several of the leading firms in the city.
+
+"Well, I guess you'll do. I was looking for you. You are the one she
+sent me to," he said doubtfully, when I had told him my name. He was a
+weather-beaten little Scotchman, very poor and hard up; but there was
+something in his air that dignified him. He had a definite aim, and a
+definite wrong to be righted. The story he told me was a pitiful one. He
+had been in this country several years and had a place in a
+locomotive-shop somewhere East, and so long as he had had work, had
+saved money. But they "had been ordered out," he said, and after waiting
+around finding that the strike had failed, he had come on here and had
+gotten a place in a boiler-shop, but they "had been ordered out" again,
+"just as I got my wife and children on and was getting sort of fixed
+up," he added. Then he had resigned from the union and had got another
+place, but a man he had had trouble with back East was "one of the big
+men up here now," and he had had him turned out because he did not
+"belong to the union." He was willing to join the union now, but
+"Wringman had had him turned down." Then he had gotten a place as a
+driver. But he had been ill and had lost his place, and since then he
+had not been able to get work, "though the preacher had tried to help
+him." He did not seem to complain of this loss of his place.
+
+"The wagon had to run," he said, but he and his wife, too, had been ill,
+and the baby had died and the expenses of the burial had been
+"something." He appeared to take it as a sort of ultimate decree not to
+be complained of--only stated. He mentioned it simply by way of
+explanation, and spoke as if it were a mere matter of Fate. And, indeed,
+to the poor, sickness often has the finality of Fate. During their
+illness they had sold nearly all their furniture to live on and pay
+rent. Now he was in arrears; his wife was in bed, his children sick, and
+his landlord had levied on his furniture that remained for the rent. At
+the last gasp he had come to see a lawyer.
+
+"I know I owe the rent," he said, "but the beds won't pay it and the
+loan company's got all the rest."
+
+I advised him that the property levied on was not subject to levy; but
+suggested his going to his landlord and laying the case before him.
+
+"If he has any bowels of compassion whatever--" I began, but he
+interrupted me.
+
+"That's what the preacher said." But his landlord was "the Argand
+Estate," he added in a hopeless tone. He only knew the agent. He had
+been to him and so had the preacher; but he said he could do
+nothing--the rent must be paid--"the Argand Estate had to be kept up,
+or it couldn't do all the good it did"--so he was going to turn them out
+next day.
+
+He had been to one or two lawyers, he said; but they wouldn't take the
+case against the Argand Estate, and then the lady had sent him to me.
+
+"What lady?"
+
+"The lady who teaches the little school--Miss Leigh--she teaches my
+Janet."
+
+McNeil's name had at first made no impression on me, but the mention of
+Miss Leigh, "the Argand Estate," and of Wringman brought up an
+association. "McNeil--McNeil?" I said. "Did you have five children; and
+did your wife bring them on here some months ago--when the train was
+late, one day?"
+
+"Yes, sorr; that's the way it was."
+
+"Well, I will keep you in longer than to-morrow," I said. And I did. But
+Justice is too expensive a luxury for the poor. "Law is law," but it was
+made by landlords. I won his case for him and got his furniture
+released; I scored the Argand agent, an icy-faced gentleman, named
+Gillis, "of high character," as the Argand counsel, Mr. McSheen,
+indignantly declared, and incidentally "the Argand Estate," in terms
+which made me more reputation than I knew of at the time.
+
+The case was a reasonably simple one, for my client was entitled to a
+poor debtor's exemption of a few household articles of primary need, and
+he had not half of what he could have claimed under his exemption. It
+appeared, however, that in the lease, which was in the regular form
+used by the Argand Estate, all exemptions were waived, and also that it
+was the regular practice of the estate to enforce the waiver, and it was
+alleged at the trial that this practice had always been sustained. It
+was the fact that this was the customary lease and that a principle was
+involved which brought Mr. McSheen into the case, as he stated, for a
+client who was the largest landlord in the city. And it was the fact
+that Miss Leigh had recommended me and that McSheen was in the case that
+made me put forth all my powers on it.
+
+On the stand the Argand agent, Gillis, who, it appeared, had begun as an
+office-boy in the office of Mr. Argand and had then become his private
+secretary, from which he had risen to wealth and position, a fact I had
+learned from Kalender, was foolish enough to say that the case was
+gotten up by an unknown young lawyer out of spite against the Argand
+Estate and that it was simply an instance of "the eternal attacks on
+wealth"; that, in fact, there were "only two sides, the man with the
+dress-coat and the man without."
+
+"You began poor. When did you change your coat?" I asked.
+
+The laugh was raised on him and he got angry. After that I had the case.
+I was unknown, but Gillis was better known than I thought, and the
+hardship on my client was too plain. I led him on into a tangle of
+admissions, tied him up and cross-examined him till the perspiration ran
+off his icy forehead. I got the jury and won the case. But,
+notwithstanding my success, my client was ruined. He was put out of the
+house, of course, and though I had saved for him his beds, every article
+he possessed soon went for food. The laws established for the very
+protection of the poor destroy their credit and injure them. He could
+not give security for rent, and but for a fellow-workman named Simms
+taking him into his house, and the kindness of the man he had spoken of
+as "the preacher," his children would have had to go to the workhouse or
+a worse place.
+
+McNeil's case was the beginning of my practice, and in a little while I
+found myself counsel for many of the drivers in our section of the city.
+
+Among those whom this case brought me in touch with was a young lawyer,
+who, a little later, became the attorney for the government. My interest
+in him was quickened by the discovery that he was related to Mr. Leigh,
+a fact he mentioned somewhat irrelevantly. He was present during the
+trial and on its conclusion came up and congratulated me on my success
+against what he termed "the most powerful combination for evil in the
+city. They bid fair," he said, "to control not only the city, but the
+State, and are the more dangerous because they are entrenched behind the
+support of ignorant honesty. But you must look out for McSheen." As he
+stood near Coll McSheen, I caught the latter's eye fixed on us with that
+curious malevolent expression which cast a sort of mask over his face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I had not hunted up John Marvel after learning of his presence in the
+city, partly because I thought he would not be congenial and partly
+because, having left several affectionate letters from him unanswered
+during my prosperity, I was ashamed to seek him now in my tribulation.
+But Fate decided for me. We think of our absent friend and lo! a letter
+from him is handed to us before we have forgotten the circumstance. We
+fancy that a man in the street is an acquaintance; he comes nearer and
+we discover our mistake, only to meet the person we thought of, on the
+next corner. We cross seas and run into our next-door neighbor in a
+crowded thoroughfare. In fact, the instances of coincidence are so
+numerous and so strange that one can hardly repel the inference that
+there is some sort of law governing them.
+
+I indulged in this reflection when, a morning or two later, as I was
+recalling my carelessness in not looking up John Marvel and Wolffert,
+there was a tap on the door and a spare, well-built, dark-bearded man,
+neatly but plainly dressed, walked in. His hat shaded his face, and
+partly concealed his eyes; but as he smiled and spoke, I recognized him.
+
+"Wolffert! I was just thinking of you."
+
+He looked much older than I expected, and than, I thought, I myself
+looked; his face was lined and his hair had a few strands of silver at
+the temples; his eyes were deeper than ever, and he appeared rather
+worn. But he had developed surprisingly since we had parted at College.
+His manner was full of energy. In fact, as he talked he almost blazed at
+times. And I was conscious of a strange kind of power in him that
+attracted and carried me along with him, even to the dulling of my
+judgment. He had been away, he said, and had only just returned, and had
+heard of my success in "defeating the Argand Estate Combination"; and he
+had come to congratulate me. It was the first victory any one had ever
+been able to win against them.
+
+"But I did not defeat any combination," I said. "I only defeated Collis
+McSheen in his effort to take my client's bed and turn him and his
+children out in the street without a blanket."
+
+"There is the Combination, all the same," he asserted. "They have the
+Law and the Gospel both in the combine. They make and administer the one
+and then preach the other to bind on men's shoulders burdens, grievous
+to be borne, that they themselves do not touch with so much as a
+finger."
+
+"But I don't understand," I persisted; for I saw that he labored under
+much suppressed feeling, and I wondered what had embittered him. "Collis
+McSheen I know, for I have had some experience of him; and Gillis, the
+agent, was a cool proposition; but the Argand Estate? Why, McSheen
+strung out a list of charities that the Argand Estate supported that
+staggered me. I only could not understand why they support a man like
+McSheen."
+
+"The Argand Estate support charities! Yes, a score of them--all
+listed--and every dollar is blood, wrung from the hearts and souls of
+others--and there are many Argands."
+
+"How do you mean?" For he was showing a sudden passion which I did not
+understand. He swept on without heeding my question.
+
+"Why, their houses are the worst in the city; their tenements the
+poorest for the rent charged; their manufactories the greatest
+sweatshops; their corporate enterprises all at the cost of the
+working-class, and, to crown it all, they sustain and support the worst
+villains in this city, who live on the bodies and souls of the ignorant
+and the wretched."
+
+"Whom do you mean? I don't understand."
+
+"Why, do you suppose the Coll McSheens and Gillises and their kind could
+subsist unless the Argands and Capons of the Time supported them? They
+have grown so bold now that they threaten even their social
+superiors--they must rule alone! They destroy all who do not surrender
+at discretion."
+
+"Who? How?" I asked, as he paused, evidently following a train of
+reflection, while his eyes glowed.
+
+"Why, ah! even a man like--Mr. Leigh, who though the product of an
+erroneous system is, at least, a broad man and a just one."
+
+"Is he? I do not know him. Tell me about him." For I was suddenly
+interested.
+
+Then he told me of Mr. Leigh and his work in trying to secure better
+service for the public, better tenements--better conditions generally.
+
+"But they have defeated him," he said bitterly. "They turned him out of
+his directorship--or, at least, he got out--and are fighting him at
+every turn. They will destroy him, if possible. They almost have him
+beat now. Well, it is nothing to me," he added with a shrug of his
+shoulders and a sort of denial of the self-made suggestion. "He is but
+an individual victim of a rotten system that must go."
+
+My mind had drifted to the conference which I had witnessed in McSheen's
+office not long before, when suddenly Wolffert said,
+
+"Your old friend, Peck, appears to have gotten up. I judge he is very
+successful--after his kind."
+
+"Yes, it would seem so," I said dryly, with a sudden fleeting across my
+mind of a scene from the past, in which not Peck figured, but one who
+now bore his name; and a slightly acrid taste came in my mouth at the
+recollection. "Well, up or down, he is the same," I added.
+
+"He is a serpent," said Wolffert. "You remember how he tried to make us
+kill each other?"
+
+"Yes, and what a fool I made of myself."
+
+"No, no. He was at the bottom of it. He used to come and tell me all the
+things you said and--didn't say. He made a sore spot in my heart and
+kept it raw. He's still the same--reptile."
+
+"Have you seen him?" I asked. He leaned back and rested his eyes on me.
+
+"Yes, he took the trouble to hunt me up a day or two ago, and for some
+reason went over the whole thing again. What's McSheen to him?"
+
+"I shall break his neck some day, yet," I observed quietly.
+
+"You know I write," he said explanatorily. "He wanted me to write
+something about you."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What a deep-dyed scoundrel he is!"
+
+"Yes, he wanted to enlist me on the McSheen side, but--" his eyes
+twinkled. "Where do you go to church?" he suddenly asked me.
+
+I told him, and I thought he smiled possibly at what I feared was a
+little flush in my face.
+
+"To 'St. Mammon's!' Why don't you go to hear John Marvel? He is the real
+thing."
+
+"John Marvel? Where is he?"
+
+"Not far from where you say you live. He preaches out there--to the
+poor."
+
+"In a chapel?" I inquired.
+
+"Everywhere where he is," said Wolffert, quietly.
+
+"What sort of a preacher is he?"
+
+"The best on earth, not with words, but with deeds. His life is his best
+sermon."
+
+I told him frankly why I had not gone, though I was ashamed, for we had
+grown confidential in our talk. But Wolffert assured me that John Marvel
+would never think of anything but the happiness of meeting me again.
+
+"He is a friend whom God gives to a man once in his lifetime," he said,
+as he took his leave. "Cherish such an one. His love surpasseth the love
+of women."
+
+"Has he improved?" I asked.
+
+A little spark flashed in Wolffert's eyes. "He did not need to improve.
+He has only ripened. God endowed him with a heart big enough to embrace
+all humanity--except--" he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "the Jew."
+
+"I do not believe that."
+
+"By the way, I have a friend who tells me she has met you. Your dog
+appears to have made quite an impression on her."
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"Miss Leigh, the daughter of the gentleman we were talking about."
+
+"Oh! yes--a fine girl--I think," I said with a casual air--to conceal my
+real interest.
+
+"I should say so! She is the real thing," he exclaimed. "She told me you
+put out her fire for her. She teaches the waifs and strays."
+
+"Put out her fire! Was ever such ingratitude! I made her fire for her.
+Tell me what she said."
+
+But Wolffert was gone, with a smile on his face.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE PREACHER
+
+
+So, "the preacher" whom my client, McNeil, and my poor neighbors talked
+of was no other than John Marvel! I felt that he must have changed a
+good deal since I knew him. But decency, as well as curiosity, required
+that I go to see him. Accordingly, although I had of late gone to church
+only to see a certain worshipper, I one evening sauntered over toward
+the little rusty-looking chapel, where I understood he preached. To my
+surprise, the chapel was quite full, and to my far greater surprise, old
+John proved to be an inspiring preacher. Like Wolffert, he had
+developed. When he came to preach, though the sermon was mainly
+hortatory and what I should have expected of him, his earnestness and
+directness held his congregation, and I must say he was far more
+impressive than I should have imagined he could be. His sermon was as
+far from the cut-and-dried discourse I was used to hear, as life is from
+death.
+
+He spoke without notes and directly from his heart. His text, "Come unto
+me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden." He made it out to be a
+positive promise of rest for the weary in body, mind and soul, given by
+One not only able to help, but longing to do so: a pitying Father, who
+saw His tired children struggling under their burdens and yearned
+toward them. The great Physician was reaching out His hands to them,
+longing to heal them, if they but received Him; if they but followed
+Him. To be converted meant to turn from what they knew to be evil and
+try to live as they felt He lived. He had come to bring the gospel to
+the poor. He had been poor--as poor as they. He knew their sorrows and
+privations and weakness; and their sins, however black they were. All He
+asked was that they trust Him, and try to follow Him, forgetting self
+and helping others. Do not be afraid to trust Him, or despair if He does
+not make Himself known to you. He is with you even until the end--and
+often as much when you do not feel it as when you do.
+
+God appeared very real to him, and also to his hearers, who hung on his
+words as simple as they were. I felt a seriousness which I had long been
+a stranger to. He appeared to be talking to me, and I set it down to
+tenderness for old John Marvel himself, rather than to his subject.
+
+When the service was over, he came down the aisle speaking to the
+congregation, many of whom he appeared to know by name, and whose
+concerns he also knew intimately. And as the children crowded around him
+with smiles of friendliness, I thought of the village preacher with the
+children following, "with endearing wile."
+
+His words were always words of cheer.
+
+"Ah! Mrs. Tams! Your boy got his place, didn't he?
+
+"Mrs. Williams, your little girl is all right again?
+
+"Well, Mrs. McNeil" (to a rusty, thinly clad woman who sat with her back
+to me), "so your husband won his case, after all? His lawyer was an old
+friend of mine."
+
+I had sat far back, as the church was full when I entered, and was
+waiting for him to get through with his congregation before making
+myself known to him; so, though he was now quite close to me, he did not
+recognize me until I spoke to him. As I mentioned his name, he turned.
+
+"Why, Henry Glave!" Then he took me in his arms, bodily, and lifting me
+from the ground hugged me there before the entire remnant of his
+congregation who yet remained in the church. I never had a warmer
+greeting. I felt as if I were the prodigal son, and, although it was
+embarrassing, I was conscious that instant that he had lifted me out of
+my old life and taken me to his heart. It was as if he had set me down
+on a higher level in a better and purer atmosphere.
+
+I went home with him that night to his little room in a house even
+smaller and poorer than that in which I had my room--where he lived, as
+I found, because he knew the pittance he paid was a boon to the poor
+family who sublet the room. But as small and inconvenient as the room
+was, I felt that it was a haven for a tired and storm-tossed spirit, and
+the few books it contained gave it an air of being a home. Before I left
+it I was conscious that I was in a new phase of life. Something made me
+feel that John Marvel's room was not only a home but a sanctuary.
+
+We sat late that night and talked of many things, and though old John
+had not improved in quickness, I was surprised, when I came to think
+over our evening, how much he knew of people--poor people. It seemed to
+me that he lived nearer to them than possibly any one I had known. He
+had organized a sort of settlement among them, and his chief helpers
+were Wolffert and a Catholic priest, a dear devoted old fellow, Father
+Tapp, whom I afterward met, who always spoke of John Marvel as his
+"Heretick brother," and never without a smile in his eye. Here he helped
+the poor, the sick and the outcast; got places for those out of work,
+and encouraged those who were despairing. I discovered that he was
+really trying to put into practical execution the lessons he taught out
+of the Bible, and though I told him he would soon come to grief doing
+that, he said he thought the command was too plain to be disobeyed. Did
+I suppose that the Master would have commanded, "Love your enemies,"
+and, "Turn the other cheek," if He had not meant it? "Well," I said,
+"the Church goes for teaching that theoretically, I admit; but it does
+not do it in practice--I know of no body of men more ready to assert
+their rights, and which strikes back with more vehemence when assailed."
+
+"Ah! but that is the weakness of poor, fallible, weak man," he sighed.
+"'We know the good, but oft the ill pursue;' if we could but live up to
+our ideals, then, indeed, we might have Christ's kingdom to come.
+Suppose we could get all to obey the injunction, 'Sell all thou hast and
+give to the poor,' what a world we should have!"
+
+"It would be filled with paupers and dead beats," I declared, scouting
+the idea. "Enterprise would cease, a dead stagnation would result, and
+the industrious and thrifty would be the prey of the worthless and the
+idle."
+
+"Not if all men could attain the ideal."
+
+"No, but there is just the rub; they cannot--you leave out human nature.
+Selfishness is ingrained in man--it has been the mainspring which has
+driven the race to advance."
+
+He shook his head. "The grace of God is sufficient for all," he said.
+"The mother-love has some part in the advance made, and that is not
+selfish. Thank God! There are many rich noble men and women, who are not
+selfish and who do God's service on earth out of sheer loving kindness,
+spend their money and themselves in His work."
+
+"No doubt, but here in this city----?"
+
+"Yes, in this city--thousands of them. Why, where do we get the money
+from to run our place with?"
+
+"From the Argand Estate?" I hazarded.
+
+"Yes, even from the Argand Estate we get some. But men like Mr. Leigh
+are those who support us and women like--ah--But beyond all those who
+give money are those who give themselves. They bring the spiritual
+blessing of their presence, and teach the true lesson of divine
+sympathy. One such person is worth many who only give money."
+
+"Who, for instance?"
+
+"Why--ah--Miss Leigh--for example."
+
+I could scarcely believe my senses. Miss Leigh! "Do you know Miss Leigh?
+What Miss Leigh are you speaking of?" I hurriedly asked to cover my own
+confusion, for John had grown red and I knew instinctively that it was
+she--there could be but one.
+
+"Miss Eleanor Leigh--yes, I know her--she--ah--teaches in my
+Sunday-school." John's old trick of stammering had come back.
+
+Teaching in his Sunday-school! And I not know her! That instant John
+secured a new teacher. But he went on quickly, not divining the joy in
+my heart, or the pious resolve I was forming. "She is one of the good
+people who holds her wealth as a trust for the Master's poor--she comes
+over every Sunday afternoon all the way from her home and teaches a
+class."
+
+Next Sunday at three P. M. a hypocrite of my name sat on a bench in
+John's little church, pretending to teach nine little ruffians whose
+only concern was their shoes which they continually measured with each
+other, while out of the corner of my eye I watched a slender figure
+bending, with what I thought wonderful grace, over a pew full of little
+girls on the other side of the church intent on their curls or bangs.
+
+The lesson brought in that bald-headed and somewhat unfeeling prophet,
+who called forth from the wood the savage and voracious she-bears to
+devour the crowd of children who ran after him and made rude
+observations on his personal appearance, and before I was through, my
+sympathies had largely shifted from the unfortunate youngsters to the
+victim of their annoyance. Still I made up my mind to stick if John
+would let me, and the slim and flower-like teacher of the fidgety class
+across the aisle continued to attend.
+
+I dismissed my class rather abruptly, I fear, on observing that the
+little girls had suddenly risen and were following their teacher toward
+the door with almost as much eagerness as I felt to escort her. When I
+discovered that she was only going to unite them with another class, it
+was too late to recall my pupils, who at the first opportunity had made
+for the door, almost as swiftly as though the she-bears were after them.
+
+When the Sunday-school broke up, the young lady waited around, and I
+took pains to go up and speak to her, and received a very gracious smile
+and word of appreciation at my efforts with the "Botany Bay Class," as
+my boys were termed, which quite rewarded me for my work. Her eyes, with
+their pleasant light, lit up the whole place for me. Just then John
+Marvel came out--and it was the first time I ever regretted his
+appearance. The smile she gave him and the cordiality of her manner
+filled me with sudden and unreasoning jealousy. It was evident that she
+had waited to see him, and old John's face bore a look of such happiness
+that he almost looked handsome. As for her--as I came out I felt quite
+dazed. On the street whom should I meet but Wolffert--"simply passing
+by," but when I asked him to take a walk, he muttered something about
+having "to see John." He was well dressed and looked unusually handsome.
+Yet when John appeared, still talking earnestly with Miss Leigh, I
+instantly saw by his face and the direction of his eye that the John he
+wanted to see wore an adorable hat and a quiet, but dainty tailor-made
+suit and had a face as lovely as a rose.
+
+I was in such a humor that I flung off down the street, swearing that
+every man I knew was in love with her, and it was not until ten o'clock
+that night, when I went to John's--whither I was drawn by an
+irresistible desire to talk about her and find out how matters stood
+between them--and he told me that she had asked where I had gone, that I
+got over my temper.
+
+"Why, what made you run off so?" he inquired.
+
+"When?" I knew perfectly what he meant.
+
+"Immediately after we let out."
+
+"My dear fellow, I was through, and besides I thought you had pleasanter
+company." I said this with my eyes on his face to see him suddenly
+redden. But he answered with a naturalness which put me to shame.
+
+"Yes, Miss Leigh has been trying to get a place for a poor man--your
+client by the way--and then she was talking to me about a little
+entertainment for the children and their parents, too. She is always
+trying to do something for them. And she was sorry not to get a chance
+to speak further to you. She said you had helped her about her fire and
+she had never thanked you."
+
+It is surprising how quickly the sun can burst from the thickest clouds
+for a man in love. I suddenly wondered that Miss Leigh among her good
+works did not continually ask about me and send me messages. It made me
+so happy.
+
+"What became of Wolffert?" I inquired.
+
+"I think he walked home with her. He had something to talk with her
+about. They are great friends, you know. She helps Wolffert in his
+work."
+
+"Bang!" went the clouds together again like a clap of thunder. The idea
+of Wolffert being in love with her! I could tolerate the thought of John
+Marvel being so, but Wolffert was such a handsome fellow, so clever and
+attractive, and so full of enthusiasm. It would never do. Why, she might
+easily enough imagine herself in love with him. I suddenly wondered if
+Wolffert was not the cause of her interest in settlement work.
+
+"Wolffert is very fond of her--I found him hanging around the door as we
+came out," I hazarded.
+
+"Oh! yes, they are great friends. He is an inspiration to her, she
+says--and Wolffert thinks she is an angel--as she is. Why, if you knew
+the things she does and makes others do!"
+
+If John Marvel had known with what a red-hot iron he was searing my
+heart, he would have desisted; but good, blind soul, he was on his hobby
+and he went on at full speed, telling me what good deeds she had
+performed--how she had fetched him to the city; and how she had built up
+his church for him--had started and run his school for the waifs--coming
+over from her beautiful home in all weathers to make up the fire herself
+and have the place warm and comfortable for the little ones--how she
+looked after the sick--organized charities for them and spent her money
+in their behalf. "They call her the angel of the lost children," he
+said, "and well they may."
+
+"Who does?" I asked suspiciously, recalling the title. "Wolffert, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Why, all my people--I think Wolffert first christened her so and they
+have taken it up."
+
+"Confound Wolffert!" I thought. "Wolffert's in love with her," I said.
+
+"Wolffert--in love with her! Why!" I saw that I had suggested the idea
+for the first time--but it had found a lodgment in his mind. "Oh! no, he
+is not," he declared, but rather arguing than asserting it. "They are
+only great friends--they work together and have many things in
+common--Wolffert will never marry--he is wedded to his ideal."
+
+"And her name is Eleanor Leigh--only he is not wedded to her yet." And I
+added in my heart, "He will never be if I can beat him."
+
+"Yes--certainly, in a way--as she is mine," said John, still thinking.
+
+"And you are too!" I said.
+
+"I? In love with--?" He did not mention her name. It may have been that
+he felt it too sacred. But he gave a sort of gasp. "The glow-worm may
+worship the star, but it is at a long distance, and it knows that it can
+never reach it."
+
+I hope it may be forgiven to lovers not to have been frank with their
+rivals. His humility touched me. I wanted to tell John that I thought he
+might stand a chance, but I was not unselfish enough, as he would have
+been in my place. All I was brave enough to do was to say, "John, you
+are far above the glow-worm; you give far more light than you know, and
+the star knows and appreciates it."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+MRS. ARGAND
+
+
+I now began to plan how I was to meet my young lady on neutral and equal
+ground, for meet her I must. When I first met her I could have boldly
+introduced myself, for all my smutted face; now Love made me modest.
+When I met her, I scarcely dared to look into her eyes; I began to think
+of the letters of introduction I had, which I had thrown into my trunk.
+One of them was to Mrs. Argand, a lady whom I assumed to be the same
+lofty person I had seen mentioned in the papers as one of the leaders
+among the fashionable set, and also as one of the leaders in all public
+charitable work. It had, indeed, occurred to me to associate her
+vaguely, first with the private-car episode, and then with my poor
+client's landlord, the Argand Estate; but the "Argand Estate" appeared a
+wholly impersonal machine of steel; her reputation in the newspapers for
+charity disposed of this idea. Indeed, Wolffert had said that there were
+many Mrs. Argands in the city, and there were many Argands in the
+directory.
+
+I presented my letter and was invited to call on a certain day, some two
+weeks later. She lived in great style, in a ponderous mansion of unhewn
+stone piled up with prison-like massiveness, surrounded by extensive
+grounds, filled with carefully tended, formal flower-beds. A ponderous
+servant asked my name and, with eyes on vacancy, announced me loudly as
+"Mr. Glaze." The hostess was well surrounded by callers. I recognized
+her the instant I entered as the large lady of the private car. Both she
+and her jewels were the same. Also I knew instantly that she was the
+"Argand Estate," which I had scored so, and I was grateful to the
+servant for miscalling my name. Her sumptuous drawing-rooms were
+sprinkled with a handsomely dressed company who sailed in, smiled
+around, sat on the edge of chairs, chattered for some moments, grew
+pensive, uttered a few sentences, spread their wings, and sailed out
+with monotonous regularity and the solemn air of a duty performed. There
+was no conversation with the hostess--only, as I observed from my coign
+of vantage, an exchange of compliments and flattery.
+
+Most of the callers appeared either to be very intimate or not to know
+each other at all, and when they could not gain the ear of the hostess,
+they simply sat stiffly in their chairs and looked straight before them,
+or walked around and inspected the splendid bric-à-brac with something
+of an air of appraisement.
+
+I became so interested that, being unobserved myself, I stayed some time
+observing them. I also had a vague hope that possibly Miss Leigh might
+appear. It was owing to my long visit that I was finally honored with my
+hostess's attention. As she had taken no notice of me on my first
+entrance beyond a formal bow and an indifferent hand-shake, I had moved
+on and a moment later had gotten into conversation with a young
+girl--large, plump, and apparently, like myself, ready to talk to any
+one who came near, as she promptly opened a conversation with me, a step
+which, I may say, I was more than ready to take advantage of. I
+recognized her as the girl who had been talking to Count Pushkin the
+evening of the concert, and whom I had seen him leave for Miss Leigh. We
+were soon in the midst of a conversation in which I did the questioning
+and she did most of the talking and she threw considerable light on a
+number of the visitors, whom she divided into various classes
+characterized in a vernacular of her own. Some were "frumps," some were
+"stiffs," and some were "old soaks"--the latter appellation, as I
+gathered, not implying any special addiction to spirituous liquors on
+the part of those so characterized, but only indicating the young
+woman's gauge of their merits. Still, she was amusing enough for a time,
+and appeared to be always ready to "die laughing" over everything. Like
+myself, she seemed rather inclined to keep her eye on the door, where I
+was watching for the possible appearance of the one who had brought me
+there. I was recalled from a slight straying of my mind from some story
+she was telling, by her saying:
+
+"You're a lawyer, aren't you?"
+
+Feeling rather flattered at the suggestion, and thinking that I must
+have struck her as intellectual-looking, I admitted the fact and asked
+her why she thought so.
+
+"Oh! because they're the only people who have nothing to do and attend
+teas--young lawyers. I have seen you walking on the street when I was
+driving by."
+
+"Well, you know you looked busier than I; but you weren't really," I
+said. I was a little taken aback by her asking if I knew Count Pushkin.
+
+"Oh, yes," I said. "I know him."
+
+This manifestly made an impression.
+
+"What do you think of him?"
+
+"What do I think of him? When I know you a little better, I will tell
+you," I said. "Doesn't he attend teas?"
+
+"Oh! yes, but then he is--he is something--a nobleman, you know."
+
+"Do I?"
+
+"Yes. Didn't you hear how last spring he stopped a runaway and was
+knocked down and dragged ever so far? Why, his face was all bruises."
+
+I could not help laughing at the recollection of Pushkin.
+
+"I saw that."
+
+"Oh! did you? Do tell me about it. It was fine, wasn't it? Don't you
+think he's lovely?"
+
+"Get him to tell you about it." I was relieved at that moment at a
+chance to escape her. I saw my hostess talking to a middle-aged,
+overdressed, but handsome woman whose face somehow haunted me with a
+reminiscence which I could not quite place, and as I happened to look in
+a mirror I saw they were talking of me, so I bowed to my young lady and
+moved on. The visitor asked who I was, and I could see the hostess reply
+that she had not the slightest idea. She put up her lorgnon and
+scrutinized me attentively and then shook her head again. I walked over
+to where they sat.
+
+"We were just saying, Mr.--ah--ah--Laze, that one who undertakes to do a
+little for one's fellow-beings finds very little encouragement." She
+spoke almost plaintively, looking first at me and then at her friend,
+who had been taking an inventory of the west side of the room and had
+not the slightest idea of what she was talking.
+
+"I am overrun with beggars," she proceeded.
+
+Remembering her great reputation for charity, I thought this natural and
+suggested as much. She was pleased with my sympathy, and continued:
+
+"Why, they invade me even in the privacy of my home. Not long ago, a
+person called and, though I had given instructions to my butler to deny
+me to persons, unless he knew their business and I know them, this man,
+who was a preacher and should have known better, pushed himself in and
+actually got into my drawing-room when I was receiving some of my
+friends. As he saw me, of course I could not excuse myself, and do you
+know, he had the insolence, not only to dictate to me how I should spend
+my money, but actually how I should manage my affairs!"
+
+"Oh! dear, think of that!" sighed the other lady. "And you, of all
+people!"
+
+I admitted that this was extraordinary, and, manifestly encouraged, Mrs.
+Argand swept on.
+
+"Why, he actually wanted me to forego my rents and let a person stay in
+one of my houses who would not pay his rent!"
+
+"Incredible!"
+
+"The man had had the insolence to hold on and actually force me to bring
+suit."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+I began to wish I were back in my office. At this moment, however,
+succor came from an unexpected source.
+
+"You know we have bought a house very near you?" interjected the blonde
+girl who had joined our group and suddenly broke in on our hostess's
+monologue.
+
+"Ah! I should think you would feel rather lonely up here--and would miss
+all your old friends?" said Mrs. Argand sweetly, turning her eyes toward
+the door. The girl lifted her head and turned to the other lady.
+
+"Not at all. You know lots of people call at big houses, Mrs. Gillis,
+just because they are big," said she, with a spark in her pale-blue eye,
+and I felt she was able to take care of herself.
+
+But Mrs. Argand did not appear to hear. She was looking over the heads
+of the rest of us with her eye on the door, when suddenly, as her
+servant in an unintelligible voice announced some one, her face lit up.
+
+"Ah! My dear Count! How do you do? It was so good of you to come."
+
+I turned to look just as Pushkin brushed by me and, with a little rush
+between the ladies seated near me, bent over and seizing her hand,
+kissed it zealously, while he uttered his compliments. It manifestly
+made a deep impression on the company. I was sure he had seen me. The
+effect on the company was remarkable. The blonde girl moved around a
+little and stood in front of another lady who pressed slightly forward.
+
+"Count Pushkin!" muttered one lady to Mrs. Gillis, in an audible
+undertone.
+
+"Oh! I know him well." She was evidently trying to catch the count's eye
+to prove her intimate acquaintance; but Pushkin was too much engrossed
+with or by our hostess to see her--or else was too busy evading my eye.
+
+"Well, it's all up with me," I thought. "If I leave him here, my
+character's gone forever."
+
+"Such a beautiful custom," murmured Mrs. Gillis's friend. "I always like
+it."
+
+"Now, do sit down and have a cup of tea," said our hostess. "I will make
+you a fresh cup." She glanced at a chair across the room and then at me,
+and I almost thought she was going to ask me to bring the chair for the
+count! But she thought better of it.
+
+"Go and bring that chair and sit right here by me and let me know how
+you are."
+
+"Here, take this seat," said Mrs. Gillis, who was rising, but whose eyes
+were fast on Pushkin's face.
+
+"Oh! must you be going?" asked Mrs. Argand. "Well, good-by--so glad you
+could come."
+
+"Yes, I must go. How do you do, Count Pushkin?"
+
+"Oh! ah! How do you do?" said the count, turning with a start and a
+short bow.
+
+"I met you at the ball not long ago. Miss McSheen introduced me to you.
+Don't you remember?" She glanced at the young lady who stood waiting.
+
+"Ah! Yes--certainly! To be sure--Miss McSheen--ah! yes, I remember."
+
+Doubtless, he did; for at this juncture the young lady I had been
+talking to, stepped forward and claimed the attention of the count, who,
+I thought, looked a trifle bored.
+
+Feeling as if I were a mouse in a trap, I was about to try to escape
+when my intention was changed as suddenly as by a miracle, and, indeed,
+Eleanor Leigh's appearance at this moment seemed almost, if not quite,
+miraculous.
+
+She had been walking rapidly in the wind and her hair was a little blown
+about--not too much--for I hate frowsy hair--just enough to give
+precisely the right touch of "sweet neglect" and naturalness to a pretty
+and attractive girl. Her cheeks were glowing, her eyes sparkling, her
+face lighted with some resolution which made it at once audacious and
+earnest, and as she came tripping into the room she suddenly transformed
+it by giving it something of reality which it had hitherto lacked. She
+appeared like spring coming after winter. She hurried up to her aunt
+(who, I must say, looked pleased to see her and gave Pushkin an arch
+glance which I did not fail to detect), and then, after a dutiful and
+hasty kiss, she pulled up a chair and dashed into the middle of the
+subject which filled her mind. She was so eager about it that she did
+not pay the least attention to Pushkin, who, with his heels close
+together, and his back almost turned on the other girl, who was rattling
+on at his ear, was bowing and grinning like a Japanese toy; and she did
+not even see me, where I stood a little retired.
+
+"My dear, here is Count Pushkin trying to speak to you," said her aunt.
+"Come here, Miss McSheen, and tell me what you have been doing." She
+smiled at the blonde girl and indicated a vacated chair.
+
+But Miss McSheen saw the trap--she had no idea of relinquishing her
+prize, and Miss Leigh did not choose to try for a capture.
+
+"Howdydo, Count Pushkin," she said over her shoulder, giving the smiling
+and bowing Pushkin only half a nod and less than half a glance. "Oh!
+aunt," she proceeded, "I have such a favor to ask you. Oh, it's a most
+worthy object, I assure you--really worthy."
+
+"How much is it?" inquired the older lady casually.
+
+"I don't know yet. But wait--you must let me tell you about it, and you
+will see how good it is."
+
+"My dear, I haven't a cent to give to anything," said her aunt. "I am
+quite strapped."
+
+"I know, it's the family disease," said the girl lightly, and hurried
+on. "I am trying to do some work among the poor."
+
+"The poor!" exclaimed her aunt. "My dear, I am so tired of hearing about
+the poor, I don't know what to do. I am one of the poor myself. My agent
+was here this morning and tells me that any number of my tenants are
+behind on their rents and several of my best tenants have given notice
+that on the expiration of their present terms, they want a reduction of
+their rents."
+
+"I know," said the girl. "They are out of work. They are all ordered
+out, or soon will be, papa says, poor things! I have been to-day to see
+a poor family----"
+
+"Out of work! Of course they are out of work! They _won't_ work, that's
+why they are out--and now they are talking of a general strike! As if
+they hadn't had strikes enough. I shall cut down my charities; that's
+what I shall do."
+
+"Oh! aunt, don't do that!" exclaimed the girl. "They are so poor. If you
+could see a poor family I saw this morning. Why, they have
+nothing--nothing! They are literally starving."
+
+"Well, they have themselves to thank, if they are." She was now
+addressing the count, and two or three ladies seated near her on the
+edge of their chairs.
+
+"Very true!" sighed one of the latter.
+
+"I know," said the count. "I haf read it in th' papers to-day t'at t'ey
+vill what you call strike. T'ey should be--vhat you call, put down."
+
+"Of course they should. It almost makes one despair of mankind," chimed
+in Mrs. Gillis, who, though standing, could not tear herself away. As
+she stood buttoning at a glove, I suddenly recalled her standing at the
+foot of a flight of steps looking with cold eyes at a child's funeral.
+
+"Yes, their ingratitude! It does, indeed," said Mrs. Argand. "My
+agent--ah! your husband--says I shall have to make repairs that will
+take up every bit of the rents of any number of my houses--and two of my
+largest warehouses. I have to repair them, of course. And then if this
+strike really comes, why, he says it will cost our city lines alone--oh!
+I don't know how much money. But I hate to talk about money. It is so
+sordid!" She sat back in her chair.
+
+"Yes, indeed," assented the bejewelled lady she addressed. "I don't even
+like to think about it. I would like just to be able to draw my cheque
+for whatever I want and never hear the word _money_--like you, Mrs.
+Argand. But one can't do it," she sighed. "Why, my mail----"
+
+"Why don't you do as I do?" demanded Mrs. Argand, who had no idea of
+having the conversation taken away from her in her own house. "My
+secretary opens all those letters and destroys them. I consider it a
+great impertinence for any one whom I don't know to write to me, and, of
+course, I don't acknowledge those letters. My agent----"
+
+"My dear, we must go," said the lady nearest her to her companion. As
+the two ladies swept out they stopped near me to look at a picture, and
+one of them said to the other:
+
+"Did you ever hear a more arrogant display in all your life? Her
+secretary! Her interest--her duties! As if we didn't all have them!"
+
+"Yes, indeed. And her agent! That's my husband!"
+
+"But I do think she was right about that man's pushing in----"
+
+"Oh! yes, about that--she was, but she need not be parading her money
+before us. My husband made it for old Argand."
+
+"My husband says the Argand Estate is vilely run, that they have the
+worst tenements in the city and charge the highest rents."
+
+"Do you know that my husband is her--agent?"
+
+"Is he? Why, to be sure; but of course, she is responsible."
+
+"Yes, she's the cause of it."
+
+"And they pay more for their franchises than any one else. Why, my
+husband says that Coll McSheen, who is the lawyer of the Argand Estate,
+is the greatest briber in this city. I suppose he'll be buying a count
+next. I don't see how your husband stands him. He's so refined--such
+a----"
+
+"Well, they have to have business dealings together, you know."
+
+"Yes. They say he just owns the council, and now he's to be mayor."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Did you see that article in the paper about him and his methods,
+charging that he was untrue to every one in town, even the Canters and
+Argands who employed him?"
+
+"Oh, didn't I? I tell my husband he'd better be sure which side to take.
+One reason I came to-day was to see how she took it."
+
+"So did I," said her friend. "They say the first paper was written by a
+Jew. It was a scathing indictment. It charged him with making a breach
+between Mr. Leigh and Mrs. Argand, and now with trying to ruin Mr.
+Leigh."
+
+"And it was written by a Jew? Was it, indeed? I should like to meet him,
+shouldn't you? But, of course, we couldn't invite him to our homes. Do
+you know anybody who might invite him to lunch and ask us to meet him?
+It would be so interesting to hear him talk."
+
+So they passed out, and I went up to make my adieux to our hostess,
+secretly intending to remain longer if I could get a chance to talk to
+her niece, who was now presenting her petition to her, while the count,
+with his eye on her while he pretended to listen to Miss McSheen, stood
+by waiting like a cat at a mousehole.
+
+As I approached, Miss Leigh glanced up, and I flattered myself for weeks
+that it was not only surprise, but pleasure, that lighted up her face.
+
+"Why, how do you do?" she said, and I extended my hand, feeling as shy
+as I ever did in my life, but as though paradise were somewhere close at
+hand.
+
+"Where did you two know each other?" demanded her aunt, suspiciously,
+and I saw Pushkin's face darken, even while the blonde girl rattled on
+at his ear.
+
+"Why, this is the gentleman who had the poor children on the train that
+day last spring. They are the same children I have been telling you
+about."
+
+"Yes, but I did not know you had ever really met."
+
+"That was not the only time I have had the good fortune to meet Miss
+Leigh," I said. I wanted to add that I hoped to have yet better fortune
+hereafter; but I did not.
+
+Perhaps, it was to save me embarrassment that Miss Leigh said: "Mr.
+Glave and I teach in the same Sunday-school."
+
+"Yes, about the she-bears," I hazarded, thinking of one at the moment.
+
+Miss Leigh laughed. "I have been trying to help your little friends
+since; I am glad the she-bears did not devour them; I think they are in
+much more danger from the wolf at the door; in fact, it was about them
+that I came to see my aunt to-day."
+
+I cursed my folly for not having carried out my intention of going to
+look after them, and registered a vow to go often thereafter.
+
+"I was so glad you won their case for them," she said in an undertone,
+moving over toward me, as several new visitors entered. A warm thrill
+ran all through my veins. "But how did you manage to get here?" she
+asked with twinkling eyes. "Does she know, or has she forgiven you?"
+
+"She doesn't know--at least, I haven't told her."
+
+"Well, I should like to be by--that is, in a balcony--when she finds out
+who you are."
+
+"Do you think I was very--bold to come?"
+
+"Bold! Well, wait till she discovers who you are, Richard C[oe]ur de
+Leon."
+
+"Not I--you see that door? Well, you just watch me. I came for a
+particular reason that made me think it best to come--and a very good
+one," I added, and glanced at her and found her still smiling.
+
+"What was it?" She looked me full in the face.
+
+"I will tell you some time----"
+
+"No, now."
+
+"No, next Sunday afternoon, if you will let me walk home with you after
+you have explained the she-bears."
+
+She nodded "All right," and I rose up into the blue sky. I almost
+thought I had wings.
+
+"My aunt is really a kind woman--I can do almost anything with her."
+
+"Do you think that proves it?" I said. I wanted to say that I was that
+sort of a kind person myself, but I did not dare.
+
+"My father says she has a foible--she thinks she is a wonderful business
+woman, because she can run up a column of figures correctly, and that
+she makes a great to-do over small things, and lets the big ones go. She
+would not take his advice; so he gave up trying to advise her and she
+relies on two men who flatter and deceive her."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't see how she can keep those two men, McSheen and Gillis, as her
+counsel and agent. But I suppose she found them there and does not like
+to change. My father says----"
+
+Just then Mrs. Argand, after a long scrutiny of us through her lorgnon,
+said rather sharply:
+
+"Eleanor!"
+
+Miss Leigh turned hastily and plunged into a sentence.
+
+"Aunt, you do not know how much good the little chapel you helped out in
+the East Side does. Mr. Mar--the preacher there gets places for poor
+people that are out of employment, and----"
+
+"I suppose he does, but save me from these preachers! Why, one of them
+came here the other day and would not be refused. He actually forced
+himself into my house. He had a poor family or something, he said, and
+he wanted me to undertake to support them. And when I came to find out,
+they were some of my own tenants who had positively refused to pay any
+rent, and had held on for months to one of my houses without paying me a
+penny." She had evidently forgotten that she had just said this a moment
+before. "I happened to remember," she added, "because my agent told me
+the man's name, O'Neil."
+
+"McNeil!" exclaimed Miss Leigh. "Why, that is the name of my poor
+family!" She cut her eye over toward me with a quizzical sparkle in it.
+
+"What! Well, you need not come to me about that man. My counsel said he
+was one of the worst characters he knew; a regular anarchist--one of
+these Irish--you know! And when I afterward tried to collect my rents,
+he got some upstart creature of a lawyer to try and defeat me, and
+actually did defraud me of my debt."
+
+This was a centre shot for me, and I wondered what she would think if
+she ever found out who the upstart was. The perspiration began to start
+on my forehead. It was clear that I must get away. She was, however, in
+such a full sweep that I could not get in a word to say good-by.
+
+"But I soon gave Mr. Marble, or whatever his name was, a very different
+idea of the way he should behave when he came to see a lady. I let him
+know that I preferred to manage my affairs and select my own objects of
+charity, without being dictated to by any one, and that I did not
+propose to help anarchists. And I soon gave Mr. McNeil to understand
+whom he had to deal with. I ordered him turned out at once--instantly."
+She was now addressing me.
+
+She was so well satisfied with her position that I must have looked
+astonished, and I had not at first a word to say. This she took for
+acquiescence.
+
+"That was, perhaps, the greatest piece of insolence I ever knew!" she
+continued. "Don't you think so?"
+
+"Well, no, I do not," I said bluntly.
+
+For a moment or so her face was a perfect blank, then it was filled with
+amazement. Her whole person changed. Her head went up--her eyes flashed,
+her color deepened.
+
+"Oh!" she said. "Perhaps, we look at the matter from different
+standpoints?" rearing back more stiffly than ever.
+
+"Unquestionably, madam. I happen to know John Marvel, the gentleman who
+called on you, very well, and I know him to be one of the best men in
+the world. I know that he supported that poor family out of his own
+small income, and when they were turned out of their house, fed them
+until he could get the father some work to do. He was not an
+anarchist, but a hard-working Scotchman, who had been ill and had lost
+his place."
+
+"Oh!" she said--this time with renewed superciliousness, raising her
+lorgnon to observe some newcomers.
+
+"Perhaps, you happen also to know McNeil's counsel--perhaps, you are the
+man yourself?" she added insolently.
+
+[Illustration: "Perhaps you are the man yourself?" she added
+insolently.]
+
+I bowed low. "I am."
+
+The truth swept over her like a flood. Before she recovered, I bowed my
+adieux, of which, so far as I could see, she took no notice. She turned
+to Pushkin, as Miss Leigh, from behind a high-backed chair, held out her
+hand to me. "Well, poor McNeil's done for now," she said in an
+undertone. But as the latter smiled in my eyes, I did not care what her
+aunt said.
+
+"Ah! my dear Count, here is the tea at last," I heard our hostess say,
+and then she added solicitously, "I have not seen you for so long. Why
+have you denied yourself to your friends? You have quite gotten over
+your accident of the spring? I read about it in the papers at the time.
+Such a noble thing to have stopped those horses. You must tell me about
+it. How did it happen?"
+
+I could not help turning to give Pushkin one look, and he hesitated and
+stammered. I came out filled with a new sense of what was meant by the
+curses against the Pharisees. As I was walking along I ran into
+Wolffert.
+
+"Ah! You are the very man," he exclaimed. "It is Providence! I was just
+thinking of you, and you ran into my arms. It is Fate."
+
+It did seem so. Mrs. Argand and her "dear count" had sickened me. Here,
+at least, was sincerity. But I wondered if he knew that Miss Leigh was
+within there.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+WOLFFERT'S MISSION
+
+
+Wolffert naturally was somewhat surprised to see me come sallying forth
+from Mrs. Argand's; for he knew what I had not known when I called
+there, that she was the real owner of "The Argand Estate."
+
+I gave him an account of my interview with the lady.
+
+"I was wondering," he said, laughing, "what you were doing in there
+after having beaten her in that suit. I thought you had taken your nerve
+with you. I was afraid you had fallen a victim to her blandishments."
+
+"To whose?"
+
+"Mrs. Argand's. She is the true Circe of the time, and her enchantment
+is one that only the strong can resist. She reaches men through their
+bellies."
+
+"Oh!" I was thinking of quite another person, who alone could beguile
+me, and I was glad that he was not looking at me.
+
+He was, however, too full of another subject to notice me, and as we
+walked along, I told him of the old lady's views about John Marvel. He
+suddenly launched out against her with a passion which I was scarcely
+prepared for, as much as I knew he loved John Marvel. Turning, he
+pointed fiercely back at the great prison-like mansion.
+
+"Do you see that big house?" His long finger shook slightly--an index of
+his feeling.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Every stone in it is laid in mortar cemented with the tears of widows
+and orphans, and the blood of countless victims of greed and
+oppression."
+
+"Oh! nonsense! I have no brief for that old woman. I think she is an
+ignorant, arrogant, purse-proud, ill-bred old creature, spoiled by her
+wealth and the adulation that it has brought her from a society of
+sycophants and parasites; but I do not believe that at heart she is
+bad." She had had a good advocate defend her to me and I was quoting
+her. Wolffert was unappeased.
+
+"That is it. She sets up to be the paragon of Generosity, the patron of
+Charity, the example of Kindness for all to follow. She never gave a
+cent in her life--but only a portion--a small portion of the money wrung
+from the hearts of others. Her fortune was laid in corruption. Her old
+husband--I knew him!--he robbed every one, even his partners. He
+defrauded his benefactor, Colonel Tipps, who made him, and robbed his
+heirs of their inheritance."
+
+"How?" For I was much interested now.
+
+"By buying up their counsel, and inducing him to sell them out and
+making him his counsel. And now that old woman keeps him as her counsel
+and adviser, though he is the worst man in this city, guilty of every
+crime on the statute-books, sacred and profane."
+
+"But she does not know that?"
+
+"Not know it? Why doesn't she know it? Because she shuts her doors to
+the men who do know it, and her ears to the cries of his victims.
+Doesn't every one who cares to look into the crimes in this city know
+that Coll McSheen is the protector of Vice, and that he could not exist
+a day if the so-called good people got up and determined to abolish
+him--that he is the owner of the vilest houses in this city--the vilest
+because they are not so openly vile as some others? Isn't she trying to
+sell her niece to an adventurer for a title, or a reprobate for his
+money?"
+
+"Is she?" My blood suddenly began to boil, and I began to get a new
+insight into Wolffert's hostility.
+
+We had turned toward John Marvel's. He appeared a sort of landmark to
+which to turn as we were dealing with serious subjects, and Wolffert was
+on his way there when I encountered him. As we walked along, he
+disclosed a system of vice so widespread, so horrible and so repulsive
+that I hesitate to set it down. He declared that it extended over not
+only all the great cities of the country, but over all the great cities
+of all countries.
+
+I related the story the poor girl I had met that night on the street had
+told me, but I frankly asserted that I did not believe that it could be
+as general as he claimed.
+
+"'Smooth Ally,' was it?" said Wolffert, who knew of her. "She is the
+smoothest and worst of them all, and she is protected by McSheen, who in
+turn is protected by clients like The Argand Estate. What became of
+her?" he demanded.
+
+"Why, I don't know. I turned her over to the Salvationists--and--and
+I--rather left her to them."
+
+I was beginning to feel somewhat meek under his scornful expression.
+
+"That is always the way," he said. "We look after them for an hour and
+then drop them back into perdition."
+
+"But I placed her in good hands. That is their business."
+
+"Their business! Why is it not your business, too? How can you shift the
+responsibility? It is every one's business. Listen!" He had been
+recently to southern Russia, where, he said, the system of scoundrelism
+he described had one of its prolific sources, and he gave figures of the
+numbers of victims--girls of his own race--gathered up throughout the
+provinces and shipped from Odessa and other ports, to other countries,
+including America, to startle one.
+
+"Time was when not a Jewess was to be found on the streets; but now!" He
+threw out his hand with a gesture of rage, and went on. He averred that
+many steamship officials combined to connive at the traffic, and that
+the criminals were shielded by powerful friends who were paid for their
+protection.
+
+"Why, there are in this city to-night," he declared, "literally
+thousands of women who have, without any fault of theirs, but ignorance,
+vanity, and credulity, been drawn into and condemned to a life of vice
+and misery such as the mind staggers to believe."
+
+"At least, if they are, they are in the main willing victims," I
+argued. "There may be a few instances like the girl I saw, but for the
+most part they have done it of their own volition."
+
+Wolffert turned on me with fire flaming in his deep eyes. "Of their own
+volition! What is their volition? In fact, most of them are not
+voluntary accomplices. But if they were--it is simple ignorance on their
+part, and is that any reason for their undergoing the tortures of the
+damned in this world, not to mention what your Church teaches of the
+next world? Who brought them there--the man who deceived and betrayed
+them? Who acted on their weakness and drew them in?--their
+seducers?--the wretches who lure them to their destruction?--Not at all!
+Jail-birds and scoundrels as they are, deserving the gallows if any one
+does, which I do not think any one does--but you do--the ultimate
+miscreant is not even the Coll McSheens who protect it; but Society
+which permits it to go on unchecked when, by the least serious and
+sensible effort, it could prevent it."
+
+"How?" I demanded.
+
+"How! By determining to prevent it and then organizing to do so. By
+simply being honest. Has it not broken up the institution of
+slavery--highway robbery, organized murder--except by itself and its
+members? Of course, it could prevent it if it set itself to do it. But
+it is so steeped in selfishness and hypocrisy that it has no mind to
+anything that interferes with its pleasures."
+
+We had now reached John Marvel's, where we found John, just back from a
+visit to a poor girl who was ill, and his account only added fuel to
+Wolffert's flaming wrath. He was pacing up and down the floor, as small
+as it was, his face working, his eyes flashing, and suddenly he let a
+light in on his ultimate motive. He launched out in a tirade against
+existing social conditions that exceeded anything I had ever heard. He
+declared that within hearing of the most opulent and extravagant class
+the world had ever known were the cries and groans of the most wretched;
+that the former shut their ears and their eyes to it, and, contenting
+themselves with tossing a few pennies to a starving multitude, went on
+wallowing like swine in their own voluptuousness. "Look at the most
+talked of young man in this city to-day, the _bon parti_, the coveted of
+aspiring mothers. He lives a life to make a beast blush. He is a seducer
+of women, a denizen of brothels; a gambler in the life-blood of women
+and children, a fatted swine, yet he is the courted and petted of those
+who call themselves the best people! Faugh! it makes me sick."
+
+This was to some extent satisfactory to me, for I detested Canter; but I
+wondered if Wolffert did not have the same reason for disliking him that
+I had.
+
+"There was never so selfish and hypocritical a society on earth," he
+exclaimed, "as this which now exists. In times past, under the feudal
+system, there was apparently some reason for the existence of the
+so-called upper classes--the first castle built made necessary all the
+others--the chief, at least, protected the subjects from the rapine of
+others, and he was always ready to imperil his life; but now--this! When
+they all claim to know, and do know much, they sit quiet in their own
+smug content like fatted swine, and let rapine, debauchery, and murder
+go on as it never has gone on in the last three hundred years."
+
+"What are you talking about?" I demanded, impressed by his vehemence,
+but mystified by his furious indictment. He cooled down for a moment,
+and wiped his hand across his eyes.
+
+"I am fresh from the scene of as brutal a butchery," he said, "as has
+taken place within a thousand years. Israel is undergoing to-day the
+most extensive and complete persecution that has existed since the close
+of the crusades. No wonder the young women fall victims to the
+scoundrels who offer them an asylum in a new land and lure them to their
+destruction with gifts of gold and words of peace. And this is what
+Society does--the virtue-boasting Society of the twentieth century! They
+speak of anarchy!--What they mean is a condition which disturbs the
+repose of the rich and powerful. There is anarchy now--the anarchy that
+consists of want of equal government for rich and poor alike. Look at
+John Marvel, here, preaching a gospel of universal love and acting it,
+too."
+
+"Wolffert," said Marvel, softly, "don't. Leave me out--you know I do
+not--you are simply blinded by your affection for me----"
+
+But Wolffert swept on. "Yes, he does--if any man ever does--he lives for
+others--and what does he get? Shunted off by a fat, sleek, self-seeking
+priest, who speaks smooth things to a people who will have nothing
+else."
+
+"Wolffert, you must not," protested John; "I cannot allow you."
+
+But Wolffert was in full tide. With a gesture he put John's protest by.
+"--To preach and teach the poor how to be patient--how to suffer in
+silence----"
+
+"Now, Leo," said John, taking him by the shoulders, "I must stop
+you--you are just tired, excited--overworked. If they suffer patiently
+they are so much the better off--their lot will be all the happier in
+the next world."
+
+Wolffert sat down on the bed with a smile. "What are you going to do
+with such a man?" he said to me, with a despairing shrug. "And you know
+the curious thing is he believes it."
+
+I went to my own room, feeling still like the prodigal, and that I had
+somehow gotten back home. But I had a deeper and more novel feeling. A
+new light had come to me, faintly, but still a light. What had I ever
+done except for myself? Here were two men equally as poor as I, living
+the life of self-denial--one actually by choice, the other as willingly
+and uncomplainingly as though it were by choice, and both not only
+content, but happy. Why should not I enter the brotherhood? Here was
+something far higher and nobler than anything I had ever contemplated
+taking part in. What was it that withheld me? Was it, I questioned
+myself, that I, with no association whatever in the town except the
+poor, yet belonged to the class that Wolffert crusaded against? Was
+there something fundamentally wrong with society? I could not enter
+freely into Wolffert's rhapsody of hate for the oppressors, nor yet into
+John Marvel's quiet, deep, and unreasoning love of Mankind. Yet I began
+to see dimly things I had never had a glimmer of before.
+
+The association with my old friends made life a wholly different thing
+for me, and I made through them many new friends. They were very poor
+and did not count for much in the world; but they were real people, and
+their life, simple and insignificant as it was, was real and without
+sham. I found, indeed, that one got much nearer to the poor than to the
+better class--their life was more natural; small things matter so much
+more to them. In fact, the smallest thing may be a great thing to a poor
+man. Also I found a kindness and generosity quite out of proportion to
+that of the well-to-do. However poor and destitute a man or a family
+might be there was always some one poorer and more destitute, and they
+gave with a generosity that was liberality, indeed. For they gave of
+their penury what was their living. Whatever the organized charities may
+do, and they do much, the poor support the poor and they rely on each
+other to an extent unknown among their more fortunate fellow-citizens.
+As the Egyptian always stops to lift another's load, so here I found men
+always turning in to lend their aid.
+
+Thus, gradually in the association of my friends who were working among
+the poor and helping to carry their burdens, I began to find a new
+field and to reap in it a content to which I had long been a stranger.
+Also life began to take on for me a wholly new significance; as a field
+of work in which a man might escape from the slavery of a selfish
+convention which cramped the soul, into a larger life where service to
+mankind was the same with service to God, a life where forms were of
+small import and where the Christian and the Jew worked shoulder to
+shoulder and walked hand in hand. How much of my new feeling was due to
+Miss Eleanor Leigh, I did not take the trouble to consider.
+
+"Father," said Eleanor, that evening, "I have a poor man whom I want a
+place for, and I must have it."
+
+Mr. Leigh smiled. "You generally do have. Is this one poorer than those
+others you have saddled on me?"
+
+"Now don't be a tease. Levity is not becoming in a man of your dignity.
+This man is very poor, indeed, and he has a houseful of children--and
+his wife----"
+
+"I know," said Mr. Leigh, throwing up his hand with a gesture of appeal.
+"I surrender. They all have. What can this one do? Butts says every
+foreman in the shops is complaining that we are filling up with a lot of
+men who don't want to do anything and couldn't do it if they did."
+
+"Oh! This man is a fine workman. He is an expert machinist--has worked
+for years in boiler shops--has driven----"
+
+"Why is he out of a job if he is such a universal paragon? Does he
+drink? Remember, we can't take in men who drink--a bucket of beer cost
+us twelve thousand dollars last year, not to mention the loss of two
+lives."
+
+"He is as sober as a judge," declared his daughter, solemnly.
+
+"What is it then?--Loafer?"
+
+"He lost his place where he lived before by a strike."
+
+"A striker, is he! Well, please excuse me. I have a plenty of that sort
+now without going outside to drag them in."
+
+"No--no--no--" exclaimed Eleanor. "My! How you do talk! You won't give
+me a chance to say a word!"
+
+"I like that," laughed her father. "Here I have been listening patiently
+to a catalogue of the virtues of a man I never heard of and simply
+asking questions, and as soon as I put in a pertinent one, away you go."
+
+"Well, listen. You have heard of him. I'll tell you who he is. You
+remember my telling you of the poor family that was on the train last
+year when I came back in Aunt Sophia's car and we delayed the train?"
+
+"I remember something about it. I never was sure as to the facts in the
+case. I only know that that paper contained a most infamous and lying
+attack on me----"
+
+"I know it--it was simply infamous--but this poor man had nothing to do
+with it. That was his family, and they came on to join him because he
+had gotten a place. But the Union turned him out because he didn't
+belong to it, and then he wanted to join the Union, but the
+walking-delegate or something would not let him, and now he has been
+out of work so long that they are simply starving."
+
+"You want some money, I suppose?" Mr. Leigh put his hand in his pocket.
+
+"No. I have helped him, but he isn't a beggar--he wants work. He's the
+real thing, Dad, and I feel rather responsible, because Aunt Sophia
+turned them out of the house they had rented and--though that young
+lawyer I told you of won his case for him and saved his furniture--the
+little bit he had--he has lost it all through the loan-sharks who eat up
+the poor. I tried to get Aunt Sophia to make her man, Gillis, let up on
+him, but she wouldn't interfere."
+
+"That's strange, for she is not an unkind woman--she is only hard set in
+certain ways which she calls her principles."
+
+"Yes, it was rather unfortunate. You see, Mr. Glave was there and Aunt
+Sophia!--you should have seen her."
+
+She proceeded to give an account of Mrs. Argand's discovery of my
+identity, and to take us both off.
+
+"They didn't pay the rent, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. But it was not his fault--just their misfortune. His wife's
+illness and being out of work and all--it just piled up on top of him. A
+man named Ring--something--a walking-delegate whom he used to know back
+in the East, got down on him, and followed him up, and when he was about
+to get in the Union, he turned him down. And, Dad, you've just got to
+give him a place."
+
+"Wringman, possibly," said Mr. Leigh. "There's a man of that name in
+the city who seems to be something of a leader. He's a henchman of Coll
+McSheen and does his dirty work for him. He has been trying to make
+trouble for us for some time. Send your man around to Butts to-morrow,
+and I'll see what we can do for him."
+
+Eleanor ran and flung her arms around her father's neck. "Oh! Dad! If
+you only knew what a load you have lifted from my shoulders. I believe
+Heaven will bless you for this."
+
+"I know Butts will," said Mr. Leigh, kissing her. "How's our friend, the
+Marvel, coming on?"
+
+"Dad, he's a saint!"
+
+"So I have heard before," said Mr. Leigh. "And that other one--how is
+he?"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Is there any other but the Jew? I have not heard of another reforming
+saint."
+
+"No, he is a sinner," said Eleanor, laughing; and she went on to give an
+account of my episode with Pushkin, which she had learned from John
+Marvel, who, I may say, had done me more than justice in his relation of
+the matter.
+
+"So the count thought a team had run over him, did he?"
+
+"Yes, that's what Mr. Marvel said."
+
+She related a brief conversation which had taken place between her and
+Pushkin and Mrs. Argand, after I left, in which Pushkin had undertaken
+to express his opinion of me, and she had given him to understand that
+she knew the true facts in the matter of our collision. All of which I
+learned much later.
+
+"Well, I must say," said Mr. Leigh, "your new friend appears to have
+'his nerve with him,' as you say."
+
+"Dad, I never use slang," said Miss Eleanor, severely. "I am glad you
+have promised to give poor McNeil a place, for, if you had not, I should
+have had to take him into the house."
+
+Mr. Leigh laughed.
+
+"I am glad, too, if that is the case. The last one you took in was a
+reformed drunkard, you said, and you know what happened to him and also
+to my wine."
+
+"Yes, but this one is all right."
+
+"Of course he is."
+
+There was joy next day in one poor little household, for McNeil, who had
+been dragging along through the streets for days with a weight, the
+heaviest the poor have to bear, bowing him down--want of work--came into
+his little bare room where his wife and children huddled over an almost
+empty stove, with a new step and a fresh note in his voice. He had
+gotten a place and it meant life to him and to those he loved.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+FATE LEADS
+
+
+One evening I called at Mrs. Kale's to see my two old ladies of the
+bundles and also Mrs. Kale, for whom I had conceived a high regard on
+account of her kindness to the former as well as to myself, and in the
+course of my visit Miss Pansy gave me, for not the first time, an
+account of the way in which they had been reduced from what they thought
+affluence to what she very truly called "straitened circumstances." I
+confess that I was rather bored by her relation, which was given with
+much circumlocution until she mentioned casually that Miss Leigh had
+tried to interest her father in their case, but he had said it was too
+late to do anything. The mention of her name instantly made me alert. If
+she was interested, I was interested also. I began to ask questions, and
+soon had their whole story as well as she could give it.
+
+"Why, it may or may not be too late," I said. "It is certainly very long
+ago, and the chances of being able to do anything now are very remote;
+but if there was a fraud, and it could be proved, it would not be too
+late--or, at least, might not be."
+
+"Oh! Do you think that you could recover anything for us? Mr. McSheen
+said nothing could be gotten out of it, and we paid him--a great deal,"
+she sighed, "--everything we had in the world, almost."
+
+"I do not say that, but if there was a fraud, and it could be proved, it
+might not be too late."
+
+The name of McSheen had given me a suspicion that all might not be
+straight. Nothing could be if he was connected with it. I recalled what
+Wolffert had told me of McSheen's selling out. Moreover, her story had
+unconsciously been a moving one. They had evidently been hardly used
+and, I believed, defrauded. So, when she pressed me, and promised if she
+were ever able to do so she "would reward me generously," as if, poor
+soul, she could ever reward any one save with her prayers, I undertook
+to look into the matter for them, and I began next day.
+
+I will not go into the steps I took to reach my ends, nor the
+difficulties I encountered, which grew as I progressed in my
+investigation until they appeared almost insurmountable; but finally I
+struck a lead which at last led me to a conviction that if I could but
+secure the evidence I could establish such a case of fraud for my two
+old clients as would give promise of a fair chance to recover for them,
+at least, a part of their patrimony. The difficulty, or one of them--for
+they were innumerable--was that to establish their case it was necessary
+to prove that several men who had stood high in the public esteem, had
+been guilty of such disregard of the rights of those to whom they stood
+in the relation of trustees that it would be held a fraud. I was
+satisfied that had McSheen taken proper steps to secure his clients'
+rights, he might have succeeded and further, that he had been bought
+off, but the difficulty was to prove it.
+
+However, I determined to make the effort to get the proof and my zeal
+was suddenly quickened.
+
+I had now begun to watch for my young lady wherever I went, and it was
+astonishing how my quickened senses enabled me to find her in the most
+crowded thoroughfare, or in strange and out-of-the-way places. It was
+almost as if there were some secret power which drew us together. And
+when I was blessed to meet her the day was always one of sunshine for
+me, however heavy lowered the dim clouds.
+
+The next afternoon our meeting was so unexpected that I could not but
+set it down to the ruling of a higher power. I had gone out to see how
+my McNeil clients were coming on, having doubtless some latent hope that
+I might find her there; but she had not been there for several days.
+They had heard of her, however, for she had got the husband and father a
+place and that made sunshine in the wretched little hovel, as bare as it
+was. I was touched by their gratitude, and after taking note of the
+wretched poverty of the family, and promising that I would try to get
+the mother some sort of work, I strolled on. I had not gone far when I
+suddenly came on her face to face. The smile that came into her eyes
+must have brought my soul into my face.
+
+Love is the true miracle-worker. It can change the most prosaic region
+into a scene of romance. At sight of Eleanor Leigh's slim figure the
+dull street suddenly became an enchanted land.
+
+"Well, we appear fated to meet," she said with a smile and intonation
+that my heart feasted on for days. She little knew how assiduously I had
+played Fate during these past weeks, haunting the streets near her home
+or those places which she blessed with her presence. This meeting,
+however, was purely accidental, unless it be true, as I sometimes almost
+incline to think, that some occult power which we cannot understand
+rules all our actions and guides our footsteps toward those we love
+supremely. John Marvel always called it Providence.
+
+"Well, may I not see you home?" I asked, and without waiting for her
+consent, I took it for granted and turned back with her, though she
+protested against taking me out of my way. I had indeed some difficulty
+in not saying then and there, "My way is where you are."
+
+She had been to see one of her scholars who was sick, "the little
+cripple, whom you know," she said. I suddenly began to think cripples
+the most interesting of mortals. She gave me, as we strolled along, an
+account of her first acquaintance with her and her mother; and of how
+John Marvel had found out their condition and helped them. Then she had
+tried to help them a little, and had gotten the mother to let her have
+the little girl at her school.
+
+"Now they are doing a little better," she said, "but you never saw such
+wretchedness. The woman had given up everything in the world to try to
+save her husband, and such a wretched hole as they lived in you
+couldn't imagine. They did not have a single article of furniture in
+their room when I--when Mr. Marvel first found them. It had all gone to
+the Loan Company--they were starving."
+
+John Marvel had a nose like a pointer for all who were desolate and
+oppressed. How he discovered them, except, as Eleanor Leigh said, by
+some sort of a sixth sense like that of the homing pigeon, surpasses my
+comprehension. It is enough that he found and furrowed them out. Thus,
+he had learned that a little girl, a child of a noted criminal, had been
+ill-treated by the children at a public school and that her mother and
+herself were almost starving, and had hastened at once to find her. Like
+a hunted animal she had gone and hidden herself in what was scarcely
+better than a den. Here John Marvel found her, in a wretched cellar, the
+mother ill on a pallet of straw, and both starving, without food or
+fire. The door was barred, as was her heart, and it was long before any
+answer came to the oft-repeated knock. But at last his patience was
+rewarded. The door opened a bare inch, and a fierce black eye in a
+haggard white face peered at him through the chink.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"To help you."
+
+The door opened slowly and John Marvel entered an abode which he said to
+me afterward he was glad for the first time in his life to be so
+near-sighted as not to be able to see. A pallet of rags lay in a corner,
+and on a box crouched, rather than sat, a little girl with a broken
+crutch by her side, her eyes fastened on the newcomer with a gaze of
+half bewilderment. It was some time before John Marvel could get
+anything out of the woman, but he held a key which at last unlocks every
+heart,--a divine and penetrating sympathy. And presently the woman told
+him her story. Her husband was a fugitive from justice. She did not say
+so, but only that he had had to leave the city because the police were
+after him. His friends had turned against him and against her. She did
+not know where her husband was, but believed he had left the country,
+unless, indeed, he were dead. She was waiting to hear from him, and
+meantime everything which she had had gone, and now, though she did not
+say so, they were starving. To relieve them was as instinctive with John
+Marvel as to breathe. The next step was to help them permanently. It was
+hard to do, because the woman was at bay and was as suspicious as a
+she-wolf, and the child was as secretive as a young cub. John turned to
+one, however, who he believed, and with good reason, knew how to do
+things which were lost to his dull comprehension.
+
+The following day into that den walked Eleanor Leigh, and it was to
+visit this woman and her child that she was going the morning I met her
+coming down the steps, when she dropped her violets on the sidewalk. It
+was a hard task which John Marvel had set her, for as some women may
+yield to women rather than to men, so there are some who are harder to
+reach by the former than by the latter, and the lot of Red Talman's wife
+had separated her from her sex and turned her into a state where she
+felt that all women were against her. But Eleanor Leigh was equal to the
+task; having gained admission through the open sesame of John Marvel's
+name she first applied herself to win the child. Seating herself on the
+box she began to play with the little girl and to show her the toys she
+had brought,--toys which the child had never seen before. It was not
+long before the little thing was in her lap and then the woman had been
+won. When Eleanor Leigh came away everything had been arranged, and the
+following night Red Talman's wife and child moved to another quarter of
+the town, to a clean little room not far from the small school on the
+way to which I first met the little waif.
+
+"But you don't go into such places by yourself?" I said to her when she
+had told me their story. "Why, it might cost you your life."
+
+"Oh, no! No one is going to trouble me. I am not afraid."
+
+"Well, it is not safe," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't do it." It was
+the first time I had ever ventured to assume such an attitude toward
+her. "I don't care how brave you are, it is not safe."
+
+"Oh! I am not brave at all. In fact, I am an awful coward. I am afraid
+of mice and all such ferocious beasts--and as to a spider--why, little
+Miss Muffet was a heroine to me."
+
+"I know," I nodded, watching the play of expression in her eyes with
+secret delight.
+
+"But I am not afraid of people. They are about the only things I am not
+afraid of. They appear to me so pitiful in their efforts. Why should
+one fear them? Besides, I don't think about myself when I am doing
+anything--only about what I am doing."
+
+"What is the name of your little protégée's father--the criminal?" I
+asked.
+
+"Talman--they call him 'Red Talman.' He's quite noted, I believe."
+
+"'Red Talman!' Why, he is one of the most noted criminals in the
+country. I remember reading of his escape some time ago. He was in for a
+long term. It was said no prison could hold him."
+
+"Yes, he has escaped," she said demurely.
+
+I once more began to protest against her going about such places by
+herself as she had described, but she only laughed at me for my
+earnestness. She had also been to see the Miss Tippses, she said, and
+she gave an amusing and, at the same time, a pathetic account of Miss
+Pansy's brave attempt to cover up their poverty.
+
+"It is hard to do anything for them. One can help the Talmans; but it is
+almost impossible to help the decayed gentlefolk. One has to be so
+careful not to appear to know her pathetic little deceits, and I find
+myself bowing and accepting all her little devices and transparent
+deceptions of how comfortable they are, when I know that maybe she may
+be faint with hunger at that very time."
+
+I wondered if she knew their story. But she suddenly said:
+
+"Tell me about their case. I do trust you can win it."
+
+I was only too ready to tell her anything. So, as we walked along I told
+her all I knew or nearly all.
+
+"Oh! you must win it! To think that such robbery can be committed! There
+must be some redress! Who were the wretches who robbed them? They ought
+to be shown up if they were in their graves! I hate to know things and
+not know the person who committed them." As she turned to me with
+flashing eyes, I felt a great desire to tell her but how could I do so?
+
+"Tell me. Do you know them?"
+
+"Yes--some of them."
+
+"Well, tell me their names."
+
+"Why do you wish to know?" I hesitated.
+
+"Because I do. Isn't that sufficient?"
+
+I wanted to say yes, but still I hesitated.
+
+"Was it anybody--I know?"
+
+"Why----"
+
+"I must know." Her eyes were on my face and I yielded.
+
+"Mr. Argand was one of the Directors--in fact, was the president of the
+road--but I have no direct proof--yet."
+
+"Do you mean my aunt's husband?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+She turned her face away.
+
+"I ought not to have told you," I added.
+
+"Oh! yes, you ought. I would have wanted to know if it had been my
+father. I have the dearest father in the world. You do not know how good
+and kind he is, and how generous to every one. He has almost ruined
+himself working for others."
+
+I said I had no doubt he was all she said; but my heart sank as I
+recalled my part in the paper I had written about him. I knew I must
+tell her some time, but I hesitated to do it now. I began to talk about
+myself, a subject I am rather fond of, but on this occasion I had
+possibly more excuse than usual.
+
+"My mother also died when I was a child," she said, sighing, as I
+related the loss of mine and said that I was just beginning to realize
+what it was. It appeared to draw us nearer together. I was conscious of
+her sympathy, and under its influence I went on and told her the
+wretched story of my life, my folly and my failure, and my final resolve
+to begin anew and be something worth while. I did not spare myself and I
+made no concealments. I felt her sympathy and it was as sweet to me as
+ever was grace to a famished soul. I had been so long alone that it
+seemed to unlock Heaven.
+
+"I believe you will succeed," she said, turning and looking me in the
+face.
+
+A sudden fire sprang into my brain and throbbed in my heart. "If you
+will say that to me and mean it, I will."
+
+"I do believe it. Of course, I mean it." She stopped and looked me again
+full in the face, and her eyes seemed to me to hold the depths of
+Heaven: deep, calm, confiding, and untroubled as a child's. They stirred
+me deeply. Why should I not declare myself! She was, since her father's
+embarrassment, of which I had read, no longer beyond my reach. Did I
+not hold the future in fee? Why might not I win her?
+
+For some time we drifted along, talking about nothing of moment,
+skirting the shore of the charmed unknown, deep within which lay the
+mystery of that which we both possibly meant, however indefinitely, to
+explore. Then we struck a little further in; and began to exchange
+experiences--first our early impressions of John Marvel and Wolffert. It
+was then that she told me of her coming to know John Marvel in the
+country that night during the epidemic. She did not tell of her part in
+the relief of the sick; but it was unnecessary. John Marvel had already
+told me that. It was John himself, with his wonderful unselfishness and
+gift of self-abnegation, of whom she spoke, and Wolffert with his ideal
+ever kept in sight.
+
+"What turned you to philanthropy?" I asked with a shade of irony in my
+voice more marked than I had intended. If she was conscious of it she
+took no notice of it beyond saying,
+
+"If you mean the poor, pitiful little bit of work I do trying to help
+Mr. Marvel and Mr. Wolffert among the poor--John Marvel did, and Mr.
+Wolffert made the duty clear. They are the complement of each other, Jew
+and Gentile, and if all men were like them there would be no divisions."
+
+I expressed my wonder that she should have kept on, and not merely
+contented herself with giving money or helping for that one occasion.
+Sudden converts generally relapse.
+
+"Oh! it was not any conversion. It gave life a new interest for me. I
+was bored to death by the life I had been leading since I came out. It
+was one continuous round of lunches, dinners, parties, dances, soirées,
+till I felt as if I were a wooden steed in a merry-go-round, wound up
+and wearing out. You see I had, in a way, always been 'out.' I used to
+go about with my father, and sit at the table and hear him and his
+friends--men friends--for I did not come to the table when ladies were
+there, till I was fifteen--talk about all sorts of things, and though I
+often did not understand them, I used to ask him and he would explain
+them, and then I read up and worked to try to amuse him, so that when I
+really came out, I found the set in which I was thrown rather young. It
+was as if I had fallen through an opened door into a nursery. I was very
+priggish, I have no doubt, but I was bored. Jim Canter and Milly McSheen
+were amusing enough for a while, but really they were rather young. I
+was fond of driving and dancing, but I did not want to talk about it all
+the time, and then as I got older----"
+
+"How old?" I demanded, amused at her idea of age.
+
+"Why, eighteen. How old do you think I should have been?"
+
+"Oh! I don't know; you spoke as if you were as old as Anna in the
+temple. Pray go on."
+
+"Well, that's all. I just could not stand it. Aunt Sophie was bent on my
+marrying--somebody whom I could not bear--and oh! it was an awful bore.
+I looked around and saw the society women I was supposed to copy, and
+I'd rather have been dead than like that--eating, clothes, and
+bridge--that made up the round, with men as the final end and reward. I
+think I had hardly taken it in, till my eyes were opened once by a man's
+answer to a question as to who had been in the boxes at a great concert
+which he had attended and enjoyed: 'Oh! I don't know--the usual
+sort--women who go to be seen with other women's husbands. The musical
+people were in the gallery listening.' Next time I went my eyes had been
+opened and I listened and enjoyed the music. So, when I discovered there
+were real men in the world doing things, and really something that women
+could do, too, I found that life had a new interest, that is all."
+
+"You know," she said, after a pause in which she was reflecting and I
+was watching the play of expression in her face and dwelling in
+delicious reverie on the contour of her soft cheek, "You know, if I ever
+amount to anything in this world, it will be due to that man." This
+might have meant either.
+
+I thought I knew of a better artificer than even John Marvel or Leo
+Wolffert, to whom was due all the light that was shed from her life, but
+I did not wish to question anything she said of old John. I was
+beginning to feel at peace with all the world.
+
+We were dawdling along now and I remember we stopped for a moment in
+front of a place somewhat more striking looking and better lighted than
+those about it, something between a pawnbroker's shop and a loan-office.
+The sign over the door was of a Guaranty Loan Company, and added the
+word "Home" to Guaranty. It caught my eye and hers at the same moment.
+The name was that of the robber-company in which my poor client, McNeil,
+in his futile effort to pay his rent, had secured a small loan by a
+chattel-mortgage on his pitiful little furniture at something like three
+hundred per cent. The entire block belonged, as I had learned at the
+time, to the Argand Estate, and I had made it one of the points in my
+arraignment of that eleemosynary institution that the estate harbored
+such vampires as the two men who conducted this scoundrelly business in
+the very teeth of the law. On the windows were painted legends
+suggesting that within all money needed by any one might be gotten, one
+might have supposed, for nothing. I said, "With such a sign as that we
+might imagine that the poor need never want for money."
+
+She suddenly flamed: "I know them. They are the greatest robbers on
+earth. They grind the face of the Poor until one wonders that the earth
+does not open and swallow them up quick. They are the thieves who ought
+to be in jail instead of such criminals as even that poor wretch,
+Talman, as great a criminal as he is. Why, they robbed his poor wife of
+every stick of furniture she had on earth, under guise of a loan, and
+turned her out in the snow with her crippled child. She was afraid to
+apply to any one for redress, and they knew it. And if it had not been
+for John Marvel, they would have starved or have frozen to death."
+
+"For John Marvel and you," I interjected.
+
+"No--only him. What I did was nothing--less than nothing. He found them,
+with that wonderful sixth sense of his. It is his heart. And he gets no
+credit for anything--even from you. Oh! sometimes I cannot bear it. I
+would like to go to him once and just tell him what I truly think of
+him."
+
+"Why don't you, then?"
+
+"Because--I cannot. But if I were you, I would. He would not--want me to
+do it! But some day I am going to Dr. Capon and tell him--tell him the
+truth."
+
+She turned, facing me, and stood with clenched hands, uplifted face, and
+flashing eyes--breasting the wind which, at the moment, blew her skirts
+behind her, and as she poured forth her challenge, she appeared to me
+almost like some animate statue of victory.
+
+"Do you know--I think Mr. Marvel and Mr. Wolffert are almost the most
+Christian men I ever saw; and their life is the strongest argument in
+favor of Christianity, I ever knew."
+
+"Why, Wolffert is a Jew--he is not a Christian at all."
+
+"He is--I only wish I were half as good a one," she said. "I do not care
+what he calls himself, he is. Why, think of him beside Doctor--beside
+some of those who set up to be burning and shining lights!"
+
+"Well, I will agree to that." In fact, I agreed with everything she had
+said, though I confess to a pang of jealousy at such unstinted praise,
+as just as I thought it. And I began in my selfishness to wish I were
+more like either of her two models. As we stood in the waning light--for
+we were almost standing, we moved so slowly--my resolution took form.
+
+It was not a propitious place for what I suddenly resolved to do. It was
+certainly not a romantic spot. For it was in the centre, the very heart,
+of a mean shopping district, a region of small shops and poor houses,
+and the autumn wind had risen with an edge on it and laden with dust,
+which made the thinly clad poor quicken their steps as they passed along
+and try to shrink closer within their threadbare raiment. The lights
+which were beginning to appear only added to the appearance of squalor
+about us. But like the soft Gallius I cared for none of these things. I
+saw only the girl beside me, whose awakened soul seemed to me even more
+beautiful than her beautiful frame. And so far as I was concerned, we
+might have been in Paradise or in a desert.
+
+I recall the scene as if it were yesterday, the very softness in her
+face, the delicacy of her contour; the movement of her soft hair on her
+blue-veined white temple and her round neck as a gentle breath of air
+stirred it; the dreamy depths of her eyes as the smile faded in them and
+she relapsed into a reverie. An impulse seized me and I cast prudence,
+wisdom, reason, all to the winds and gave the rein to my heart.
+
+"Come here." I took her arm and drew her a few steps beyond to where
+there was a vacant house. "Sit down here a moment." I spread my
+handkerchief on the dusty steps, and she sat down, smiling after her
+little outbreak.
+
+Leaning over her, I took hold of her hand and lifted it to my breast,
+clasping it very tight.
+
+"Look at me--" She had already looked in vague wonder, her eyes wide
+open, beginning the question which her lips were parting to frame.
+"Don't say that to me--that about your belief in me--unless you mean it
+all--all. I love you and I mean to succeed for you--with you. I mean to
+marry you--some day."
+
+The look in her eyes changed, but for a second they did not leave my
+face. My eyes were holding them.
+
+"Oh!--What?" she gasped, while her hand went up to her throat.
+
+Then she firmly, but as I afterward recalled, slowly withdrew her hand
+from my grasp, which made no attempt to detain it.
+
+"Are you crazy?" she gasped. And I truly believe she thought I was.
+
+"Yes--no--I don't know. If I am, my insanity begins and ends only in
+you. I know only one thing--that I love you and that some day--some day,
+I am going to marry you, though the whole world and yourself oppose me."
+
+She stood up.
+
+"But, oh! why did you say that?"
+
+"Because it is true."
+
+"We were such good friends."
+
+"We never were--I never was--for a moment."
+
+"You were."
+
+"Never."
+
+"We were just beginning to understand each other, to be such good
+friends, and now you have ended it all."
+
+"That cannot be ended which never had a beginning. I don't want your
+friendship; I want your love and I will have it."
+
+"No, I cannot. Oh! why did you? I must be going."
+
+"Why? Sit down."
+
+"No, I cannot. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+She hesitated, and then without looking, held out her hand. "Good-by."
+
+I took her hand and this time kissed it, as I remember, almost fiercely.
+She tried to stop me, but I held it firmly.
+
+"You must not do that; you have no right." She was standing very
+straight now.
+
+"I took the right."
+
+"Promise me you will never say that again."
+
+"What?"
+
+"What you said at first."
+
+"I don't know what you mean. I have been saying the same thing all the
+time--ever since I knew you--ever since I was born--that I love you."
+
+"You must never say that again--promise me before I go."
+
+"I promise you," I said slowly, "that I will say it as long as I live."
+
+She appeared to let herself drift for a half second, then she gave a
+little catch at herself.
+
+"No, really, you must not--I cannot allow you. I have no right to let
+you. I must go, and if you are a friend of mine, you will never----"
+
+"Listen to me," I interrupted firmly. "I have not asked you for
+anything; I have not asked your permission; I am not a friend of yours
+and I shall never be that. I don't want to be your friend. I love you,
+and I am going to win your love. Now you can go. Come on."
+
+We walked on and I saw her safely home. We talked about everything and I
+told her much of myself. But she was plainly thinking not about what I
+was saying then, but what I had said on the dusty steps. When we reached
+her home, I saved her embarrassment. I held out my hand and said,
+"Good-by, I love you."
+
+No woman can quite let a man go, at least, no woman with a woman's
+coquetry can. After I had turned away, what must Eleanor Leigh do but
+say demurely, "I hope you will win your case." I turned back, of course.
+"I will," I said, "in both courts." Then I strode away. I went home
+feeling somewhat as a man might who, after shipwreck, had reached an
+unknown shore. I was in a new land and knew not where I stood or how; or
+whether the issue would be life or death. I only knew that I had passed
+a crisis in my life and whatever came I must meet it. I was strangely
+happy, yet I had had no word of encouragement.
+
+To have declared one's love has this in it, that henceforth the one you
+love can never be wholly indifferent to you. I went home feeling that I
+had acquired a new relation to Eleanor Leigh and that somehow I had a
+right to her whether she consented or not. My love for her, as ardent as
+it had been before, had suddenly deepened. It had, in a way, also become
+purer. I went over and over and dwelt on every word she had ever uttered
+to me, every gentle look I had ever seen her give, every tender
+expression that had illumined her face or softened her eyes, and I found
+myself thinking of her character as I had never done before. I planned
+how I should meet her next and tried to fancy how she would look and
+what she would say. I wondered vaguely what she would think of me when
+she reached her room and thought over what I had said. But I soon left
+this realm of vague conjecture for the clearly defined elysium of my own
+love. Had I known what I learned only a long time afterward--how she
+acted and what she thought of on reaching home, I might have been
+somewhat consoled though still mystified.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+COLL McSHEEN'S METHODS
+
+
+It is astonishing what a motive power love is. With Eleanor Leigh in my
+heart, I went to work on my Tipps case with fury.
+
+When I applied at the offices of the P. D. & B. D. and asked to be shown
+the books of the old company which had been reorganized and absorbed, I
+was met first by the polite assurance that there never was such a road
+as I mentioned, then that it had been wound up long ago and reorganized.
+Next, as I appeared somewhat firm, I was informed that the books had
+been burned up in a great fire, spoken of as Caleb Balderstone used to
+speak of the Ravenswood fire, as "the fire." This would have been an
+irremediable loss, but for the fact that I knew that there had been no
+fire since the reorganization of the company. I stated this fact with
+more positiveness than was usually employed in those offices and
+announced that unless those books were produced without further delay or
+misrepresentation, I would file a bill at once which would open the eyes
+of a number of persons. This procured for me an interview with an
+official of the vice-presidential rank--my first real advance. This
+proved to be my old acquaintance, Mr. Gillis, the agent of the Argand
+Estate. When I entered he wore an expression of sweet content as of a
+cat about to swallow a mouse. It was evident that he meant to have his
+revenge on me now. After stating my object in calling, with so much
+circumstantiality that there could be no mistake about it, I was
+informed by Mr. Gillis, briefly but firmly, that those books were not
+accessible, that they were "private property and not open to the
+public."
+
+Stillman Gillis was a wiry, clear-eyed, firm-mouthed, middle-sized man
+of about middle age as older men regard it. He had a pleasant address,
+perfect self-assurance, and a certain cool impudence in his manner which
+I have often observed in the high officials of large corporations. He
+had, I knew, been the private secretary and confidential man of Mr.
+David Argand.
+
+"I am aware that the books are private property," I said, "but it
+happens that I am myself one of the owners--I represent two very
+considerable owners of the stock of the old company."
+
+He shook his head pleasantly. "That makes no difference."
+
+I could not help thinking of the turnkey at the jail. It was insolence,
+but only of a different sort.
+
+"You mean to say that it makes no difference whether or not I am a
+stockholder when I demand to see the books of the company in which I
+hold my interest?"
+
+"Not the slightest," he admitted.
+
+"I suppose you have consulted counsel as to this?"
+
+"Oh! yes; but it was not necessary."
+
+"Well! you have the books?"
+
+"Oh! yes."
+
+"Because some of your people told me that they had been burnt up in a
+fire."
+
+"Did they tell you that?" he smilingly asked. "They did that to save you
+trouble."
+
+"Considerate in them."
+
+"Of course, we have the books--in our vaults."
+
+"Buried?" I hazarded.
+
+He nodded. "Beyond the hope of resurrection." He took up his pen to show
+that the interview was ended; and I took up my hat.
+
+"Do you mind telling me who your counsel is that you consulted in these
+matters? I might prevail on him to change his mind."
+
+"Oh! no. Mr. Collis McSheen is our counsel--one of them."
+
+"Has he specifically given you this advice?"
+
+"He has." He turned to his stenographer. "Take this letter."
+
+"So--o." I reflected a moment and then tilted back my chair.
+
+"Mr. Gillis--one moment more of your valuable time, and I will relieve
+you."
+
+"Well?" He turned back to me with a sudden spark in his gray eye.
+"Really, I have no more time to give you."
+
+"Just a moment. You are mistaken in thinking you are giving me time. I
+have been giving you time. The next time we meet, you will be a witness
+in court under subp[oe]na and I will examine you."
+
+"Examine me? As to what, pray?" His face had grown suddenly dark and
+his insolence had turned to anger.
+
+"As to what you know of the fraud that was perpetrated on the heirs of a
+certain Colonel Tipps who built and once largely owned the road I have
+spoken of."
+
+"Fraud, sir! What do you mean?"
+
+"As to what you know--if anything--of the arrangement by which a certain
+Collis McSheen sold out his clients, the said heirs of the said Colonel
+Tipps, to a certain Mr. Argand, whose private secretary you then were;
+and whose retained counsel he then became."
+
+"What!"
+
+His affected coolness was all gone. His countenance was black with a
+storm of passion, where wonder, astonishment, rage, all played their
+part, and I thought I saw a trace of dismay as well.
+
+"What do you mean, sir! What do I know of the--the fraud--the
+arrangements, if there ever were any such arrangements as those you
+speak of?"
+
+I was the insolent one now. I bowed.
+
+"That is what I am going to ask you to tell in court. You have the
+books, and you will bring them with you when you come, under a
+_subp[oe]na duces tecum_. Good-day." I walked out.
+
+As I approached my office, I saw Collis McSheen bolting out of the door
+and down the street, his face as black as a thunder-cloud. He was in
+such a hurry that he did not see me, though he nearly ran over me. He
+had evidently been summoned by telephone.
+
+I was working on my bill a few days later when to my surprise Peck
+walked into my office. I knew instantly that there was mischief afoot.
+He looked unusually smug. He had just arrived that morning, he said. Mr.
+Poole had some important interests in a railway property which required
+looking after, and he had come on to see about them. There was not much
+to do, as the road was being capitally managed; but they thought best to
+have some one on the ground to keep an eye on the property, and
+remembering our old friendship, he had suggested that I be retained to
+represent Mr. Poole, if anything should at any time arise, and Mr. Poole
+had, of course, acted on his advice. Mr. Poole had in fact, always been
+such a friend of mine, etc. The trouble with Peck was that he always
+played a trump even when it was not necessary.
+
+I expressed my sense of obligation to both him and Mr. Poole, but in my
+heart could not help recalling the chances Mr. Poole had thrown away to
+help me in the past.
+
+"What sort of interests are they?" I inquired.
+
+"Railway interests. He has both stocks and bonds--second mortgage bonds.
+But they are as good as gold--pay dividends straight along. The railway
+has never failed to increase its net earnings every year for ten years,
+and is a very important link in a transcontinental line."
+
+"What railway did you say it was?" I inquired, for I had observed that
+he had not mentioned the line.
+
+"Oh! ah! the P. D. & B. D."
+
+"Oh! Well, the fact is, Peck, I don't know that I could represent Mr.
+Poole in any litigation connected with that road."
+
+"Oh! it is not litigation, my dear fellow. You'd as well talk about
+litigation over the Bank of England. It is to represent him as a sort of
+regular----"
+
+"I know," I cut him short, "but I think there will be some litigation.
+The fact is, I have a claim against that road."
+
+"A claim against the P. D. & B. D.! For damages, I suppose?"
+
+"No. To upset the reorganization that took place----"
+
+Peck burst out laughing. "To upset the reorganization of that road which
+took place ten--twenty--How many years ago was it? You'd better try to
+upset the government of the United States."
+
+"Oh! No----"
+
+"Come now. Don't be Quixotic. I've come here to give you a good case
+that may be the beginning of a great practice for you. Why you may
+become general counsel."
+
+"I thought Mr. McSheen was general counsel? You said so, I remember,
+when you were here before."
+
+"Why, ah! yes. He is in a way. You would, of course, be--in a way,
+his--ah----"
+
+"Peck," I said, and I kept my eye on him blandly. "Have you seen Mr.
+McSheen since your arrival?"
+
+"Why, yes, I have. I had to see him, of course, because he is, as I told
+you, the general counsel----"
+
+"In a way?" I interpolated.
+
+"Yes. And of course I had to see him. It would not have been quite
+professional if I had not."
+
+"And he assents to your proposition?"
+
+"Oh! yes, entirely. In fact, he--" He paused and then added, "is
+entirely satisfied. He says you are an excellent lawyer."
+
+"Much obliged to him. I beat him in the only case I ever had against
+him."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Oh, a small case against the Argand Estate."
+
+"Oh! Well now, Glave, don't be Quixotic. Here is the chance of your
+life. All the big people--the Argand Estate, Mr. Leigh, Mr. McSheen, Mr.
+Canter. Why, it may lead you--no one can tell where!"
+
+"That is true," I said, quietly. Then quite as quietly I asked: "Did Mr.
+McSheen send for you to come on here?"
+
+"Did Mr. McSheen send for me to come on here? Why, no. Of course, he did
+not. I came on to look after Mr. Poole's interest."
+
+"And to employ me to represent him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And to give up my clients as McSheen did?"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Peck, tell Mr. McSheen that neither my dog nor myself is for sale."
+
+"What! I--I don't understand," stammered Peck.
+
+"Well, maybe so. But you give McSheen the message. He will understand
+it. And now I will explain it to you, so you may understand." I
+explained briefly to him my connection with the matter and my proposed
+line of action; and he naturally endeavored to satisfy me as to the
+absolute futility of such a course as I proposed.
+
+"Why, consider," he said, "the people you will have to contend with--the
+idea that you can prove fraud against such persons as Mr. Leigh, the
+Argands, Mr. McSheen."
+
+"I don't expect to prove fraud on Mr. Leigh," I quickly interposed.
+
+"You will have to sue him. He is a director."
+
+"I know it. But he came in after the transaction was completed and I
+believe knew nothing about it, and he has left the directory. But why
+are you so interested in Mr. Leigh? His interests in the street-car
+lines are directly opposed to Mr. Poole's."
+
+"I am not interested in Mr. Leigh, but in you. Why, do you imagine any
+judge in this city would even consider a bill charging fraud against
+such persons as those I have mentioned? For I tell you they will not.
+You will just make a lot of enemies and have your trouble for your
+pains."
+
+"Perhaps so--but Peck, you have not mentioned all the people I shall
+have to sue."
+
+"Who do you mean? I have only mentioned one or two."
+
+"Mr. Poole."
+
+Peck's countenance fell.
+
+"Mr. Poole! What did he have to do with it?"
+
+"He was one of them--one of those who engineered the reorganization--and
+swin--engineered the heirs of Colonel Tipps and some others out of their
+interest. Well, give my message to Mr. McSheen," I said, rising, for
+Peck's duplicity came over me like a wave. "You may understand it better
+now. Neither my dog nor I is for sale. Peck, you ought to know me
+better."
+
+Peck left with that look on his face that used to annoy me so at
+college--something that I can best describe as a mechanical simper. It
+had no warmth in it and was the twilight between indifference and hate.
+
+Peck evidently conveyed my message.
+
+While I worked on my case, Mr. McSheen was not idle. Not long after, I
+was walking along a narrow, dark street on my way home from my office
+late one night when I was struck by Dix's conduct. It was very strange.
+Instead of trotting along zigzag going from corner to corner and
+inspecting alleyways for chance cats to enliven life, as he usually did
+at night when the streets were fairly empty, he kept close at my heels,
+now and then actually rubbing against my knee as he walked, as he did in
+the crowded section when I took him along. And once or twice he stopped
+and, half turning his head, gave a low, deep growl, a sure signal of his
+rising anger. I turned and gazed around, but seeing no cause for his
+wrath, concluded that a dog was somewhere in the neighborhood, whom he
+detected though I could not see him. I was aware afterward that I had
+seen two men pass on the other side of the street and that they crossed
+over to my side near the corner ahead of me; but I took no notice of
+them. I had a pleasanter subject of thought as I strolled along. I was
+thinking of Eleanor Leigh and building air castles in which she was
+always the chatelaine.
+
+Dix's low growl fell on my ear, but I paid no heed. The next second--it
+was always a little confused in my mind, the blow came so quickly--I was
+conscious of a man--or two men, springing from behind something just at
+my side and of Dix's launching himself at them with a burst of rage, and
+at the same moment, something happened to me--I did not know what. A
+myriad stars darted before my eyes and I felt a violent pain in my
+shoulder. I staggered and fell to my knees; but sprang up again under a
+feeling that I must help Dix, who seemed to have been seized by one of
+the men in his arms, a stout stumpy fellow, while the other was
+attempting to kill him with a bludgeon which he carried. I flung myself
+on the latter, and seizing him by the throat bore him back against the
+wall, when he suddenly twisted loose and took to his heels. Then I
+turned on the other who, I thought, was trying to carry Dix off. I
+found, however, that instead he was making a fight for his life. At the
+moment he dropped a pistol which he was drawing and I sprang for it and
+got it. Dix had leaped straight for his throat and, having made good his
+hold, had hung on and the man was already nearly strangled. "For God's
+sake, take him off. Kill him. I'm choking," he gasped as with weakening
+hands he tore at the dog's massive shoulders. "I'm choking." And at
+that moment he staggered, stumbled, and sank to his knees with a groan.
+
+Fearing that he would be killed on the spot, though I was sick and dizzy
+from the blow, I seized Dix by the throat and with a strong wrench of
+his windpipe at the same time that I gave him an order, I broke his
+hold. And fortunately for the ruffian, his heavy coat collar had
+partially saved his throat.
+
+The wretch staggered to his feet with an oath and supported himself
+against the wall while I pacified Dix, who was licking his chops, his
+hair still up on his back, his eyes still on his enemy.
+
+"Are you hurt?" I asked, for, though still dizzy, the need to act had
+brought my senses back.
+
+"What business is that of yours?" he demanded brutally. "Wait a minute.
+I'll kill that d----d dog."
+
+The reply to my inquiry was so brutal that my anger rose.
+
+"You drunken beast! Say a word and I'll give you to him again and let
+him worry you like a rat. You see him! Keep back, Dix!" for the dog,
+recognizing my anger, had advanced a little and flattened himself to
+spring on the least provocation.
+
+"I didn't mean no offence," the fellow growled. "But I don't like a
+d----d dog to be jumpin' at me."
+
+"You don't! What did you mean by trying to murder me?"
+
+"I didn't try to murder you."
+
+"You did. I have no money--not a cent. I'm as poor as you are."
+
+"I wa'n't after no money."
+
+"What then? What had I ever done to you that you should be after me?"
+
+"I wa'n't after you."
+
+"You were. You tried to kill me. You've cut my head open and no thanks
+to you that you didn't kill me."
+
+"'T wa'n't me. 'T was that other fellow, the skunk that runned away and
+left me."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"I don' know. I never seen him before."
+
+"What are you lying to me for? What's his name and why was he after me?
+Tell me and I'll let you go--otherwise--I'll give you to the police."
+
+"I'll tell you this--he's a friend of a man you know."
+
+"Of a man I know? Who?"
+
+"He's a big man, too."
+
+"A big man! Do you mean--You don't mean Coll McSheen?"
+
+"I didn't tell you, did I? You can swear to that. Now give me five
+dollars and let me go."
+
+"I haven't any money at all, but I'll take you to a doctor and get your
+wound dressed. I have to go to one, too."
+
+"I don' want no doctor--I'm all right."
+
+"No, I won't give you up," I said, "if you'll tell me the truth. I'm not
+after you. If I'd wanted to give you up, I'd have fired this pistol and
+brought the police. Come on. But don't try to run off or I'll let you
+have it."
+
+He came along, at first surlily enough; but presently he appeared to get
+in a better temper, at least with me, and turned his abuse on his pal
+for deserting him. He declared that he had not meant to do me any harm,
+in fact, that he had only met the other man accidentally and did not
+know what he was going to do, etc.
+
+I was so fortunate as to find my friend Dr. Traumer at home, and he
+looked after the wound in the scoundrel's throat and then took a look at
+my hurt.
+
+"You had a close graze," he said, "but I don't think it is anything more
+serious than a bad scrape on your head, and a laceration and bruise on
+the shoulder."
+
+While he was working on the footpad I telephoned Langton, got hold of
+him and asked him to come there, which he said he would do at once. Just
+as the doctor was through with me, Langton walked in. I never saw so
+surprised an expression on his face as that when his eyes fell on my
+thug. I saw at once that he knew him. But as usual he said nothing. The
+thug, too, evidently knew he was an officer; for he gave me one swift
+glance of fear. I, however, allayed his suspicion.
+
+"It's all right," I said, "if you tell me the truth. Who is he?" I asked
+Langton. He smiled.
+
+"Red Talman. What've you been up to?" he asked.
+
+"Nothin'."
+
+"I brought him here to have his wound dressed, and he's going directly.
+I have promised him."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Coll McSheen put him on to a little job and he bungled it, that's
+all."
+
+Langton actually looked pleased; but I could not tell whether it was
+because his warning had been verified or because I had escaped.
+
+"'T was that other skunk," muttered Talman sullenly.
+
+"Who? Dutch?"
+
+The footpad coughed. "Don' know who 'twas."
+
+"You don't? You don't know who I am either?"
+
+The man gave him a keen look of inspection, but he evidently did not
+know him. Langton leaned over and dropped his voice. "Did you ever
+know--?" I could not catch the name. But the thug's eyes popped and he
+turned white under his dirt.
+
+"I didn't have nothin' 't all to do with it. I was in Canady," he
+faltered.
+
+Langton's eyes suddenly snapped. "I know where you were. This
+gentleman's a friend of mine," he said. "He saved my life once, and if
+you ever touch him, I'll have you--" He made a gesture with his hand to
+his throat. "Understand? And not all the bosses in the city will save
+you. Understand?"
+
+"I ain't goin' to touch him. I got nothin' against him."
+
+"You'd better not have," said Langton, implacably. "Come here." He took
+him out into the doctor's front office and talked to him for some little
+time while I told the doctor of my adventure.
+
+"Who is Langton when he is at home?" I asked him.
+
+He chuckled. "He is the best man for you to have in this city if Coll
+McSheen is your enemy. He is a retainer of Mr. Leigh's."
+
+Just then Langton and the thug came in.
+
+"Say, I'm sorry I took a hand in that job," said the latter. "But that
+skunk that runned away, he put 't up, and he said 's another friend of
+his got him to do it."
+
+"Coll McSheen?"
+
+"I don't know who 'twas," he persisted.
+
+I glanced at Langton, and he just nodded.
+
+"Good-by. If ever you wants a job done----"
+
+"Get out," said Langton.
+
+"Don't you give 't to that other skunk. I didn't know. Good-by. Obliged
+to you." And he passed through the door which Langton held open for him.
+
+"It's all right," said the latter as he closed the door. "You had a
+close graze--that's one of the worst criminals in the country. He don't
+generally bungle a job. But he's all right now. But there are others."
+
+"My dog saved my life--he got his throat."
+
+"That's a good dog. Better keep him close to you for a while."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+A great factory with the machinery all working and revolving with
+absolute and rhythmic regularity and with the men all driven by one
+impulse and moving in unison as though a constituent part of the mighty
+machine, is one of the most inspiring examples of directed force that
+the world shows. I have rarely seen the face of a mechanic in the act of
+creation which was not fine, never one which was not earnest and
+impressive.
+
+Such were the men, some hundreds of them, whom I used to gaze at and
+admire and envy through the open windows of several great factories and
+mills along the street through which lay my way to my office. I chose
+this street for the pleasure of seeing them of a morning, as with bared
+and brawny arms and chests and shining brows, eager and earnest and
+bold, they bent over glowing fires and flaming furnaces and rolled
+massive red-hot irons hither and yon, tossing them about, guiding them
+in their rush and swing and whirl, as though they were very sons of
+Vulcan, and ever with a catch of song or a jest, though a swerve of the
+fraction of an inch might mean death itself.
+
+I had come to know some of them well, that is, as well as a man in a
+good coat can know men in a workman's blouse, and numbers of them I
+began to know in a sort, as day after day I fell in beside them on
+their way to or from their work; for, lawyer and gentleman as I was,
+they, I think, felt in me the universal touch of brotherhood. We used to
+talk together, and I found them human to the core and most intelligent.
+Wolffert was an idol among them. They looked to him as to a champion.
+
+"He has learned," said one of them to me once, "the secret of getting at
+us. He takes us man for man and don't herd us like cattle. He speaks to
+me on a level, man to man, and don't patronize me."
+
+He was a strong-visaged, clear-eyed Teuton with a foreign accent.
+
+"We haf our own home," he said with pride, "and the building company is
+'most off my back. If we can but keep at vork we'll soon be safe, and
+the young ones are all at school. The sun shines bright after the
+storm," he added with a shake of his strong head.
+
+"Ah, well, we are having good times now. The sun is shining for many of
+us. Let us pray that it may keep shining."
+
+"God grant it," he said, solemnly.
+
+I was thinking of Miss Eleanor Leigh and the way she had smiled the last
+time Heaven had favored me with a sight of her. That was sunshine enough
+for me. She had heard of the attack on me and had been so sympathetic
+that I had almost courted her again on the spot. John Marvel had made me
+out quite a hero.
+
+The good times, however, of which my mill-friends and I talked were
+rapidly passing. In Coll McSheen's offices plans were being laid which
+were to blot out the sun for many a poor family.
+
+Within a day or two I began to observe in the press ominous notices of
+an approaching strike. All the signs, it was declared, pointed to it.
+Meetings were being held, and the men were rapidly getting out of hand
+of their conservative leaders, who, it being on the verge of winter,
+were averse to their undertaking the strike at this time,
+notwithstanding what they admitted were their undoubted and
+long-standing grievances. As I ran over the accounts in many of the
+papers I was surprised to find that among these "conservatives" was
+mentioned the name of Wringman. It was evident, however, that the
+efforts of the conservative element were meeting with success; for in
+the workingmen's section through which I passed every day there was not
+as yet the least sign of excitement of any kind, or, indeed, of any
+dissatisfaction. The railway men all appeared quiet and contented, and
+the force in the several large factories along my route whom I mingled
+with in my tramp back and forth from my office were not only free from
+moroseness, but were easy and happy. The only strikes going on in the
+city were those on the lines in which the Argand interests were, and
+they were frequently spoken of as "chronic."
+
+The mills were all running as usual; work was going on; but a shadow was
+deepening over the community of the operatives. The strike which the
+newspapers had been prophesying for some time was decreed--not yet,
+indeed, by the proper authorities; but it was determined on by the
+leaders, and its shadow was darkening the entire section. The first
+knowledge I had of it was the gloom that appeared on the countenances of
+the men I saw in the morning. And when I met Wolffert he was more
+downcast than I had seen him in a long time. He had been working night
+and day to stave off the trouble.
+
+"The poor fools!" was all he could say. "They are the victims of their
+ignorance."
+
+From my earliest arrival in the city I had been aware of something about
+the laboring element--something connected with the Union, yet different
+from what I had been accustomed to elsewhere. I had ever been an
+advocate of the union of workingmen to protect themselves against the
+tyranny and insolence of those who, possibly by fortuitous
+circumstances, were their employers. I had seen the evil of the uncurbed
+insolence added to the unlimited power of the boss to take on or to
+fling off whom he pleased and, while the occupation lasted, to give or
+reduce wages as he pleased. And I had seen the tyrannous exercise of
+this power--had seen men turned off for nothing but the whim of a
+superior; had seen them hacked about; ordered around as if they had been
+beasts of burden, and if they ever murmured, told to go elsewhere, as
+though a poor man with a family of children could "go elsewhere" at an
+hour's notice; hundreds of men, thousands of men "laid off," because, it
+was said, "times were dull," though the returns from their work in good
+times had made their employers rich beyond anything their fathers had
+ever dreamed of. And I had witnessed with that joy that a man feels in
+seeing justice meted out, the rise of a power able to exact, if not
+complete, at least, measurable justice for the down-trodden.
+
+But here was something different. It was still the Union; but bore a new
+complexion and a different relation alike to the workingman, the
+employer, and the public. It was a strange power and its manifestation
+was different. It was not in active exercise when I first went among the
+workingmen. Yet it was ever present. A cloud appeared to hang over the
+population; there was a feeling that a volcano, as yet quiet, might
+burst forth at any time, and no man could tell what the end might be. It
+was ever in men's minds, not only the workingmen's, but the tradesmen's,
+the middlemen's. It appeared to keep on edge a keen antagonism between
+all laboring men as such and all other men. It was nearer and more
+important than politics or religion. It had entered into their lives and
+created a power which they feared and obeyed. To a considerable extent
+it had taken away their liberties, and their lives were regulated by
+their relation to it. I saw the growth of the system and was mystified
+by it, for I saw individuality and personal liberty passing away--men
+deliberately abandoning their most cherished privileges to submit to a
+yoke that was being put on them. I noted the decline of excellence in
+the individual's work and of ambition for excellence in himself--the
+decay of the standard of good workmanship. I marked the mere commercial
+question of wages--higher wages irrespective of better work--take the
+place of the old standard of improved workmanship and witnessed the
+commercialism which in large figures had swept over the employer class,
+now creep over and engulf the laboring class to the destruction of all
+fine ambition and the reduction of excellence to a dead level of
+indifferent mediocrity. They deliberately surrendered individual liberty
+and all its possibilities and became the bondmen of a tyrannous dictator
+which they set up.
+
+I was familiar with the loafer and the shirker. He is incident to
+humanity. He exists in every calling and rank of life. But it was novel
+to me to find an entire class deliberately loafing and shirking and
+slurring on principle. I saw gangs of workmen waiting around, shivering
+in the wind, for the hour to come when they might take up the tools
+which lay at hand with which they might have warmed themselves. I saw
+them on the stroke, drop those tools as though the wave of sound had
+paralyzed their arms. I saw them leave the stone half set, the rivet
+half driven, the bar half turned; the work, whatever it was, half done.
+I saw bright, alert, intelligent men, whose bodies were twice and their
+brains ten times as active as their fellows', do double work in the same
+time as the latter and then dawdle and loaf and yawn empty-handed beside
+the unfinished work with which they might readily have doubled their
+income. I asked some of my friends why it was and the answer was always
+the same: "the Union."
+
+A strike was going on on the other side of the town, but the direct
+results were not yet felt among us, and as the enterprises there where
+the trouble existed were in conflict with those on our side, and
+therefore our rivals, it did not appear likely that we should be
+affected except possibly to our advantage. The population of our
+section, therefore, looked on and discussed the troubles with the placid
+satisfaction of men who, secure on land, discuss and commiserate those
+tossed by storms far off, whose existence is known only by the long
+surges that with spent force roll against their shore. They enjoyed
+their own good fortune, rejoiced in the good times, and to a
+considerable extent spent their earnings like children, almost
+indifferent as to the future.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE WALKING DELEGATE
+
+
+Miss Eleanor Leigh had observed for some time that her father was more
+than usually grave and preoccupied. She knew the cause, for her father
+discussed many matters with her. It was often his way of clarifying his
+own views. And when he asked her what she thought of them she felt that
+it was the highest compliment she ever received--not that he took her
+advice, she knew, but this did not matter; he had consulted her. The
+fact gave her a self-reliance wholly different from mere conceit. It
+steadied her and furnished her a certain atmosphere of calm in which she
+formed her judgment in other matters. Of late, in the shadow of the
+clash with his operatives, which appeared to be growing more and more
+imminent, he had not advised with her as formerly and the girl felt it.
+Was it due to the views which she had been expressing of late touching
+the suppression of the laboring class? She knew that her father held
+views as to this quite the opposite of those she had been vaguely
+groping toward, and while he treated her views with amused indulgence he
+considered the whole line of thought as the project of selfish
+demagogues, or, at best, of crack-brained doctrinaires. It might suit
+for the millennium, but not for a society in which every man was
+competing with every other man. In fact, however, the principal reason
+for Mr. Leigh's silence was the growing differences between himself and
+Mrs. Argand. The struggle had grown until it involved the very existence
+of his house. He knew that if his daughter ever realized the truth, that
+her aunt's interest had been thrown against him and in favor of men
+whose methods he reprobated, it would mean the end of all between them,
+and he was unwilling that a breach should come between his daughter and
+her mother's sister.
+
+The status of the present relation with his men was, however, growing
+steadily worse and more threatening. The influences at work were more
+and more apparent. The press was giving more and more space to the
+widening breach, and the danger of a strike on a vast scale that should
+exceed anything ever known heretofore was steadily increasing.
+
+Eleanor knew that this was the cloud that left its shadow on her
+father's brow and she determined to make an effort to assist him. She
+had revolved the scheme in her little head and it appeared the very
+thing to do.
+
+The approach of Thanksgiving offered an opportunity for an act of
+good-will which she felt sure would bear fruit. She had talked it over
+with John Marvel and he had glowed at the suggestion. So one day at the
+table she broke in on her father's reverie.
+
+"Father, how many men have you in the mills and on the railway?"
+
+Her father smiled as he nearly always did when she spoke to him, as,
+indeed, most people smiled, with sheer content over the silvery voice
+and sparkling eyes.
+
+"Why, roughly, in the mills about eleven hundred--there may be a few
+more or a few less to-day; to-morrow there will not be one."
+
+"Oh! I hope they won't do that. I have such a beautiful plan."
+
+"What is it? To give them all they demand, and have them come back with
+a fresh and more insolent demand to-morrow?"
+
+"No, to give them--every one who has a family, a Thanksgiving basket--a
+turkey."
+
+Her father burst out laughing. "A turkey? Better give them a goose. What
+put that idea into your little head? Why, they would laugh at you if
+they did not fling it back in your face."
+
+"Oh! no, they would not. I never saw any one who did not respond to
+kindness."
+
+"Better wait till after to-morrow and you will save a lot of turkeys."
+
+"No, I am serious. I have been thinking of it for quite a while and I
+have some money of my own."
+
+"You'd better keep it. You may come to need it."
+
+"No, I want to try my plan. You do not forbid it?"
+
+"Oh, no! If you can avert the strike that they are preparing for, your
+money will be a good investment."
+
+"I don't do it as an investment," protested the girl. "I do it as an act
+of kindness."
+
+"All right, have your way. It can't do any harm. If you succeed, I shall
+be quite willing to foot the bills."
+
+"No, this is my treat," said the girl, "though I shall put your name in
+too."
+
+So, that day Miss Eleanor Leigh spent inspecting and getting prices on
+turkeys, and by night she had placed her order with a reliable man who
+had promised to provide the necessary number of baskets, and, what is
+more, had gotten interested in her plan. She had enlisted also the
+interest of John Marvel, who worked like a Trojan in furtherance of her
+wishes. And I, having learned from John of her charitable design, gave
+my assistance with what I fear was a less unselfish philanthropy.
+Happily, disease is not the only thing that is contagious. It was
+impossible to work shoulder to shoulder with those two and not catch
+something of John Marvel's spirit, not to mention the sweet contagion of
+Eleanor Leigh's charming enthusiasm. I learned much in that association
+of her cleverness and sound sterling sense as she organized her force
+and set them to work. And I was fortunate enough to get one of her
+charming smiles. It was when she said, "I want one of the best baskets
+for Mrs. Kenneth McNeil," and I replied, "I have already sent it." Thus,
+in due time, on the day before Thanksgiving Day, a score of wagons were
+busily at work carrying not only the turkeys ordered by Miss Leigh, as a
+Thanksgiving present for each family in her father's employ, but with
+each one a basket of other things.
+
+It happened that that night a great meeting of the operatives was held.
+
+It was largely attended, for though the object had not been stated in
+the call, it was well known that it was to consider a momentous subject;
+nothing less than an ultimatum on the part of the men to the Company,
+and this many of the men felt was the same thing with a strike. The name
+of David Wringman, the chief speaker, was a guaranty of this. He was a
+man who had forged his way to the front by sheer force, mainly sheer
+brute force. From a common laborer he had risen to be one of the
+recognized leaders in what had come to be known as the workingmen's
+movement. He had little or no education, and was not known to have
+technical training of any kind. Some said he had been a machinist; some
+a miner; some a carpenter. His past was, in fact, veiled in mystery. No
+one knew, indeed, where he came from. Some said he was Irish; some that
+he was Welsh; some that he was American. All that was known of him
+positively was that he was a man of force, with a gift of fluent speech
+and fierce invective, which rose at times and under certain conditions
+to eloquence. At least, he could sway an assemblage of workingmen, and,
+at need, he was not backward in using his fists, or any other weapon
+that came to hand. Speaking of Wringman, Wolffert once said that not the
+least of the misfortunes of the poor was the leaders they were forced to
+follow. His reputation for brute strength was quite equal to his
+reputation as a speaker, and stories were freely told of how, when
+opposition was too strong for him in a given meeting, he had come down
+from the platform and beaten his opponents into submission with his
+brawny fists. It was rumored how he had, more than once, even waylaid
+his rivals and done them up, but this story was generally told in
+undertones; for Wringman was now too potent and dangerous a man for most
+men of his class to offend personally without good cause. His presence
+in the city was in itself a sign that some action would be taken, for he
+had of late come to be known as an advanced promoter of aggressive
+action. To this bold radicalism was due much of his power. He was "not
+afraid of the capitalists," men said. And so they established him in his
+seat as their leader. To his presence was due a goodly share of the
+shadow that had been gathering over the workingmen's part of the section
+of the town which I have noted.
+
+Thus, the meeting on the evening I speak of was largely attended. For an
+hour before the time set for it the large hall in the second story of a
+big building was crowded, and many who could not get in were thronging
+the stairways and the street outside. A reek of strong tobacco pervaded
+the air and men with sullen brows talked in undertones, broken now and
+then by a contentious discussion in some group in which possibly some
+other stimulant than tobacco played a part.
+
+Wolffert and Marvel had both been trying to avert the strike, and had, I
+heard, made some impression among the people. Marvel had worked hard all
+day aiding Miss Leigh in her friendly efforts, and Wolffert had been
+arguing on rational grounds against a strike at the beginning of winter.
+I had been talking over matters with some of my mill-friends who had
+invited me to go with them; so I attended the meeting. I had been struck
+for some time with the change that had been going on in the workingmen's
+districts. As wretched as they had been before they were now infinitely
+more so.
+
+The meeting began, as the meetings of such bodies usually begin, with
+considerable discussion and appearance of deliberation. There was
+manifest much discontent and also much opposition to taking any steps
+that would lead to a final breach. A number of men boldly stood forth to
+declare for the half-a-loaf-better-than-no-bread theory, and against
+much hooting they stood their ground. The question of a resolution of
+thanks for Miss Leigh's baskets aroused a little opposition, but the
+majority were manifestly for it, and many pleasant things were said
+about her and her father as well, his liberal policy being strongly
+contrasted with the niggard policy of the other roads. Then there
+appeared the real leader of the occasion, to hear whom the meeting had
+been called: Wringman. And within ten minutes he had everything his own
+way. He was greeted with cheers as he entered, and he shouldered his way
+to the front with a grim look on his face that had often prepared the
+way for him. He was undoubtedly a man of power, physical and mental.
+Flinging off his heavy overcoat, he scarcely waited for the brief
+introduction, undertaken by the Chairman of the occasion, and, refusing
+to wait for the cheers to subside, he plunged at once into the midst of
+his subject.
+
+"Workingmen, why am I here? Because, like you, I am a working man." He
+stretched out his long arm and swept it in a half circle and they
+cheered his gesture and voice, and violent action, though had they
+considered, as they might well have done, he had not "hit a lick" with
+his hands in a number of years. Unless, indeed, a rumor which had begun
+to go the rounds was true, that he had once at least performed work for
+the government in an institution where the labor was not wholly
+voluntary.
+
+Then came a catalogue of their grievances and wrongs, presented with
+much force and marked dramatic ability, and on the heels of it a tirade
+against all employers and capitalists, and especially against their
+employer, whom he pictured as their arch enemy and oppressor, the chief
+and final act of whose infamy, he declared to be his "attempt to bribe
+them with baskets of rotten fowls." Who was this man? He would tell
+them. He held in his hand a paper which pictured him in his true
+character. Here he opened a journal and read from the article I had
+written for Kalender--the infamous headlines of the editor which changed
+the whole. This was the man with whom they had to deal--a man who flung
+scraps from his table for famishing children to wrangle over with dogs.
+There was but one way to meet such insolence, he declared, to fling them
+back in his face and make him understand that they didn't want favors
+from him, but justice; not rotten fowls, but their own hard-earned
+money. "And now," he cried, "I put the motion to send every basket back
+with this message and to demand an increase of twenty-five per cent. pay
+forthwith. Thus, we shall show them and all the world that we are
+independent American workmen earning our own bread and asking no man's
+meat. Let all who favor this rise and the scabs sit still."
+
+It was so quickly and shrewdly done that a large part of the assembly
+were on their feet in a second, indeed, many of them were already
+standing, and the protest of the objectors was lost in the wild storm of
+applause. Over on the far side I saw little McNeil shouting and
+gesticulating in vehement protest; but as I caught sight of him a dozen
+men piled on him and pulled him down, hammering him into silence. The
+man's power and boldness had accomplished what his reasoning could never
+have effected.
+
+The shouts that went up showed how completely he had won. I was thrown
+into a sort of maze. But his next words recalled me. It was necessary,
+he went on, that he should still maintain his old position. His heart
+bled every moment; but he would sacrifice himself for them, and if need
+were, he would die with them; and when this time came he would lead them
+through flaming streets and over broken plutocrats to the universal
+community of everything. He drew a picture of the rapine that was to
+follow, which surpassed everything I had ever believed possible. When he
+sat down, his audience was a mob of lunatics. Insensible to the folly of
+the step I took, I sprang to my chair and began to protest. They hushed
+down for a second. I denounced Wringman as a scoundrel, a spy, a hound.
+With a roar they set upon me and swept me from my feet. Why I was not
+killed instantly, I hardly know to this day. Fortunately, their very
+fury impeded them. I knew that it was necessary to keep my feet, and I
+fought like a demon. I could hear Wringman's voice high above the uproar
+harking them on. Suddenly a cry of "put him out" was raised close beside
+me. A pistol was brandished before my face; my assailants fell back a
+little, and I was seized and hustled to the door. I found a man I had
+noticed near me in the back part of the hall, who had sat with his coat
+collar turned up and his hat on, to be my principal ejector. With one
+hand he pushed me toward the entrance whilst, brandishing his revolver
+with the other, he defended me from the blows that were again aimed at
+me. But all the time he cursed me violently.
+
+"Not in here; let him go outside. Leave him to me--I'll settle him!" he
+shouted--and the crowd shouted also. So he bundled me to the door and
+followed me out, pushing others back and jerking the door to after him.
+
+On the outside I turned on him. I had been badly battered and my blood
+was up. I was not afraid of one man, even with a pistol. As I sprang for
+him, however, he began to put up his weapon, chuckled, and dropped his
+voice.
+
+"Hold on--you've had a close call--get away from here."
+
+It was Langton, the detective. He followed me down the steps and out to
+the street, and then joined me.
+
+"Well?" he laughed, "what do you think of your friends?"
+
+"That I have been a fool."
+
+He smiled with deep satisfaction. "What were you doing in there?" I
+asked.
+
+"Looking after my friends. But I don't feel it necessary to invite them
+to cut my throat. One good turn deserves another," he proceeded. "You
+keep away from there or you'll find yourself in a bad way. That
+Wringman----"
+
+"Is a scoundrel."
+
+"Keep a lookout for him. He's after you and he has powerful friends.
+Good night. I don't forget a man who has done me a kindness--And I know
+that fellow."
+
+He turned into a by-street.
+
+The next morning the papers contained an account of the proceedings with
+glaring headlines, the account in the _Trumpet_ being the fullest and
+most sympathetic and giving a picture of the "great labor-leader,
+Wringman, the idol of the workingman," who had, by "his courage and
+character, his loftiness of purpose and singleness of aim, inspired them
+with courage to rise against the oppression of the grinding corporation
+which, after oppressing them for years, had attempted by a trick to
+delude them into an abandonment of the measures to secure, at least,
+partial justice, just as they were about to wring it from its reluctant
+hand."
+
+It was a description which might have fitted an apostle of
+righteousness. But what sent my heart down into my boots was the
+republication of the inserted portion of my article on the delayed train
+attacking Mr. Leigh. The action of the meeting was stated to be
+unanimous, and in proof it was mentioned that the only man who opposed
+it, a young man evidently under the influence of liquor, was promptly
+flung out. I knew that I was destined to hear more of that confounded
+article, and I began to cast about as to how I should get around it.
+Should I go to Eleanor Leigh and make a clean breast of it, or should I
+leave it to occasion to determine the matter? I finally did the natural
+thing--I put off the decision.
+
+Miss Eleanor Leigh, who had worked hard all the day before despatching
+baskets to the hundreds of homes which her kind heart had prompted her
+to fill with cheer, came down to breakfast that morning with her heart
+full of gratitude and kindness toward all the world. She found her
+father sitting in his place with the newspapers lying beside him in some
+disorder and with a curious smile on his face. She divined at once that
+something had happened.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, a little frightened.
+
+For answer Mr. Leigh pushed a paper over to her and her eye fell on the
+headlines:
+
+      HONEST LABORING MEN RESENT BRAZEN
+              ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY
+    LABOR LEADER'S GREAT APPEAL FOR JUSTICE
+            LABOR DEMANDS ITS DUES
+
+"Oh, father!" With a gasp she burst into tears and threw herself in her
+father's arms.
+
+"That is the work of Canter and his partner, McSheen," said Mr. Leigh
+grimly.
+
+It was not the only house in which the sending back of her baskets
+caused tears. In many a poor little tenement there was sore weeping
+because of the order--in not a few a turkey had not been known for
+years. Yet mainly the order was obeyed.
+
+Next day Mr. Leigh received in his office a notification that a
+deputation of the operatives on his road demanded to see him
+immediately. He knew that they were coming; but he had not expected them
+quite so soon. However, he was quite prepared for them and they were
+immediately admitted. They were a deputation of five men, two of them
+elderly men, one hardly more than a youth, the other two of middle age.
+At their head was a large, surly man with a new black hat and a new
+overcoat. He was the first man to enter the room and was manifestly the
+leader of the party. Mr. Leigh invited them to take seats and the two
+older men sat down. Two of the others shuffled a little in their places
+and turned their eyes on their leader.
+
+"Well, what can I do for you?" inquired Mr. Leigh quietly. His
+good-humored face had suddenly taken on a cold, self-contained
+expression, as of a man who had passed the worst.
+
+Again there was a slight shuffle on the part of the others and one of
+the older men, rising from his seat and taking a step forward, said
+gravely: "We have come to submit to you----"
+
+His speech, however, was instantly interrupted by the large man in the
+overcoat. "Not by a d----d sight!" he began. "We have come to demand two
+things----"
+
+Mr. Leigh nodded.
+
+"Only two? What may they be, please?"
+
+"First, that you discharge a man named Kenneth McNeil, who is a
+non-union man----"
+
+Mr. Leigh's eyes contracted slightly.
+
+"--and secondly, that you give a raise of wages of fifteen per cent. to
+every man in your employ--and every woman, too."
+
+"And what is the alternative, pray?"
+
+"A strike."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By every soul in your employ, and, if necessary, by every man and woman
+who works in this city--and if that is not enough, by a tie-up that will
+paralyze you, and all like you."
+
+Mr. Leigh nodded. "I understand."
+
+A slight spark came into his eyes and his lips tightened just a shade,
+but when he spoke his voice was level and almost impersonal.
+
+"Will nothing less satisfy you?" he inquired.
+
+"Not a cent," said the leader and two of the others looked at him with
+admiration. "We want justice."
+
+Mr. Leigh, with his eye steadily on him, shook his head and a smile came
+into his eyes. "No, you don't want justice," he said to the leader,
+"you want money."
+
+"Yes, our money."
+
+Again Mr. Leigh shook his head slowly with his eyes on him. "No, not
+your money--mine. Who are you?" he demanded. "Are you one of the
+employees of this road?"
+
+"My name is Wringman and I am the head of this delegation."
+
+"Are you an employee of this Company?"
+
+"I am the head of this delegation, the representative of the Associated
+Unions of this city, of which the Union on this road constitutes a
+part."
+
+"I will not deal with you," said Mr. Leigh, "but I will deal with you,"
+he turned to the other men. "I will not discharge the man you speak of.
+He is an exceptionally good man. I happen to know this of my own
+personal knowledge, and I know the reason he is not a Union man. It is
+because you kept him out of the Union, hoping to destroy him as you have
+destroyed other honest men who have opposed you." He turned back to the
+leader.
+
+Wringman started to speak, but Mr. Leigh cut him short.
+
+"Not a word from you. I am dealing now with my own men. I know you. I
+know who your employer is and what you have been paid. You sold out your
+people in the East whom you pretended to represent, and now you have
+come to sell out these poor people here, on whose ignorance and
+innocence you trade and fatten. You have been against McNeil because he
+denounced you in the East. Your demand is preposterous," he said,
+turning to the others. "It is an absolute violation of the agreement
+which you entered into with me not three months ago. I have that
+agreement here on my desk. You know what that says, that the scale
+adopted was to stand for so long, and if by any chance, any question
+should arise, it was to be arbitrated by the tribunal assented to by
+yourselves and myself. I am willing to submit to that tribunal the
+question whether any question has arisen, and if it has, to submit it
+for adjudication by them."
+
+"We did not come here to be put off with any such hyp--" began the
+leader, but before he had gotten his word out, Mr. Leigh was on his
+feet.
+
+"Stop," he said. And his voice had the sharp crack of a rifle shot. "Not
+a word from you. Out of this office." He pointed to the door and at the
+same moment touched the bell. "Show that man the door," he said,
+"instantly, and never admit him inside of it again."
+
+"Ah, I'm going," sneered Wringman, putting on his hat, "but not because
+you ordered me."
+
+"Yes, you are--because I ordered you, and if you don't go instantly I
+will kick you out personally."
+
+He stepped around the desk and, with his eyes blazing, walked quickly
+across the floor, but Wringman had backed out of the door.
+
+"For the rest of you," he said, "you have my answer. I warn you that if
+you strike you will close the factories that now give employment to
+thousands of men and young women. You men may be able to take care of
+yourselves; but you should think of those girls. Who will take care of
+them when they are turned out on the street? I have done it
+heretofore--unless you are prepared to do it now, you had better
+consider. Go down to my box-factory and walk through it and see them,
+self-supporting and self-respecting. Do you know what will become of
+them if they are turned out? Go to Gallagin's Gallery and see. Go back
+to your work if you are men of sense. If not, I have nothing further to
+say to you."
+
+They walked out and Mr. Leigh shut the door behind them. When he took
+his seat a deep gravity had settled on him which made him look older by
+years.
+
+The following day an order for a general strike on the lines operated by
+Mr. Leigh was issued, and the next morning after that not a wheel turned
+on his lines or in his factories. It was imagined and reported as only a
+question of wages between an employer and his men. But deep down
+underneath lay the secret motives of McSheen and Canter and their set
+who had been plotting in secret, weaving their webs in the
+dark--gambling in the lives of men and sad-eyed women and hungry
+children. The effect on the population of that section of the city was
+curious. Of all sad things on earth a strike is the saddest. And like
+other battles, next to a defeat the saddest scene is the field of
+victory.
+
+The shadow had settled down on us; the sunshine was gone. The temper of
+every one appeared to have been strained. The principle of Unionism as a
+system of protection and defence had suddenly taken form as a system of
+aggression and active hostility. Class-feeling suddenly sprang up in
+open and armed array, and next came division within classes. The talk
+was all of force; the feeling all one of enmity and strife. The entire
+population appeared infected by it. Houses were divided against
+themselves; neighbors who had lived in friendliness and hourly
+intercourse and exchanged continual acts of kindness, discussed,
+contended, quarrelled, threatened, and fought or passed by on the other
+side scowling and embittered. Sweetness gave place to rancor and
+good-will to hate.
+
+Among those affected by the strike was the family of my old drummer. The
+change was as apparent in this little home, where hitherto peace and
+content had reigned supreme with Music to fill in the intervals and make
+joy, as in the immediate field of the strike.
+
+The whole atmosphere of happiness underwent a change, as though a deadly
+damp had crept in from the outside, mildewing with its baleful presence
+all within, and turning the very sunlight into gloom. Elsa had lost her
+place. The box-factory was closed. The house was filled with contention.
+The musicians who came around to smoke their big pipes and drink beer
+with old Loewen were like the rest, infected. Nothing appeared to please
+any longer. The director was a tyrant; the first violin a charlatan; the
+rest of the performers mostly fools or worse; and the whole orchestra "a
+fake."
+
+This was the talk I heard in the home when I stopped by sometimes of an
+evening on my way to my room, and found some of his friends arguing with
+him over their steins and pipes, and urging a stand against the director
+and a demand that he accede to their wishes. The old drummer himself
+stood out stoutly. The director had always been kind to him and to them,
+he insisted. He was a good man and took pride in the orchestra, as much
+pride as he himself did. But I could see that he was growing soured. He
+drank more beer and practised less. Moreover, he talked more of money,
+which once he had scarcely ever mentioned. But the atmosphere was
+telling; the mildew was appearing. And in this haunt of peace, peace was
+gone.
+
+I learned from Loewen one evening that in the event of the strike not
+being settled soon, there was a chance of a sympathetic strike of all
+trades, and that even the musicians might join in it, for they had
+"grievances also."
+
+"But I thought Music was not a trade, but a profession, an art?" I said,
+quoting a phrase I had overheard him use. He raised his shoulders and
+threw out his hands palm upward.
+
+"Ach! it vas vonce."
+
+"Then why is it not now?"
+
+"Ach! Who knows? Because they vill not haf it so. Ze music iss dead--ze
+harmony iss all gone--in ze people--in ze heart! Zere iss no more music
+in ze souls of ze people. It iss monee--monee--monee--fight, fight,
+fight, all ze time! Who can gife ze divine strain ven ze heart is set on
+monee always?"
+
+Who, indeed? I thought, and the more I thought of it the more clearly I
+felt that he had touched the central truth.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+MY CONFESSION
+
+
+It is said that every woman has in her nature something feline. I will
+not venture on so sweeping an assertion; but I will say that one of the
+sex was never excelled by any feline in her ability to torture and her
+willingness to tease the victim of her charms.
+
+When I met Eleanor Leigh next after the memorable session on the dusty
+steps, I could not tell for my life what were her feelings toward me.
+They were as completely veiled as though she had been accustomed from
+her infancy to enfold herself in impenetrable mystery. There was a
+subtle change in her manner profoundly interesting to me, but what it
+denoted I could not in the least discover, and every effort on my part
+to do so was frustrated with consummate art. She did not look at me and
+at moments appeared oblivious of my presence. She talked more than ever
+before of John Marvel, varied at times by admiring allusions to Leo
+Wolffert, until I almost began to hate them both. And all the while, she
+was so exasperatingly natural and innocent. A man may be a true friend
+to another, ready to serve him to the limit and may wish him all the
+happiness in the world, and yet may not desire the girl who has become
+his sun, moon and stars to appear to draw her light from his source. So,
+presently, like any other worm, I turned.
+
+"You appear to think that there is no one else in the world like John
+Marvel!" I said, fuming inwardly.
+
+"I do not. In a way, he stands by himself. Why, I thought you thought so
+too?"
+
+"Yes, of course--I do--I mean--I believe you are in--" I hesitated to
+finish the sentence, and changed it. "I believe you think more of him
+than of any one else." I did not really believe this--I wished her to
+deny it; but not she! I was playing at a game at which she was an expert
+from her cradle. A subtle change of expression passed over her face. She
+gave me a half glance, and then looked down. She appeared to be
+reflecting and as my eyes rested on her I became conscious of the same
+feeling of pleased wonder with which we gaze into a perfectly clear
+fountain whose crystal depths we may penetrate, but not fathom.
+
+"Yes, I think I do, in a way--I think him--quite wonderful. He appears
+to me the embodiment of truth--rugged and without grace--but so
+restful--so real--so sincere. I feel that if any great convulsion of
+Nature should occur and everything should be overthrown, as soon as we
+emerged we should find Mr. Marvel there unchanged--like Truth itself,
+unchangeable. If ever I marry, it will be to some man like that--simple
+and strong and direct always--a rock." She gazed placidly down while
+this arrow quivered in my heart. I wanted to say, "Why, then, don't you
+marry him?" But we were already too perilously near the edge for me to
+push matters further in that direction. I wished also to say, "Why don't
+you marry me?" but I was not conscious at the moment of any remarkable
+resemblance to a rock of strength.
+
+I recall her exact appearance as she waited. She happened to be arrayed
+that afternoon in a dark red dress, which fitted perfectly her slim,
+supple form, and her hat with a dark feather, and her dark hair about
+her brow gave her an air which reminded me of a red rose. It is not,
+however, the tint that makes the rose, but the rose itself. The rose is
+a rose, whether its petals be red or pink or white. And such she ever
+appeared to me. And the thorns that I found about her in no way
+detracted from her charms. Though I might have wished her less prone to
+show them, I did not find her pursuit the less delicious.
+
+Just after this I decided to move my quarters. Pushkin was beginning to
+come again to the old Drummer's house, I did not know why--and though I
+did not meet him I could not bear to be under the same roof with him. I
+began to feel, too, the change in the household. Elsa had begun to
+change somehow. Instead of the little carols and snatches like
+bird-songs that I used to hear before she went to her work, or in the
+evening when she returned, there was silence and sometimes sighs, and in
+place of smiles, gloom. Her face lost its bloom. I wondered what the
+poor thing was distressing herself about. My young Swede, too, whom I
+still occasionally saw, appeared to have lost that breezy freshness and
+glow which always reminded me of country meadows and upland hay-fields,
+and looked downcast and moody. In place of his good-humored smile, his
+ruddy face began to wear a glowering, sullen look; and finally he
+disappeared. The mother, also, changed, and her voice, formerly so
+cheery and pleasant, had a sharper tone than I had ever heard in it
+before, and even the old drummer wore a cloudier air, wholly different
+from his old-time cheeriness. In fact, the whole house had changed from
+the nest of content that it had been, and I began to plan moving to a
+better neighborhood which my improving practice appeared to justify. The
+chief thing that withheld me was that radiant glimpse of Miss Leigh
+which I sometimes got of a morning as she came tripping along the street
+with her little basket in her hand, and her face sweet with high
+thoughts. It set me up all day; attended me to my office, and filled it
+with sunshine and hope. Moreover, I was beginning to find in my
+association with John Marvel a certain something which I felt I should
+miss. He calmed me and gave me resolution. It appeared strange that one
+whom I had always looked down on should so affect me, but I could no
+longer hide it from myself. But against this reason for remaining I set
+the improvement in my condition that a better lodging-place would
+indicate. After a time, my broad-shouldered young Swedish car-driver
+came back and I was glad I had remained. Several times in the evening I
+found him in the house dressed up with shiny hair, a very bright
+necktie, and a black coat, the picture of embarrassed happiness, and
+Elsa sitting up and looking prim and, I fancied, a trifle bored, though
+it might have been only demureness. When I heard her singing again, I
+assumed that it was the latter expression, and not the former, which I
+had observed. However, I came in one night and heard Pushkin's voice in
+the house and I was again at sea. Elsa in all the gayety of her best
+frock and ribbons, dashed by me as I mounted the stair to my room.
+
+The next evening I was walking home late. I came on two persons standing
+in the shadow in a secluded spot. They stopped talking as I passed and I
+thought I heard my name whispered. I turned and they were Elsa and
+Pushkin. What was he doing talking with her at that hour? I came near
+walking up and denouncing him then and there; but I reflected and went
+on, and when, a few minutes later, Elsa came in very red and
+scared-looking, I congratulated myself on my self-restraint and
+sagacity. The next morning was rainy and black, and I took a street car;
+and found that the motorman was my blue-eyed young Swede, and that he
+was as dark and cloudy that morning as the day.
+
+That night, I heard Pushkin's voice in the house again, and my old
+friend's reply to him in a tone of expostulation. It was hard not to
+hear what Pushkin said, for the house was like a sounding-board. Pushkin
+was actually trying to borrow money--"more money," and he gave as his
+reason the absolute certainty that with this stake--"just this one
+loan," he should win an heiress--"One of the richest women in all the
+land," he said. He urged as a reason why the old fellow should lend it
+to him, that they were both from the same country, and that his
+grandfather, when a Minister of the Court, had appreciated Loewen's
+music and helped him to get his first place.
+
+"And he was a shentlemans like me, and you nodings but a common trummer,
+hey? And--look here," he said, "I am going to marry a great heiress, and
+then I shall not haf to borrow any more. I shall haf all de moneys I
+want--my pockets full, and den I vill pay you one--two--t'ree times for
+all you haf lend me, hein? And now I, de shentlemans, comes to you, de
+common trummer, and calls you mine friend, and swear to pay you
+one--two--t'ree times over, certainlee you vill nod refuse me?"
+
+The rest was in the language of their own country. The argument had its
+effect; for I could hear the old drummer's tone growing more and more
+acquiescent and the other's laugh becoming more and more assured, and
+finally I knew by his voice that he had succeeded.
+
+I came near rising on the spot and going in and unmasking him. But I did
+not. I determined to wait until the next morning.
+
+Next morning, however, when I came down I received notice that my room
+was no longer for rent. The announcement came to me from Mrs. Loewen,
+who gave it in her husband's name, and appeared somewhat embarrassed. I
+could not see her husband. He had gone out "to meet a gentleman," she
+said. Her manner was so changed that I was offended, and contented
+myself with saying I would leave immediately; and I did so, only leaving
+a line addressed to my old drummer to explain my departure--I was sure
+that their action was in some way due to Pushkin. In fact, I was not
+sorry to leave though I did not like being put out. My only cause of
+regret was that I should miss my walk through the street where the young
+school-mistress was shining. I am not sure whether it was a high motive
+or a mean one which made me, as I left the house, say to Mrs. Loewen:
+
+"You are harboring a scoundrel in that man Pushkin. Keep your eyes
+open." I saw a startled look in her eyes, but I did not wait to explain.
+
+I did not feel comfortable that evening as I walked through the streets
+to the better quarters which I had taken. I knew that John Marvel would
+have said less or more. I half made up my mind to go to John and lay the
+matter before him. Indeed, I actually determined to do so. Other things,
+however, soon engrossed my thoughts and my time. I had to file my bill
+for my old ladies. And so this, like most of my good intentions, faded
+away.
+
+In fact, about this time I was so wholly taken up with my love for the
+entrancing ideal that I had clad in the lineaments of Miss Eleanor Leigh
+and adorned with her radiance and charm that I had no thought for
+anything that was not in some way related to her. My work was suddenly
+uplifted by becoming a means to bring me nearer to my ambition to win
+her. My reading took on new meaning in storing my mind with lore or
+equipping it to fit it for her service; the outward form of nature
+displayed new beauty because she loved it. The inward realm of
+reflection took on new grace because she pervaded it. In a word, the
+whole world became but the home and enshrinement of one being, about
+whom breathed all the radiance and sweetness that I found in it. All of
+which meant simply that I was truly in love. Content with my love, I
+lived in a Heaven whose charm she created. But Love has its winter and
+it often follows close on its spring. I had played Fate again and
+waylaid her one afternoon as she was returning home from an excursion
+somewhere, and persuaded her to prolong her walk with an ease that
+lifted me quite out of myself, and I began to have aspirations to be
+very brave and good. I wished to be more like a rock, rugged and simple.
+
+We were walking slowly and had reached a park, and I guilefully led her
+by a roundabout path through a part where the shrubbery made it more
+secluded than the rest. I can see the spot now as then I saw it: a
+curving gray road sloping down under overhanging trees, and a path
+dappled with sunlight dipping into masses of shrubbery with a thrush
+glancing through them, like a little brown sprite playing hide-and-seek.
+As we neared a seat, I suggested that we should sit down and I was
+pleased at the way in which she yielded; quite as if she had thought of
+it herself. It was almost the first time that I had her quite to myself
+in fair surroundings where we were face to face in body and soul. I
+felt, somehow, as though I had made a great step up to a new and a
+higher level. We had reached together a new resting-place, a higher
+atmosphere; almost a new land. And the surroundings were fresh to me in
+the city, for we had strayed out of the beaten track. I remember that a
+placid pool, shaded by drooping willows and one great sycamore, lay at
+our feet, on which a couple of half-domesticated wild-fowl floated,
+their graceful forms reflected in the mirror below them. I pointed to
+one and said, "Alcyone," and my heart warmed when she smiled and said,
+"Yes, at peace. 'The past unsighed for, and the future sure.'"
+
+A quotation from a poet always pleases me. It is as if one found a fresh
+rose in the street, and where it comes from the lips and heart of a girl
+it is as though she had uttered a rose.
+
+"Are you fond of Wordsworth?" I asked. "He seems to me very spiritual."
+
+"Yes. In fact, I think I am fond of all poetry. It lifts me up out of
+the grosser atmosphere of the world, which I enjoy, too,
+tremendously--and seems to place me above and outside of myself. Some,
+even, that I don't understand. I seem to be borne on wings that I can't
+see into a rarer atmosphere that I can only feel, but not describe."
+
+"That," I said, "as I understand it, is the province of poetry--and
+also, perhaps, its test."
+
+"It has somewhat the same effect on me that saying my prayers has. I
+believe in something infinitely good and pure and blessed. It soothes
+me. I get into a better frame of mind."
+
+"I should think your frame of mind was always 'a better frame,'" I said,
+edging toward the personal compliment and yet feeling as though I were
+endangering a beautiful dream.
+
+"Oh! you don't know how worse I can be--how angry--how savage."
+
+"Terribly so, I should think. You look like an ogress."
+
+"I feel like one sometimes, too," she nodded. "I can be one when I have
+the provocation."
+
+"As--for example?"
+
+"Well, let me see?--Well,--for example, once--oh! quite a time ago--it
+was just after I met you--the very next day--" (My heart bounded that
+she could remember the very next day after meeting me--and should set
+dates by that important event. I wanted to say, that is the beginning of
+my era; but I feared)--"I got into a dreadful passion--I was really
+ferocious."
+
+"Terrible," I jested. "I suppose you would have poisoned your slaves,
+like the old Roman Empress--What was her name?"
+
+"I was angry enough."
+
+"And, instead, you gave the cat milk in place of cream, or did some such
+awful act of cruelty."
+
+"Not at all. I did nothing. I only burned inwardly and consumed myself."
+
+"And pray, what was the offence that called forth such wrath, and who
+was the wretch who committed the crime?"
+
+"I had sufficient provocation."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"No, I mean really----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, it was a piece that appeared in one of the morning papers, a vile
+scurrilous sheet that had always attacked my father covertly; but this
+was the first open attack, and it was simply a huge lie. And it has been
+repeated again and again. Why, only the other day the same paper
+republished it with huge headlines and charged that my father was the
+cause of all the trouble in the city--my father, who is the best, the
+kindest, the most charitable man I ever knew--who has almost beggared
+himself trying to furnish facilities to the poor! Oh, I can't bear it! I
+wish I had that man under my heel this minute! I would just grind him to
+powder! I would!" She turned, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks glowing
+with fervor, her face rigid with resolution, her white teeth shut
+together as if they were a trap to hold her enemy till death. "Give the
+cat milk! I could have poured molten metal down that man's
+throat--cheerfully--yes, cheerfully."
+
+It may be well believed that as she proceeded, the amusement died out of
+my face and mind. I turned the other way to keep her from seeing the
+change that must have come over me. I was thinking hard and I thought
+quickly, as, 'tis said, a drowning man thinks. Life and death both
+flashed before me--life in her presence, in the sunlight of those last
+weeks, and the shadow of perpetual banishment. But one thing was
+certain. I must act and at once. I turned to her and was almost driven
+from my determination by the smile in her eyes, the April sunlight
+after the brief storm. But I seized myself and took the leap.
+
+"I wrote that piece."
+
+She actually laughed.
+
+"Yes, I know you did."
+
+"I did--seriously, I wrote it; but----"
+
+I saw the horror oversweep her face. It blanched suddenly, like the
+pallor on a pool when a swift cloud covers the sun, and her hand went up
+to her bosom with a sudden gesture as of pain.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped. The next second she sprang up and sped away like a
+frightened deer.
+
+I sprang up to follow her, to make my explanation to her; but though,
+after the first twenty steps, she stopped running and came down to a
+walk, it was still a rapid walk, and she was fleeing from me. I felt as
+though the gates of Paradise were closing on me. I followed her at a
+distance to see that she reached home safely, and with a vain hope that
+she might slacken her gait and so give me an excuse to make such
+explanation as I could. She, however, kept on, and soon after she passed
+beyond the park I saw a trap draw up beside the pavement, and, after a
+moment in which the driver was talking to her, a young man sprang out
+and throwing the reins to a groom, joined her and walked on with her. In
+the light of the street lamp I recognized young Canter. I turned back
+cursing him; but most of all, cursing myself.
+
+It has been well observed that there is no more valuable asset which a
+young man can possess than a broken heart. In the ensuing weeks I bore
+about with me if not a broken, at least a very much bruised and wounded
+one. It is a tragic fact in the course of mortality that a slip of a
+girl should have the power to shut the gates of happiness on a man.
+There were times when I rebelled against myself at being as big a fool
+as I knew myself to be, and endeavored to console myself by reverting to
+those wise bits of philosophy which our friends are always offering to
+us in our distress from their vantage ground of serene indifference.
+There were doubtless as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, but
+I was not after fishing--somehow I could not get a grasp on the idea
+that there were as lovely and attractive girls in the world whom I was
+likely to meet as Eleanor Leigh, whom I now felt I had lost and might
+possibly never recover.
+
+I walked the streets for some time that evening in a very low state of
+mind, and Dix, as he trudged solemnly along with his head now against my
+leg, now a step in the rear, must have wondered what had befallen me. By
+midnight he looked as dejected as I felt. Even when at length, having
+formulated my letter, I took him out for a run, he did not cheer up as
+he usually did. That dog was very near a human being. He sometimes
+appeared to know just what went on in my mind. He looked so confoundedly
+sorry for me that night that I found it a real consolation. He had the
+heart of a woman and the eyes of an angel. The letter I wrote was one of
+the best pieces of advocacy I ever did. I set forth the facts simply and
+yet clearly and, I felt, strongly. I told the plain truth about the
+paper, and I had the sense not to truckle, even while I expressed my
+regret that my work had been made the basis of the unauthorized and
+outrageous attack on her father and the lie about herself. With regard
+to the rights of the public and the arrogance of the class that ran the
+railways and other quasi-public corporations, I stood to my guns.
+
+This letter I mailed and awaited, with what patience I could command,
+her reply. Several days passed before I received any reply, and then I
+got a short, little cool note saying that she was glad to see that I
+felt an apology was due to her honored father, and was happy to know
+that I was not the author of the outrageous headlines. It was an icy
+little reply to a letter in which I had put my whole heart and I was in
+a rage over it. I made up my mind that I would show her that I was not
+to be treated so. If this was the way in which she received a
+gentleman's full and frank amende, why, I would have no more to do with
+her. Anger is a masterful passion. So long as it holds sway no other
+inmate of the mind can enter. So long as I was angry I got on very well.
+I enjoyed the society of my friends and was much gayer to outward
+appearances than usual. I spent my evenings with Marvel and Wolffert or
+some of my less intimate companions, treated myself and them to the
+theatre, and made altogether a brave feint at bravery. But my anger died
+out. I was deeply in love and I fell back into a slough of despond. I
+thought often of confiding in John Marvel; but for some reason I could
+not bring myself to do so.
+
+Adam driven suddenly out of Paradise with Eve left behind to the
+temptation of the serpent will give some idea of what I felt. I had the
+consolation of knowing that I had done the right thing and the only
+thing a gentleman could have done; but it was a poor consolation when I
+looked back on the happiness I had been having of late in the presence
+of Eleanor Leigh. And now between her and me was the flaming sword which
+turned every way.
+
+My heart gave a sudden drop into my boots one evening when I came across
+an item in the society columns of an afternoon paper, stating that it
+was believed by the friends of the parties, that Mr. Canter would,
+before very long, lead to the altar one of the reigning belles of the
+city. I had always disliked "Society Columns," as the expression of a
+latter-day vulgarity. Since then I have detested them.
+
+I finally determined to try to get an interview with her whose absence
+clouded my world, and wrote her a note rather demanding one. As I
+received no reply to this, I called one evening to see her, if possible.
+The servant took in my card and a moment later returned with the
+statement that Miss Leigh was not at home. I was sure that it was not
+true. I came down the steps white with rage and also with a sinking of
+the heart. For I felt that it was all over between us.
+
+Those whom the Gods hate they first make mad, and it was by no accident
+that the passion of anger and the state of madness have come to be known
+by the same terms in our tongue. I have always held since then that
+every true lover has something of madness in him while the passion
+rages. I could cheerfully have stormed her house and carried Eleanor
+Leigh away. I recalled with grim envy William the Conqueror's savage
+wooing when he met the Count's daughter who had insulted him and rode
+her down, to receive soon afterward her full submission. This somewhat
+barbarous form of proving one's passion having passed out of vogue, I
+testified my spleen by falling into a state of general cynicism which I
+vented so generously that Wolffert finally asked me what had happened to
+me, and conjectured that I must have met with a cross in love. This
+recalled me sufficiently to myself to make me dissemble my feelings, at
+least when in his presence. But I was certainly not rational for some
+time, and, sleeping or waking, I was haunted by the voice of the siren
+to whom I had fatally listened. What must I do in my folly the next time
+I met Miss Leigh, which I did quite accidentally one day on the street,
+but carry my head so high and bow so slightly that the next time we met,
+which was far from being as accidental as it might have appeared, she
+carried her head very high and did not bow at all. It was at some sort
+of a fair held for charity--and, ever since then I have hated them.
+Feeling assured that Eleanor Leigh would go, I attended myself with no
+more charitable object than to benefit a very wretched young lawyer, who
+was deeply conscious that he had made a fool of himself the last time he
+saw her. When I arrived, she was nowhere to be seen and I was on the
+point of leaving when, turning, I found her standing in the midst of a
+group, her arms full of flowers, which she was selling. All I have to
+say is that since that time I have felt that Pluto was entirely
+justified in that little affair in the Sicilian meadows. Thinking to
+make the amende for my foolish airiness when I last saw her, I made my
+way up to Miss Eleanor Leigh; but as I approached and was in the very
+act of speaking to her she turned her back on me. It was a dead cut--a
+public insult, as humiliating as she could make it. I left the fair in a
+rage which lasted long. As I wandered through the forlorn streets that
+night I fed my heart on instances of woman's inconstancy, and agreed
+with the royal lover that, "Mal habil qui s'y fie." But it was a poor
+occupation and brought me little consolation. In his "Inferno," Dante
+has given twelve different and successive circles in the depths of
+perdition, each lower than the other. I passed through every one of
+them, and with no companion but my own folly.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST
+
+
+One may not hate his personal enemy; but one should hate an enemy to
+mankind. Had I known what fresh cause I had to hate Pushkin, I should
+not have been so supine.
+
+Since I began to work seriously my practice had increased, and I was so
+interested in working on my old ladies' case that I was often detained
+at my office until late at night; and several times on my way home I
+observed a man acting somewhat curiously. He would keep along behind me,
+and if I turned back, would turn up a by-street or alley. He was a big,
+brawny fellow, and I never saw him except at night. At first, it had
+made no impression on me; but at length, I noticed him so often that it
+suddenly struck me that he was following me. Rendered suspicious by my
+former experience, I began quietly to test him, and was having a very
+interesting time leading him around the town, when unexpectedly I
+discovered who he was. It was a singular feeling to find oneself
+shadowed; to discover that the man who has passed all others
+indifferently in the crowd has singled you out and follows you, bound to
+you by some invisible thread, tracking you through the labyrinth of the
+thoroughfares; disregarding all the thousands who pass with their
+manifold interests and affairs, and that, singling you out with no
+known reason, he sticks to you through all the mazes of the multitudes.
+It comes to you gradually, dawning by degrees; then bursts on you
+suddenly with a light that astonishes and amazes. You are startled,
+frightened, incredulous; then you suspect, test, and are convinced; you
+suddenly spring from obscurity and indifference into an object of
+interest to yourself; and then it becomes an intellectual game between
+hunter and hunted. New powers awaken, dormant since the days when man
+lived in the forest.
+
+When I awoke to the fact that the big man I had noticed was following
+me, for a moment the sensation was anything but pleasant. My hair almost
+stirred on my head. The next moment anger took the place of this
+feeling--indignation that one should dare to shadow me, to spy on my
+actions. I determined to confront the spy and thwart him. It was not
+difficult to do; he was an awkward fellow. The game was easier than I
+had supposed. One night when I had observed him following me, waiting
+until I reached a favorable spot, I turned quickly with my hand on my
+pistol, which I had put in my pocket, and faced him under a street lamp,
+stepping immediately in front of him and blocking his way.
+
+"Otto!"
+
+With a growl he pulled his hat down closer over his brow and, stepping
+aside, passed on. I went home in a maze. Why should he follow me? I had
+not long to wait before I was enlightened.
+
+One evening shortly afterward I was about to leave my office when there
+was a heavy step outside the door, and without a knock the door flew
+open, and the old Drummer entered. He looked so haggard and broken that
+I was on my feet in a second.
+
+"What is the matter?" I gasped. "Is any one dead?"
+
+"Vorser! Elsa?--Vere iss Elsa?" He stood before me like a wounded bison
+at bay, his eyes red with passion.
+
+"Elsa! What!--'Where is she?' Tell me----?"
+
+"Fhat haf you done vit my daughter?"
+
+"Your daughter! What do you mean?" I asked quietly. "I have not seen her
+since I left your house. Tell me what has occurred."
+
+He soon saw that I knew nothing of her, and his face changed. Yet he
+hesitated.
+
+"Ze Count said--" He began hesitatingly and stopped, thinking over
+something in his mind.
+
+It all came to me in a second. That scoundrel! It was all accounted for
+now--the change in the family toward me--the notice to leave--the spying
+of Otto. Count Pushkin had used me as a blind to cover his own
+wickedness. I suddenly burst out into a wrath which opened the old
+Drummer's eyes. What I said of Pushkin cannot be repeated. What I
+proceeded to do was wiser. Why had I not pitched him out of the window
+that first evening, and so have ended his wicked career! I felt as if I
+were the cause of my friend's wretchedness; of Elsa's destruction. I sat
+the old fellow down in a chair, and made him tell me all the facts.
+
+He informed me that for some time past he and her mother had noticed
+that Elsa had not been the same to Otto, and Otto had been unhappy, and
+had thrown up his place; then she had wished to break with him; but they
+would not let her. And of late she had been staying out a good deal,
+visiting her friends, she said, and when they urged her to marry Otto,
+she had always begged off, and Otto was wretched, and they were all
+wretched. Count Pushkin had intimated that she was in love with me, and
+that I was the cause of her action. They could not believe it.
+
+"Yet, ze Count--?" The old fellow was not able to go on. I relieved him
+and he took up the thread elsewhere, and told of Otto's following me to
+find out. And two or three nights before there had been trouble; she had
+come in late, and her mother had scolded her, and insisted on knowing
+where she had been, and she had told her a lie--and they had insisted on
+her carrying out her agreement with Otto, to which she assented. And
+this morning she was missing.
+
+The old fellow broke down again. His grief was almost more for Otto than
+for himself. "He iss a good boy; he iss a good boy," he repeated again
+and again.
+
+"Maybe, we were too harsh with her, sir, and now she may be dead." He
+was overcome by grief.
+
+I did not believe she was dead; but I feared for her a worse fate. He
+still did not suspect Pushkin. The Count was his friend, he said; he had
+known him since his boyhood.
+
+"I will find her," I said. And I knew I should if I had to choke the
+truth out of Pushkin's throat.
+
+"If you do, I vill bless you, and her mother vill, too!"
+
+I told him to go home and console her mother.
+
+"She has gone to see the preacher. He will know how to console her--and
+he will help her also."
+
+"Why do you not go to the police?"
+
+"Oh! Ze police! Ze police! Efery one say 'Ze police!' Ze police vill nod
+do notings for me. I ham nod von Union-man. Zay haf zeir orders. Ven I
+hax ze police zay say, 'Don't vorry, Elsa vill come home by-m-by, ven
+she get readee.'"
+
+I had heard the same thing said about the police, and recalled what I
+had heard McSheen say to Wringman about keeping them from interfering.
+But I felt that they were probably right in their views about Elsa.
+
+I had recourse to my detective again, and gave him all the information I
+possessed.
+
+"Oh! We'll find out where she is," he said, with that inscrutably placid
+look on his face which I had learned was the veil under which he masked
+both his feelings and his purposes. "You can tell her father she isn't
+dead." This in answer to the old man's suggestion that she had been
+murdered, which I had repeated. Then he added, "But there are worse
+things than death."
+
+His eyes glistened and he buttoned up his coat in a way he had when
+there was any sharp work on hand. It always reminded me of a duellist.
+In a few days he had a clew to the lost girl, and justified my
+suspicions.
+
+It was as I feared. Pushkin had inveigled her from her home and had
+taken her to a house which, if not precisely what I apprehended, was not
+less vile. It was one of those doubly disreputable places which, while
+professing to be reasonably respectable, is really more dangerous than
+the vilest den. The girl was possibly not actually at the place now, but
+had been there. Getting some suspicion of the place, she had insisted on
+leaving, but the woman of the house, said Langton, knew where she was.
+
+"She is a hard one to handle. She has protection."
+
+"Of the police?"
+
+"Of those who control the police. She has powerful friends."
+
+"I don't care how powerful they are, I will get that girl," I said.
+
+I hesitated what to do. I had not wholly abandoned hope of making up my
+trouble with Eleanor Leigh. I did not wish my name to be mixed up in a
+scandal which probably would get into the papers. I determined to
+consult John Marvel, and I said so to Langton.
+
+"You mean the preacher? Won't do any harm. He's straight. He's helping
+to hunt for her, too. I saw him just after I located her, and he had
+already heard."
+
+I determined to go and see him, and told Langton to keep on following up
+his clew. When I went to Marvel's house, however, he was not at home. He
+had been away all day, since early morning, the girl who opened the door
+told me. I went to the police station. Marvel had been there and made a
+complaint about a house, and they were going to send a man around to
+investigate.
+
+He was a terrible crank, that preacher was, but all the same he was a
+good sort of a fellow, the officer said. Some people thought he was too
+meddlesome and mixed up too much with affairs that did not concern him,
+but for his part, he had seen him do things and go where it took a man
+to go. As the officer was going in a short while, I determined to
+accompany him, so waited an hour or so till he was detailed, and then
+set out. When we arrived the place, for all outward signs of evil, might
+have been a home for retired Sunday-school teachers--a more decent and
+respectable little hotel in a quiet street could not have been found in
+town. Only the large woman, with heightened complexion, Mrs. Snow, who,
+at length, appeared in answer to the summons of the solemn officer,
+seemed to be excited and almost agitated. She was divided between
+outraged modesty and righteous indignation. The former was exhibited
+rather toward me, the latter toward the officer. But this was all. She
+swore by all the Evangelists that she knew nothing of the girl, and with
+yet more vehemence that she would have justice for this outrage. She
+would "report the officer to the Captain and to his Honor the Mayor, and
+have the whole --th precinct fired." The officer was very apologetic.
+All we learned was that, "A lady had been brought there by a gentleman
+who said he was her husband, but she had refused to let her in. She did
+not take in people she did not know." As there was nothing to
+incriminate her, we left with apologies.
+
+The strongest ally a man can enlist in any cause is a clear-headed,
+warm-hearted woman. In all moral causes they form the golden guard of
+the forces that carry them through. John Marvel's absence when I called
+to consult him was due to his having got on the trace of Elsa. Another
+of my friends had also got on her trace, and while I was hesitating and
+thinking of my reputation, they were acting. As soon as he learned of
+Elsa's disappearance he consulted the wisest counsellor he knew. He
+went, with rare good sense, to Eleanor Leigh. He had a further reason
+for going to her than merely to secure her aid. He had heard my name
+connected with the affair, and old John had gone to set me straight with
+her. He did not know of the trouble at the Charity Fair, and Miss Leigh
+did not enlighten him. Miss Eleanor Leigh, having learned through Marvel
+that the Loewens were in great trouble, as soon as her school was out
+that day, went to the Loewens' house to learn what she could of the
+girl, with a view to rendering all the aid she could. A new force had
+been aroused in her by John Marvel. Precisely what she learned I never
+knew, but it was enough, with what she had gleaned elsewhere, to lead to
+action. What she had learned elsewhere pointed to a certain place in
+town as one where she might secure further information. It was not a
+very reputable place--in fact, it was a very disreputable place--part
+saloon, part dance-hall, part everything else that it ought not to have
+been. It was one of the vilest dens in this city of Confusion, and the
+more vile because its depths were screened beneath a mass of gilding and
+tinsel and glitter. It lay on one of the most populous streets and,
+dazzling with electric lights, furnished one of the showiest places on
+that street. It was known as "The Gallery," an euphemism to cover a line
+of glaring nude figures hung on the walls, which, by an arrangement of
+mirrors, were multiplied indefinitely. Its ostensible owner was the same
+Mr. Mick Raffity, who kept the semi-respectable saloon opening on the
+alley at the back of the building where I had my office. Its keeper was
+a friend of Mr. Raffity's, by the name of Gallagin, a thin, middle-aged
+person with one eye, but that an eye like a gimlet, a face impervious to
+every expression save that which it habitually wore: a mixture of
+cunning and ferocity.
+
+The place was crowded from a reasonable hour in the evening till an
+unreasonable hour in the morning, and many a robbery and not a few
+darker crimes were said to have been planned, and some perpetrated,
+around its marble tables.
+
+At the side, in a narrow street, was a private entrance and stairway
+leading to the upper stories, over the door of which was the sign,
+"Ladies' Entrance." And at the rear was what was termed by Mr. Gallagin,
+a "Private Hotel."
+
+Young women thronged the lower floor at all hours of the night, but no
+woman had ever gone in there and not come out a shade worse, if
+possible, than when she entered. The Salvation Army had attempted the
+closing of this gilded Augean Stable, but had retired baffled. Now and
+then a sporadic effort had been made in the press to close or reform it,
+but all such attempts had failed. The place was "protected." The police
+never found anything amiss there, or, if they did, were promptly found
+to have something amiss with their own record. To outward appearance it
+was on occasions of inspection as decorous as a meeting-house. It was
+shown that the place had been offered for Sunday afternoon services, and
+that such services had actually been held there. In fact, a
+Scripture-text hung on the wall on such occasions, while close at hand
+hung the more secular notice that "No excuse whatever would be taken if
+one lady or gentleman took another lady's or gentleman's hat or wrap."
+
+This gilded saloon on the evening of the day I called on John Marvel
+was, if anything, more crowded than usual, and into it just as it was
+beginning to grow gay and the clouds of cigarette and cigar smoke were
+beginning to turn the upper atmosphere to a dull gray; just as the
+earlier hum of voices was giving place to the shrieking laughter and
+high screaming of half-sodden youths of both sexes, walked a young
+woman. She was simply dressed in a street costume, but there was that
+about her trim figure, erect carriage, and grave face which marked her
+as different from the gaudy sisterhood who frequented that resort of
+sin, and as she passed up through the long room she instantly attracted
+attention.
+
+The wild laughter subsided, the shrieks died down, and as if by a
+common impulse necks were craned to watch the newcomer, and the
+conversation about the tables suddenly hushed to a murmur, except where
+it was broken by the outbreak of some half-drunken youth.
+
+"Who is she? What is she?" were questions asked at all tables, along
+with many other questions and answers, alike unprintable and incredible.
+The general opinion expressed was that she was a new and important
+addition to the soiled sisterhood, probably from some other city or some
+country town, and comments were freely bandied about as to her future
+destination and success. Among the throng, seated at one of the tables,
+was a large man with two bedizened young women drinking the champagne he
+was freely offering and tossing off himself, and the women stopped
+teasing him about his diamond ring, and rallied him on his attention to
+the newcomer, as with head up, lips compressed, eyes straight before
+her, and the color mounting in her cheek, she passed swiftly up the room
+between the tables and made her way to the magnificent bar behind which
+Mr. Gallagin presided, with his one eye ever boring into the scene
+before him. Walking up to the bar the stranger at once addressed Mr.
+Gallagin.
+
+"Are you the proprietor here?"
+
+"Some folks says so. What can I do for yer?"
+
+"I have come to ask if there is not a young woman here--?" She hesitated
+a moment, as the bar-keepers all had their eyes on her and a number of
+youths had come forward from the tables and were beginning to draw
+about her. Mr. Gallagin filled in the pause.
+
+"Quite a number, but not one too many. In fact, there is just one
+vacancy, and I think you are the very peach to fill it." His discolored
+teeth gleamed for a second at the murmur of approval which came from the
+men who had drawn up to the bar.
+
+"I came to ask," repeated the girl quietly, "if there is not a young
+woman here named Elsa Loewen."
+
+The proprietor's one eye fixed itself on her with an imperturbable gaze.
+"Well, I don't know as there is," he drawled. "You see, there is a good
+many young women here, and I guess they have a good many names among
+'em. But may I ask you what you want with her?"
+
+"I want to get her and take her back to her home."
+
+Mr. Gallagin's eye never moved from her face.
+
+"Well, you can look around and see for yourself," he said quietly.
+
+"No, I don't think she would be here, but have you not a sort of a hotel
+attached to your place?"
+
+"Oh! Yes," drawled Mr. Gallagin. "I can furnish you a room, if you have
+any friends--and if you haven't a friend, I might furnish you one or two
+of them."
+
+"No, I do not wish a room."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated the proprietor.
+
+"I wish to see Elsa Loewen, and I have heard that she is here."
+
+"Oh! you have, and who may be your informant?" demanded the bar-keeper,
+coldly. "I'd like to know what gentleman has sufficient interest in me
+to make me the subject of his conversation."
+
+"I cannot give you my informant, but I have information that she is
+here, and I appeal to you to let me see her."
+
+"To me? You appeal to me?" Mr. Gallagin put his hand on his thin chest
+and nodded toward himself.
+
+"Yes, for her mother; her father. She is a good girl. She is their only
+daughter. They are distracted over her--disappearance. If you only knew
+how terrible it is for a young girl like that to be lured away from home
+where every one loves her, to be deceived, betrayed, dragged down
+while----"
+
+The earnestness of her tone more than the words she uttered, and the
+strangeness of her appeal in that place, had impressed every one within
+reach of her voice, and quite a throng of men and women had left the
+tables and pressed forward listening to the conversation, and for the
+most part listening in silence, the expression on their faces being
+divided between wonder, sympathy, and expectancy, and a low murmur began
+to be audible among the women, hardened as they were. Mr. Gallagin felt
+that it was a crucial moment in his business. Suddenly from under the
+fur came the fierce claw and made a dig to strike deep.
+
+"To hell with you, you d----d ----! I know you and your d----d sort--I
+know what you want, and you'll get it in one minute. Out of my place, or
+I'll pitch you in the gutter or into a worse hole yet!" He made a
+gesture with one hand such as a cat makes with its claws out.
+
+A big man with a hard gleam in his eye moved along the edge of the bar,
+his face stolid and his eyes on the newcomer, while the throng fell back
+suddenly and left the girl standing alone with a little space about her,
+her face pale, and her mouth drawn close under the unexpected assault.
+In another second she would, without doubt, have been thrown out of the
+place, or possibly borne off to that worse fate with which she had been
+threatened. But from the throng to her side stepped out a short,
+broad-shouldered man, with a sodden face.
+
+"Speak her soft, Galley, ---- ---- you! You know who she is! That is the
+Angel of the Lost Children. Speak her soft or ---- ---- you! you'll have
+to throw me out, too." The sodden face took on suddenly a resolution
+that gave the rough a look of power, the broad shoulders were those of
+an athlete, and the steady eye was that of a man to be reckoned
+with--and such was "Red Talman" when aroused.
+
+[Illustration: "Speak her soft, Galley."]
+
+The name he had given was repeated over the throng by many, doubtless,
+who had not heard of her, but there were others who knew, and told of
+the work that Eleanor Leigh had been doing in quarters where any other
+woman of her class and kind had never showed her face; of help here and
+there; a hand lent to lift a fallen girl; of succor in some form or
+another when all hope appeared to be gone.
+
+It was a strange champion who had suddenly stepped forward into the
+arena to protect her, but the girl felt immediately that she was safe.
+She turned to her champion.
+
+"I thank you," she said simply. "If you wish to help me, help me get
+hold of this poor girl whom I have come for. Ask him to let me see her,
+if only for one moment, and I may save her a life of misery."
+
+The man turned to the proprietor. "Why don't you let her see the girl?"
+he said.
+
+Gallagin scowled at him or winked, it could scarcely be told which.
+"What the ---- is it to you? Why can't you keep your mouth for your own
+business instead of interfering with other folks? You have seen trouble
+enough doing that before."
+
+"Let her see the girl."
+
+"What business is it of yours whether I do or not?"
+
+"Just this--that when I was away and my wife was starvin', and you never
+givin' her nothin', and my little gal was dyin', this here lady came
+there and took care of 'em--and that's what makes it my business. I
+don't forgit one as helped me, and you know it."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you this, there ain't no gal of that name here. I don't
+know what she's talkin' about."
+
+"Oh! Come off! Let her see the gal."
+
+"You go up there and look for yourself," said the proprietor. "Take her
+with you if you want to and keep her there."
+
+"Shut your mouth, d----n you!" said Talman. He turned to Miss Leigh.
+
+"She ain't here, lady. He'd never let me go up there if she was there.
+But I'll help you find her if you'll tell me about her. You can go
+home now. I'll see you safe."
+
+"I am not afraid," said the girl. "My carriage is not far off," and with
+a pleasant bow and a word of renewed supplication to the proprietor,
+whose eye was resting on her with a curious, malign expression, she
+turned and passed back through the room, with her gaze straight ahead of
+her, while every eye in the room was fastened on her; and just behind
+her walked the squatty figure of Red Talman. A few doors off a carriage
+waited, and as she reached the door she turned and gave him the name of
+the girl she was seeking, with a little account of the circumstances of
+her disappearance and of her reason for thinking she might be at
+Gallagin's place. She held out her hand to the man behind her.
+
+"I don't know your name or what you alluded to, but if I can ever help
+any of your friends I shall be very glad to do what I can for them."
+
+"My name's Talman. You've already done me a turn."
+
+"'Talman!' 'Red--'! Are you the father of my little girl?"
+
+"That's me."
+
+"What I said just now I mean. If you want help, let me know, or go and
+see Mr. Marvel, the preacher, on the West side--you know him--and you
+will get it. And if you can find anything of that poor girl I shall be
+eternally grateful to you. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, ma'am."
+
+The man watched the carriage until it had disappeared around the corner
+and then he returned to the saloon. He walked up to the bar, and
+Gallagin advanced to meet him.
+
+"If you are lyin' to me," he said, "you better not let me know, but you
+better git that gal out of your place and into her home, or the first
+thing you know there will be a sign on that door."
+
+The other gave a snarl.
+
+"I am puttin' you wise," said Talman. "There's trouble brewing. That's
+big folks lookin' for her."
+
+"I guess Coll McSheen is somethin' in this town still. But for him you
+wouldn' be walkin' around."
+
+"But for--! He's a has-been," said Talman. "He's shot his bolt."
+
+"You ought to know," sneered Gallagin.
+
+"I do."
+
+"That the reason you take no more jobs?"
+
+"It's a good one."
+
+"Have a drink," said Gallagin, with a sudden change of manner, and he
+did him the honor to lift a bottle and put it on the bar.
+
+"I ain't drinkin'. I've got work to do."
+
+"Who's your new owner?"
+
+"Never mind, he's a man. Send the gal home or you'll be pulled before
+twenty-four hours."
+
+"You're runnin' a Sunday-school, ain't you?"
+
+"No, but I'm done workin' for some folks. That's all. So long. Git her
+out of your house if she's here. Git her out of your house."
+
+He walked down the room, and as he passed a table the big man with the
+two women accosted him.
+
+"Who's your friend?" he asked with a sneer. It was Wringman, who having
+finished his labors for the day in proving to famished strikers how much
+better off they were than formerly, was now refreshing himself in one of
+his favorite haunts, at his favorite occupation.
+
+Talman stopped and looked at him quietly, then he said: "That man up
+there"--with his thumb over his shoulder he pointed toward the
+bar--"that man there has been a friend of mine in the past and he can
+ask me questions that I don't allow folks like you to ask me. See? I
+have known a man to git his neck broke by buttin' too hard into other
+folks' business. See?"
+
+Wringman, with an oath, started to get out of his chair, but his
+companions held him down, imploring him to be quiet, and the next moment
+the big bouncer from the bar was standing beside the table, and after a
+word with him Talman made his way through the crowd and walked out of
+the door.
+
+The bar-keeper beckoned to his bouncer and the two held a muttered
+conference at the end of the bar. "He's gittin' too big for his
+breeches," said the bar-keeper as he turned away. "He'll git back there
+if he fools with me and pretty quick too."
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+JOHN MARVEL'S RAID
+
+
+Had any one of the many detectives who were engaged in all sorts of
+work, legitimate and otherwise, in the limits of that great city, been
+watching among the half-sodden group of loafers and night-walkers who
+straggled through the side street on which opened the "Ladies' Entrance"
+of Mr. Gallagin's establishment along toward the morning hours, he might
+have seen a young woman brought from the door of the "ladies' entrance,"
+supported by two persons, one a man and one a woman, and bodily lifted
+into a disreputable looking hack of the type known as a "night-hawk,"
+while the dingy passers-by laughed among themselves and discussed how
+much it had taken to get the young woman as drunk as that. But there was
+no detective or other officer on that street at that hour, and but for
+the fact that a short, squatty man, nursing a grievance against an old
+pal of his, and turning over in his mind the unexpected kindness of a
+young woman and a threadbare preacher in an hour when all the rest of
+the world--even his pals in iniquity--appeared to have turned against
+him, was walking through the street with a dim idea of beginning a
+quarrel with the man who had deserted him, the destination of the
+drunken woman might never have been known. Red Talman's heart, however,
+callous as it was, foul with crimes too many and black to catalogue, had
+one single spot into which any light or feeling could penetrate. This
+was the secret corner, sacred to the thought of his one child, a little
+girl who alone of all the world truly thought him a good man. For John
+Marvel, who had helped his wife and child when he lay in prison under
+long sentence, and had been kind to him, he entertained a kindly
+feeling, but for the young lady who had taken his little girl and taught
+her and made her happy when the taunts of other children drove her from
+the public school, he had more than a liking. She and John Marvel alone
+had treated him in late years as a man and a friend, and a dim hope
+began to dawn in his mind that possibly he might yet be able to save his
+girl from the shame of ever truly knowing what he had been.
+
+So, when the man, with his hat over his eyes, who had helped put the
+young woman in the carriage, re-entered the house and the drunken woman
+was driven off with her companion, Red Talman, after a moment of
+indecision, turned and followed the cab. He was not able to keep up with
+it, as, though the broken-kneed horses went at a slow gait, they soon
+outdistanced him, for he had to be on the watch for officers; but he
+knew the vehicle, and from the direction it took he suspected its
+destination. He turned and went back toward Gallagin's. When he reached
+the narrow, ill-lighted street, on which the side entrance opened, he
+slipped into the shadow at a corner and waited. An hour later the hack
+returned, a woman got out of it and, after a short altercation with the
+driver, ran across the pavement and entered the door. As the hack
+turned, Red Talman slipped out of the shadow and walked up to the front
+wheel.
+
+"Which way you goin'?" he asked the driver, who recognized him.
+
+"Home," he said.
+
+"Gimme a ride?"
+
+"Git up." He mounted beside him and drove with him to a dirty saloon in
+a small street at some little distance, where he treated him and let him
+go. A half-hour afterward he rang the bell of the family hotel which I
+had visited with an officer the day before, and asked to see the woman
+of the house. She could not be seen, the woman said who opened the door.
+
+"Well, give her this message, then. Tell her that Galley says to take
+good care of the girl that he just sent around here and to keep her
+dark."
+
+"Which one?" demanded the woman.
+
+"The one as was doped, that come in the hack."
+
+"All right."
+
+"That's all," said Talman, and walked off.
+
+The self-constituted detective pondered as he passed down through the
+dark street. How should he use his information? Hate, gratitude, and the
+need for money all contended in his breast. He had long harbored a
+feeling of revenge against McSheen and Raffity and his understrapper,
+Gallagin. They had deserted him in his hour of need and he had come near
+being hanged for doing their work. Only his fear of McSheen's power had
+kept him quiet. The desire for revenge and the feeling of gratitude
+worked together. But how should he use his knowledge? It behooved him to
+be prudent. Coll McSheen and Mick Raffity and Mel Gallagin were powerful
+forces in the world in which he moved. They could land him behind the
+bars in an hour if they worked together. At last he solved it!
+
+He would go to a man who had always been kind to him and his. Thus it
+was, that just before light that morning John Marvel was awakened by a
+knock on his door. A man was below who said a sick person needed his
+services. When he came down into the street in the dim light of the
+dawning day, there was a man waiting in the shadow. He did not recognize
+him at first, but he recalled him as the man told the object of his
+visit at such an hour, and John was soon wide-awake. Still he could
+scarcely believe the story he was told.
+
+"Why, she can't be there," he protested. "A friend of mine was there to
+look for her day before yesterday with the police, and she was not
+there."
+
+"She is there now, and if you pull the place you'll get her all right,"
+asserted the other.
+
+"I'll go there myself."
+
+"No use goin' by yourself."
+
+"I'll get the police----"
+
+"The police!" The other laughed derisively. "They don't go after the Big
+Chief's friends--not when he stands by 'em."
+
+"The 'Big Chief'?"
+
+"Coll McSheen."
+
+"Mr. McSheen!"
+
+"He's _it_!"
+
+"It? What? I don't understand."
+
+"Well, don't bring me into this."
+
+"I will not."
+
+"He's at the bottom of the whole business. He's the lawyer 't gives the
+dope and takes care of 'em. He owns the place--'t least, Mick Raffity
+and Gallagin and Smooth Ally own the places; and he owns them. He knows
+all about it and they don't turn a hand without him. Oh! I know him--I
+know 'em all!"
+
+"You think this is the girl the lady was looking for?"
+
+"I don't know. I only know she went there, and Gallagin showed his
+teeth, and then I called him down and got the gal out. I skeered him."
+
+"Well, we'll see."
+
+"Well, I must be goin'. I've told you. Swear you won't bring me into it.
+Good-night."
+
+"I will not."
+
+The man gazed down the street one way, then turned and went off in the
+other direction. John was puzzled, but a gleam of light came to him.
+Wolffert! Wolffert was the man to consult. What this man said was just
+what Wolffert had always insisted on: that "the White Slave traffic" was
+not only the most hideous crime now existing on earth, but that it was
+protected and promoted by men in power in the city, that it was, indeed,
+international in its range. He remembered to have heard him say that a
+law had been passed to deal with it; but that such law needed the force
+of an awakened public conscience to become effective.
+
+Thus it was, that that morning Wolffert was aroused by John Marvel
+coming into his room. In an instant he was wide-awake, for he, too, knew
+of the disappearance of Elsa, and of our fruitless hunt for her.
+
+"But you are sure that this woman is Elsa?" he asked as he hurriedly
+dressed.
+
+"No--only that it is some one."
+
+"So much the better--maybe."
+
+An hour later Wolffert and John Marvel were in a lawyer's office in one
+of the great new buildings of the city, talking to a young lawyer who
+had recently become a public prosecutor, not as a representative of the
+city, but of a larger power, that of the nation. He and Wolffert were
+already friends, and Wolffert had a little while before interested him
+in the cause to which he had for some time been devoting his powers. It
+promised to prove a good case, and the young attorney was keenly
+interested. The bigger the game, the better he loved the pursuit.
+
+"Who's your mysterious informant, Mr. Marvel?" he asked.
+
+"That I cannot tell you. He is not a man of good character, but I am
+sure he is telling me the truth."
+
+"We must make no mistakes--we don't want these people to escape, and the
+net will catch bigger fish, I hope, than you suspect. Why not tell?"
+
+"I cannot."
+
+"Well, then I shall have to get the proof in some other way. I will act
+at once and let you hear from me soon. In fact, I have a man on the case
+now. I learned of it yesterday from my cousin, you know. She is deeply
+interested in trying to break up this vile business, and a part of what
+you say I already knew. But the clews lead to bigger doors than you
+dream of."
+
+John and Wolffert came away together and decided on a plan of their own.
+Wolffert was to come to see me and get Langton interested in the case,
+and John was to go to see Langton to send him to me. He caught Langton
+just as he was leaving his house to come to my office and walked a part
+of the way back with him, giving him the facts he had learned. He did
+not know that Langton was already on the case, and the close-mouthed
+detective never told anything.
+
+When they parted, Langton came to my office, and together we went to the
+district attorney's, who, after a brief talk, decided to act at once,
+and accordingly had warrants issued and placed in the hands of his
+marshal.
+
+"I have been trying for some time to get at these people," he said, "and
+I have the very man for the work--an officer whom Coll McSheen turned
+out for making trouble for the woman who keeps that house."
+
+Aroused by my interest in the Loewens and by what Langton had told me of
+Miss Leigh's daring the night before, I secured the marshal's consent to
+go along with them, the district attorney having, indeed, appointed me a
+deputy marshal for the occasion.
+
+The marshal's face had puzzled me at first, but I soon recognized him as
+the officer I had met once while I watched a little child's funeral.
+"They were too many for me," he said in brief explanation. "Mrs. Collis
+had me turned out. She had a pull with the Big Chief. And when I went
+for his friend, Smooth Ally, he bounced me. But I'm all right now, Mr.
+Semmes knows me, and Coll McSheen may look out. I know him."
+
+I do not know what might have happened had we been a little later in
+appearing on the scene. As, after having sent a couple of men around to
+the back of the block, we turned into the street we saw three or four
+men enter the house as though in a hurry. We quickened our steps, but
+found the door locked, and the voices within told that something unusual
+was going on. The high pitched voice of a woman in a tirade and the low
+growls of men came to us through the door, followed by the noise of a
+scuffle and the smashing of furniture; a thunderous knock on the door,
+however, brought a sudden silence.
+
+As there was no response either to the knock or ring, another summons
+even more imperative was made, and this time a window was opened above,
+a woman thrust her head out and in a rather frightened voice asked what
+was wanted. The reply given was a command to open the door instantly,
+and as the delay in obeying appeared somewhat unreasonable, a different
+method was adopted. The door was forced with an ease which gave me a
+high idea of the officer's skill. Within everything appeared quiet, and
+the only circumstance to distinguish the house from a rather tawdry
+small hotel of a flashy kind was a man and that man, John Marvel, with a
+somewhat pale face, his collar and vest torn and a reddish lump on his
+forehead, standing quietly in the doorway of what appeared to be a
+sitting-room where the furniture had been upset, and the woman whom I
+had formerly seen when I visited the place with a police officer,
+standing at the far end of the hall in a condition of fright bordering
+on hysterics. I think I never saw men so surprised as those in our party
+were to find a preacher there. It was only a moment, however, before the
+explanation came.
+
+"She's here, I believe," said John, quietly, "unless they have gotten
+her away just now."
+
+His speech appeared to have unchained the fury of the woman, for she
+swept forward suddenly like a tornado, and such a blast of rage and
+abuse and hate I never heard pour from a woman's lips. Amid tears and
+sobs and savage cries of rage, she accused John Marvel of every crime
+that a man could conceive of, asserting all the while that she herself
+was an innocent and good woman and her house an absolutely proper and
+respectable home. She imprecated upon him every curse and revenge which
+she could think of. I confess that, outraged as I was by the virago's
+attack, I was equally surprised by John Marvel's placidness and the
+officer's quiet contempt. The only thing that John Marvel said was:
+
+"There were some men here just now."
+
+"Liar! Liar! Liar!" screamed the woman. "You know you lie. There is not
+a man in this house except that man, and he came here to insult me--he
+who comes here all the time--you know you do, ---- ---- ----!"
+
+"Where are the men?" demanded the marshal quietly, but he got no answer
+except her scream of denial.
+
+"They were after me," said John, "but when you knocked on the door they
+ran off."
+
+Another outpour of denial and abuse.
+
+"Come on, men," said the marshal.
+
+John Marvel had been troubled by no such scruples as had appeared to me.
+He was not afraid for his reputation as I had been for mine. And on his
+way home he had had what he felt to be, and what, far be from me to say
+was not, a divine guidance. A sudden impulse or "call" as he termed it,
+had come to him to go straight to this house, and, having been admitted,
+he demanded the lost girl. The woman in charge denied vehemently that
+such a girl had ever been there or that she knew anything of her,
+playing her part of outraged modesty with a great show of sincerity. But
+when Marvel persisted and showed some knowledge of the facts, she took
+another tack and began to threaten him. He was a preacher, she said, and
+she would ruin him. She would call in the police, and she would like to
+see how it would look when an account came out in the newspapers next
+morning of his having visited what he thought a house of ill repute. She
+had friends among the police, and bigger friends even than the police,
+and they would see her through.
+
+John quietly seated himself. A serene and dauntless resolution shone
+from his eyes. "Well, you had better be very quick about it," he said,
+"for I have already summoned officers and they will be here directly."
+
+Then the woman weakened and began to cringe. She told him the same story
+that she had told me and the policeman when we had called before. A
+young woman had come there with a gentleman whom she called her husband,
+but she would not let her stay because she suspected her, etc., etc.
+
+"Why did you suspect her?"
+
+"Because, and because, and because," she explained. "For other reasons,
+because the man was a foreigner."
+
+John Marvel, for all his apparent heaviness, was clear-headed and
+reasonable. He was not to be deceived, so he quietly sat and waited.
+Then the woman had gone, as she said, to call the police, but, as was
+shown later, she had called not the police, but Gallagin and Mick
+Raffity and the man who stood behind and protected both of these
+creatures and herself, and the men who had come in response had been not
+officers of the police, but three scoundrels who, under a pretence of
+respectability, were among the most dangerous instruments used by Coll
+McSheen and his heelers. Fortunately for John Marvel we had arrived in
+the nick of time. All this appeared later.
+
+Unheeding her continued asseverations and vituperation, the marshal
+proceeded to examine the house. The entire lower floor was searched
+without finding the woman. In the kitchen below, which was somewhat
+elaborate in its appointments, a number of suspiciously attired and more
+than suspicious looking young women were engaged, apparently, in
+preparing to cook, for as yet the fire was hardly made, and in scrubbing
+industriously. Up-stairs a number more were found. For the moment
+nothing was said to them, but the search proceeded. They were all
+manifestly in a state of subdued excitement which was painful to see, as
+with disheveled hair, painted faces and heaving bosoms, they pretended
+to be engaged in tasks which manifestly they had rarely ever attempted
+before. Still there was no sign of Elsa, and as the proprietor declared
+that we had seen every room except that in which her sick daughter was
+asleep, it looked as though Elsa might not have been there after all.
+
+"Let us see your daughter," said the officer.
+
+This was impossible. The doctor had declared that she must be kept
+absolutely quiet, and in fact the woman made such a show of sincerity
+and motherly anxiety, that I think I should have been satisfied. The
+marshal, however, knew his business better--he insisted on opening the
+door indicated, and inside, stretched on a dirty pallet, was a poor
+creature, evidently ill enough, if not actually at the point of death.
+It was not, however, the woman's daughter; but to my unspeakable horror,
+I recognized instantly the poor girl I had once rescued from a less
+cruel death and had turned over to the Salvation Army. There was no
+mistaking her. Her scarred face was stamped indelibly on my memory. She
+presently recognized me too; but all she said was, "They got me back. I
+knew they would." We turned her over to John Marvel, while awaiting the
+ambulance, and continued our search which threatened to prove fruitless
+so far as Elsa Loewen was concerned. But at this moment a curious thing
+occurred. Dixey, who had been following me all the morning and had,
+without my taking notice of him, come not only to the house with us, but
+had come in as well, began to nose around and presently stopped at a
+door, where he proceeded to whimper as he was accustomed to do when he
+wished to be let in at a closed door. I called him off, but though he
+came, he went back again and again, until he attracted the officer's
+attention. The door was a low one, and appeared to be the entrance only
+to a cupboard.
+
+"Have we been in that room?"
+
+The woman declared that we had, but as we all knew it had not been
+entered, she changed and said it was not the door of a room at all, but
+of a closet.
+
+"Open it!" said the officer.
+
+"The key is lost," said the woman. "We do not use it!"
+
+"Then I will open it," said the marshal, and the next moment the door
+was forced open. The woman gave a scream and made a dash at the nearest
+man, beside herself with rage, fighting and tearing like a wild animal.
+And well she might, for inside, crumpled up on the floor, under a pile
+of clothing, lay the girl we were searching for, in a comatose state.
+She was lifted carefully and brought out into the light, and I scarcely
+knew her, so battered and bruised and dead-alive the poor thing
+appeared. Dixey, however, knew, and he testified his affection and
+gratitude by stealing in between us as we stood around her and licking
+the poor thing's hand. It was a terrible story that was revealed when
+the facts came out, and its details were too horrifying and revolting to
+be put in print, but that night Madam Snow's hotel was closed. The
+lights which had lured so many a frail bark to shipwreck were
+extinguished, and Madam Snow and her wretched retinue of slaves, who had
+been bound to a servitude more awful than anything which history could
+tell or romance could portray, were held in the custody of the marshal
+of the United States.
+
+The newspapers next day, with one exception, contained an account of the
+"pulling" of Smooth Ally's place. That exception was _The Trumpet_. But
+a day or two later John Marvel received a cheque for $200 from Coll
+McSheen "for his poor." I had never seen Wolffert show more feeling than
+when John, in the innocency of his heart, told him of the gift. "It is
+the wedge of Achan!" he exclaimed. "It is hush money. It is blood money.
+It is the thirty pieces of silver given for blood. Even Judas returned
+it." He made his proof clear, and the money was returned.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+"DOCTOR CAIAPHAS"
+
+
+It was the duty of the street-car company under their charter to run
+through cars every day or forfeit their charter--a wise provision,
+doubtless; but one which did not contemplate that Coll McSheen who was
+trying to destroy the company should have control of the police on whose
+protection the ability to carry out the charter depended.
+
+Under the compulsion of this requirement to run through cars, the
+management of the street-car line, after much trouble, secured a few men
+who, for a large price, agreed to operate the cars. But it was several
+hours after the regular time before the first car ran out of the shed.
+It made its way for some distance without encountering any difficulty or
+even attracting any attention beyond a few comments by men and women
+walking along the streets or standing in their doors. A little further
+along there were a few jeers, but presently it turned a corner and
+reached a point in a street where a number of boys were playing, as
+usual, and a number of men out of work were standing about smoking their
+pipes and discussing with some acrimony the action of the meeting which
+had called the strike, and with some foreboding the future. As the car
+stopped for a moment to take on a woman who had been waiting, a number
+of the boys playing in the street began to jeer and hoot the motorman,
+who was evidently somewhat unaccustomed to handling his car, and when he
+attempted to loosen his brake, and showed therein his unskilfulness,
+jeers turned into taunts, and the next moment a few handfuls of rubbish
+picked up in a gutter were flung at him. In a twinkling, as if by magic
+the street filled, and vegetables taken from in front of a neighboring
+shop, mingled with a few stones, began to rattle against the car,
+smashing the windows with much noise. The rattling glass quickly
+attracted attention. It was like a bugle call, and in a minute more the
+road was blocked and a dozen youths sprang upon the car and a fierce
+fight ensued between them and the motorman and conductor, both of whom
+were soundly beaten and might have been killed but for their promise to
+give up their job and the somewhat tardy arrival of the police who had
+been promised, but had appeared on the scene only after the riot had
+taken place. This collision, which was begun by a lot of irresponsible
+boys, was described under glaring headlines in all of the afternoon
+papers as a riot of vast dimension. The effect of the riot, great or
+small, was instantaneous and far-reaching throughout the entire section.
+That evening the entire population of that section had changed from an
+attitude of reasonable neutrality to one of unequivocal hostility. It
+was a psychological moment. The spark had been dropped in the powder.
+Next day it was as if war had been declared. There were no neutrals. All
+had taken sides.
+
+Before many days were out the strike had progressed so far that, instead
+of its being a small body of men engaged in cessation of work, with
+pacific methods of attempting to dissuade others who wished to continue
+their work from doing so, or, by some more positive form of argument
+known as picketing, of preventing newcomers from taking the places of
+those who had struck, it had developed into an active force whose frank
+object was to render it impossible for any man to take or hold a
+position as an employee of the railway company. It was not so much that
+meetings were frequently held and the measures advocated constantly grew
+more and more violent, nor that occasional outbreaks occurred, as that
+the whole temper of the people was becoming inflamed, and the conditions
+of life affected thereby were becoming almost intolerable. The call of
+the company on the mayor, as the representative of the public, to grant
+them protection, was promptly, if somewhat evasively, replied to. No man
+knew better than Coll McSheen how to express himself so that he might be
+understood differently by different men. It had been one of his strong
+cards in climbing to the altitude which he had reached. But the idea
+that the police would render efficient aid to the company was openly and
+generally scoffed at in the quarters where the strike prevailed. It was
+boldly declared that the police were in sympathy with the strikers. This
+report appeared to have some foundation, when one cold night, with the
+thermometer at zero, a fire broke out in the mills owned by Mr. Leigh's
+company, and they were gutted from foundation to roof. It was charged
+on the strikers; but an investigation showed that this charge, like many
+others, was unfounded; at least, as it alleged a direct and intentional
+act. The evidence proved conclusively to my mind that the fire, while of
+incendiary origin, was started by a gang of reckless and dissolute
+youths who had no relation whatever to the strikers, but whose purpose
+was to exhibit their enmity against a company which was held in such
+disfavor generally. This was the contention of Wolffert in his papers on
+the incident, and the view which Mr. Leigh afterward adopted.
+
+It was only an expression of the general feeling that had grown up in
+the city under the influence of the strike--one of the baleful offspring
+of the condition which McSheen and Wringman and their like had been able
+to produce from the conflict which they had projected and fostered. The
+wretched youths who were arrested, told under the sweating process a
+series of wholly conflicting and incredible lies, and in time two of
+them were convicted on their own confessions and sent to the State
+prison, and the strikers who had not yet resorted to extreme measures of
+violence got the credit of the crime.
+
+The continued spread of the strike and of sympathy with it had already
+reached large proportions. The losses to business and to business men
+and the inconvenience to even the well-to-do classes were immense and
+when calculated in figures were quite staggering. The winter had set in
+with sudden severity. The suffering among the poor was incalculable.
+There was not a house or shop in the poorer districts where the pinch of
+poverty was not beginning to be felt. The wolf, which ever stands beside
+the door of the poor, had long since entered and cleaned out many of the
+small dwellings which the summer before had been the abode of hope and
+of reasonable content. Only the human wolves who prey on misfortune
+battened and fattened; the stock-brokers who organized raids on "the
+market," the usurers who robbed the poor more directly, but not more
+effectively, the thieves of one kind or another alone prospered. The cry
+of hunger increased while bitterness without and within had long since
+begun to be universal, so long as to be scarcely heeded throughout the
+poor quarters. The efforts of philanthropy, individual and organized,
+were exercised to the utmost, but the trouble was too vast to be more
+than touched on the outer fringe. The evil which Mr. Leigh had predicted
+had come to pass and his prophecy had been far more than verified. Many
+of the young women, turned from their factories, had disappeared from
+the places which knew them before and found their way to haunts like Mel
+Gallagin's "Gallery" and others less splendid, but not more wicked. Only
+in the sphere in which persons of extraordinary accumulation moved, like
+the Canters and the Argands, was there apparently no diminution in their
+expenditure and display. Young Canter and his comrades still flaunted
+their vast wealth in undisguised and irresponsible display--still
+gambled on the stock boards in commodities that touched the lives of
+pining thousands--still multiplied their horses and automobiles, and
+drove them recklessly through crowded streets, heedless of the pinched
+and scowling faces of unemployed multitudes. But older and saner heads
+were beginning to shake when the future was mentioned. The reefing of
+sails for a storm whose forerunners were on the horizon was already
+taking place, and every reef meant that some part of the crew which had
+sailed the ship so far was dropped overboard.
+
+The devil is credited with the power to raise a tempest. Certainly
+tempests are raised, but sometimes even the devil cannot quiet them.
+Such was the case with the strike. McSheen, Wringman and Co. had been
+completely successful in getting the strike of the Leigh employees under
+way: when it started, they privately took much pride in their work.
+Wringman received his wage and gratified his feeling of revenge for Mr.
+Leigh's cool contempt of him on the occasion when he called to demand
+terms of him. McSheen had a score of longer standing to settle. It dated
+back to the time when Mr. Leigh, looking with clear and scornful eyes at
+his work, gave him to feel that at least one man knew him to the bottom
+of his scoundrelly soul. For a while it appeared as though Mr. Leigh
+would be irretrievably ruined and McSheen and his friends and secret
+backers like Canter would secure easy possession of the properties his
+power of organization had built up; but suddenly an unlooked-for ally
+with abundant resources had come to Mr. Leigh's assistance in the person
+of an old friend, and the ripened fruit of their labors had been
+plucked from their hands outstretched to grasp it. And now having raised
+the tempest, these gamblers could not calm it. In other words, having
+started a strike among Mr. Leigh's operatives for a specific purpose, it
+had spread like a conflagration and now threatened to destroy
+everything. The whole laboring population were getting into a state of
+ferment. Demands were made by their leaders such as had never been
+dreamed of before. The leaders were working them for their own purposes,
+and were after a temporary raise of wages. But there was a graver
+danger. The people were becoming trained. A new leader was coming
+forward, and his writings were having a profound influence. He could not
+be bullied, and he could not be bought, this Jew, Wolffert. He was
+opening the eyes of the People. Unless the thing were stopped, there
+would be a catastrophe which would ruin them all. This was the judgment
+that McSheen and Canter and Co. arrived at. And this was the conclusion
+that Mr. Canter, Sr., announced to his son and heir, Mr. Canter, Jr., at
+the close of an interview in which he had discussed his affairs with
+more openness than he usually employed with that audacious young
+operator. "The fact is," he said, "that we have failed in the object of
+our move. We have not got hold of Leigh's lines--and his men are
+returning to work while ours are just beginning to fight--and instead of
+getting his properties, we stand a blessed good show of losing our own.
+McSheen couldn't deliver the goods and there is the devil to pay. Why
+don't you stop your ---- nonsense and settle down and marry that girl?
+She's the prettiest girl in town and--Well, you might go a good deal
+further and fare worse. There is a good property there if we don't
+destroy it fighting for it. If you are ever going to do it, now is the
+time, and we are bound to have it, if possible, to save our own."
+
+Mr. Canter, Jr., shrugged his shoulders. "How do you know she would have
+me?" he asked with a sort of grin which was not altogether mirthful. He
+did not feel it necessary to impart to his parent the fact that he was
+beginning to have strong doubts himself on the subject. But Canter, Jr.,
+was no fool.
+
+"Well, of course, she won't, if you go spreeing around with a lot of
+blanked hussies. No decent woman would. But why the deuce don't you drop
+that business? You are getting old enough now to know better. And you
+can't keep hitting it up as you have been doing. There's a new system
+coming in in this town, and you'll get in trouble if you don't look out.
+You came precious near it the other night. Those young men mean
+business. Get rid of that woman."
+
+Young Canter for once came near disclosing to his father the whole
+situation and telling him the truth. He however contented himself with
+his usual half-light assurance that he was all right--and that he was
+going to settle down. He could not bring himself to tell him that he
+found himself bound with a chain which he could not break, and that
+"that woman" would not be gotten rid of. She, in fact, threatened not
+only to make a terrible scandal if he attempted to leave her, but
+actually menaced his life.
+
+However, he determined to act on his father's advice. He would break off
+from her and if he could carry through his plans he would marry and go
+abroad and remain until the storm had blown over and "that woman" had
+consoled herself with some other soft young millionaire.
+
+Among all the people affected by the strike none suffered more, I
+believe, than John Marvel and Wolffert. I never saw any one more
+distressed by the suffering about them than these two men. Others
+suffered physically, they mentally, and in the reflexive way which comes
+from over-wrought sympathies. Where gloom and dull hate scowled from the
+brows of the working class, sadness and sorrow shadowed John's brow,
+though at need he always had a smile and a cheery word for every one. He
+was soon reduced to his last suit of clothes, and as the cold increased,
+he went about overcoatless and gloveless, walking like fury and beating
+his arms to keep himself from freezing, his worn overcoat and gloves
+having long since gone with everything else he had to help some one
+needier than himself. "Take a long, deep breath," he used to say, "and
+it will warm you up like a fire. What does a young man need with an
+overcoat?" What, indeed, with the thermometer at zero, and rapidly
+slipping still lower! "Those I grieve for are the old and the sick and
+the young children."
+
+However this was, he was busier than ever--going in and out among his
+poor; writing letters, making calls, appealing to those able to give,
+and distributing what he could collect, which, indeed, was no little,
+for the people at large were sympathetic with suffering and generous to
+poverty. And his ablest assistant in the work was Wolffert, if, indeed,
+he was not the leader. I never knew before what one man's intellect and
+zeal consecrated to a work could accomplish. The great morass of
+poverty, wide and profound at all times, extending through the city,
+sapping the foundations and emitting its exhalations, became now
+bottomless and boundless. Into this morass Wolffert flung himself with
+the earnestness of a zealot. He worked day and night, organizing relief
+associations; looking after individual cases; writing letters to the
+press and picturing conditions with a vividness which began to make an
+impression on all sides. He counselled patience and moderation on the
+part of the poor, but made no secret of his sympathy with them, and
+where he dealt with the injustice shown them it was with a pen of flame.
+The conservative papers charged that his letters added fuel to the
+flames already blazing. It was possibly true. Certainly, the flames were
+spreading.
+
+As the strike proceeded and violence increased, those evidences of
+sympathy which came in the form of contributions grew less, and at last
+they began to fail perceptibly. In the commotion the foulest dregs of
+the seething community were thrown up, the vilest scum rose to the top.
+As in the case of Mr. Leigh's fire, whatever outrages were committed
+were charged to the strikers. The press, which had begun with
+expressions of sympathy with the strikers, had, under the impending
+shadow, changed its tone and was now calling on the authorities to put
+down lawlessness with a strong hand; demanding that the police should be
+ordered to protect the property and lives of citizens, and calling on
+the mayor to bestir himself and call on the governor for aid.
+
+In this state of the case John Marvel, wishing to see what could be done
+to ameliorate the conditions about him, called a meeting of his
+congregation at his church one evening just before Christmas, and when
+the time came the little chapel was crowded to suffocation. It was a
+sombre and depressing-looking crowd that thronged the aisles of the
+little building. Poverty and want were in every face. A hopeless, sullen
+misery sat on every brow. The people thought that somehow some good
+would come of it, and many who had never been inside the walls before
+were on hand. I went in consequence of a talk I had with Marvel, who had
+casually mentioned Miss Eleanor Leigh's name in connection with the
+first suggestion of the call. And I was rewarded, for seated back in the
+crowd, with her face a little more pallid than usual and her eyes filled
+with the light of expectancy and kindness, sat Eleanor Leigh. She was
+dressed with great simplicity; but her appearance was not the less
+attractive, at least to me. She smiled from time to time to some
+acquaintance in the sad-looking throng, but I had a pang of jealousy to
+see how her gaze followed John Marvel, and one other member of the
+assembly, whose presence rather surprised me, Wolffert.
+
+After a brief service John Marvel, in a few touching and singularly apt
+words, explained the reason for having called them together,
+irrespective of their church relation, and urged that, as the blessed
+season which was accepted by Christendom as the time of peace on earth
+and good-will to all men was drawing near, they should all try to lay
+aside personal feeling and hates and grievances, and try what effect
+kindness and good-will would accomplish. He asked that all would try to
+help each other as formerly, and trust to the Divine and Merciful Master
+to right their wrongs and inspire compassion for their sufferings. He
+referred to the terrible development that had just been made among
+them--the discovery of Elsa and the other poor girl who had been found
+at the Snow house--to the sudden arousing of the law after years of
+praying and working, and with a word of compassion for the poor
+creatures who had been misled and enslaved, he urged patience and prayer
+as the means to secure God's all-powerful help in their distress. His
+words and manner were simple and touching, and I do not attempt to give
+any idea of them or of their effect. But I somehow felt as though I were
+hearing the very teaching of Christ. He would call on one who was their
+friend as they knew, the friend of all who needed a friend, to say a few
+words to them. He turned to Wolffert. Wolffert walked forward a few
+steps and turned, made a brief but powerful statement of the situation,
+and counselled patience and forbearance. He knew their sufferings, he
+said--he knew their fortitude. He knew their wrongs, but patience and
+fortitude would in time bring a realization of it all in the minds of
+the public. What was needed was to make known to the world the truth,
+not as changed and distorted by ignorance or evil design, but as it
+existed in fact. They had a more powerful weapon than bullets or
+bayonets, the power of truth and justice. His own people had been
+preserved by Jehovah through the ages by the patience and fortitude He
+had given them, and God's arm was not shortened that He could not save
+nor His ear dulled that He could not hear. He used the same illustration
+that John Marvel had used: the unexpected arousing of the law to defend
+and save poor ignorant girls, who were being dragged down to the
+bottomless pit by organized infamy under the protection of men who had
+made themselves more powerful than the law. For these he had a few
+scathing words. He told of John Marvel's going to find Elsa, and
+referred to the aid he had received from others, those connected with
+the railway line on which the strike existed; and he counselled them to
+protect themselves, obey the law, keep the peace, and await with
+patience the justice of God. Efforts were being made to furnish them
+with fuel.
+
+It may have been Wolffert's deep, flashing eyes, his earnest manner and
+vibrant voice, which affected them, for, though he held himself under
+strong restraint, he was deeply affected himself; but when John Marvel,
+after a brief prayer, dismissed them with the benediction, the people,
+men and women, passed out in almost silence and dispersed to their
+homes, and their murmured talk was all in a new key of resignation and
+even of distant hope. I felt as though I had shaken off the trammels of
+selfishness that had hitherto bound me, and was getting a glimpse of
+what the world might become in the future. This simple follower of
+Christ among his poor, threadbare like them, like them fireless and
+hungry and poor, illustrated his master's teaching in a way which I had
+never seen before, and it gave me a new insight into his power. I should
+have liked to go up to Eleanor Leigh and make peace with her; but while
+I deliberated Wolffert joined her and I walked home alone and
+thoughtful.
+
+The press next morning had a fairly full notice of the meeting--the
+first that had ever been given to the work done through the chapel and
+its minister. The chief notices in it were the connection of the
+minister with the case of Elsa Loewen and the attack on the system made
+by a Jew. One paper had the heading:
+
+    "JEW AND CHRISTIAN."
+
+Another's headline ran:
+
+    "PREACHER MARVEL VISITS A BAGNIO."
+
+And it was only below that it was made plain that John Marvel had gone
+thither to rescue a lost girl. This, Kalender once informed me, was the
+true art of making headlines. "Half the world don't read anything but
+the headlines," he asserted, "and the other half don't remember anything
+else." The story made a sensation which Kalender himself might have
+coveted.
+
+That day about noon Mrs. Argand received a call from her counsel, the
+Hon. Collis McSheen, who unfolded to her such a diabolical scheme to
+injure her property interests in common with those of every other
+important property holder in the city, by a wicked Jewish wretch and his
+fellow in mischief, who professed to be a preacher of the Gospel in a
+chapel which she had largely helped to build for the poor, that between
+fright and rage the good lady was scarcely able to wait long enough to
+summon the Rev. Dr. Capon to her house. The Hon. Collis did not mention
+the fact that one of his own houses was at that moment closed through
+the act of this scheming parson, nor that he was beginning to shake over
+the idea that the investigation beginning to be set on foot in
+consequence of the meddlesomeness of this same person might reach
+uncomfortably near his own door, and that he was sensible that a force
+was being aroused which he could not control.
+
+Most women trust implicitly in their lawyers, and, curiously enough,
+many trust them in their affairs even when they know they are dishonest.
+Coll McSheen knew perfectly how to deal with Mrs. Argand. He descanted
+eloquently on his duty to the great estate she represented and his pride
+in her admirable management of it. One of the great fountains of charity
+was in danger.
+
+The Reverend Doctor Bartholomew Capon visited his parishioner and was
+quite as much upset as she herself was over the information received
+from Mr. McSheen. Dr. Capon had but an indifferent opinion of Mr.
+McSheen. He knew him to be by repute a protector of evildoers, a man of
+loose morals and low instincts, but he was a man of power of the brute
+kind and of keen insight into the grosser conditions. And his views as
+to the effect on property of any movement in the city were entitled to
+great respect, and property, to the doctor's mind, was undoubtedly a
+divine institution. Moreover, a Jew who assailed it must have some
+ulterior design. And to think of his having been permitted to speak in
+his chapel! So Dr. Capon returned to his home much displeased with his
+assistant and, sitting down, wrote him a note immediately.
+
+This note John Marvel received next morning in his mail. It ran as
+follows:
+
+     "Mr. Marvel will call at the rector's office to-morrow, Tuesday, at
+     11.30 promptly.
+
+     "(Signed) BARTHOLOMEW CAPON, D.D.,
+
+     "_Rector_, etc., etc."
+
+The tone of the note struck even John Marvel and he immediately brought
+it over to me. We both agreed that the doctor must have read the account
+of the raid on Madam Snow's and of his presence there when the officers
+arrived, and we decided that, notwithstanding the curtness of the
+summons, it was due to John himself to go and make a simple statement of
+the matter. We felt indeed that the interview might result in awakening
+the living interest of Dr. Capon in the work on which we had embarked
+and securing the co-operation not only of himself but of the powerful
+organization which he represented as rector of a large church. Dr. Capon
+was not a difficult man; in his own way, which was the way of many
+others, he tried to do good. He was only a worldly man and a narrow man.
+He felt that his mission was to the rich. He knew them better than the
+poor and liked them better. The poor had so much done for them, why
+should not he look after the rich? Like Simon, he believed that there
+was a power in money which was unlimited.
+
+At 11.30 promptly John Marvel presented himself in the front room of the
+building attached to the church, in one corner of which was the rector's
+roomy office. A solemn servant was in waiting who took in his name,
+closing the door silently behind him, and after a minute returned and
+silently motioned John Marvel to enter. Dr. Capon was seated at his desk
+with a number of newspapers before him, and in response to John's "Good
+morning," he simply said, "Be seated," with a jerk of his head toward a
+chair which was placed at a little distance from him, and John took the
+seat, feeling, as he afterward told me, much as he used to feel when a
+small boy, when he was called up by a teacher and set down in a chair
+for a lecture. The rector shuffled his newspapers in a sudden little
+accession of excitement, taking off his gold-rimmed glasses and putting
+them on again, and then taking up one, he turned to John.
+
+"Mr. Marvel, I am astonished at you--I am simply astounded that you
+should have so far forgotten yourself and what was due to your orders as
+to have done what I read in this sheet and what the whole press is
+ringing with."
+
+"Well, sir," said John, who had by this time gotten entire control of
+himself, and felt completely at ease in the consciousness of his
+innocence and of his ability to prove it. "I am not surprised that you
+should be astounded unless you knew the facts of the case."
+
+"What facts, sir?" demanded Dr. Capon sternly. "Facts! There is but one
+fact to be considered--that you have violated a fundamental canon."
+
+"Yes, I knew it would look so, and I had intended to come yesterday to
+consult you as to the best method----"
+
+"It is a pity you had not done so--that you allowed your sense of duty
+to be so obscured as to forget what was due alike to me and to your
+sacred vows."
+
+"But I was very much engaged," pursued John, "with matters that appeared
+to me of much greater importance than anything relating to my poor
+self."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the rector. "Cease! Cease your pretences! Mr. Marvel,
+your usefulness is ended. Sign that paper!"
+
+He picked up and held out to him with a tragic air a paper which he had
+already prepared before John Marvel's arrival. John's mind had for the
+moment become a blank to some extent under the unexpected attack, and it
+was a mechanical act by which his eye took in the fact that the paper
+thrust into his hand was a resignation declaring that it was made on
+the demand of the rector for reasons stated which rendered it imperative
+that he sever his connection with that parish.
+
+"I will not sign that paper," said John quietly.
+
+"You will not what?" The rector almost sprang out of his chair.
+
+"I will not sign that paper."
+
+"And pray, why not?"
+
+"Because it places me in the position of acknowledging a charge which,
+even if true, has not been specifically stated, and which is not true
+whatever the appearances may be, as I can readily prove."
+
+"Not true?" the rector exclaimed. "Is it not true that you allowed a Jew
+to speak in your church, in my chapel?"
+
+"That I did what?" asked John, amazed at the unexpected discovery of the
+rector's reason.
+
+"That you invited and permitted a man named Wolffert, a socialistic Jew,
+to address a congregation in my chapel?"
+
+"It is true," said John Marvel, "that I invited Mr. Wolffert to speak to
+an assemblage in the chapel under my charge, and that he did so speak
+there."
+
+"Uttering the most dangerous and inflammatory doctrines--doctrines alike
+opposed to the teaching of the church and to the command of the law?"
+
+"That is not true," said John. "You have been misinformed."
+
+"I do not wish or propose to discuss either this or any other matter
+with you, Mr. Marvel. You have allowed a Jew to speak in the house of
+God. Your usefulness is ended. You will be good enough to sign this
+paper, for you may rest assured that I know my rights and shall maintain
+them."
+
+"No, I will not sign this paper," said John Marvel, "but I will resign.
+Give me a sheet of paper."
+
+The rector handed him a sheet, and John drew up a chair to the desk and
+wrote his resignation in a half-dozen words and handed it to the rector.
+
+"Is that accepted?" he asked quietly.
+
+"It is." The rector laid the sheet on his desk and then turned back to
+John Marvel. "And now, Mr. Marvel, allow me to say that you grossly, I
+may say flagitiously, violated the trust I reposed in you when----"
+
+John Marvel held up his hand. "Stop! Not one word more from you. I am no
+longer your assistant. I have stood many things from you because I
+believed it was my duty to stand them, so long as I was in a position
+where I could be of service, and because I felt it my duty to obey you
+as my superior officer, but now that this connection is severed, I wish
+to say that I will not tolerate one more word or act of insolence from
+you."
+
+"Insolence?" cried the rector. "Insolence? You are insolent yourself,
+sir. You do not know the meaning of the term."
+
+"Oh! Yes, I know it," said John, who had cooled down after his sudden
+outbreak. "I have had cause to know it. I have been your assistant for
+two years. I bid you good morning, Dr. Capon." He turned and walked out,
+leaving the rector speechless with rage.
+
+I do not mean in relating Dr. Capon's position in this interview to make
+any charge against others who might honestly hold the same view which he
+held as to the propriety of John Marvel's having requested Leo Wolffert
+to speak in his church, however much I myself might differ from that
+view, and however I might think in holding it they are tithing the mint,
+anise, and cumin, and overlooking the weightier matters of the law. My
+outbreak of wrath, when John Marvel told me of his interview with the
+rector, was due, not to the smallness of the rector's mind, but to the
+simple fact that he selected this as the basis of his charge, when in
+truth it was overshadowed in his mind by the fact that Leo Wolffert's
+address had aroused the ire of one of his leading parishioners, and that
+the doctor was thus guilty of a sham in bringing his charge, not because
+of the address, but because of the anger of his wealthy parishioner.
+Wolffert was savage in his wrath when he learned how John had been
+treated. "Your church is the church of the rich," he said to me; for he
+would not say it to John. And when I defended it and pointed to its work
+done among the poor, to its long line of faithful devoted workers, to
+its apostles and martyrs, to John Marvel himself, he said: "Don't you
+see that Dr. Caiaphas is one of its high-priests and is turning out its
+prophets? I tell you it will never prosper till he is turned out and the
+people brought in! Your Church is the most inconsistent in the world,
+and I wonder they do not see it. Its Head, whom it considers divine and
+worships as God, lived and died in a continual war against formalism
+and sacerdotalism, it was the foundation of all his teaching for which
+he finally suffered death at the hands of the priests. The imperishable
+truth in that teaching is that God is within you, and to be worshipped
+'in spirit' and in truth; that not the temple made with hands, but the
+temple of the body is the one temple, and that the poor are his chosen
+people--the poor in heart are his loved disciples; yet your priests
+arrogate to themselves all that he suffered to overthrow. Your Dr. Capon
+is only Dr. Caiaphas, with a few slight changes, and presumes to
+persecute the true disciples precisely as his predecessors persecuted
+their master."
+
+"He is not my Dr. Capon," I protested.
+
+"Oh! well, he is the representative of the ecclesiasticism that
+crucifies spiritual freedom and substitutes form for substance. He
+'makes broad his phylacteries and for a pretence makes long prayers.'"
+
+"It appears to me that you are very fond of quoting the Bible, for an
+unbeliever," I said.
+
+"I, an unbeliever! I, a Jew!" exclaimed Wolffert, whose eyes were
+sparkling. "My dear sir, I am the believer of the ages--I only do not
+believe that any forms established by men are necessary to bring men
+into communion with God--I refuse to believe selfishness, and arrogance,
+and blindness, when they step forth with bell, book, and candle, and
+say, obey us, or be damned. I refuse to worship a ritual, or a church. I
+will worship only God." He turned away with that detached air which has
+always struck me as something oriental.
+
+As soon as it became known in his old parish that John had resigned he
+was called back there; but the solicitations of his poor parishioners
+that he should not abandon them in their troubles prevailed, and
+Wolffert and I united in trying to show him that his influence now was
+of great importance. Indeed, the workers among the poor of every church
+came and besought him to remain. Little Father Tapp, patting him on the
+shoulder, said, "Come to us, John, the Holy Father will make you a
+bishop." So he remained with his people and soon was given another small
+chapel under a less fashionable and more spiritual rector. I think
+Eleanor Leigh had something to do with his decision. I know that she was
+so urgent for him to remain that both Dr. Capon and I were given food
+for serious thought.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THE PEACE-MAKER
+
+
+It was in this condition of affairs that a short time after John Marvel
+had been dismissed from his cure by his incensed rector, a great dinner
+was given by Mrs. Argand which, because of the lavishness of the display
+and the number of notable persons in the city who were present, and also
+because of a decision that was reached by certain of the guests at the
+dinner and the consequences which it was hoped might ensue therefrom,
+was fully written up in the press. If Mrs. Argand knew one thing well,
+it was how to give an entertainment which should exceed in its
+magnificence the entertainment of any other person in the city. She was
+a woman of great wealth. She had had a large experience both at home and
+abroad in entertainments whose expenditure remained traditional for
+years. She had learned from her husband the value, as a merely
+commercial venture, of a fine dinner. She knew the traditional way to
+men's hearts, and she felt that something was due to her position, and
+at the same time she received great pleasure in being the centre and the
+dispenser of a hospitality which should be a wonder to all who knew her.
+Her house with its great rooms and galleries filled with expensive
+pictures lent itself well to entertainment. And Mrs. Argand, who knew
+something of history, fancied that she had what quite approached a
+salon. To be sure, those who frequented it were more familiar with
+stock-exchanges and counting-houses than with art or literature. On this
+occasion she had assembled a number of the leading men of affairs in the
+city, with the purpose not so much of entertaining them, as of securing
+from them a co-operation, which, by making a show of some concession to
+the starving strikers and their friends, should avail to stop the steady
+loss in her rents and drain on even her great resources. She had already
+found herself compelled, by reason of the reduction in her income, which
+prevented her putting by as large a surplus as she had been accustomed
+to put by year by year, to cut off a number of her charities, and this
+she disliked to do, for she not only regretted having to cut down her
+outlay for the relief of suffering, but it was a blow to her pride to
+feel that others knew that her income was reduced.
+
+The idea of the dinner had been suggested by no less a person than Dr.
+Capon himself, to whom the happy thought had occurred that possibly if a
+huge mass meeting composed of the strikers could be assembled in some
+great auditorium, and addressed by the leading men in the city, they
+might be convinced of the folly and error of their ways and induced to
+reject the false teaching of their designing leaders and return to work,
+by which he argued the great suffering would be immediately reduced, the
+loss alike to labor and to capital would be stopped, peace would be
+restored, and the general welfare be tremendously advanced. Moreover, he
+would show that his removal of his assistant was not due to his
+indifference to the poor as Wolffert had charged in a biting paper on
+the episode, but to a higher motive. What John Marvel had tried on a
+small scale he would accomplish on a vast one. He would himself, he
+said, take pleasure in addressing such an audience, and he felt sure
+that they would listen to the friendly admonition of a minister of the
+Gospel, who could not but stand to them as the representative of charity
+and divine compassion.
+
+I will not attempt to describe the richness of the floral decorations
+which made Mrs. Argand's great house a bower of roses and orchids for
+the occasion, nor the lavish display of plate, gilded and ungilded,
+which loaded the great table, all of which was set forth in the press
+the following day with a lavishness of description and a wealth of
+superlatives quite equal to the display at the dinner; nor need I take
+time to describe the guests who were assembled. Mr. Leigh, who was
+invited, was not present, but expressed himself as ready to meet his men
+half-way. Every viand not in season was in the ménu. It was universally
+agreed by the guests that no entertainment which was recalled had ever
+been half so rich in its decorations or so regal in its display or so
+sumptuous in its fare; that certainly the same number of millions had
+never been represented in any private house in this city, or possibly,
+in any city of the country. It remains only to be said that the plan
+proposed by the Rev. Dr. Capon met with the approval of a sufficient
+number to secure an attempt at its adoption, though the large majority
+of the gentlemen present openly expressed their disbelief that any good
+whatever would come of such an attempt, and more than one frankly
+declared that the doctor was attempting to sprinkle rose-water when
+really what was actually needed were guns and bayonets. The doctor,
+however, was so urgent in the expression of his views, so certain that
+the people would be reasonable and could not fail to be impressed by a
+kindly expression of interest, and the sound advice of one whom they
+must recognize as their friend, that a half-derisive consent was given
+to a trial of his plan.
+
+Among the notices of this dinner was one which termed it "Belshazzar's
+Feast," and as such it became known in the workingmen's quarter. Its
+scorching periods described the Babylonian splendor of the entertainment
+provided for the officials of millionairedom, and pictured with simple
+art the nakedness of a hovel not five blocks away, in which an old man
+and an old woman had been found that day frozen to death. I recognized
+in it the work of Wolffert's virile pen. John Marvel might forgive Dr.
+Capon, but not Wolffert Dr. Caiaphas. The proposed meeting, however,
+excited much interest in all circles of the city, especially in that
+underlying circle of the poor whose circumference circumscribed and
+enclosed all other circles whatsoever. What was, indeed, of mere
+interest to others was of vital necessity to them, that some arrangement
+should be arrived at by which work should once more be given to the
+ever-increasing body of the unemployed, whose sombre presence darkened
+the brightest day and tinged with melancholy the fairest expectation. In
+furtherance of Dr. Capon's plan a large hall was secured, and a general
+invitation was issued to the public, especially to the workingmen of the
+section where the strike existed, to attend a meeting set for the
+earliest possible moment, an evening in the beginning of the next week.
+The meeting took place as advertised and the attendance exceeded all
+expectation. The heart of the poor beat with renewed hope, though, like
+their wealthy neighbors, many of them felt that the hope was a desperate
+one. Still they worked toward the single ray of light which penetrated
+into the gloom of their situation.
+
+The seats were filled long before the hour set for the meeting and every
+available foot of standing room was occupied, the corridors of the
+building were filled, and the streets outside were thronged with groups
+discussing the possibility of some settlement in low and earnest tones,
+broken now and then by some strident note of contention or sullen growl
+of hate. Knowing the interest in the movement throughout the quarter
+where I lived, and having some curiosity besides to hear what Coll
+McSheen and the Rev. Dr. Capon had to say, I went early in company with
+Wolffert and John Marvel, the former of whom was absolutely sceptical,
+the latter entirely hopeful of permanent results. Wolffert's eyes glowed
+with a deep but lambent flame as he spoke of "Dr. Caiaphas." On arrival
+at the hall he left us and moved to the front rows. The crowd on the
+platform represented the leaders in many departments of business in the
+city, among whom were a fair sprinkling of men noted for their
+particular interest in all public charities and good works, and in a
+little group to one side, a small body composed of the more conservative
+element among the leaders of the workingmen in the city. The whole
+affair had been well worked up and on the outside it gave a fair promise
+of success. A number of boxes were filled with ladies interested in the
+movement and I had not been in the hall five minutes before I discovered
+Eleanor Leigh in one of the boxes, her face grave, but her eyes full of
+eager expectation. It was with a sinking of the heart that I reflected
+on the breach between us, and I fear that I spent my time much more in
+considering how I should overcome it than in plans to relieve the
+distress of others.
+
+The meeting opened with an invocation by the Rev. Dr. Capon, which
+appeared to strike some of the assemblage as somewhat too eloquent,
+rather too long, and tinged with an expression of compassion for the
+ignorance and facility for being misguided of the working class. When he
+began the assemblage was highly reverent, when he ended there were
+murmurs of criticism and discussion audible throughout the hall. The
+introductory statement of the reason for the call was made by the Hon.
+Collis McSheen, who, as mayor of the city, lent the dignity of his
+presence to the occasion. It was long, eloquent, and absolutely silent
+as to his views on any particular method of settlement of the question
+at issue, but it expressed his sympathy with all classes in terms
+highly general and concluded with an impartial expression of advice that
+they should get together, provided all could get what they wanted, which
+appeared to him the easiest thing in the world to do. Following him, one
+of the magnates of the city, Mr. James Canter, Sr., delivered a brief
+business statement of the loss to the city and the community at large,
+growing out of the strike, expressed in figures which had been carefully
+collated, and closed with the emphatic declaration that the working
+people did not know what they wanted. One other thing he made plain,
+that in a strike the working people suffered most, which was a
+proposition that few persons in the hall were prepared to deny. Then
+came the Rev. Dr. Capon, who was manifestly the chief speaker for the
+occasion. His manner was graceful and self-assured, his voice sonorous
+and well modulated, and his tone was sympathetic, if somewhat too
+patronizing. His first sentences were listened to with attention. He
+expressed his deep sympathy somewhat as the mayor had done, but in
+better English and more modulated tones, with all classes, especially
+with the working people. A slight cough appeared to have attacked one
+portion of the audience, but it stopped immediately, and silence once
+more fell on the assemblage as he proceeded.
+
+"And now," he said, as he advanced a step nearer to the edge of the
+platform, and, having delivered himself of his preliminary expressions
+of condolence, threw up his head and assumed his best pulpit manner,
+"under a full sense of my responsibility to my people and my country I
+wish to counsel you as your friend, as the friend of the poor"--the
+slight cough I have mentioned became audible again--"as the friend of
+the workingman whose interests I have so deeply at heart."
+
+At this moment a young man who had taken a seat well to the front on the
+main aisle, rose in his seat and politely asked if the doctor would
+allow him to ask him a question, the answer to which he believed would
+enable the audience to understand his position better. The pleasant tone
+of the young man led the doctor to give permission, and also the young
+man's appearance, for it was Wolffert.
+
+"Certainly, my dear sir," he said.
+
+Wolffert suddenly held up in his hand a newspaper.
+
+"I wish," he said, "to ask you where you dined last Friday night; with
+whom?"
+
+The question provoked a sudden outpour of shouts and cheers and cries of
+derision, and in a moment pandemonium had broken loose. The doctor
+attempted to speak again and again, but about all that could be heard
+was his vociferation that he was their friend. Wolffert, whose question
+had caused the commotion, was now mounted on a chair and waving his arms
+wildly about him, and presently, moved by curiosity, the tumult subsided
+and the audience sat with their faces turned toward the man on the
+chair. He turned, and with a sweep of his arm toward the stage, he
+cried:
+
+"We don't want to hear you. What have you done that you should give us
+advice? What do you know of us? When have you ever hearkened to the cry
+of the destitute? When have you ever visited the fatherless and the
+widows in affliction, unless they were rich? When have you ever done
+anything but fawn on Herod and flatter Pontius? Whom are you here to
+help and set free to-day? These people? No! High-priest of wealth and
+power and usurpation, we know you and your friends--the Jesus you ask to
+free is not the Nazarene, but Barabbas, the robber, promoter of vice and
+patron of sin!"
+
+His long arm pointed at the platform where sat McSheen, his face black
+with impotent rage. "If we are to have a priest to address us, let us
+have one that we can trust. Give us a man like John Marvel. We know him
+and he knows us." He turned and pointed to Marvel.
+
+The effect was electrical. Shouts of "Marvel! Mr. Marvel! Marvel!
+Marvel! John Marvel!" rang from their throats, and suddenly, as with one
+impulse, the men turned to our corner where John Marvel had sunk in his
+seat to escape observation, and in an instant he was seized, drawn forth
+and lifted bodily on the shoulders of men and borne to the platform as
+if on the crest of a tidal wave. Coll McSheen and Dr. Capon were both
+shouting to the audience, but they might as well have addressed a
+tropical hurricane. The cries of "Marvel, Marvel" drowned every other
+sound, and presently those on the stage gathered about both McSheen and
+the rector, and after a moment one of them stepped forward and asked
+John Marvel to speak.
+
+John Marvel turned, stepped forward to the edge of the platform, and
+reached out one long arm over the audience with an awkward but telling
+gesture that I had often seen him use, keeping it extended until, after
+one great outburst of applause, the tumult had died down.
+
+"My friends," he began. Another tumult.
+
+"That is it. Yes, we are your friends."
+
+Still the arm outstretched commanded silence.
+
+He began to speak quietly and slowly and his voice suddenly struck me as
+singularly sympathetic and clear, as it must have struck the entire
+assembly, for suddenly the tumult ceased and the hall became perfectly
+quiet. He spoke only a few minutes, declaring that he had not come to
+speak to them; but to be with them, and pray that God might give them
+(he said "us") peace and show some way out of the blackness which had
+settled down upon them. He bade them not despair, however dark the cloud
+might be which had overshadowed them. They might be sure that God was
+beyond it and that He would give light in His own time. He was leading
+them now, as always--the presence of that assembly, with so many of the
+leading men of the city asking a conference, was in itself a proof of
+the great advance their cause had made. That cause was not, as some
+thought, so much money a day, but was the claim to justice and
+consideration and brotherly kindness. He himself was not a business man.
+He knew nothing of such matters. His duty was to preach--to preach
+peace--to preach the love of God--to preach patience and long-suffering
+and forgiveness, the teaching of his Lord and master, who had lived in
+poverty all His life, without a place to lay His head, and had died
+calling on God to forgive His enemies.
+
+This is a poor summary of what he said very simply but with a feeling
+and solemnity which touched the great audience, who suddenly crushed out
+every attempt to contradict his proposition. Something had transformed
+him so that I could scarcely recognize him. I asked myself, can this be
+John Marvel, this master of this great audience? What is the secret of
+his power? The only answer I could find was in his goodness, his
+sincerity, and sympathy.
+
+"And now," he said in closing, "whatever happens, please God, I shall be
+with you and take my lot among you, and I ask you as a favor to me to
+listen to Dr. Capon."
+
+There was a great uproar and shout; for Dr. Capon had, immediately after
+John Marvel got control of his audience, risen from his seat, seized his
+hat and coat and cane, and stalked with great majesty from the platform.
+There were, however, a number of other speeches, and although there was
+much noise and tumult, some advance was made; for a general, though by
+no means unanimous, opinion was shown in favor of something in the
+nature of a reconciliation.
+
+As I glanced up after John Marvel returned amid the shouts to his seat,
+I saw Miss Leigh in one of the boxes leaning forward and looking with
+kindled eyes in our direction. Thinking that she was looking at me, and
+feeling very forgiving, I bowed to her, and it was only when she failed
+to return my bow that I apprehended that she was not looking at me but
+at John Marvel. If she saw me she gave no sign of it; and when I walked
+the streets that night, strikes and strikers occupied but little of my
+thoughts. Unless I could make up with Eleanor Leigh, the whole world
+might go on strike for me. I determined to consult John Marvel. He had
+somehow begun to appear to me the sanest of advisers. I began to feel
+that he was, as Wolffert had once said of him, "a sort of Ark of the
+Covenant."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+THE FLAG OF TRUCE
+
+
+My acquaintance was now extending rapidly. I had discovered in the
+turgid tide that swept through the streets of the city other conditions
+and moods than those I first remarked: dark brooding shadows and rushing
+rapids catching the light, but fierce and deadly beneath; placid pools
+and sequestered eddies, far apart where the sunlight sifted in and lay
+soft on the drift that had escaped the flood, touching it with its magic
+and lending it its sweet radiance. I had found, indeed, that the city
+was an epitome of the world. It took a great many people to make it and
+there were other classes in it besides the rich and the poor. It was in
+one of these classes that I was beginning to find myself most at home.
+
+I received one day an invitation to dine one evening the following week
+at the house of a gentleman whom I had met a week or two before and whom
+I had called on in response to an invitation unusually cordial. I had
+not been to a fashionable dinner since I had come to the West, and I
+looked forward with some curiosity to the company whom I should meet at
+Mr. Desport's, for I knew nothing about him except that I had met him in
+a law case and we had appeared to have a number of things in common,
+including objects of dislike, and further, that when I called on him he
+lived in a very handsome house, and I was received in one of the most
+charming libraries it was ever my good fortune to enter, and with a
+graciousness on the part of his wife which I had never known excelled.
+It was like stepping into another world to pass from the rush of the
+city into that atmosphere of refinement and culture.
+
+My heart, however, was a little lower down than it should have been, for
+I could not but reflect with how much more pleasure I would have arrayed
+myself if it had been an invitation to Mr. Leigh's. In truth, the
+transition from my narrow quarters and the poverty of those among whom I
+had been living for some time, made this charming house appear to me the
+acme of luxury, and I was conscious of a sudden feeling, as I passed
+this evening through the ample and dignified hall into the sumptuous
+drawing-room, that somehow I was well fitted for such surroundings.
+Certainly I found them greatly to my taste. I was received again most
+graciously by Mrs. Desport, and as I had followed my provincial custom
+of coming a little ahead of time, I was the first visitor to arrive, a
+fact which I did not regret, as Mrs. Desport took occasion to tell me
+something of the guests whom she expected. After describing what I
+concluded to be a somewhat staid and elderly company, she added:
+
+"I have given you a young lady whom I feel sure you will like. She is a
+little serious-minded, I think, and some people consider that she is
+simply posing; but however eccentric she may be, I believe that she is
+really in earnest, and so does my husband; and I have never seen a young
+girl improve so much as she has done since she took up this new work of
+hers."
+
+What this work was I was prevented from inquiring by the arrival of a
+number of guests all at once.
+
+A dinner where the guests are not presented to each other differs in no
+important sense from a table-d'hôte dinner. The soup is likely to be a
+trifle colder and the guests a trifle more reserved--that is all. Mrs.
+Desport, however, followed the old-fashioned custom of introducing her
+guests to each other, preferring to open the way for them to feel at
+home, rather than to leave them floundering among inanities about the
+weather and their taste for opera. And though a lady, whom I presently
+sat next to, informed me that they did not do it "in England or even in
+New York now," I was duly grateful.
+
+Having been presented to the company, I found them gay and full of
+animation, even though their conversation was inclined to be mainly
+personal and related almost exclusively to people with whom, for the
+most part, I had no acquaintance. The name of young Canter figured
+rather more extensively in it than was pleasant to me, and Dr. Capon was
+handled with somewhat less dignity than the cloth might have been
+supposed to require. I was, however, just beginning to enjoy myself when
+my attention was suddenly diverted by the sound of a voice behind me, as
+another guest arrived. I did not even need to turn to recognize Eleanor
+Leigh, but when I moved around sufficiently to take a side glance at
+her, I was wholly unprepared for the vision before me. I seemed to have
+forgotten how charming she looked, and she broke on me like a fresh dawn
+after a storm. I do not know what I was thinking, or whether I was not
+merely just feeling, when my hostess came forward.
+
+"Now we are all here. Mr. Glave, you are to take Miss Leigh in. You know
+her, I believe?"
+
+I felt myself red and pale by turns and, glancing at Miss Leigh, saw
+that she, too, was embarrassed. I was about to stammer something when my
+hostess moved away, and as it appeared that the others had all paired
+off, there was nothing for me to do but accept the situation. As I
+walked over and bowed, I said in a low tone:
+
+"I hope you will understand that I had no part in this. I did not know."
+
+She evidently heard, for she made a slight bow and then drew herself up
+and took my arm.
+
+"I should not have come," I added, "had I known of this. However, I
+suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear to be exchanging
+with ordinary interest the ordinary inanities of such an occasion."
+
+[Illustration: "I suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear
+to be exchanging the ordinary inanities."]
+
+She bowed, and then after a moment's silence added:
+
+"I have nothing to say which could possibly interest you, and suggest
+that we do what I have heard has been done under similar circumstances,
+and simply count."
+
+I thought of the molten metal pourable down an offender's throat. And
+with the thought came another: Did it mean that she was going to marry
+that young Canter? It was as if one who had entered Eden and
+discovered Eve, had suddenly found the serpent coiling himself between
+them.
+
+"Very well." I was now really angry. I had hoped up to this time that
+some means for reconciliation might be found, but this dashed my hope. I
+felt that I was the aggrieved person, and I determined to prove to her
+that I would make no concession. I was not her slave. "Very well,
+then--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight--nine, ten, eleven,
+twelve--thirteen," I said, looking straight ahead of me and dropping
+every syllable as if it were an oath. She gave me a barely perceptible
+side glance. I think I had taken her aback by my prompt compliance. She
+hesitated a moment.
+
+"Or, as that is not very amusing, suppose we cap verses? I hear you know
+a great deal of poetry--Mr. Wolffert told me. I never knew any one with
+such a memory as his." I recognized the suggestion as a flag of truce.
+
+I bowed, and as, of course, "Mary had a little lamb," was the first
+thing that popped into my head with its hint of personal application, I
+foolishly quoted the first verse, intending her to make the personal
+application.
+
+She was prompt to continue it, with, I thought, a little sub-tone of
+mischief in her voice:
+
+    "It followed her to school one day,
+    Which was against the rule,"
+
+she said demurely. There she stopped, so I took up the challenge.
+
+    "Which made the children laugh and say
+    'A lamb's a little fool.'"
+
+It was a silly and inept ending, I knew as soon as I had
+finished--still, it conveyed my meaning.
+
+She paused a moment and evidently started to look at me, but as
+evidently she thought better of it. She, however, murmured, "I thought
+we would quote verses, not make them."
+
+I took this to be a confession that she was not able to make them, and I
+determined to show how much cleverer I was; so, without noticing the cut
+of the eye which told of her wavering, I launched out:
+
+    "There was a young lady of fashion,
+    Who, finding she'd made quite a mash on
+    A certain young swain,
+    Who built castles in Spain,
+    Fell straight in a terrible passion."
+
+To this she responded with a promptness which surprised me:
+
+    "A certain young lady of fashion,
+    Had very good grounds for her passion,
+    It sprang from the pain
+    Of a terrible strain
+    On her friendship, and thus laid the lash on."
+
+I felt that I must be equal to the situation, so I began rapidly:
+
+    "I'm sure the young man was as guiltless
+    As infant unborn and would wilt less
+    If thrown in the fire
+    Than under her ire----"
+
+"Than under her ire," I repeated to myself. "Than under the ire"--what
+the dickens will rhyme with "wilt less"? We had reached the dining-room
+by this time and I could see that she was waiting with a provoking
+expression of satisfaction on her face over my having stalled in my
+attempt at a rhyme. I placed her in her chair and, as I took my own
+seat, a rhyme came to me--a poor one, but yet a rhyme:
+
+    "And since, Spanish castles he's built less,"
+
+I said calmly as I seated myself, quite as if it had come easily.
+
+"I was wondering how you'd get out of that," she said with a little
+smile which dimpled her cheek beguilingly. "You know you might have
+said,
+
+    "'And since, milk to weep o'er he's spilt less';
+
+or even,
+
+    "'And since, striped mosquitoes he's kilt less.'
+
+Either would have made quite as good a rhyme and sense, too."
+
+I did not dare let her see how true I thought this. It would never do to
+let her make fun of me. So I kept my serious air.
+
+I determined to try a new tack and surprise her. I had a few shreds of
+Italian left from a time when I had studied the poets as a refuge from
+the desert dulness of my college course, and now having, in a pause,
+recalled the lines, I dropped, as though quite naturally, Dante's
+immortal wail:
+
+    'Nessun maggior dolore
+    Che recordarci del tempo felice
+    Nella miseria.'
+
+I felt sure that this would at least impress her with my culture, while
+if by any chance she knew the lines, which I did not apprehend, it would
+impress her all the more and might prove a step toward a reconciliation.
+
+For a moment she said nothing, then she asked quietly, "How does the
+rest of it go?"
+
+She had me there, for I did not know the rest of the quotation.
+
+    "'E ciò sa il tuo dottore,'"
+
+she said with a cut of her eye, and a liquid tone that satisfied me I
+had, as the saying runs, "stepped from the frying-pan into the fire."
+
+She glanced at me with a smile in her eyes that reminded me, through I
+know not what subtle influence, of Spring, but as I was unresponsive she
+could not tell whether I was in earnest or was jesting.
+
+I relapsed into silence and took my soup, feeling that I was getting
+decidedly the worst of it, when I heard her murmuring so softly as
+almost to appear speaking to herself:
+
+    "'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
+    'To talk of other things--
+    Of ships and shoes and sealing-wax,
+    And cabbages and Kings.'"
+
+I glanced at her to find her eyes downcast, but a beguiling little
+dimple was flickering near the corners of her mouth and her long lashes
+caught me all anew. My heart gave a leap. It happened that I knew my
+Alice much better than my Dante, so when she said, "You can talk, can't
+you?" I answered quietly, and quite as if it were natural to speak in
+verse:
+
+    "'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the Law,
+    And argued each case with my wife,
+    And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
+    Has lasted the rest of my life.'"
+
+She gave a little subdued gurgle of laughter as she took up the next
+verse:
+
+    "'You are old,' said the youth. 'One would hardly suppose
+      That your eye was as steady as ever,
+    Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
+      What made you so awfully clever?'"
+
+I hoped that she was embarrassed when I found that she had taken my
+napkin by mistake, and she was undoubtedly so when she discovered that
+she had it.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said as she handed me hers.
+
+I bowed.
+
+With that, seeing my chance, I turned and spoke to the lady on my other
+side, with whom I was soon in an animated discussion, but my attention
+was not so engrossed by her that I did not get secret enjoyment out of
+the fact when I discovered that the elderly man on the other side of
+Miss Leigh was as deaf as a post and that she had to repeat every word
+that she said to him.
+
+The lady on the other side of me was rambling on about something, but
+just what, I had not the least idea (except that it related to the
+problem-novel, a form of literature that I detest), as I was soon quite
+engrossed in listening to the conversation between Eleanor Leigh and her
+deaf companion, in which my name, which appeared to have caught the
+gentleman's attention, was figuring to some extent.
+
+"Any relation to my old friend, Henry Glave?" I heard him ask in what he
+doubtless imagined to be a whisper.
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Miss Leigh.
+
+"You say he is not?"
+
+"No, I did not say so; I think he is."
+
+"He is a fine lawyer," I heard him say, and I was just pluming myself on
+the rapid extension of my reputation, when he added, "He is an old
+friend of your father's, I know. I was glad to hear he had come up to
+represent your father in his case against those rascals.--A friend of
+yours, too," were the next words I heard, for decency required me to
+appear to be giving some attention to my other neighbor, whom I devoutly
+wished in Ballyhac, so I was trying resolutely, though with but
+indifferent success, to keep my attention on the story she was telling
+about some one whom, like Charles Lamb, I did not know, but was ready to
+damn at a venture.
+
+"He told me he came on your account, as much as on your father's," said
+the gentleman, rallyingly. "You had better look out. These old bachelors
+are very susceptible. No fool like an old fool, you know."
+
+To this Miss Eleanor made some laughing reply, from which I gathered
+that her neighbor was a bachelor himself, for he answered in the high
+key which he mistook for a whisper:
+
+"You had better not say that to me, for if you do, I'll ask you to marry
+me before the dessert."
+
+I was recalled to myself by my other neighbor, who had been talking
+steadily, asking me suddenly, and in a tone which showed she demanded an
+answer:
+
+"What do you think of that?"
+
+"Why, I think it was quite natural," I said.
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Yes, I do," I declared firmly.
+
+"You think it was natural for him to run off with his own
+daughter-in-law!" Her eyes were wide with astonishment.
+
+"Well, not precisely natural, but--under the circumstances, you see, it
+was certainly more natural than for him to run off with his
+mother-in-law--you will have to admit that."
+
+"I admit nothing of the kind," she declared, with some heat. "I am a
+mother-in-law myself, and I must say I think the jibes at mothers-in-law
+are very uncalled for."
+
+"Oh! now you put me out of court," I said. "I did not mean to be
+personal. Of course, there are mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law."
+
+Happily, at this moment the gentleman on her other side insisted on
+securing her attention, and I turned just in time to catch the dimples
+of amusement that were playing in Eleanor Leigh's face. She had
+evidently heard my mistake.
+
+"Oh! he is so deaf!" she murmured, half turning to me, though I was not
+quite sure that she was not speaking to herself. The next second she
+settled the question. "He is so distressingly deaf," she repeated in an
+undertone, with the faintest accent of appeal for sympathy in her voice.
+I again recognized the flag of truce. But I replied calmly:
+
+    "I passed by his garden and marked with one eye
+    How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie.
+    The panther took pie-crust and gravy and meat,
+    While the owl had the dish as its share of the treat."
+
+The color mantled in her cheek and she raised her head slightly.
+
+"Are you going to keep that up? I suppose we shall have to talk a
+little. I think we are attracting attention. For Heaven's sake, don't
+speak so loud! We are being observed."
+
+But I continued:
+
+    "When the pie was all finished, the owl, as a boon,
+    Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon."
+
+"It is very rude of you to go on in that way when I am speaking. You
+remind me of a machine," she smiled. "Here am I stuck between two men,
+one of whom cannot hear a word I say, while the other does nothing but
+run on like a machine." I observed, with deep content, that she was
+becoming exasperated.
+
+At that moment the hostess leant forward and said:
+
+"What are you two so interested in discussing there? I have been
+watching, and you have not stopped a minute."
+
+Eleanor Leigh burst into a laugh. "Mr. Glave is talking Arabic to me."
+
+"Arabic!" exclaimed the hostess. "Mr. Glave, you have been in the East,
+have you?"
+
+"Yes, he came from the East where the wise men always come from," said
+Miss Leigh. Then turning to me she said in an undertone, "You see what I
+told you."
+
+For reply, I simply quoted on, though I had a little pang as I saw the
+shadow come into her eyes and the smile leave her mouth.
+
+    "My father was deaf,
+    And my mother was dumb,
+    And to keep myself company,
+    I beat the drum."
+
+"I think that was a very good occupation for you," she said, turning
+away, with her head very high.
+
+"Will you let me say something to you?" she said in a low tone a moment
+later, and, without waiting, she added:
+
+"I think it was rather nasty in me to say what I said to you when you
+first came in, but you had treated me so rudely when I spoke to you on
+the street."
+
+"You do not call it rude not to answer a letter when a gentleman writes
+to explain an unfortunate mistake, and then cut him publicly?"
+
+"I did not receive it until afterward," she said. "I was away from town,
+and as to cutting you--I don't know what you are talking about."
+
+"At the Charity Fair."
+
+"I never saw you. I wondered you were not there."
+
+Had the earth opened, I could not have felt more astounded, and had it
+opened near me I should possibly have sprung in in my confusion. I had,
+as usual, simply made a fool of myself, and what to do I scarcely knew.
+At this instant the hostess arose, and the dinner was over and with it I
+feared my chance was over too.
+
+"Give me a moment. I must have one moment," I said as she passed me on
+her way out of the dining-room with the other ladies, her head held very
+high.
+
+She inclined her head and said something in so low a tone that I did not
+catch it.
+
+King James I. never detested tobacco as I did those cigars smoked that
+evening. When, at last, the host moved to return to the drawing-room, I
+bolted in only to be seized on by my hostess and presented to a
+middle-aged and waistless lady who wanted to ask me about the Pooles,
+whom she had heard I knew. She had heard that Lilian Poole had not
+married very happily. "Did I know?"
+
+"No, I did not know," nor, in fact, did I care, though I could not say
+so. Then another question: "Could I tell why all the men appeared to
+find Miss Leigh so very attractive?" Yes, I thought I could tell
+that--"Because she is very attractive."
+
+"Oh well, yes, I suppose she is--pretty and all that, with a sort of
+kitteny softness--but----"
+
+"There is no 'but' about it," I interrupted brusquely--"she is just what
+you said--very attractive. For one thing, she has brains; for another,
+heart. Neither of them is so common as not to be attractive." I thought
+of the young tigress concealed in that "kitteny softness" of which the
+lady spoke, and was determined not to permit the sly cat to see what I
+really felt.
+
+"Of course, you know that she is going to marry Mr. Canter? He is the
+best _parti_ in town."
+
+"Of course, I do not know anything of the kind," I said bowing. "Since I
+had the honor of sitting by her I am thinking of marrying her myself."
+
+"I know it. They all fall at the first encounter!" exclaimed the lady,
+and I saw she had no humor, and decided to hedge. "I only mean that I do
+not believe Miss Leigh would marry Mr. Canter or any one else for his
+money, or for any other reason except the best."
+
+Finally, having escaped from her, I was just making my way toward Miss
+Leigh, who had been standing up talking to two men who on entering the
+room had promptly sought her out, when a servant entered and spoke to
+the hostess, who immediately crossed over and gave his message to Miss
+Leigh. "Mr. James Canter has called for you; must you go?"
+
+"Yes, I fear I must." So with hardly a glance at me she passed out,
+leaving the room so dark that I thought the lights had been dimmed, but
+I discovered that it was only that Miss Eleanor Leigh had left. I could
+not in decency leave at once, though I confess the place had lost its
+charm for me, especially since I learned that Miss Leigh's escort for
+the ball was Mr. James Canter. I had other reasons than jealousy for
+preferring that he should not be Eleanor Leigh's escort. In my
+meditations that night as I walked the streets, Mr. James Canter held a
+somewhat conspicuous place.
+
+James Canter was possibly the most attentive of all the beaux Miss Leigh
+had, and they were more numerous than I at that time had any idea of. He
+was prospectively among the wealthiest young men in the city, for his
+father, who idolized him, was one of the largest capitalists in the
+State. He was, as the stout lady had said, certainly esteemed by
+ambitious mammas among the most advantageous _partis_ the city could
+boast of. And he was of all, without doubt, the most talked of.
+Moreover, he had many friends, was lavish in the expenditure of his
+money beyond the dream of extravagance, and what was called, not without
+some reason, a good fellow. Before I met him I had already had a glimpse
+of him as he "bucked" against his rival, Count Pushkin, on the night
+when, dejected and desperate, I, in a fit of weakness, went into the
+gambling-house determined to stake my last dollar on the turn of the
+wheel, and the sight of Pushkin saved me. But it was after I met him
+that I came to know what the pampered young man was. I was beginning now
+to be thrown with some of the lawyers and this had led to further
+acquaintances, among them young Canter. At first, I rather liked him
+personally, for he was against Pushkin and his gay manner was
+attractive. He was good-looking enough after the fleshly kind--a big,
+round, blondish man, only he was too fat and at twenty-eight had the
+waist and jowl of a man of forty who had had too many dinners and drunk
+too much champagne. But when I came to know him I could not see that he
+had a shred of principle of any kind whatsoever. His reputation among
+his friends was that had he applied himself to business, he would have
+made a reputation equal to his father's, which was that of a shrewd,
+far-sighted, cool-headed man of business who could "see a dollar as far
+as the best of them," but that he was squandering his talents in sowing
+a crop of wild oats so plentiful that it was likely to make a hole even
+in his father's accumulated millions, and its reaping might be anywhere
+between the poor-house and the grave. I knew nothing of this at the
+time, and after I came to know him as I did later, my judgment of him
+took form from the fact that I discovered he not only did not tell the
+truth, but had lost the power even to recognize it. Still, I think my
+real appraisement of him came when I discovered that he was paying
+assiduous attentions to Miss Leigh. I could not help remarking the
+frequency with which I found his name in juxtaposition with hers in the
+published accounts of social functions, where "Mr. Canter led the
+cotillion with Miss Leigh," or "Mr. Canter drove his coach with Miss
+Leigh on the box seat," etc., etc., and as my acquaintance began to
+extend among the young men about town, I heard more than occasional
+conjectures as to their future. It appeared to be accepted rather as a
+matter of course that the result lay entirely with the young man. It was
+a view that I fiercely rejected in my heart, but I could say nothing
+beyond a repudiation of such a view in general.
+
+In view of my knowledge of Mr. Canter, it was natural enough that I
+should be enraged to find him the escort of Eleanor Leigh, and I fear my
+temper rather showed itself in the conversation which took place and
+which soon became general, partly because of the earnestness with which
+I expressed my views on the next subject that came up. The two or three
+young girls of the company had left at the same time with Miss Leigh,
+and the ladies who remained were, for the most part, married women of
+that indefinite age which follows youth after a longer or shorter
+interval. They had all travelled and seen a good deal of the world, and
+they knew a good deal of it; at least, some of them did and they thought
+that they knew more than they actually did know.
+
+They agreed with more unanimity than they had yet shown on any subject
+that America was hopelessly bourgeois. Listening to them, I rather
+agreed with them.
+
+"Take our literature, our stage, our novels," said one, a blonde lady of
+some thirty-five years, though she would, possibly, have repudiated a
+lustrum and a half of the measure.
+
+"You differentiate the literature and the novels?" I interrupted.
+
+"Yes. I might--but--I mean the lot. How provincial they are!"
+
+"Yes, they appear so. Well?"
+
+"They do not dare to discuss anything large and vital."
+
+"Oh! yes, they dare. They are daring enough, but they don't know
+how--they are stupid."
+
+"No, they are afraid."
+
+"Afraid? Of what?"
+
+"Of public opinion--of the bourgeois so-called virtue of the middle
+class who control everything."
+
+"That is the only valid argument I ever heard in favor of the
+bourgeois," I said.
+
+"What do you mean? Don't you agree with me?"
+
+"I certainly do not. I may not seek virtue and ensue it; but at least I
+revere it."
+
+"Do you mean that you think we should not write or talk of
+anything--forbidden?"
+
+"That depends on what you mean by forbidden. If you mean----"
+
+"I think there should be no subject forbidden," interrupted the lady by
+whom I had sat at table, a stout and tightly laced person of some forty
+summers. "Why shouldn't I talk of any subject I please?" She seemed to
+appeal to me, so I answered her.
+
+"I do not at this instant think of any reason except that it might not
+be decent."
+
+This raised an uncertain sort of laugh and appeared for a moment to
+stagger her; but she was game, and rallied.
+
+"I know--that is the answer I always get."
+
+"Because it is the natural answer."
+
+"But I want to know why? Why is it indecent?"
+
+"Simply because it is. Indecent means unseemly. Your sex were slaves,
+they were weaker physically, less robust; they were made beasts of
+burden, were beaten and made slaves. Then men, for their own pleasure,
+lifted them up a little and paid court to them, and finally the idea and
+age of chivalry came--based on the high Christian morality. You were
+placed on a pinnacle. Men loved and fought for your favor and made it
+the guerdon of their highest emprise, guarded you with a mist of
+adoration, gave you a halo, worshipped you as something cleaner and
+better and purer than themselves; built up a wall of division and
+protection for you. Why should you go and cast it down, fling it away,
+and come down in the mire and dust and dirt?"
+
+"But I don't want to be adored--set up on a pedestal."
+
+"Then you probably will not be," interrupted my deaf neighbor.
+
+"I want to be treated as an equal--as an--an--intelligent being."
+
+"I should think that would depend on yourself. I do not quite understand
+whom you wish to be the equal of--of men? Men are a very large
+class--some are very low indeed."
+
+"Oh! You know what I mean--of course, I don't mean that sort."
+
+"You mean gentlemen?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then I assure you you cannot discuss indecent subjects in mixed
+company; gentlemen never do. Nor write coarse books--gentlemen never do
+nowadays--nor discuss them either."
+
+"Do you mean to say that great novelists never discuss such questions?"
+she demanded triumphantly.
+
+"No, but it is all in the manner--the motive. I have no objection to the
+matter--generally, provided it be properly handled--but the obvious
+intention--the rank indecentness of it. See how Scott or George Eliot,
+or Tolstoi or Turgénieff, or, later on, even Zola, handles such vital
+themes. How different their motive from the reeking putrescence of the
+so-called problem-novel."
+
+"Oh! dear! they must be very bad indeed!" exclaimed a lady, shocked by
+the sound of my adjectives.
+
+"They are," suddenly put in my oldest neighbor, who had been listening
+intently with his hand behind his ear, "only you ladies don't know how
+bad they are or you would not discuss them with men."
+
+This closed the discussion and a group of ladies near me suddenly
+branched off into another subject and one which interested me more than
+the discussion of such literature as the trash which goes by the name of
+the problem novel.
+
+"Who is Eleanor Leigh in love with?" asked some one irrelevantly--a Mrs.
+Arrow--whose mind appeared much given to dwelling on such problems. She
+addressed the company generally, and possibly my former neighbor at the
+table in particular.
+
+"Is she in love?" asked another.
+
+"Certainly, I never saw any one so changed. Why, she has been moping so
+I scarcely know her--and she has taken to charity. That's a sure sign. I
+think it must be that young preacher she talks so much about."
+
+"Well, I don't know who she is in love with," said the lady who had sat
+next to me at dinner, "but I know who she is going to marry. She is
+going to marry Jim Canter. Her aunt has made that match."
+
+"Oh! do you think so?" demanded our hostess, who had joined the group.
+"I don't believe she will marry any one she is not in love with, and I
+can't believe she is in love with that fat, coarse, dissipated creature.
+He is simply repulsive to me."
+
+I began to conceive an even higher opinion of my hostess than I had
+already had.
+
+"I don't think it is anybody," continued our hostess.
+
+"Oh! yes, you do--you think it is Doctor Capon."
+
+"Doctor Capon! It is much more likely to be Mr. Marvel."
+
+"Mr. Marvel! Who is he?--Oh, yes, the young preacher who turned Jew and
+was put out of his church. I remember now."
+
+"Is Mr. Marvel a Jew?" I inquired. "Oh! yes, indeed, and a terrible
+Socialist."
+
+"Ah, I did not know that."
+
+"I heard she was going to marry a Jew," interjected another lady
+corroboratively, "but I must say it looks very much like Mr. Canter to
+me."
+
+"Oh! she wouldn't marry a Jew?" suggested Mrs. Arrow. "I heard there was
+a young lawyer or something."
+
+"She would if she'd a mind to," said our hostess.
+
+"I still stand by Doctor Capon," declared Mrs. Arrow. "He is so
+refined."
+
+"And I by Jim Canter--I thought at one time it was Count Pushkin; but
+since Milly McSheen has taken him away, the other seems to be the
+winning card. I must say I think the count would have been the better
+match of the two."
+
+"I don't think that," exclaimed the other lady. "And neither would you,
+if you knew him."
+
+"Possibly, she knows the other," I suggested.
+
+"Oh! no--you see she could get rid of the count, if he proved too
+objectionable, and then she would still have the title."
+
+"I never heard a more infamous proposal," I said in an aside to our
+hostess. She laughed. "No, did you--but she was only jesting----"
+
+"Not she!" I was in no mood to tolerate jesting on the subject of
+Eleanor Leigh's marriage. My aside to our hostess drew the attention of
+the others to me, and Mrs. Arrow suddenly said, "Mr. Glave, which would
+you say? You know them both, don't you?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Well, which would you say?"
+
+"Neither," said I. I wanted to add that I would cheerfully murder them
+both before I would allow either of them to destroy Eleanor Leigh's
+life; but I contented myself with my brief reply.
+
+"Oh! Mr. Glave is evidently one of her victims," laughed our hostess,
+for which I was grateful to her.
+
+I came away from my friend's with the heroic determination to prevent
+Miss Leigh's life from being ruined and to accomplish this by the
+satisfactory method of capturing her myself. My resolve was a little
+dampened by reading in a newspaper next day the headlines announcing an
+"Important Engagement," which though no names were used pointed clearly
+at Miss Leigh and the hopeful heir and partner of Mr. James Canter, Sr.
+Reading carefully the article, I found that the engagement was only
+believed to exist. I felt like a reprieved criminal.
+
+He who has not felt the pangs of a consuming passion has no conception
+of the true significance of life. The dull, cold, indifferent lover
+knows nothing of the half-ecstatic anguish of the true lover or the
+wholly divine joy of reconciliation even in anticipation. As well may
+the frozen pole dream of the sun-bathed tropic. It was this joy that I
+hugged in my heart even in face of the declaration of her expected
+engagement.
+
+Next day I was talking to two or three young fellows when Canter and
+some episode in which he had figured as rather more defiant than usual
+of public opinion, came up, and one of them said to another, a friend of
+his and an acquaintance of mine, "What is Jim going to do when he gets
+married? He'll have to give up his 'friends' then. He can't be running
+two establishments."
+
+"Oh! Jim ain't going to get married. He's just fooling around."
+
+"Bet you--the old man's wild for it."
+
+"Bet you--not now. He can't. Why, that woman--"
+
+"Oh! he can pension her off."
+
+"Her?--which her?"
+
+"Well, all of 'em. If he don't get married soon, he won't be fit to
+marry."
+
+It was here that I entered the conversation. They had not mentioned any
+name--they had been too gentlemanly to do so. But I knew whom they had
+in mind, and I was inwardly burning.
+
+"He isn't fit to marry now," I said suddenly.
+
+"What!" They both turned to me in surprise.
+
+"No man who professes to be in love with any good woman," I said, "and
+lives as he lives is fit for any woman to marry. I am speaking
+generally," I added, to guard against the suspicion that I knew whom
+they referred to. "I know Mr. Canter but slightly; but what I say
+applies to him too."
+
+"Oh! you'd cut out a good many," laughed one of the young men with a
+glance at his friend.
+
+"No, gentlemen, I stand on my proposition. The man who is making love to
+a pure woman with a harlot's kisses on his lips is not worthy of either.
+He ought to be shot."
+
+"There'd be a pretty big exodus if your views were carried out," said
+one of them.
+
+"Well, I don't want to pose as any saint. I am no better than some other
+men; but, at least, I have some claim to decency, and that is
+fundamental. Your two-establishment gentry are no more nor less than a
+lot of thorough-paced blackguards."
+
+They appeared to be somewhat impressed by my earnestness, even though
+they laughed at it. "There are a good many of them," they said. "Your
+friends, the Socialists----"
+
+"Yes. I know. The ultra-Socialist's views I reprobate, but, at least,
+he is sincere. He is against any formal hard and fast contract, and his
+motive is, however erroneous, understandable. He believes it would
+result in an uplift--in an increase of happiness for all. He is, of
+course, hopelessly wrong. But here is a man who is debasing himself and
+others--all others--and, above all, the one he is pretending to exalt
+above all. I say he is a low-down scoundrel to do it. He is prostituting
+the highest sentiment man has ever imagined."
+
+"Well, at any rate, you are vehement," said one.
+
+"You've cut Jim out," said the other.
+
+The conversation took place in a sort of lounging-room adjoining a
+down-town café frequented by young men. At this moment who should walk
+in but Mr. James Canter himself. The talk ceased as suddenly as cut-off
+steam, and when one of the young men after an awkward silence made a
+foolish remark about the fine day, which was in reality rainy and cold,
+Canter's curiosity was naturally excited.
+
+"What were you fellows talking about? Women?"
+
+"No," said one of the others--"nothing particular."
+
+"Yes!" I said, "we were--talking about women."
+
+"Whose women?"
+
+"Yours." I looked him steadily in the eye.
+
+He started, but recovered himself.
+
+"Which of 'em?" he inquired as he flung himself into a chair and looked
+around for a match for the cigarette which he took from a jewel-studded
+gold case. "I am rather well endowed with them at present. What were you
+saying?"
+
+I repeated my remark about the two-establishment gentry. His face
+flushed angrily; but my steady eye held him in check and he took a long,
+inhaling breath.
+
+"Well, I don't give a blank what you think about it, or anything else."
+He expelled the smoke from his lungs.
+
+"Perhaps--but that does not affect the principle. It stands. You may not
+care about the Rock of Gibraltar; but it stands and is the key to the
+situation."
+
+He was in a livid rage, and I was prepared for the attack which I
+expected him to make; but he restrained himself. His forte was
+insolence.
+
+"You teach Sunday-school, don't you?"
+
+I thought this was a reference to one whose name I did not mean his lips
+to sully, and I determined to forestall him.
+
+"I do," I said quietly. "I teach for Mr. Marvel."
+
+"I know--the psalm-singing parson who has made all that trouble in this
+town--he and his Jew partner. We are going to break them up."
+
+"Both are men whose shoes you are not fit to clean; and as to making
+trouble, the trouble was made by those a good deal nearer you than John
+Marvel--your precious firm and your side-partners--Coll McSheen and
+David Wringman."
+
+"Well, you'd better confine your labors to your dirty Jews and not try
+to interfere in the affairs of gentlemen."
+
+"As to the latter, I never interfere in the affairs of gentlemen, and
+as to the dirty Jews, I assure you they are not as dirty as you are; for
+their dirt is all outside while yours is within."
+
+I had supposed he would resent this, but he had his reasons for not
+doing so, though they were none too creditable to him. Mr. Canter was
+too bold with women and not bold enough with men. And a little later it
+transpired that with one woman, at least, he was as tame as he was with
+the other sex. The woman the young men referred to kept him in fear of
+his life for years, and he had neither the physical nor moral courage to
+break away from her.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+MR. LEIGH HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE MADE HIM
+
+
+Though I had not acted on the principle, I had always felt that a young
+man had no right to pay his addresses to a young lady without giving
+some account of himself to her father, or whoever might stand in the
+relation of her natural protector; certainly that it was incumbent on a
+gentleman to do so. I felt, therefore, that it was necessary for me
+before proceeding further in my pursuit of Eleanor Leigh to declare my
+intention to her father. My declaration to her had been the result of a
+furious impulse to which I had yielded; but now that I had cooled, my
+principle reasserted itself. One trouble was that I did not know Mr.
+Leigh. I determined to consult John Marvel, and I had a sneaking hope
+that he might not think it necessary for me to speak about it to him. I
+accordingly went around to his room and after he had gotten through with
+a tramp or two, who had come to bleed him of any little pittance which
+he might have left, he came in. I bolted into the middle of my subject.
+
+"John, I am in love." I fancied that his countenance changed slightly--I
+thought, with surprise.
+
+"Yes. I know you are."
+
+"How did you know it? I am in love with Eleanor Leigh." His countenance
+changed a shade more, and he looked away and swallowed with a little
+embarrassment.
+
+"Yes. I know that too."
+
+"How did you know it?"
+
+He smiled. John sometimes smiled rather sadly.
+
+"I want you to help me."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know. I have to go and ask Mr. Leigh."
+
+"What! Has she accepted you?" His face was, as I recalled later, full of
+feeling of some kind.
+
+"No. I wish to Heaven she had! If anything, she has rejected me,--but
+that is nothing. I am going to win her and marry her. I am going to ask
+her father's permission to pay my addresses to her, and then I don't
+care whether he gives it or not.--Yes, I do care, too; but whether he
+does or not I am going to win her and him and marry her."
+
+"Henry," he said gently, "you deserve to win her, and I believe,
+maybe--if--" He went off into a train of reflection, which I broke in
+on.
+
+"I don't think I do," I said honestly, sobered by his gentleness; "but
+that makes no difference. I love her better than all the rest of the
+world, and I mean to win her or die trying. So, none of your 'maybes'
+and 'ifs'. I want your advice how to proceed. I have not a cent in the
+world; am, in fact, in debt; and I feel that I must tell her father
+so."
+
+"That will scarcely tend to strengthen your chances with him," said
+John. My spirits rose.
+
+"I can't help that. I feel that I must tell him!" Though I spoke so
+grandly, my tone contained a query.
+
+"Yes, that's right," said John decisively. His mind had been working
+slowly. My spirits drooped.
+
+I was not conscious till then how strongly I had hoped that he might
+disagree with me. My heart quite sank at the final disappearance of my
+hope. But I was in for it now. My principle was strong enough when
+strengthened by John's invincible soundness.
+
+I walked into the building in which Mr. Leigh had his offices, boldly
+enough. If my heart thumped, at least, I had myself well in hand. The
+clerk to whom I addressed myself said he was not in, but was expected in
+shortly. Could he do anything for me? No, I wanted to see Mr. Leigh
+personally. Would I take a seat?
+
+I took a chair, but soon made up my mind that if I sat there five
+minutes I would not be able to speak. I sat just one minute. At least,
+that was the time my watch registered, though I early discovered that
+there was no absolute standard of the divisions of time. The hands of a
+clock may record with regularity the revolutions of the earth, the moon,
+or the stars; but not the passage of time as it affects the human mind.
+The lover in his mistress' presence, and the lover waiting for his
+mistress, or for that matter, for her father, has no equal gauge of
+measurement of Time's passage. With the one the winged sandals of
+Mercury were not so fleet, with the other, the leaden feet of Chronos
+were not so dull.
+
+I decided that I must get out into the air; so, mumbling something to
+the surprised clerk about returning shortly, I bolted from the office
+and walked around the block. As I look back at it now, I was a rather
+pitiable object. I was undoubtedly in what, if I were speaking and not
+writing, I should call "the deuce of a funk"; but for the sake of fine
+English, I will term it a panic. My heart was beating, my mouth was dry,
+my knees were weak. I came very near darting off every time I reached a
+corner, and I should certainly have done so but for the knowledge that
+if I did I should never get up the courage to come back again. So I
+stuck and finally screwed up my courage to return to the office; but
+every object and detail in those streets through which I passed that
+morning are fastened in my mind as if they had been stamped there by a
+stroke of lightning.
+
+When I walked in again the clerk said, Yes, Mr. Leigh had returned.
+Would I take a seat for a moment? I sat down in what was a chair of
+torture. A man under certain stress is at a great disadvantage in a
+chair. If he be engaged in reflection, the chair is a proper place for
+him; but if in action, he should stand. Every moment was an added burden
+for me to carry, which was not lightened when young Canter walked out of
+the office and with a surly glance at me passed on.
+
+The clerk took my card, entered the door, and closed it after him. I
+heard a dull murmur of voices within, and then after what appeared to
+me an interminable wait, he reappeared and silently motioned me in. I
+hated him for months for that silent gesture. It seemed like Fate.
+
+As I entered, a man past middle age with a strong face, a self-contained
+mouth and jaw, a calm brow, and keen eyes glanced up from a note he was
+writing and said:
+
+"Excuse me a moment if you please. Won't you take a seat?"
+
+I sat with the perspiration breaking out as I watched the steady run of
+his pen over the sheet. I felt as a criminal must who watches the judge
+preparing to pass sentence. At length he was through. Then he turned to
+me.
+
+"Well, Mr. Glave?"
+
+I plunged at once into my subject.
+
+"Mr. Leigh, I am a young lawyer here, and I have come to ask your
+permission to pay my addresses to your daughter."
+
+"Wha-t!" His jaw positively fell, he was so surprised. But I did not
+give him time.
+
+"I have no right to ask it--to ask any favor of you, much less a favor
+which I feel is the greatest any man can ask at your hands. But I--love
+her--and--I--I simply ask that you will give me your consent to win her
+if I can." I was very frightened, but my voice had steadied me, and I
+was gazing straight in his eyes.
+
+"Does my daughter know of this extraor--of this?" He asked the question
+very slowly, and his eyes were holding mine.
+
+"I hardly know what she may divine. I told her once that I thought a
+gentleman should not--should not try to marry a gir--a lady until he had
+asked her father's permission, and she is so clear-minded that I hardly
+know----"
+
+"Does she know of your attachment?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I mean, I told her once--I----"
+
+"I thought you said you thought a gentleman had no right to speak to her
+until he had gained her father's consent!" A slight scorn had crept into
+his face.
+
+"Yes, sir, I did--something like that, though not quite that--but----"
+
+"How then do you reconcile the two?" He spoke calmly, and I observed a
+certain likeness to his daughter.
+
+"I do not--I cannot. I do not try. I only say that in my cooler moments
+my principle is stronger than my action. I gave way to my feelings once,
+and declared myself, but when I got hold of myself I felt I should come
+to you and give you some account of myself."
+
+"I see." I began to hope again, as he reflected.
+
+"Does my daughter reciprocate this--ah--attachment?
+
+"No, sir. I wish to God she did; but I hope that possibly in time--I
+might prevail on her by my devotion." I was stammering along awkwardly
+enough.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I am only asking your permission to declare myself her suitor to try to
+win--what I would give the world to win, if I had it. I have no hope
+except that which comes from my devotion, and my determination to win.
+I have nothing in the world except my practice; but mean to succeed." I
+had got more confidence now. I went on to give him an account of myself,
+and I tried to tell him the truth, though doubtless I gave myself the
+natural benefit of a friendly historian. I told him frankly of my
+unfortunate experience in the matter of the contribution to the
+_Trumpet_--though I did not conceal my views on the main subject, of the
+corporation's relation to the public. I must say that Mr. Leigh appeared
+an interested auditor, though he did not help me out much. At the end,
+he said:
+
+"Mr. Glave, I have some confidence in my daughter, sufficient--I may
+say--to have decided for some time back to allow her to manage her own
+affairs, and unless there were some insuperable objection in any given
+case, I should not interfere. This is one of the vital affairs in life
+in which a man has to fight his own battle. I refer you to my daughter.
+If there were an insuperable objection, of course I should interfere." I
+wondered if he knew of Canter, and took some hope from his words.
+
+The only thing that gave me encouragement was that he said, just as I
+was leaving:
+
+"Mr. Glave, I used to know your father, I believe. We were at college
+together." I think I must have shown some feeling in my face, for he
+added, "We were very good friends," and held out his hand. I came away
+drenched with perspiration; but I felt that I had made a step in the
+direction of winning Eleanor Leigh, and almost as if I had gained a
+friend. At least, I liked him, as self-contained as he was, for he
+looked at times like his daughter.
+
+That evening Miss Leigh observed something unusual in her father's
+expression, and finally, after waiting a little while for him to
+disclose what he had on his mind, she could stand it no longer.
+
+"Dad, what is it?" she demanded.
+
+Mr. Leigh gazed at her quizzically.
+
+"Well, I have had a rather strenuous day. In the first place, I got a
+letter from Henry Glave." Miss Eleanor's eyes opened.
+
+"From Henry Glave! What in the world is he writing to you about?"
+
+"He has offered me assistance," said Mr. Leigh. He took from his pocket
+a letter, and tossed it across the table to her, observing her with
+amusement as her expression changed. It, possibly, was not the Henry
+Glave she had had in mind.
+
+As she read, her face brightened. "Isn't that fine! I thought he
+would--" She stopped suddenly.
+
+"You wrote to him?" said Mr. Leigh.
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know he would. I only asked his advice--I thought
+maybe, he possibly might--knowing how he liked you. This will help us
+out? You will accept his offer, of course?"
+
+Mr. Leigh nodded. "I am considering it. It was certainly very good in
+him. Not every man is as grateful these times. My only question is
+whether I ought to accept his offer."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Mr. Leigh did not answer for a moment, he was deep in reflection,
+reviewing a past in which two older men who bore my name had borne a
+part, and was trying to look forward into the future. Presently he
+replied:
+
+"Well, the fact is, I am very hard pressed."
+
+For answer Eleanor sprang up and ran around to him, and throwing her arm
+about his neck, kissed him. "You poor, dear old dad. I knew you were in
+trouble; but I did not like to urge you till you got ready. Tell me
+about it."
+
+Mr. Leigh smiled. It was a patronizing way she had with him which he
+liked while he was amused by it.
+
+"Yes. I'm--the fact is, I'm pretty near--" He paused and reflected; then
+began again, "What would you say if I were to tell you that I am almost
+at the end of my resources?"
+
+The girl's countenance fell for a second, then brightened again almost
+immediately.
+
+"I shouldn't mind it a bit, except for you."
+
+Mr. Leigh heaved a sigh which might have been a sigh of relief.
+
+"You don't know what it means, my dear."
+
+"Oh! Yes, I do."
+
+"No-o. It means giving up--everything. Not only all luxuries; but--" He
+gazed about him at the sumptuous surroundings in his dining-room, "but
+all this--everything. Horses, carriages, servants, pictures--everything.
+Do you understand?"
+
+"Everything?" Eleanor's voice and look betrayed that she was a little
+startled.
+
+"Yes," said her father with a nod and a sigh. "If I assign, it would all
+have to go, and we should have to begin afresh."
+
+"Very well. I am ready. Of course, I don't want to be broke; but I am
+ready. Whatever you think is right. And I would rather give up
+everything--everything, than have you worried as you have been for ever
+so long. I have seen it."
+
+"Nelly, you are a brick," said her father fondly, looking at her in
+admiration. "How did you ever happen to be your Aunt Sophy's niece?"
+
+"Her half-niece," corrected the girl, smiling.
+
+"It was the other half," mused Mr. Leigh.
+
+"Tell me about it, father. How did it come? When did it happen?" she
+urged, smoothing tenderly the hair on his brow.
+
+"It didn't happen. It came. It has been coming for a long time. It is
+the conditions----"
+
+"I know, those dreadful conditions. How I hate to hear the word! We used
+to get them when we were at Miss de Pense's school,--we had to work them
+off--and now people are always talking about them."
+
+"Well, these conditions," said Mr. Leigh smiling, "seem a little more
+difficult to work off. I am rated as belonging to the capitalists and as
+opposed to the working class. The fact is I am not a capitalist; for my
+properties are good only while in active use, all my available surplus
+has gone into their betterment for the public use, and I am a
+harder-worked man than any laborer or workman in one of my shops or on
+one of my lines."
+
+"That you are!" exclaimed his daughter.
+
+"I belong to the class that produces, and we are ground between the
+upper and the nether millstones. Do you see?"
+
+Eleanor expressed her assent.
+
+"The fire, of course, cost us a lot."
+
+"It was set on fire," interrupted his daughter. "I know it."
+
+"Well, I don't know--possibly. It looks so. Anyhow, it caught us at the
+top notch, and while the insurance amounts to something, the actual loss
+was incalculable. Then came the trouble with the bank. So long as I was
+there they knew they could not go beyond the law. So Canter and the
+others got together, and I got out, and, of course----"
+
+"I know," said his daughter.
+
+"They asked me to remain, but--I preferred to be free."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"I had an overture to-day from the Canters," said Mr. Leigh, after a
+moment of reflection. "I do not quite know what it means, but I think I
+do."
+
+"What was it?" Eleanor looked down with her face slightly averted.
+
+"Jim Canter came from his father to propose--to suggest a _modus
+vivendi_, as it were. It means that they have started a blaze they
+cannot extinguish--that they are having trouble with their people, and
+fear that our people are coming around, but it means something further,
+too, I think." Mr. Leigh ceased talking, and appeared to be reflecting.
+
+"What?" said the girl, after waiting a moment.
+
+"You know--your aunt--however--" He paused.
+
+She rose and faced him.
+
+"Father, I wouldn't marry him to save his life--and I have told both him
+and Aunt Sophia so." Mr. Leigh gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"You, of course, declined the proposal they made?" said Eleanor.
+
+"I did--I think they have broken with the Argand interest. I saw your
+aunt to-day, and had a talk with her. I think her eyes are opened at
+last. I told her a few plain truths."
+
+He dropped into reflection and a quizzical expression came into his
+eyes.
+
+"I had a very remarkable thing happen to me to-day."
+
+"What was it?" demanded his daughter.
+
+"I had an offer of marriage made me."
+
+Eleanor Leigh's face changed--at first it grew a shade whiter, then a
+shade redder.
+
+"I know who it was," she said quickly.
+
+"Oh!" Mr. Leigh shut his lips firmly. "I did not know."
+
+"She is a cat! She has been sending me flowers and opera tickets all
+winter, and deluging me with invitations. I knew she was up to
+something." She spoke with growing feeling, as her father's eyes rested
+on her placidly with an amused expression in them. "I wouldn't be such
+easy game. Why, dad, she'd bore you to death--and as to me, I wouldn't
+live in the house with her--I couldn't." She stood with mantling cheek
+and flashing eye, a young Amazon girded for battle.
+
+"I will relieve you," said her father. "It is not the feline-natured
+lady you have in mind; but a person quite different." Miss Eleanor
+looked relieved.
+
+"Dad--it couldn't be--it was not Aunt Sophia? That would explain a lot
+of things. You know I think she's been laying some snares lately. She
+even forgave me when I told her the other evening that that was the last
+time I would ever accept an invitation from Mr. Canter, even as a favor
+to her. Dad, she'd make you miserable. You couldn't."
+
+"No," said Mr. Leigh. "In fact, it was not a lady at all. It was a
+person of the opposite sex, and the proposal was for your hand."
+
+"Dad! Who was it? Now, dad." She moved around the table to him, as Mr.
+Leigh, with eyes twinkling over his victory, shut his mouth firmly.
+"Dad, you'd just as well tell me at once, for you know I am going to
+know, so you might as well tell me and save yourself trouble. Who was
+it?"
+
+Mr. Leigh took her firmly by the arms and seated her on his knee.
+
+"Well, it was a young man who appeared quite in earnest."
+
+"It wasn't--no, I know it wasn't he--he wouldn't have done that--and it
+wasn't--" (she pondered) "no, it wasn't he--and it wasn't--" She
+suddenly paused. "Tell me, what did he say? How did you like him? What
+did you say to him?"
+
+"So you have settled who it is. Perhaps, you sent him to me?"
+
+"Indeed, I did not, and I don't know who it was. What did you tell him?"
+
+"I told him you were of age----"
+
+"I am not. I am twenty."
+
+"No, I told him you were too young--to think of such a thing----"
+
+"I am twenty," repeated the girl.
+
+"That is what I told him," said Mr. Leigh, "and that I thought you were
+able to take care of yourself."
+
+The girl rested her chin on his head and went off in a reverie.
+
+"Dad, we must hold together," she said. Her father drew her face down
+and kissed her silently. "The man who takes you away from me will have
+to answer with his life," he said.
+
+"There is no one on earth who could," said Eleanor.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM
+
+
+It is a terrible thing for a man with a wife and children to see them
+wasting away with sheer starvation, to hear his babes crying for bread
+and his wife weeping because she cannot get it for them. Some men in
+such a situation drown their sorrow in drink; others take a bolder
+course, and defy the law or the rules of their order.
+
+The Railway Company, still being forced to run their cars, undertook to
+comply with the requirement, even though the protection of the police
+was withheld. The police were instructed, indeed, to be present and keep
+the peace, and a few were detailed, but it was known to both sides that
+no real protection would be granted. Coll McSheen's order to the force
+bore this plainly on its face--so plainly that the conservative papers
+roundly denounced him for his hypocrisy, and for the first time began to
+side decisively with the company.
+
+The offer of increased wages to new men was openly scouted by the
+strikers generally. But in a few houses the situation was so terrible
+that the men yielded. One of these was the empty and fireless home of
+McNeil. The little Scotchman had had a bitter experience and had come
+through it victorious; but just as he was getting his head above water,
+the new strike had come--against his wishes and his vote. He had held on
+as long as he could--had held on till every article had gone--till his
+wife's poor under raiment and his children's clothes had gone for the
+few dollars they brought, and now he was face to face with starvation.
+He walked the streets day after day in company with a sad procession of
+haggard men hunting for work, but they might as well have hunted on the
+arctic floes or in the vacant desert. For every stroke of work there
+were a hundred men. The answer was everywhere the same: "We are laying
+men off; we are shutting down."
+
+He returned home one night hungry and dejected to find his wife fainting
+with hunger and his children famished. "I will get you bread," he said
+to the children, and he turned and went out. I always was glad that he
+came to me that night, though I did not know till afterward what a
+strait he was in. I did not have much to lend him, but I lent him some.
+His face was haggard with want; but it had a resolution in it that
+impressed me.
+
+"I will pay it back, sir, out of my first wages. I am going to work
+to-morrow."
+
+"I am glad of that," I said, for I thought he had gotten a place.
+
+The next morning at light McNeil walked through the pickets who shivered
+outside the car-barn, and entered the sheds just as their shouts of
+derision and anger reached him. "I have come to work," he said simply.
+"My children are hungry."
+
+The first car came out that morning, and on the platform stood McNeil,
+glum and white and grim, with a stout officer behind him. It ran down by
+the pickets, meeting with jeers and cries of "Scab! scab!" and a
+fusillade of stones; but as the hour was early the crowd was a small
+one, and the car escaped. It was some two hours later when the car
+reappeared on its return. The news that a scab was running the car had
+spread rapidly, and the street near the terminus had filled with a crowd
+wild with rage and furiously bent on mischief. As the car turned into a
+street it ran into a throng that had been increasing for an hour and now
+blocked the way. An obstruction placed on the track brought the car to a
+stop as a roar burst from the crowd and a rush was made for the scab.
+The officer on the car used his stick with vigor enough, but the time
+had passed when one officer with only a club could hold back a mob. He
+was jerked off the platform, thrown down, and trampled underfoot. The
+car was boarded, and McNeil, fighting like a fury, was dragged out and
+mauled to death before any other officers arrived. When the police, in
+force, in answer to a riot-call, reached the spot a quarter of an hour
+later and dispersed the mob, it looked as if the sea had swept over the
+scene. The car was overturned and stripped to a mere broken shell; and
+on the ground a hundred paces away, with only a shred of bloody clothing
+still about it, lay the battered and mutilated trunk of what had been a
+man trying to make bread for his children, while a wild cry of hate and
+joy at the deed raged about the street.
+
+The men who were arrested easily proved that they were simply onlookers
+and had never been within fifty feet of the car.
+
+The riot made a fine story for the newspapers, and the headlines were
+glaring. The victim's name was spelled according to the fancy of the
+reporter for each paper, and was correctly published only two days
+later.
+
+The press, except the _Trumpet_, while divided in its opinion on many
+points, combined in its denouncement of the murder of the driver, and
+called on the city authorities to awake to the gravity of the situation
+and put down violence. It was indeed high time.
+
+Moved by the similarity of the name to my friend McNeil, I walked over
+that afternoon to that part of the city where he had lived. It was one
+of the poorest streets of the poor section. The street on which I had
+lived at the old Drummer's, with its little hearth-rug yards, was as
+much better than it as the most fashionable avenue was better than that.
+The morass, like a moving bog, had spread over it and was rapidly
+engulfing it.
+
+The sidewalks were filled with loafers, men and women who wore the
+gloomiest or surliest looks. As I passed slowly along, trying to read
+the almost obliterated numbers, I caught fragments of their
+conversation. A group of them, men and women, were talking about the man
+who had been killed and his family. The universal assertion was that it
+served him right, and his family, too. I gleaned from their talk that
+the family had been boycotted even after he was dead, and that he had
+had to be buried by the city, and, what was more, that the cruel
+ostracism still went on against his family.
+
+"Ay-aye, let 'em starve, we'll teach 'em to take the bread out of our
+mouths," said one woman, while another told gleefully of her little boy
+throwing stones at the girl as she came home from outside somewhere. She
+had given him a cake for doing it. The others applauded both of these.
+The milk of human kindness appeared to be frozen in their breasts.
+
+"Much good it will do you! Do you get any more money for doing it?" said
+an old man with round shoulders and a thin face; but even he did not
+seem to protest on account of the cruelty. It was rather a snarl. Two or
+three young men growled at him; but he did not appear afraid of them; he
+only snarled back.
+
+I asked one of the men which house was the one I was seeking. He told
+me, while half a dozen hooted something about the "scab."
+
+When I came to the door pointed out I had no difficulty in recognizing
+it. The panels and sides were "daubed" up with mud, which still stuck in
+many places, showing the persecution which had been carried on. Inside,
+I never saw a more deplorable sight. The poor woman who came to the
+door, her face drawn with pain and white with terror, and her eyes red
+with weeping, would not apparently have been more astonished to have
+found a ghost on the steps. She gave a hasty, frightened glance up the
+street in both directions, and moaned her distress.
+
+"Won't you step inside?" she asked, more to get the door closed between
+her and the terror of the street than out of any other feeling; and when
+I was inside, she asked me over again what I wanted. She could not take
+in that I had called out of charity; she appeared to think that it was
+some sort of official visit. When she found out, however, that such was
+my object, the effect was instantaneous. At first she could not speak at
+all; but after a little she was calm enough and poured out all her woes.
+She went over anew how her husband had come over from Scotland several
+years before and they had been quite comfortably fixed. How he had
+gotten work, and had belonged to the union, and they had done well. He
+had, however, been obliged by the union to strike, and they had spent
+all the money they had, and in addition to that had gotten into debt.
+So, when the strike was over, although he obtained work again, he was in
+debt, and the harassment of it made him ill. Then how he had come North
+to find work, and had had a similar experience. All this I knew. It was
+just then that her last baby was born and that her little child died,
+and the daughter of the employer of her husband was so kind to her, that
+when her husband got well again, there was talk of a strike to help
+others who were out, and she made him resign from the union. Here she
+broke down. Presently, however, she recovered her composure. They had
+come to her then, she said, and told her they would ruin him.
+
+"But I did not think they would kill him, sir," she sobbed. "He tried to
+get back, but Wringman kept him out. That man murdered him, sir."
+
+There was not a lump of coal in the house; but her little girl had gone
+for some cinders, while she minded the baby. She had to go where she was
+not known--a long way, she said--as the children would not let her pick
+any where she used to get them.
+
+When I came out I found that it had turned many degrees colder during
+the short time I was in the house, and the blast cut like a knife. The
+loafers on the street had thinned out under the piercing wind; but those
+who yet remained jeered as I passed on. I had not gotten very far when I
+came on a child, a little girl, creeping along. She was bending almost
+double under the weight of a bag of cinders, and before I reached her my
+sympathy was excited by the sight of her poor little bare hands and
+wrists, which were almost blue with cold. Her head, gray with the sifted
+ashes, was tucked down to keep her face from the cutting wind, and when
+I came nearer I heard her crying--not loud; but rather wailing to
+herself.
+
+"What is the matter, little girl?" I asked.
+
+"My hands are so cold--Oh! Oh! Oh!" she sobbed.
+
+"Here, let me warm them." I took the bag and set it down, and took her
+little ashy hands in mine to try and warm them, and then for the first
+time I discovered that it was my little girl, Janet. She was so changed
+that I scarcely knew her. Her little pinched face, like her hair, was
+covered with ashes. Her hands were ice. When I had gotten some warmth
+into them I took off my gloves and put them on her, and I picked up her
+bag and carried it back for her. My hands nearly froze, but somehow I
+did not mind it. I had such a warm feeling about my heart. I wonder men
+don't often take off their gloves for little poor children.
+
+I marched with her through the street near her house, expecting to be
+hooted at, and I should not have minded it; for I was keyed up and could
+have fought an army. But no one hooted. If they looked rather curiously
+at me, they said nothing.
+
+As I opened the door to leave, on the steps stood my young lady. It is
+not often that a man opens a door and finds an angel on the step
+outside; but I did it that evening. I should not have been more
+surprised if I had found a real one. But if one believes that angels
+never visit men, these days, he should have seen Eleanor Leigh as she
+stood there. She did not appear at all surprised. Her eyes looked right
+into mine, and I took courage enough to look into hers for an instant. I
+have never forgotten them. They were like deep pools, clear and
+bottomless, filled with light. She did not look at all displeased and I
+did not envy St. Martin.
+
+All she said was, "How do you do, Mr. Glave?" It was quite as if she
+expected to find me there--and she had. She had seen me stop little
+Janet and put the gloves on her. She was on her way to the house, and
+she had stopped and waited, and then had followed us. I did not know
+this until long afterward; but I asked her to let me wait and see her
+home, and so I did.
+
+That walk was a memorable one to me. The period of explanations was
+past. I dared harbor the hope that I was almost in sight of port. When I
+put her on the car, she was so good as to say her father would be glad
+to see me some time at their home, and I thought she spoke with just the
+least little shyness, which made me hope that she herself would not be
+sorry.
+
+When I left her, I went to see my old Drummer, and told him of the
+outrages which had been perpetrated on the poor woman. It was worth
+while seeing him. He was magnificent. As long as I was talking only of
+the man, he was merely acquiescent, uttering his "Ya, Ya,"
+irresponsively over his beer; but when I told him of the woman and
+children, he was on his feet in an instant--"Tamming te strikers and all
+teir vorks." He seized his hat and big stick, and pouring out gutturals
+so fast that I could not pretend to follow him, ordered me to show him
+the place. As he strode through the streets, I could scarcely keep up
+with him. His stick rang on the frozen pavement like a challenge to
+battle. And when he reached the house he was immense. He was suddenly
+transformed. No mother could have been tenderer, no father more
+protecting. He gathered up the children in his great arms, and petted
+and soothed them; his tone, a little while before so ferocious, now as
+soft and gentle as the low velvet bass of his great drum. I always think
+of the Good Shepherd now as something like him that evening; rugged as a
+rock, gentle as a zephyr. He would have taken them all to his house and
+have adopted them if the woman would have let him. His heart was bigger
+than his house. He seemed to have filled all the place; to have made it
+a fortress.
+
+The strike had cast its black cloud over all the section, and not all of
+its victims were murdered by the mob.
+
+I fell in with the man who had spoken to me so cheerily one morning of
+the sun's shining for him. He looked haggard and ill and despairing. He
+was out of work and could find none. In our talk he did not justify the
+strike; but he bowed to it with resignation as a stricken Orestes might
+have bowed to the blows of Fate. His spirit was not then broken--it was
+only embittered. His furniture which was so nearly paid for had gone to
+the loan sharks; his house of which he boasted had reverted to the
+Building Company. He looked fully twenty years older than when I had
+seen him last. I offered him a small sum which he took gratefully. It
+was the first money he had had in weeks, he said, and the stores had
+stopped his credits. A few weeks later I saw him staggering along the
+street, his heart-eating sorrow drowned for an hour in the only nepenthe
+such poverty knows.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+WOLFFERT'S NEIGHBORS
+
+
+I had not been to visit Wolffert and, indeed, had but a hazy idea of
+where he lived, knowing only that he had a room in the house of some Jew
+in the Jewish quarter. Hitherto our meetings had taken place either in
+John Marvel's narrow little quarters or in mine at the old Drummer's.
+But having learned from John that he was ill, I got the address from
+him, and one afternoon went over to see him. I found the place in a
+region more squalid than that in which John Marvel and I had our
+habitation and as foreign as if it had been in Judea or in a Black Sea
+province. In fact, it must have exhibited a mixture of both regions. The
+shops were small and some of them gay, but the gayest was as mean as the
+most sombre. The signs and notices were all in Yiddish or Russian, the
+former predominating, and as I passed through the ill-paved,
+ill-smelling, reeking streets I could scarcely retain my conviction that
+I was still in an American city. It was about the hour that the
+manufactories of clothing, etc., closed and the street through which I
+walked was filled with a moving mass of dark humanity that rolled
+through it like a dark and turgid flood. For blocks they filled the
+sidewalk, moving slowly on, and as I mingled in the mass, and caught
+low, guttural, unknown sounds, and not a word of English all the while,
+I became suddenly aware of a strange alien feeling of uncertainty and
+almost of oppression. Far as eye could see I could not descry one Saxon
+countenance or even one Teuton. They were all dark, sallow, dingy, and
+sombre. Now and then a woman's hat appeared in the level moving surge of
+round black hats, giving the impression of a bubble floating on a deep,
+slow current to melt into the flood. Could this, I reflected sombrely,
+be the element we are importing? and what effect would the strange
+confluence have on the current of our life in the future? No wonder we
+were in the throes of a strike vast enough to cause anxiety!
+
+I was still under the dominion of this reflection when I reached the
+street in which Wolffert had his home, and, after some difficulty,
+discovered the house in which he had his abode.
+
+The street was filled with wretched little shops, some more wretched
+than others, all stuck together in a curious jumble of tawdry finery and
+rusty necessities. Among them were many shops where second-hand clothing
+was exhibited, or, from appearances, clothing for which that term was a
+flattering euphemism. I stopped at one where second-hand shoes were hung
+out, and, opening the door to ask the way, faced a stout, shapeless
+woman with a leathery skin and a hooked nose, above which a pair of
+inquisitive black eyes rested on me, roving alternately from my feet to
+my face, with an expression of mingled curiosity, alarm, and hostility.
+I asked her if she could tell me where the number 1 wanted was, and as
+my inquiry caused not the least change of expression, I took out my card
+and wrote the number down. She gazed at it in puzzled silence, and then
+with a little lighting of her dark face, muttered a few unintelligible
+words and bustled back to where a curtain hung across the narrow shop,
+and lifting one corner of it gave a call which I made out to be
+something like "Jacob." The next moment a small, keen-looking boy made
+his way from behind the curtain and gazed at me. A few words passed
+between the two, in a tongue unknown to me, and then the boy, laying
+down a book that he carried in his hand, came forward and asked me in
+perfectly good English, "What is it you want?"
+
+"I want to know where number 5260-1/2 ---- Street is. I have that
+address, but cannot find the number."
+
+"I'll show you." His eyes too were on my shoes. "The numbers of the
+streets were all taken down last year, and have not been put back yet.
+That is where Mr. Wolffert lives. Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes, I am going to see him."
+
+He turned and said something rapidly to his mother, in which the only
+word I recognized was Wolffert's name. The effect was instantaneous. The
+expression of vague anxiety died out of the woman's face and she came
+forward jabbering some sort of jargon and showing a set of yellow,
+scattering teeth.
+
+"I'll show you where he lives. You come with me," said Jacob. "She
+thought you were an agent." He suddenly showed a much better set of
+teeth than his mother could display--"She don't speak English, you see."
+He had laid down his book on the counter and he now put on his cap. As
+he passed out of the door he paused and fastened his eyes on my feet.
+"You don't want a pair of shoes? We have all sorts--some as good as new.
+You can't tell. Half the price, too."
+
+I declined the proffered bargain, and we walked up the street, Jacob
+discoursing volubly of many things, to show his superior intelligence.
+
+"What was your book?" I inquired.
+
+"U. S. History. I'm in the sixth grade."
+
+"So? I should think you are rather small to be so high?" My ideas of
+grades were rather hazy, having been derived from "Tom Brown at Rugby"
+and such like encyclopædias.
+
+"Pah! I stand next to head," he cried contemptuously.
+
+"You do! Who stands head?"
+
+"Iky Walthiemer--he's fourteen and I ain't but twelve. Then there is a
+fellow named Johnson--Jimmy Johnson. But he ain't nothin'!"
+
+"He isn't? What's the matter with him?"
+
+"He ain't got no eye on him--he don't never see nothin'."
+
+"You mean he's dull?"
+
+"Sure! Just mem'ry, that's all. He's dull. We beat 'em all."
+
+"Who are 'we'?"
+
+"We Jews."
+
+"So----"
+
+"Well, here we are. I'll run up and show you the door"--as we stopped at
+a little butcher shop beside which was a door that evidently led up a
+stair to the upper story.
+
+"All right. You know Mr. Wolffert?"
+
+"Sure! We all know him. He's a Jew, too."
+
+"Sure!" I tried to imitate his tone, for it was not an accent only.
+
+He ran up the stair and on up a second flight and back along a dark,
+narrow little passage, where he tapped on a door, and, without waiting,
+walked in.
+
+"Here's a man to see you."
+
+"A gentleman, you mean," I said dryly, and followed him, for I have a
+particular aversion to being referred to to my face as a mere man. It is
+not a question of natural history, but of manners.
+
+"Well, Jacob," said Wolffert when he had greeted me, "have you got to
+the top yet?"
+
+"Will be next week," said Jacob confidently.
+
+I found Wolffert sitting up in a chair, but looking wretchedly ill. He,
+however, declared himself much better. I learned afterward--though not
+from him--that he had caught some disease while investigating some
+wretched kennels known as "lodging houses," where colonies of Jews were
+packed like herrings in a barrel; and for which a larger percentage on
+the value was charged as rental than for the best dwellings in the city.
+His own little room was small and mean enough, but it was comfortably
+if plainly furnished, and there were books about, which always give a
+homelike air, and on a little table a large bunch of violets which
+instantly caught my eye. By some inexplicable sixth sense I divined that
+they had come from Eleanor Leigh; but I tried to be decent enough not to
+be jealous; and Wolffert's manifest pleasure at seeing me made me feel
+humble.
+
+We had fallen to talking of his work when I said, "Wolffert, why do you
+live in this horrible quarter? No wonder you get ill. Why don't you get
+a room in a more decent part of the town--near where John Marvel lives,
+for instance?"
+
+Wolffert smiled.
+
+"Why?--what is the matter with this?"
+
+"Oh! Why, it is dreadful. Why, it's the dirtiest, meanest, lowest
+quarter of the city! I never saw such a place. It's full of stinking"--I
+was going to say "Jews"; but reflected in time to substitute "holes."
+
+Wolffert, I saw, supplied the omitted objection.
+
+"Do you imagine I would live among the rich?" he demanded; "I thought
+you knew me better. I don't want to be fattened in the dark like a
+Strasbourg goose for my liver to make food acceptable to their jaded
+appetites. Better be a pig at once."
+
+"No, but there are other places than this--and I should think your soul
+would revolt at this--" I swung my arm in a half circle.
+
+"Are they not my brethren?" he said, half smiling.
+
+"Well, admit that they are--" (And I knew all along that this was the
+reason.) "There are other grades--brethren of nearer degree."
+
+"None," he ejaculated. "'I dwell among my own people'--I must live among
+them to understand them."
+
+"I should think them rather easy to understand."
+
+"I mean to be in sympathy with them," he said gently. "Besides, I am
+trying to teach them two or three things."
+
+"What?" For I confess that my soul had revolted at his surroundings.
+That surging, foreign-born, foreign-looking, foreign-spoken multitude
+who had filled the street as I came along through the vile reek of
+"Little Russia," as it was called, had smothered my charitable feelings.
+
+"Well, for one thing, to learn the use of freedom--for another, to learn
+the proper method and function of organization."
+
+"They certainly appear to me to have the latter already--simply by being
+what they are," I said lightly.
+
+"I mean of business organization," Wolffert explained. "I want to break
+up the sweat shop and the sweat system. We are already making some
+headway, and have thousands in various kinds of organized business which
+are quite successful."
+
+"I should not think they would need your assistance--from what I saw.
+They appear to me to have an instinct."
+
+"They have," said Wolffert, "but we are teaching them how to apply it.
+The difficulty is their ignorance and prejudice. You think that they
+hold you in some distrust and dislike, possibly?" As his tone implied a
+question, I nodded.
+
+"Well, that is nothing to the way in which they regard me. You they
+distrust as a gentile, but me they detest as a renegade."
+
+"Well, I must say that I think you deserve what you get for bringing in
+such a mass of ignorance. Now, you are an American, and a patriotic one.
+How do you reconcile it with your patriotism to introduce into the body
+politic such an element of ignorance, superstition, and unrest?"
+
+"Why," said Wolffert, "you don't know our people. The Jew is often an
+element of ignorance and superstition, though he is not alone in this,
+but he is never an element of unrest--when he is justly treated," he
+added after a pause. "But, whatever these people are in this generation,
+the next generation--the children of this generation--will be useful
+American citizens. All they require is a chance. Why, the children of
+these Russian Jews, baited from their own country, are winning all the
+prizes in the schools," he added, his pale face flushing faintly. "That
+lad who showed you in is the son of parents who sell second-hand shoes
+in the next street and cannot speak a word of English, and yet he stands
+at the head of his class."
+
+"No, second!" I said.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"He told me."
+
+"The little rascal! See how proud he is of it," said Wolffert
+triumphantly.
+
+"He tried to sell me a pair of shoes."
+
+Wolffert chuckled. "Did he?" Then he sobered, catching my thought. "That
+is the most important thing for him at present, but wait. Let this
+develop." He tapped his forehead. "He may give you laws equal to
+Kepler's or a new philosophy like Bacon's. He may solve aerial
+navigation--or revolutionize thought in any direction--who knows!"
+
+His face had lighted up as he proceeded, and he was leaning forward in
+his chair, his eyes glowing.
+
+"I know," I said, teasingly. "He'll sell shoes--second-hand ones
+polished up for new."
+
+I was laughing, but Wolffert did not appreciate my joke. He flushed
+slightly.
+
+"That's your gentile ignorance, my friend. That's the reason your people
+are so dense--they never learn--they keep repeating the same thing. No
+wonder we discover new worlds for you to claim!"
+
+"What new worlds have you discovered?"
+
+"Well, first, Literature, next commerce. What is your oldest boasted
+scripture?"
+
+"I thought you were talking of material worlds!"
+
+"We helped about that, too--did our full part. You think Queen Isabella
+pawned her jewels to send Christobal Colon to discover America--don't
+you?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Well, the man who put up the money for that little expedition was a
+Jew--'Arcangel, the Treasurer.' You never heard of him!"
+
+"Never."
+
+"He did it all the same. If you would read something else beside your
+narrow English writings, Glave, you would learn something of the true
+history of civilization." Now and then Wolffert's arrogance, like
+Antipater's, showed through the rents in his raiment.
+
+"What for instance? since you appear to know it all."
+
+"Well, almost any other history or philosophy. Read the work of the
+thinkers old and new--and see how much deeper life is than the shallow
+thing called by that divine name by the butterflies and insects and
+reptiles who flaunt their gauzy vans in our faces or fasten their brazen
+claws in our vitals. Meantime, you might read my book," he said with a
+smile, "when it comes out."
+
+"Well, tell me about it meantime and save me the trouble. I sometimes
+prefer my friends to their books."
+
+"You were always lazy," he said smiling. But he began to talk, laying
+down his philosophy of life, which was simple enough, though I could not
+follow him very far. I had been trained in too strict a school to accept
+doctrines so radical. And but that I saw him and John Marvel and Eleanor
+Leigh acting on them I should have esteemed them absolutely utopian. As
+it was, I wondered how far Eleanor Leigh had inspired his book.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+WOLFFERT'S PHILOSOPHY
+
+(WHICH MAY BE SKIPPED BY THE READER)
+
+
+As Wolffert warmed up to his theme, his face brightened and his deep
+eyes glowed.
+
+"The trouble with our people--our country--the world--is that our whole
+system--social--commercial--political--every activity is based on greed,
+mere, sheer greed. State and Church act on it--live by it. The success
+of the Jew which has brought on him so much suffering through the ages
+has revenged itself by stamping on your life the very evil with which
+you charge him--love of money. What ideals have we? None but money. We
+call it wealth. We have debased the name, and its debasement shows the
+debasement of the race. Once it meant weal, now mere riches, though
+employed basely, the very enemy and assassin of weal. The covetousness,
+whose reprobation in the last of the commandments was intended as a
+compendium to embrace the whole, has honeycombed our whole life, public
+and private. The amassing of riches, not for use only, for
+display--vulgar beyond belief--the squandering of riches, not for good,
+but for evil, to gratify jaded appetites which never at their freshest
+craved anything but evil or folly, marks the lowest level of the
+shopkeeping intellect. The Argands and the Canters are the aristocrats
+of the community, and the Capons are the fit priests for such people."
+
+He turned away in disgust--but I prodded him.
+
+"What is your remedy? You criticise fiercely! but give no light. You are
+simply destructive."
+
+"The remedy is more difficult to give," he said gravely; "because the
+evil has been going on so long that it has become deep-rooted. It has
+sunk its roots into, not only the core of our life, but our character.
+It will take long to eradicate it. But one economic evil might be, and
+eventually must be changed, unless we wish to go down into the abyss of
+universal corruption and destruction."
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"Capitalism--the idea that because a man is accidentally able to acquire
+through adventitious and often corrupt means vast riches which really
+are not made by himself, but by means of others under conditions and
+laws which he did not create, he may call them his own; use them in ways
+manifestly detrimental to the public good and, indeed, often in
+notorious destructiveness of it, and be protected in doing so by those
+laws."
+
+"'Accidentally'--and 'adventitious means'! That does not happen so
+often. It may happen by finding a gold mine--once in ten thousand
+times--or by cornering some commodity on the stock or Produce Exchange
+once in one hundred thousand times, but even then a man must have
+intellect--force--courage--resourcefulness--wonderful powers of
+organization."
+
+"So has the burglar and highwayman," he interrupted.
+
+"But they are criminals--they break the law."
+
+"What law? Why law more than these others? Is not the fundamental law,
+not to do evil to others?"
+
+"The law established by society for its protection."
+
+"Who made those laws?"
+
+"The people--through their representatives," I added hastily, as I saw
+him preparing to combat it.
+
+"The people, indeed! precious little part they have had in the making of
+the laws. Those laws were made, not by the people--who had no voice in
+their making, but by a small class--originally the Chief--the
+Emperor--the King--the Barons--the rich Burghers--the people had no part
+nor voice."
+
+"They received the benefit of them."
+
+"Only the crumbs which fell from their masters' tables. They got the
+gibbet, the dungeon, the rack, and the stick."
+
+"Wolffert, you would destroy all property rights."
+
+"My dear fellow, what nonsense you talk. I am only for changing the law
+to secure property rights for all, instead of for a class, the necessity
+for which no longer exists, if it ever did exist."
+
+"Your own law-giver recognized it and inculcated it." I thought this a
+good thrust. He waved it aside.
+
+"That was for a primitive people in a primitive age, as your laws were
+for your people in their primitive age. But do you suppose that Moses
+would make no modification now?"
+
+"I have no idea that he would. For I believe they were divine."
+
+"Surely--Moses acted under the guidance of the great Jehovah, whose law
+is justice and equity and righteousness. The laws he gave were to
+inculcate this, and they served their purpose when Israel served God.
+But now when He is mocked, the letter of the law is made an excuse and
+is given as the command to work injustice and inequity and
+unrighteousness. Surely they should be, at least, interpreted in the
+spirit in which they were given. You claim to be a Christian?"
+
+"A very poor one."
+
+"In name, at least, you claim that there has been a new dispensation?"
+
+"Yes--an amplification--a development and evolution."
+
+"Precisely. In place of an 'eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth--the
+other cheek turned--to do to others as you would have them do to you!'"
+
+"That is the ideal. I have not yet reached that degree of----" I paused
+for the word.
+
+"I, too, acknowledge that evolution, that ideal. Why should we not act
+on it?"
+
+"Because of human nature. We have not yet reached the stage when it can
+be practically applied."
+
+"But human nature while it does not change basically may be regulated,
+developed, uplifted, and this teaching is based on this principle. It
+has not yet borne much apparent fruit, it is true; but it is sound,
+nevertheless. We both in our better moments, at least, feel it to be
+sound, and there has been a little, however little uplift, and however
+hard to maintain.
+
+"You believe in the development of man; but you look only to his
+material development. I look for his complete development, material and
+spiritual. As he has advanced through the countless ages since God
+breathed into him the breath of Life, and by leading him along the lines
+of physical development to a station in creation where the physical
+evolution gave place to the ever-growing psychical development; so I
+believe he is destined to continue this psychical or spiritual growth,
+increasing its power as the ages pass and mounting higher and higher in
+spiritual knowledge, until he shall attain a degree of perfection that
+we only think of now as a part of the divine. We see the poet and the
+saint living to-day in an atmosphere wholly distinct from the gross
+materialism of common humanity. We see laws being enacted and principles
+evolved which make for the improvement of the human race. We see the
+gradual uplifting and improvement of the race. War is being
+diminished; its horrors lessened; food is becoming more diffused;
+civilization--material civilization--is being extended; and the
+universal, fundamental rights are being a little more recognized,
+however dimly. This means growth--the gradual uplifting of mankind, the
+diffusion of knowledge, as well as of food--the growth of
+intellectuality. And as this comes, think you that man will not rise
+higher? A great reservoir is being tapped and from it will flow, in the
+future, rich streams to fertilize the whole world of humanity.
+Aspirations will leap higher and higher, and the whole race in time will
+receive new light, new power, new environments, with an ever-widening
+horizon, and a vast infinitude of spiritual truth as the field for the
+soul's exercise."
+
+"It is a dream," I said, impressed by his burning eyes, his glowing
+face, as he drifted on almost in a rhapsody.
+
+"Yes--a dream; but it might come true if all--if you and all like you--I
+mean all educated and trained people, would unite to bring it about.
+Your leader preached it, you profess the principles now, but do not
+practise them. The State has been against it--the Church equally. It is
+full of sham."
+
+"It was Jerusalem that stoned the prophets," I interrupted. He swept on
+with a gesture.
+
+"Yes, yes--I know--I am not speaking now as a sectarian."
+
+"But, at least, as a Jew," I said, laughing.
+
+"Yes, perhaps. I hardly know. I know about Hannan the High Priest. He
+tried to stand in with Pilate. He thought he was doing his duty when he
+was only fighting for his caste. But what an Iliad of woes he brought on
+his people--through the ages. But now they know, they profess, and yet
+stone the prophets. Your church, founded to fight riches and selfishness
+and formalism, is the greatest exploiter of all that the world knows.
+Two generations sanctify the wealth gotten by the foulest means. The
+robber, the murderer, the destroyer of homes are all accepted, and if
+one protests he is stoned to-day as if he were a blasphemer of the law.
+If the Master to whom your churches are erected should come to-day and
+preach the doctrines he preached in Judea nineteen hundred years ago, he
+would be cast out here precisely as he was cast out there." He spoke
+almost fiercely.
+
+"Yet his teachings," he added, "are nearer those of the people I
+represent than of those who assail them. Why should we not act on it?
+Possibly, some others might see our good works, and in any event we
+shall have done our part. John Marvel does."
+
+"I know he does, but he is a better Christian than I am, and so are
+you."
+
+"I am not a Christian at all. I am only a Jew."
+
+"Will you say that His teachings have had no part in forming your
+character and life?"
+
+"Not my character. My father taught me before I was able to read.
+Possibly I have extended his teachings!"
+
+"Have His teachings had no part in deciding you as to your work?"
+
+"His teachings? John Marvel's exposition of them in his life bore a part
+and, thus, perhaps----"
+
+"That is it."
+
+"Why should I not participate in the benefit of the wisdom of a Jewish
+rabbi?" said Wolffert, scornfully. "Did Jesus utter his divine
+philosophy only for you who were then savages in Northern Europe or
+half-civilized people in Greece, Italy, and Spain? Your claim that he
+did so simply evinces the incurable insularity of your people."
+
+"What is your remedy? Socialism?"
+
+"Call it what you will. That is a name which some prefer and some
+detest. The fact is, that the profit system on which all Modern
+Capitalism rests is radically and fundamentally vicious and wrong. Men
+work and strive, not to produce for use, for service, but for profit.
+Profit becomes the aim of human endeavor--nothing higher or
+better--Competition."
+
+"'Competition,'" I quoted, "'is the soul of trade.'"
+
+"Competition," he said, "may be the soul of trade, but that trade is the
+trade in men's souls, as well as bodies--in the universal soul of the
+people. It sets man against man, and brother against brother--Cain
+against Abel--and is branded with the curse of Cain."
+
+"What would you substitute for it?" I demanded.
+
+"The remedy is always a problem. I should try co-operation--in this
+age."
+
+"Co-operation! It has been proved an absolute failure. It makes the
+industrious and the thrifty the slave of the idle and spendthrift. Men
+would not work."
+
+"An idle and time-worn fallacy. The ambitious do not work for gold, the
+high-minded do not--John Marvel does not--Miss Leigh does not. The poor
+do not work for wealth, only for bread, for a crust, with starvation
+ever grinning at them beside their door which cannot shut out its grisly
+face. Look at your poor client McNeil. Did he work to accumulate gold?
+He worked to feed his starving children."
+
+"But, would they work--this great class?"
+
+"Yes, they would have to work, all who are capable of it, but for higher
+rewards. We would make all who are capable, work. We would give the
+rewards to those who produce, to all who produce by intellect or labor.
+We would do away with those who live on the producers--the leeches who
+suck the life-blood. Work, intellectual or physical, should be the law
+of society."
+
+"They would not work," I insisted.
+
+"Why do you go on drivelling that like a morning paper. Why would they
+not work! Man is the most industrious animal on earth. Look at these
+vast piles of useless buildings, look at the great edifices and works of
+antiquity. Work is the law of his awakened intellect. There would still
+be ambition, emulation, a higher and nobler ambition for something
+better than the base reward they strive and rob and trample each other
+in the mire for now. Men would then work for art, the old mechanic-arts
+would revive in greater beauty and perfection than ever before. New and
+loftier ideals would be set up. There would be more, vastly more men who
+would have those ideals. What does the worker now know of ideals? He is
+reduced to a machine, and a very poor machine at that. He does not know
+where his work goes, or have an interest in it. Give him that. Give his
+fellows that. It will uplift him, uplift his class, create a great
+reservoir from which to draw a better class. The trouble with you, my
+dear friend," said Wolffert, "is that you are assuming all the time that
+your law is a fixed law, your condition of society a fixed condition.
+They are not: There are few things fixed in the world. The universal
+law is change--growth or decay. Of all the constellations and stars, the
+Pole star alone is fixed, and that simply appears so. It really moves
+like the rest, only in a vaster orbit with other stars moving about it."
+
+I smiled, partly at his grandiose imagery and partly at his earnestness.
+
+"You smile, but it is true. There are few fundamental laws. The survival
+of the fittest is one of them in its larger sense. It is that under
+which my people have survived."
+
+"And that all men are by nature entitled to life, liberty and the
+pursuit of happiness."
+
+"Not at all, or, at least, only in the larger sense. If they were
+entitled to life, neither nature nor the law would deprive them of
+it--if to liberty, neither could interfere with it--if to the pursuit of
+happiness, we should have to reconstruct their minds."
+
+"Then, in Heaven's name, what are they entitled to?" I exclaimed.
+
+"First, under certain conditions, to the best fruits of properly
+organized society; to light--enlightenment--then to opportunity to have
+an equal chance for what they are willing to work for."
+
+"Among other things, to work?" I hazarded, feeling that he had delivered
+himself into my hands. "Every man has a right to labor at whatever work
+and for whatever prices he pleases," I said; "that you will admit is
+fundamental?"
+
+"Provided you allow me to define what you mean--provided it does not
+injure his neighbor. You, as a lawyer, quote your _Sic utere tuo ut
+non_."
+
+"If the laborer and his employer contract, no one else has a right to
+interfere."
+
+"Not the public--if they are injured by it?"
+
+"Except by law."
+
+"Who make the laws? The people in theory now, and some day they will do
+it in fact. As the spirit of the time changes, the interpretation of the
+law will change, and the spirit is changing all the time."
+
+"Not in this particular."
+
+"Yes, in all respects. Men are becoming more enlightened. The veil has
+been torn away and the light has been let in. As soon as education came
+the step was taken. We are in a new era already, and the truth is, you
+and your like do not see it."
+
+"What sort of era? How is it new?"
+
+"An era of enlightenment. Men have been informed; they know their power;
+'the tree of knowledge has been plucked.'"
+
+"They don't appear to do much with the knowledge."
+
+"You think not? It is true that they have not yet learned to apply the
+knowledge fully, but they are learning. See how Democracy has ripened
+over the earth, overthrowing tyranny and opening the door of opportunity
+for all mankind--how the principles of Socialism have spread within the
+last generation, in Germany, in England, now in America and Russia. Why,
+it is now an active, practical force."
+
+"Oh! not much," I insisted.
+
+"A great deal, taking into account the opposition to it. It is contrary,
+remember, to the established usage and belief of thousands of years. It
+proposes to supplant what you have been trained to consider the
+foundation of your life, of society, of order, and you have been trained
+to believe that your most precious rights are bound up with that system.
+Every force of modern life is arrayed against it, yet it advances
+steadily; because, under your system, lies the fundamental error and sin
+which enables one man to hold another down and live off of him. You do
+not see that a new era is dawning, that man is developing, society
+passing into a new phase. Democracy has come to stay; because it is
+informed. More and more men are thinking, more and more men are learning
+to think."
+
+"But they will not be able to upset the established order."
+
+"There is no established order. It is always upset in time, either for
+good or ill. It never abides, for change is the law."
+
+"Generally for ill. Content is lost."
+
+"Generally for good," flashed Wolffert. "The content you speak of is
+slavery--stagnation and death. When a man ceases to move, to change
+consciously, he changes most, he dies. That is the law that for the
+universal good underlies all growth. You cannot alter it."
+
+He ceased speaking and I took my leave, feeling that somehow he had
+grown away from me.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+THE CONFLICT
+
+
+Wolffert's book was never finished. When he got well, it was laid aside
+for more imperative work. The misery in the city had increased till it
+threatened the overthrow of everything. It was necessary to do his part
+to ameliorate the wretchedness; for his word was a charm in the foreign
+district where disturbance was most to be feared. He was the most talked
+of man in the city. He worked night and day.
+
+For a little time it looked as though the efforts of the peace-makers,
+among whom were conspicuous in the poor section of the town John Marvel
+and Wolffert, to bring about a better feeling and condition were going
+to be successful. The men began to return to work. The cars were once
+more being operated, though under heavy police protection, Collis
+McSheen having had it made clear to him by his former friends like
+Canter and others that he must act or take the consequences.
+
+One evening not long afterward, under prompting of an impulse to go and
+see how my poor woman and little Janet were coming on, and possibly not
+without some thought of Eleanor Leigh, who had hallowed her doorstep the
+last time I was there, I walked over to that part of the town. I took
+Dix along, or he took himself, for he was my inseparable companion
+these days. Eleanor Leigh had been there, but she had gone to the old
+Drummer's to see Elsa, who was ill, and had taken Janet with her. The
+mother said the child was afraid to go out on the street now, and Miss
+Eleanor thought it would do her good. The poor woman's pitiful face
+haunted me as I turned down the street. Though the men were returning to
+work, the effect of the strike was still apparent all through this
+section of the town. The streets were full of idlers, especially about
+the bar-rooms; and their surly looks and glum air testified to the
+general feeling.
+
+Of all the gatherings of men that I have ever seen the most painful is
+that of men on a strike. They are a forlorn hope. In most assemblies
+there is enthusiasm, spirit, resolve: something that beams forth with
+hope and sustains. Most of these exist in striking men; yet Hope is
+absent. In other assemblages her radiant wings light up their faces; in
+strikes, it seems to me that the sombre shadow of care is always
+present. In this strike Wolffert had been one of the most interested
+observers. While he thought it unwise to strike, he advocated the men's
+right to strike and to picket, but not to employ violence. It was
+passive resistance that he preached, and he deplored the death of McNeil
+as much as I did, or John Marvel. Only he charged it to McSheen and
+Wringman and even more to the hypocrisy of a society which tolerated
+their operations.
+
+This strike had succeeded to the extent of causing great loss to and,
+rumor said, of financially embarrassing Mr. Leigh; but had failed so
+far as the men were concerned, and it was known that it had failed. Its
+only fruit for the working people was misery. The only persons who had
+profited by it were men like McSheen and Wringman.
+
+I held strong opinions about the rights of men in the abstract; under
+the influence of John Marvel's and Wolffert's unselfish lives, and the
+yet more potent influence of Eleanor Leigh, I had come to realize the
+beauty of self-sacrifice, even if I had not yet risen to the loftiness
+of its practice; but the difficulties which I saw in the application of
+our theories and my experience that night at the meeting, followed by
+the death of McNeil, had divided me from my old associates like
+Wolffert. I could not but see that out of the movements instituted, as
+Wolffert believed, for the general good of the working classes, the real
+workingmen were become mere tools, and those who were glib of tongue,
+forward in speech, and selfish and shrewd in method, like McSheen and
+Wringman, used them and profited by them remorselessly, while the rest
+of the community were ground between the upper and the nether
+millstones. Even Wolffert, with his pure motives, had proved but an
+instrument in their hands to further their designs. Their influence was
+still at work, and under orders from these battening politicians many
+poor men with families still stood idle, with aims often as unselfish
+and as lofty as ever actuated patriots or martyrs, enduring hardship and
+privation with the truest and most heroic courage; whilst their leaders,
+like Wringman, who had been idle agitators during the time of
+prosperity, now rose on the crest of the commotion they had created, and
+blossomed into importance. The Nile courses through upper Egypt bearing
+its flood to enrich the lower lands; but the desert creeps and hangs its
+parched lips over the very brink.
+
+I determined to go and inquire after Elsa myself. So, with Dix at my
+heel, I passed through the foreign streets, crowded with the same
+dark-hued elements I had observed before, only now lowering and
+threatening as a cloud about to break, and walked over toward the little
+street in which the Loewens lived, and presently I fell in with
+Wolffert, who, like myself, appeared to have business in that direction.
+Under the circumstances, I should have been glad to escape from him; but
+as he joined me I could not well do so, and we walked along together. He
+looked worn and appeared to be rather gloomy, which I set down to his
+disappointment at the turn affairs connected with the strike had taken,
+for I learned from him that, under the influence of Wringman, there was
+danger of a renewal of hostilities; that his efforts at mediation had
+failed, and he had at a meeting which he had attended, where he had
+advocated conciliatory measures, been hooted down. There was danger, he
+said, of the whole trouble breaking out again, and if so, the sympathy
+of the public would now be on the other side. Thinking more of the girl
+I was in pursuit of than of anything else, and having in mind the
+announcement of Mr. Leigh's losses and reported embarrassment, I
+expressed myself hotly. If they struck again they deserved all they
+got--they deserved to fail for following such leaders as Wringman and
+refusing to listen to their friends.
+
+"Oh, no, they are just ignorant, that is all--they don't know. Give them
+time--give them time."
+
+"Well, I am tired of it all."
+
+"Tired! Oh! don't get tired. That's not the way to work. Stand fast. Go
+and see John Marvel and get new inspiration from him. See how he works."
+
+"Wolffert, I am in love," I said, suddenly. He smiled--as I remembered
+afterward, sadly.
+
+"Yes, you are." There was that in his tone which rather miffed me. I
+thought he was in love, too; but not, like myself, desperately.
+
+"You are not--and you don't know what it is. So, it is easy for you."
+
+He turned on me almost savagely, with a flame in his eyes.
+
+"Not--! I not! You don't dream what it is to be in love. You cannot. You
+are incapable--incapable!" He clutched at his heart. The whole truth
+swept over me like a flood.
+
+"Wolffert! Why--? Why have you never--?" I could not go on. But he
+understood me.
+
+"Because I am a Jew!" His eyes burned with deep fires.
+
+"A Jew! Well, suppose you are. She is not one to allow that----"
+
+He wheeled on me.
+
+"Do you think--? Do you imagine I mean--? I would not allow myself--I
+could never--never allow myself--It is impossible--for me."
+
+I gazed on him with amazement. He was transformed. The pride of race,
+the agony and subdued fury of centuries, flamed in him. I saw for the
+first time the spirit of the chosen people: Israel in bondage, yet
+arisen, with power to call down thunders from Heaven. I stood
+abashed--abashed at my selfish blindness through all my association with
+him. How often I had heedlessly driven the iron into his soul. With my
+arm over his shoulder I stammered something of my remorse, and he
+suddenly seized my hand and wrung it in speechless friendship.
+
+As we turned into a street not far from the Loewens', we found ahead of
+us quite a gathering, and it was increasing momentarily. Blue-coated
+police, grim-looking or anxious, were standing about in squads, and
+surlier-looking men were assembling at the corners. It was a strike. I
+was surprised. I even doubted if it could be that. But my doubt was soon
+dispelled. At that moment a car came around a corner a few blocks away
+and turned into the street toward us. There was a movement in a group
+near me; a shout went up from one of them and in a second the street was
+pandemonium. That dark throng through which we had passed poured in like
+a torrent. A bomb exploded a half block away, throwing up dirt and
+stones.
+
+With a cry, "God of Israel!" Wolffert sprang forward; but I lost him in
+the throng. I found myself borne toward the car like a chip on a fierce
+flood. The next instant I was a part of the current, and was struggling
+like a demon. On the platform were a brawny driver and two policemen.
+The motorman I recognized as Otto. As I was borne near the car, I saw
+that in it, among others, were an old man, a woman, and a child, and as
+I reached the car I recognized--I know not how--all three. They were the
+old Drummer, Eleanor Leigh, and the little girl, Janet McNeil. I thought
+I caught the eye of the young lady, but it may have been fancy; for the
+air was full of missiles, the glass was crashing and tingling; the sound
+of the mob was deafening. At any rate I saw her plainly. She had
+gathered up the scared child in her arms, and with white face, but
+blazing eyes, was shielding her from the flying stones and glass.
+
+I was one of the first men on the car, and made my way into it, throwing
+men right and left as I entered it. I shall never forget the look that
+came into her eyes as she saw me. She rose with a cry and, stretching
+out her hands, pushed the child into my arms with a single word: "Save
+her." It was like an elixir; it gave me ten times the strength I had
+before. The car was blocked, and we descended from it--I in front
+protecting her--and fought our way through the mob to the outskirts, the
+old Drummer, a squad of policemen, and myself; I with the child by the
+hand to keep her near the ground and less exposed, and the old Drummer
+shielding us both and roaring like a lion. It was a warm ten minutes;
+the air was black with stones and missiles. The crowd seemed to have
+gone mad and were like ravening wolves. The presence of a woman and
+child had no effect on them but to increase their fury. They were mad
+with the insanity of mobbism. But at last we got through, though I was
+torn and bleeding. They were after the motorman and conductor. The
+latter had escaped into a shop and the door was shut; but the mob was
+not to be balked. Doors and windows were smashed in like paper. The mob
+poured in and rummaged everywhere for its victim, up-stairs and down,
+like terriers in a cellar after a rat. Fortunately for him, he had
+escaped out the back way. They looted the shop and then turned back to
+search for another victim. As we were near old Loewen's house we took
+the refugees there, and when they were in that place of safety, I
+returned to the scene of conflict. I had caught sight of several faces
+in the crowd that roused me beyond measure, and I went back to fight. If
+I had had a pistol that day, I should certainly have committed murder. I
+had seen Wringman covertly urging the mob on and Pushkin enjoying it.
+Just as I stepped from the car with the child, trying to shield her and
+Eleanor Leigh, and with the old Drummer bulky and raging at my side,
+trying to shield us all and sputtering oaths in two languages, my eye
+reached across the mob and I had caught sight of McSheen's and Pushkin's
+heads above the crowd on the far edge of the mob where it was safe.
+McSheen wore his impervious mask; the other's face was wicked with
+satisfaction, and he was laughing. A sudden desire to kill sprang into
+my heart. If I had not had my charges to guard, I should have made my
+way to him then. I came back for him now.
+
+When I arrived, the fight had somewhat changed. Shops were being looted,
+wagons, trucks, and every sort of vehicle were being turned into the
+street by drivers who sympathized with the strike, to impede the
+restoration of order. The police, aroused at last and in deadly earnest,
+had formed in order and, under their hammering, the mob was giving way.
+Only at one point they were making a stand. It was the corner where
+Pushkin had stood, and I made toward it. As I did so the crowd opened,
+and a group stamped itself indelibly in my mind. In the front line of
+the mob, Wolffert, tall and flaming, hatless, and with flying hair,
+swinging arms, and wide-open mouth, by turns trying to pacify the wild
+mob, by turns cursing and fighting a group of policemen--who, with
+flying clubs and drawn pistols, were hammering them and driving them
+slowly--was trying to make himself heard. Beyond these, away at the far
+edge of the mob the face of Pushkin, his silk hat pulled over his eyes.
+As I gazed at him, he became deadly pale, and then turned as if to get
+away; but the crowd held him fast. I was making toward him, when a
+figure taller than his shoved in between us, pushing his way toward him.
+He was fighting for his life. His head was bare and his face was
+bleeding. His back was to me; but I recognized the head and broad
+shoulders of Otto. It was this sight that drove the blood from Pushkin's
+face, and well it might; for the throng was being parted by the young
+Swede as water is parted by a strong swimmer. There was a pistol shot,
+then I saw the Swede's arm lifted with the lever in his hand, and the
+next second Pushkin's head went down. The cry that went up and the
+surging of the crowd told me what had happened, but I had no time to
+act; for at this moment I saw a half-dozen men in the mob fall upon
+Wolffert, who with bleeding face was still trying to hold them back, and
+he disappeared in the rush. I shouted to some officers by me, "They are
+killing a man there," and together we made our way through the crowd
+toward the spot. It was as I supposed--the adventurer was down. The
+young Swede had settled his account with him. He was unconscious, but he
+was still breathing. Wolffert, too, was stretched on the ground,
+battered almost beyond recognition. John Marvel, his own face bruised
+and bleeding, was on his knees beside him, supporting his head, and the
+police were beating the crowd back. As I drew near, Wolffert half rose.
+"Don't beat them; they don't know." He sank back. The brawny young
+Swede, with a pistol bullet through his clothes, was already on the
+other side of the street, making his way out through the crowd.
+Pushkin's and Wolffert's fall and the tremendous rush made by the police
+caused the mob to give way finally, and they were driven from the spot,
+leaving a half-dozen hatless and drunken leaders in the hands of the
+police.
+
+Pushkin was taken up and was carried to a hospital, and John Marvel
+lifted Wolffert in his arms. Just as he was lifted, a stone struck me
+on the head, and I went down and knew no more.
+
+When I came to, I was in a hospital. John Marvel was sitting beside me,
+his placid eyes looking down into mine with that mingled serenity and
+kindness which gave such strength to others. I think they helped me to
+live as they had helped so many other poor sufferers to die. I was
+conscious only for a moment, and then went off into an illness which
+lasted a long time, before I really knew anything. But I took him with
+me into that misty border-land where I wandered so many weeks, before
+returning to life, and when I emerged from it again, there he sat as
+before, serene, confident, and inspiring. He wore a mourning band on his
+sleeve.
+
+"Where is Dix?" was the first thing I asked.
+
+"He is all right--in good hands."
+
+It was a long time before I could be talked to much; but when I was
+strong enough, he told me many things that had taken place. The strike
+was broken up. Its end was sad enough, as the end of all strikes is.
+Wolffert was dead--killed in the final rush of the riot in which I was
+hurt. And so perished all his high aims and inefficient, unselfish
+methods. His father had come on and taken his body home: "A remarkable
+old man," said John. "He was proud of Leo, but could not get over the
+loss of the great merchant he would have been." Pushkin had recovered,
+and had been discharged from the hospital, and had just married Collis
+McSheen's daughter. "She would have him," said John. Wringman had
+disappeared. On the collapse of the strike, it had been found that he
+had sold out to Coll McSheen and the Argand companies, and furnished
+them information. He had now gone away, Marvel did not know where.
+Langton, when I saw him later, thought he had been afraid to stay longer
+where so many men were who had lost their places through him.
+
+"It is always the way--the innocent suffer, and the guilty escape," I
+murmured.
+
+I felt Marvel's hand gently placed over my lips.
+
+"Inscrutable; but it must be right," he said:
+
+    "'God moves in a mysterious way,
+    His wonders to perform.'"
+
+"I don't believe God had anything to do with it." I was bitter; for I
+was still thinking of Wolffert and Pushkin and McSheen.
+
+"The doctors tell me that a hundredth part of an inch more, and a friend
+of mine would never have known anything again," said Marvel, gravely,
+looking down at me with sorrowful, kind eyes.
+
+Under this argument _ad hominem_ I was silent, if not convinced. We are
+always ready to think Providence interferes in our especial behalf.
+
+I started to ask after another who had been in the riot, but I could not
+frame the question. I saw that Marvel knew what I wished. I learned
+afterward that I had talked of her constantly during my delirium. She
+was well, he told me. She had not been hurt, nor had the child or old
+Loewen. She had left the city. Her father was involved now in a great
+lawsuit, the object of which Marvel did not know, and she had gone
+away.
+
+"Where has she gone?"
+
+He did not answer, and I took it for granted that he did not know.
+
+"If I had been you, I would have found out where she went to," I said
+peevishly.
+
+He took no notice of this. He only smiled. He did not say so; but I
+thought from his manner that she had gone abroad. He had had a note from
+her saying that she would be away a long time, and inclosing him a
+generous contribution for his poor.
+
+"She is an angel," he said.
+
+"Of course she is."
+
+Though he spoke reverently, I was almost angry with him for thinking it
+necessary to say it at all.
+
+"Yes; but you do not know how good she is. None but God knows how good
+some women are."
+
+One or two other pieces of news he told me. The old Drummer and his wife
+had gone off, too; but only on a visit to Elsa. Elsa and Otto had been
+married, and were living in another State. I saw that he still had
+something else to tell, and finally it came out. As soon as I was able,
+I must go away for a while. I needed change and rest, and he knew the
+very place for me, away off in the country.
+
+"You appear to be anxious to depopulate the city," I said. He only
+smiled contentedly.
+
+"I am going to send you to the country," he said with calm decision.
+
+"I have to work----"
+
+"When you come back. I have made all the arrangements."
+
+"I am going to find Eleanor Leigh. I will find her if the world holds
+her."
+
+"Yes, to be sure," he smiled indulgently. He was so strong that I
+yielded.
+
+I learned that a good offer was waiting for me to go into the law office
+of one of the large firms when I should be well enough to work, in a
+capacity which Jeams would have termed that of a "minor connectee"; but
+it was coupled with the condition that I should get well first. My
+speech at the meeting when I denounced Wringman, and my part in the
+riots, had become known, and friends had interested themselves in my
+behalf. So John Marvel reported; and as he appeared to be managing
+things, I assumed that he had done this, too.
+
+I never fully knew until after his death how truly Wolffert was one of
+the Prophets. I often think of him with his high aim to better the whole
+human race, inspired by a passion for his own people to extend his
+ministration to all mankind, cast out by those he labored for; denying
+that he was a Christian, and yet dying a Christian death in the act of
+supplicating for those who slew him. I owe him a great debt for teaching
+me many things, but chiefly for the knowledge that the future of the
+race rests on the whole people and its process depends on each one,
+however he may love his own, working to the death for all. He opened my
+eyes to the fact that every man who contributes to the common good of
+mankind is one of the chosen people and that the fundamental law is to
+do good to mankind.
+
+I discovered that John Marvel knew he was in love with Eleanor Leigh,
+though how he knew it I never learned. "He never told her," he said,
+"but died with it locked in his heart--as was best," he added after a
+pause, and then he looked out of the window, and as he did not say
+anything from which I could judge whether he knew why Wolffert never
+told his love, I did not tell what I knew. It may have been the slowly
+fading light which made his face so sad. I remember that a long silence
+fell between us, and it came over me with a new force how much more
+unselfishly both these men had loved than I and how much nobler both had
+always been--the living and the dead. And I began battling with myself
+to say something which I felt I ought to say, but had not courage
+enough.
+
+Presently, John said very slowly, almost as if he were speaking to
+himself, "I believe if you keep on, she will marry you, and I believe
+you will help each other--I know she will help you." His arm was resting
+on the table.
+
+I leant over and laid my hand on his arm.
+
+"I once thought it certain I should win her. I am far from sure that I
+shall now. I am not worthy of her--but I shall try to be. You alone,
+John, of all the men I know, are. I cannot give her up--but it is only
+honest to tell you that I have less hope than I had."
+
+He turned to me with a sad little smile on his face and shook his head.
+
+"I would not give her up if I were you. You are not good enough for her,
+but no one is, and you will grow better."
+
+For the first time, I almost thought him handsome.
+
+"You are, old man."
+
+"Me! Oh! no, I am not--I have my work to do--it is useless to talk to
+me--you keep on."
+
+He picked up a paper and began to read, and I observed for the first
+time that he had taken off his glasses. I made some remark on it.
+
+"Yes, my sight is getting better--I can see the stars now," he said
+smiling.
+
+"Ah! John, you have long seen the stars," I said.
+
+So, as soon as I could travel, John Marvel sent me off--sent me to a
+farmhouse where he had lived in his first parish--a place far from the
+railroads; a country of woods and rolling fields and running streams;
+the real country where blossoms whiten and birds sing and waters murmur.
+
+"They are the best people in the world," he said; and they were. They
+accepted me on his word. "Mr. Marvel had sent me, and that was enough."
+His word was a talisman in all that region. They did not know who the
+Queen of England was, and were scarcely sure as to the President of the
+United States; but they knew John Marvel. And because I had come from
+him they treated me like a prince. And this was the man I had had the
+folly to look down on!
+
+In that quiet place I seemed to have reached content. In that land of
+peace the strife of the city, the noise and turmoil and horror of the
+strike, seemed but as the rumble of waves breaking on some far-off
+shore. I began to quaff new life with the first breath of the balmy air.
+
+The day after I arrived I borrowed the skiff that belonged to my host
+and paddled down the little river that skirted his place, with the idea
+of fishing in a pool he had told me of.
+
+The afternoon was so soft and balmy that I forgot my sport and simply
+drifted with the current under the overhanging branches of willows and
+sycamores, when, turning a bend in the stream, I came on a boat floating
+in a placid pool. In it were a young lady and a little girl, and who but
+Dix, his brindled head held high, his twisted ears pointed straight
+up-stream, and his whole body writhing and quivering with excitement. It
+was a moment before I could quite take it in, and I felt for a second as
+if I were dreaming.
+
+Yet there was Eleanor Leigh under the willows, her small white hand
+resting on the side of the boat, her face lovelier than ever, and her
+voice making music in my ears with those low, sincere tones that I had
+never forgotten, and which made it the most beautiful in the world. I
+must have carried my soul in my eyes that moment; for the color sprang
+to her cheeks and I saw a look in hers I had never seen there before.
+
+"Well, this is Fate," I said, as the current bore my boat against hers
+and it lay locked against it in that limpid pool.
+
+"Would Mr. Marvel have called it so?" she asked, her eyes resting upon
+me with a softer look in them than they had ever given me.
+
+"No, he would have said Providence."
+
+I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found retreat. In that
+sweet air, freed from any anxieties except to please her whose pleasure
+had become the sun of my life, I drank in health day by day and hour by
+hour. My farmhouse was only a half-mile or so across the fields to the
+home of Eleanor Leigh's old cousins with whom she was staying, and only
+the sidereal travellers followed that path so regularly as I. It was the
+same place where she had first met John Marvel--and Wolffert. She was
+even interested in my law, and actually listened with intelligence to
+the succulent details of Livery of Seisin, and other ancient
+conveyancing. Not that she yet consented to marry me. This was a theme
+she had a genius for evading. However, I knew I should win her. Only one
+thing troubled me. As often as I touched on my future plans and spoke of
+the happiness I should have in relieving her of the drudgery of a
+teacher's life, she used to smile and contest it. It was one of the
+happinesses of her life, she said, to teach that school. But for it, I
+would never have "put out her fire for her that morning." Was ever such
+ingratitude! Of course, I would not admit this. "Fate--no, Providence
+was on my side." And I took out my violets and showed them to her,
+telling her their history. They still retained a faint fragrance. And
+the smile she gave was enough to make them fresh again. But I, too,
+was friendly to the school. How could I be otherwise? For she told me
+one day that the first time she liked me was when I was sitting by the
+cab-driver holding the little dirty child in my arms, with Dix between
+my feet. And I had been ashamed to be seen by her! I only feared that
+she might take it into her head still to keep the school. And I now knew
+that what she took into her little head to be her duty she would
+perform. "By the way, you might take lessons in making up the fire," she
+suggested.
+
+[Illustration: I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found
+retreat.]
+
+I received quite a shock a few days later when I found in my mail a
+letter from the Miss Tippses, telling me of their delight on learning of
+my recovery, and mentioning incidentally the fact, which they felt sure
+I would be glad to know, that they had settled all of their affairs in a
+manner entirely satisfactory to them, as Mr. McSheen had very generously
+come forward at a time when it was supposed that I was fatally injured
+and had offered to make reparation to them and pay out of his own
+pocket, not only all of the expenses which they had incurred about the
+matter, but had actually paid them three thousand dollars over and above
+these expenses, a munificent sum which had enabled them to pay dear Mrs.
+Kale all they owed her. They felt sure that I would approve of the
+settlement, because Mr. McSheen's intermediary had been "a life-long
+friend of mine and in some sort," he said, "my former law partner, as we
+had lived for years in adjoining offices." They had signed all the
+papers he had presented and were glad to know that he was entirely
+satisfied, and now they hoped that I would let them know what they owed
+me, in order that they might settle at least that part of their debt;
+but for the rest, they would always owe me a debt of undying gratitude,
+and they prayed God for my speedy recovery and unending happiness, and
+they felt sure Mr. Peck would rejoice also to know that I was doing so
+well.
+
+Peck! And he had charged them a fee for his services!
+
+It was now approaching the autumn and I was chafing to get back to work.
+I knew now that success was before me. It might be a long road; but I
+was on it.
+
+John Marvel, in reply to an inquiry, wrote that the place was still
+waiting for me in the office he had mentioned, though he did not state
+what it was.
+
+"How stupid he is!" I complained. Eleanor Leigh only laughed.
+
+She "did not think him stupid at all, and certainly she did not think I
+should do so. In fact, she considered him one of the most sensible men
+she ever knew."
+
+"Why, he could not have done more to keep me in ignorance, if he had
+tried," I fumed. And she only laughed the more.
+
+"I believe you are jealous of him." Her eyes were dancing in an
+exasperating way they had. I was consumed with jealousy of everybody;
+but I would never admit it.
+
+"Jealous of John Marvel! Nonsense! But I believe you were in--you liked
+him very much?"
+
+"I did," she nodded cheerily. "I do--more than any one I ever
+knew--almost." And she launched out in a eulogy of John which quite set
+me on fire.
+
+"Then why did you not marry him?" I was conscious that my head went up
+and my wrath was rising.
+
+"He never asked me." Her dancing eyes still playing hide and seek with
+mine.
+
+"I supposed there was some good reason," I said loftily. She vouchsafed
+no answer--only went on making a chain of daisies, while her dimples
+came and went, and I went on to make a further fool of myself. I was
+soon haled up and found myself in that outer darkness, where the
+cheerful occupation is gnashing of teeth. Like the foolish
+glass-merchant, I had smashed all my hopes. I walked home through the
+Vale of Bitterness.
+
+That evening, after spending some hours in trying to devise a plan by
+which I could evade the humiliation of an absolute surrender, and get
+back without crawling too basely, I went over to say what I
+called--good-by. I was alone; for Dix had abandoned me for her, and I
+did not blame him even now. It was just dusk; but it seemed to me
+midnight. I had never known the fields so dark. As I turned into a path
+through the orchard where I had had so many happy hours, I discovered
+her sitting on the ground beneath a tree with Dix beside her; but as I
+approached she rose and leant against the tree, her dryad eyes resting
+on me placidly. I walked up slowly.
+
+"Good evening--" solemnly.
+
+"Good evening--" seriously.
+
+I was choosing amongst a half-dozen choice sentences I had framed as an
+introduction to my parting speech, when she said quietly, looking up: "I
+thought you might not come back this evening."
+
+"I have come to say good-by."
+
+"Are you going away?" Her voice expressed surprise--nothing more.
+
+"Yes." Solemnly.
+
+"For how long?"--without looking up.
+
+"Perhaps, forever." Tragically.
+
+"You are better at making a fire than I had supposed. Will you give me
+Dix?" This with the flash of a dimple.
+
+"I--I--yes--if you want him."
+
+I glanced at her face just in time to see the dimples disappear. "I am
+thinking of being married next week." My heart stopped beating.
+
+"You were--what?"
+
+"But of course, if you are going away I could not do it, could I?" Her
+eyes sought mine, then fell.
+
+"Eleanor!" I tried to possess myself of her hand; but she put it behind
+her. I tried to secure the other; but that also disappeared. Then I
+took--herself. "Eleanor!" Her face next second had grown grave. She
+looked up suddenly and looked me full in the eyes.
+
+"You are a goose. What would you think if I were to say I would marry
+you right away?" She looked down again quickly, and her face was sweet
+with tenderness.
+
+I was conscious of a sudden drawing in of my breath, and a feeling as if
+I were rising into the sky, "rimmed by the azure world." Then my brain
+began to act, and I seemed to have been lifted above the darkness. I was
+up in the sunlight again.
+
+"I should think I was in Heaven," I said quietly, almost reverently.
+"But for God's sake, don't say that to me unless you mean it."
+
+"Well, I will. I have written my father. Write to Mr. Marvel and ask him
+to come here."
+
+I have never known yet whether this last was a piece of humor. I only
+know I telegraphed John Marvel, and though I rode all night to do so, I
+thought it was broad daylight.
+
+In the ripe autumn John Marvel, standing before us in his white surplice
+in the little chapel among the oaks and elms which had been his first
+church, performed the ceremony that gave me the first prize I had really
+striven for--the greatest any man on earth could have won.
+
+Still, as often as I spoke of my future plans, there was some secret
+between them: a shadowy suggestion of some mystery in which they both
+participated. And, but that I knew John Marvel too well, I might have
+been impatient. But I knew him now for the first time as she had known
+him long.
+
+On our arrival in the city, after I had given the driver an order where
+to go, she gave another, and when the carriage drew up, it was not at my
+hotel, but at the door of the sunny house on the corner where I had
+first seen Eleanor Leigh come tripping down the steps with her parcels
+for the poor little crippled child and her violets for the Miss Tippses.
+Springing out before me, with her face radiant with joy and mystery, she
+tripped up the steps now just as the door was flung open by a butler who
+wore a comical expression of mingled pleasure and solemnity, for the
+butler was Jeams, and then having introduced him to me, she suddenly
+took the key from the lock, and handing it to me with a bow and a low
+laugh of delight:
+
+"I make you, sir, livery of seisin."
+
+This, then, was the mystery.
+
+She still lived in the house on the corner--through the aid offered by
+my namesake and kinsman her father had been enabled to retain it, and
+had given it to her as a wedding present.
+
+So after long striving by ways that I knew not, and by paths that I had
+not tried, my fancy was realized.
+
+I now dwell in the house on the corner that I picked so long ago for its
+sunshine.
+
+It is even sunnier than I thought it. For I have found that sunlight and
+sweetness are not from without, but from within, and in that home is the
+radiance I caught that happy morning when I first saw Eleanor Leigh come
+tripping down the steps, like April, shedding sunshine and violets in
+her path.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+THE CURTAIN
+
+
+In closing a novel, the old novelists used to tell their readers, who
+had followed them long enough to become their friends, what in the
+sequel became of all the principal characters; and this custom I feel
+inclined to follow, because it appears to me to show that the story is
+in some sort the reflection of life as it is and not as novelist or
+reader would make it. Fate may follow all men, but not in the form in
+which every reader would have it fall.
+
+It might have satisfied one's ideas of justice if I could have told how
+Collis McSheen reaped in prison the reward of his long hidden crimes,
+and the adventurer, Pushkin, unmasked and degraded, was driven out from
+among the wealthy, whom he so sedulously cultivated; but this would not
+have been true to the facts. Collis McSheen moved into the great house
+which he had bought with his ill-gained wealth to gratify his daughter's
+ambition, and lived for many years, to outward seeming, a more or less
+respectable man; gave reasonably where he thought it would pay, from the
+money of which he had robbed others, and doubtless endeavored to forget
+his past, as he endeavored to make others forget it; but that past was
+linked to him by bands which no effort could ever break. And though he
+secured the adulation of those whom he could buy with his gaudy
+entertainments, he could never secure the recognition of any worthy man.
+
+In his desperate hope to become respectable he broke with many of his
+old friends and with all whom he could escape from, but he could not
+escape from one, however he strove to break with him: himself. Chained
+to him by a bond he could not break was the putrescent body of his
+reeking past. It is the curse of men like him that those he longs to
+make his friends are the element who will have none of him. Thus, like
+Sisyphus, he ever strives to roll the stone to the hill-top, and, like
+Tantalus, he ever strives to reach the water flowing below his lips.
+Though he had escaped the legal punishment of his crimes, his punishment
+was that he lived in constant dread of the detection which appeared ever
+to dog his footsteps. The last measure in the bitter cup which he had
+filled with his own hand came from his daughter, who now called herself
+Countess Pushkin. Finding that, notwithstanding her so-called title and
+large establishment, she was excluded from that set to which she had
+been tolerantly admitted while she had youth and gayety and the spirits
+of a schoolgirl, not to mention the blindness of that age to things
+which experience sees clearly enough, she conceived the idea that it was
+her father's presence in her home which closed to her the doors of those
+houses where she aspired to be intimate. The idea, though it had long
+had a lodgment in her mind, had been fostered by Pushkin. Having to
+make her choice between her father and her social aspirations, she
+decided promptly. The scene which occurred was one which neither Collis
+McSheen nor his daughter could ever forget. In the sequel McSheen moved
+out and took quarters in a hotel, where he gradually sank into the
+hopelessness of a lonely misanthrope, shorn of his power, feared only by
+those he despised, detested by those he admired, and haunted by the fear
+of those he hated.
+
+Pushkin remained in some sort in possession of the field, but though
+McSheen's daughter had been able to banish her father from his own home,
+she could not escape from her husband, whose vices, if apparently less
+criminal than McSheen's, were not less black. His capacity for spending
+money was something she had never dreamed of, and, like the
+horse-leech's daughter, he continually called for more, until after a
+furious scene, his wife awoke to her power, and already half-beggared,
+suddenly shut her purse as her heart had been long shut against him, and
+bade him go. From this time her power over him was greater than it had
+ever been before; but unless rumor belied them desperately, they lived a
+life of cat and dog with all that it implied, until finally Pushkin was
+driven out, and after hanging about for a few years, died, as I learned,
+while his wife was off in Europe.
+
+Peck continued, to outward appearance, a prosperous lawyer. His
+inveterate economy enabled him to preserve the appearance of prosperity;
+but no lawyer of standing ever spoke of him without a shrug of the
+shoulder or a lift of the eyebrow. Rumor dealt somewhat freely with his
+domestic affairs, but I never knew the facts, and rumor is often as
+great a liar almost as--I had nearly said as Peck, but that would be
+impossible. My last personal experience of him was in the case of Mr.
+Leigh's suit to keep control of his railway. In the final suit involving
+the straightening out of all matters connected with the attempt of the
+Canters and their set to get control of this property, I was retained as
+junior counsel along with my kinsman, Mr. Glave, and other counsel,
+representing Mr. Leigh's and his associates' interest. Peck appeared in
+the case as one of the representatives of a small alleged interest held
+by his father-in-law, Mr. Poole, which, as turned out on the final
+decision of the cause, had no value whatever. This having been decided,
+Peck, who was not without energy, at least where money was concerned,
+brought forward a claim for compensation to be allowed him out of the
+fund, and when this also was decided against him, he sought and secured
+a conference with our counsel, at which I was present. The contention
+which he set forth was based upon an equitable claim, as he termed it,
+to compensation for expenses and professional services expended under
+color of title, and if the facts he stated had been so, he might have
+been entitled equitably to some allowance. I had satisfied myself that
+his claims were without a shadow of foundation, yet he had the nerve,
+when he concluded his argument, or rather his personal appeal to our
+counsel, to turn to me for corroboration of his statement.
+
+"I admit, gentlemen," he said, "that these facts rest largely on my
+personal assurances, and, unfortunately, I am not known personally to
+most of you, though I trust that my professional standing where I am
+known may be accepted as a guarantee of my statements; but happily,
+there is one of you to whom I can refer with confidence, my old college
+mate and valued friend, Henry Glave. I might almost term him my former
+partner, so closely were we associated in the days when we were both
+struggling young attorneys, living in adjoining offices--I might,
+indeed, almost say the same office. He, I feel quite sure, will
+corroborate every statement I have made, at least so far as he knows the
+facts, and even where they rest wholly on my declaration, I feel sure of
+his indorsement, for he knows that I would cut off my right hand and
+have my tongue torn from its roots, before I would utter an untruth in
+any matter whatsoever; and least of all, where so paltry a thing as
+money is concerned. I appeal to Henry Glave."
+
+He sat down with his eyes fixed blandly on me. I was so taken aback that
+I scarcely knew what to say. The smoothness of his words and the
+confidence of his manner had evidently made an impression on the others.
+They had, indeed, almost influenced me, but suddenly a whole train of
+reflection swept through my mind. Peck's duplicity from his earliest
+appearance in Wolffert's room at college down to the present, with my
+two old clients, the Miss Tippses, at the end, deceived and robbed by
+Collis McSheen, with Peck, as the facile instrument, worming himself
+into their confidence for what he called so paltry a thing as money, all
+came clearly to my mind. I stood up slowly, for I was thinking hard; but
+my duty appeared clear.
+
+I regretted, I said, that Mr. Peck had appealed to me and to my long
+acquaintance with him, for it made my position a painful one; but as he
+had cited me as a witness, I felt that my duty was plain, and this was
+to state the facts. In my judgment, Mr. Peck was not entitled to any
+compensation whatever, as the evidence, so far as it existed outside of
+Mr. Peck's statements, was contrary to his contention, and so far as it
+rested on his personal testimony, I considered it as nothing, for I
+would not believe one word he said where his personal interest was
+concerned.
+
+"And now," I added, "if Mr. Peck wishes me to give the grounds on which
+this opinion of mine is based, either orally or in writing, I will do
+so."
+
+I paused, with my gaze fastened on him, and, with a sudden settling in
+their seats, the other counsel also turned their eyes on him. His face
+had suddenly blanched, but beyond this his expression did not change. He
+sat for a few seconds rather limply, and then slowly rose.
+
+"I am astonished," he began slowly, and his voice faltered. "I am
+surprised, gentlemen, that Mr. Glave should think such things of me." He
+took out his watch, fumblingly, and glanced at it. It was the same watch
+he had got of me. "I see I must ask you to excuse me. I must catch my
+train," he stammered. "Good morning," and he put on his hat and slunk
+out of the door.
+
+As the door closed every one drew a long breath and settled in his seat,
+and nearly every one said, "Well."
+
+My kinsman, whose eyes had been resting on me with a somewhat unwonted
+twinkle in them, reached across the board and extended his large hand.
+
+"Well, young man, you and I had a misunderstanding a few years ago, but
+I hope you bear me no grudge for it now. I should like to be friends
+with you. If you had needed it, you would have squared all accounts
+to-day. I know that man. He is the greatest liar on earth. He has lost
+the power to tell the truth."
+
+It may well be believed that I had gripped his hand when he first held
+it out, and the grip was one of a friendship that has lasted.
+
+I had expected to hear from Peck, but no word came from him, and the
+last I ever heard of him was that he and McSheen had had a quarrel, in
+which McSheen had kicked him out of his office. A suit appeared on the
+docket against McSheen, in which Peck was the plaintiff, but no
+declaration was ever filed, and the case was finally dropped from the
+docket.
+
+Jeams failed to hold long the position of butler in our modest
+household, for though my wife put up--on my account, as I believe--with
+Jeams's occasionally marked unsteadiness of gait or mushiness of
+utterance, she finally broke with him on discovering that Dix showed
+unmistakable signs of a recent conflict, in which the fact that he had
+been worsted had possibly something to do with Jeams's discharge, for
+Dix was the idol of her heart, and it came to her ears that Jeams had
+taken Dix out one night and matched him against the champion of the
+town. But though Jeams lost the post of butler, he simply reverted to
+his old position of factotum and general utility man about my premises.
+His marriage to a very decent woman, though, according to rumor, with a
+termagant's tongue, helped to keep him reasonably straight, though not
+uniformly so; for one afternoon my wife and I came across him when he
+showed that degree of delightful pomposity which was the unmistakable
+sign of his being "half-shot."
+
+"Jeams," I said, when I had cut short his grandiloquence, "what will
+Eliza say to you when she finds you this way again?"
+
+Jeams straightened himself and assumed his most dignified air. "My wife,
+sir, knows better than to take me to task. She recognizes me, sir, as a
+gentleman."
+
+"She does? You wait and see when you get home."
+
+Jeams's manner suddenly changed. He sank back into his half-drivelling
+self. "Oh, she ain't gwine to say nothin' to me, Marse Hen. She ain't
+gwine to say no more than Miss Nelly there says to you when you gets
+this way. What does she say to you?"
+
+"She doesn't say anything to me. She has no occasion to do so."
+
+Jeams twisted his head to one side and burst into a drunken laugh. "Oh!
+Yes, she do. I've done heard her. Eliza, she regalates me, and Miss
+Nelly, she regalates you, an' I reckon we both knows it, and we better
+know it, too."
+
+And this was the fact. As usual, Jeams had struck the mark.
+
+As for John Marvel, he remained the same old John--plodding, quiet,
+persistent, patient, zealous, cheery and self-sacrificing, working among
+the poor with an unfaltering trust in human nature which no shocks could
+shake, because deep down in the untroubled depths of his soul lay an
+unfaltering trust in the Divine Goodness and wisdom of God. He had been
+called to a larger and quite important church, but after a few days of
+consideration he, against the earnest wishes and advice of his friends,
+myself among them, declined the call. He assigned among other reasons
+the fact that he was expected to work to pay off the debt for which the
+church was somewhat noted, and he knew nothing about business, his duty
+was to preach the gospel, but when friends made it plain that the debt
+would be taken care of if he became the rector, he still shook his head.
+His work was among the poor and he could not leave them.
+
+My wife and I went out to his church the Sunday evening following his
+decision, and as we strolled along through the well-known squalid
+streets, I could not help expressing my disappointment that after all
+our work he should have rejected the offer.
+
+"He is really the most unpractical man on earth," I fumed. "Here we have
+gotten him a good call to a church that many a man would jump at, and
+when he finds a difficulty in the way, we work until we have removed it
+and yet he rejects it. He will remain an assistant to the end of his
+days." My wife made no reply, a sure sign that she did not agree with
+me, but did not care to discuss the matter. It is her most effective
+method of refuting me.
+
+When we arrived we found the little church packed to suffocation and men
+on the outside leaning in at the windows. Among them I recognized the
+tall form of my old Drummer. As we joined the group, John Marvel's
+voice, clear and strong, came floating out through the open windows.
+
+He was giving out a hymn.
+
+    "One sweetly solemn thought
+    Comes to me o'er and o'er:
+    I am nearer home to-day
+    Than I ever have been before."
+
+The whole congregation joined in, those without the church as well as
+those who were within.
+
+As I heard the deep bass of the old Drummer, rolling in a low, solemn
+undertone, a sudden shifting of the scene came to me. I was in a great
+auditorium filled with light, and packed with humanity rising tier on
+tier and stretching far back till lost in the maze of distances. A grand
+orchestra, banked before me, with swaying arms and earnest faces, played
+a wonderful harmony which rolled about me like the sea and whelmed me
+with its volume till I was almost swept away by the tide, then suddenly
+down under its sweep I found the low deep roll of the bass drum. No one
+appeared to mark it or paid any heed to him. Nor did the big Drummer pay
+any heed to the audience. All he minded was the harmony and his drum.
+But I knew that, unmarked and unheeded, it set athrob the pulsing air
+and stirred the billows through which all that divine music reached and
+held the soul.
+
+As we walked home that night after pressing our way into the throng of
+poor people to wring John Marvel's hand, I said to my wife after a
+struggle with myself to say it:
+
+"I think I was wrong about John, and you were right. He did right. He is
+well named the Assistant."
+
+My wife said simply: "I feel that I owe him more than I can say." She
+slipped her hand in my arm, and a warm feeling for all mankind surged
+about my heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BOOKS BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE
+
+
+ROBERT E. LEE: The Southerner
+
+"The South will treasure this volume."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
+
+
+THE OLD DOMINION: Her Making and Her Manners
+
+"One of the most charming volumes ever written about Virginia; as
+history it is important."--_Newark Evening News._
+
+
+THE OLD SOUTH
+
+Essays Social and Political
+
+"They afford delightful glimpses of aspects and conditions of Southern
+life which few at the North have ever appreciated fully."--_The
+Congregationalist._
+
+
+THE NEGRO: The Southerner's Problem
+
+"One of the most dispassionate and illuminating discussions of the
+racial questions in the South."--_Cincinnati Times-Star._
+
+
+SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD VIRGINIA BEFORE THE WAR
+
+"Will be much admired by the lovers of 'the good old times,' which the
+author describes so graphically."--_Charleston News and Courier._
+
+
+THE COAST OF BOHEMIA
+
+"These poems are full of music. They are exquisite in sentiment and
+charming in expression."--_Nashville American._
+
+
+RED ROCK
+
+A Chronicle of Reconstruction
+
+Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst
+
+"One of the most satisfactory works of fiction that the South has ever
+produced. On all this crowded canvas there is not a figure that is not
+drawn from the life, and given character by sympathy or insight into
+motive."--_The Dial._
+
+
+THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK
+
+With 8 colored illustrations by H. C. Christy
+
+"This is not only one of the most characteristic and charming of Mr.
+Page's studies of Virginia character, but it is a story which readily
+lends itself to illustration, and especially to the kind of decorative
+illustration which Mr. Christy has given it."--_The Outlook._
+
+
+IN OLE VIRGINIA
+
+Marse Chan, and Other Stories
+
+"Nothing more beautiful than these stories has ever been penned by a
+Southern writer. The person who has not read them has missed something
+akin to the loss of the town-bred child who treads among forests of
+stone houses, and who has never known a forest of nature, the perfume of
+wild dog-roses, and the unsoiled beauty of God's sunshine."--_New
+Orleans Picayune._
+
+
+THE BURIAL OF THE GUNS
+
+"One can hardly read the story that gives the name to this volume
+without a quickening of the breath and moisture of the eye."--_Christian
+Register._
+
+"Three of them are war stories, and all are told in Mr. Page's charming
+style."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+
+GORDON KEITH
+
+"Always rings true. Its ideas are of the sincere, manly type."--_New
+York Tribune._
+
+
+BRED IN THE BONE
+
+"A book which will be thoroughly enjoyed."--_Literary World._
+
+
+UNDER THE CRUST
+
+"It contains work which Mr. Page has never surpassed."--_The Outlook._
+
+
+ON NEWFOUND RIVER: A Story
+
+"The rich promise of his rarely beautiful short stories has been
+fulfilled, and the Old Dominion has another novelist of whom she may be
+proud."--_Richmond Dispatch._
+
+
+ELSKET AND OTHER STORIES
+
+"'Elsket' is a veritable poem in prose--a tragic poem that you will
+hardly read, unless you are very hard hearted indeed, without the
+tribute of a tear. Of the five stories in the book, however, the one
+which moves me most deeply is 'Run to Seed.'"--LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,
+_in the Boston Herald_.
+
+
+PASTIME STORIES
+
+With Illustrations by A. B. Frost
+
+"Some of these short character sketches equal in artistic moderation and
+fineness of workmanship the best work Mr. Page has ever done."--_New
+York Times._
+
+
+STORIES AND SPECIAL EDITIONS
+
+
+"Mr. Page is the brightest star in our Southern literature. He belongs
+to the old Virginia quality; he knows the life of the people, he knows
+the negro and renders his dialect perfectly, he has an eye for the
+picturesque, the poetic, and the humorous, and his style shows exquisite
+artistic taste and skill."--_Nashville American._
+
+
+=TOMMY TROT'S VISIT TO SANTA CLAUS.= Illustrated in colors.
+
+=A CAPTURED SANTA CLAUS.= Illustrated in colors.
+
+=SANTA CLAUS'S PARTNER.= With illustrations in colors.
+
+=IN OLE VIRGINIA.= With illustrations by FROST, PYLE, SMEDLEY, and others.
+
+=IN OLE VIRGINIA.= [_Cameo Edition._] With an etching by W. L. SHEPPARD.
+
+=MARSE CHAN.= A Tale of Old Virginia. Illustrated.
+
+=MEH LADY.= A Story of the War. Illustrated.
+
+=POLLY.= A Christmas Recollection. Illustrated.
+
+=UNC' EDINBURG.= A Plantation Echo. Illustrated.
+
+"=BEFO' THE WAR.=" Echoes of Negro Dialect. By A. C. GORDON and THOMAS
+NELSON PAGE.
+
+=AMONG THE CAMPS=, or Young People's Stories of the War. Illustrated.
+
+=TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES.= Illustrated.
+
+
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+    NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's John Marvel, Assistant, by Thomas Nelson Page
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41817 ***