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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Our Mr. Wrenn<br /> +The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Sinclair Lewis</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 4, 2002 [eBook #4961]<br /> +[Most recently updated: July 28, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Aldarondo</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR MR. WRENN ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Our Mr. Wrenn</h1> + +<h3>The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Sinclair Lewis</h2> + +<h5>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h5> + +<h5>MCMXIV</h5> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +TO GRACE LIVINGSTONE HEGGER +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. MR. WRENN IS LONELY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. HE WALKS WITH MISS THERESA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. HE STARTS FOR THE LAND OF ELSEWHERE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. HE BECOMES THE GREAT LITTLE BILL WRENN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. HE FINDS MUCH QUAINT ENGLISH FLAVOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. HE IS AN ORPHAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. HE MEETS A TEMPERAMENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. HE TIFFINS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. HE ENCOUNTERS THE INTELLECTUALS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. HE GOES A-GIPSYING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. HE BUYS AN ORANGE TIE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. HE DISCOVERS AMERICA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. HE IS “OUR MR. WRENN”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. HE ENTERS SOCIETY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. HE STUDIES FIVE HUNDRED, SAVOUIR FAIRE, AND LOTSA-SNAP OFFICE MOTTOES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. HE BECOMES MILDLY RELIGIOUS AND HIGHLY LITERARY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. HE IS BLOWN BY THE WHIRLWIND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. AND FOLLOWS A WANDERING FLAME THROUGH PERILOUS SEAS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. TO A HAPPY SHORE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I<br/> +MR. WRENN IS LONELY</h2> + +<p> +The ticket-taker of the Nickelorion Moving-Picture Show is a public personage, +who stands out on Fourteenth Street, New York, wearing a gorgeous light-blue +coat of numerous brass buttons. He nods to all the patrons, and his nod is the +most cordial in town. Mr. Wrenn used to trot down to Fourteenth Street, passing +ever so many other shows, just to get that cordial nod, because he had a lonely +furnished room for evenings, and for daytime a tedious job that always made his +head stuffy. +</p> + +<p> +He stands out in the correspondence of the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company as +“Our Mr. Wrenn,” who would be writing you directly and explaining +everything most satisfactorily. At thirty-four Mr. Wrenn was the sales-entry +clerk of the Souvenir Company. He was always bending over bills and columns of +figures at a desk behind the stock-room. He was a meek little bachlor—a +person of inconspicuous blue ready-made suits, and a small unsuccessful +mustache. +</p> + +<p> +To-day—historians have established the date as April 9, 1910—there +had been some confusing mixed orders from the Wisconsin retailers, and Mr. +Wrenn had been “called down” by the office manager, Mr. Mortimer R. +Guilfogle. He needed the friendly nod of the Nickelorion ticket-taker. He found +Fourteenth Street, after office hours, swept by a dusty wind that whisked the +skirts of countless plump Jewish girls, whose V-necked blouses showed soft +throats of a warm brown. Under the elevated station he secretly made believe +that he was in Paris, for here beautiful Italian boys swayed with trays of +violets; a tramp displayed crimson mechanical rabbits, which squeaked, on +silvery leading-strings; and a newsstand was heaped with the orange and green +and gold of magazine covers. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” inarticulated Mr. Wrenn. “Lots of colors. Hope I see +foreign stuff like that in the moving pictures.” +</p> + +<p> +He came primly up to the Nickelorion, feeling in his vest pockets for a nickel +and peering around the booth at the friendly ticket-taker. But the latter was +thinking about buying Johnny’s pants. Should he get them at the +Fourteenth Street Store, or Siegel-Cooper’s, or over at Aronson’s, +near home? So ruminating, he twiddled his wheel mechanically, and Mr. +Wrenn’s pasteboard slip was indifferently received in the plate-glass +gullet of the grinder without the taker’s even seeing the clerk’s +bow and smile. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn trembled into the door of the Nickelorion. He wanted to turn back and +rebuke this fellow, but was restrained by shyness. He <i>had</i> liked the +man’s “Fine evenin’, sir “—rain or +shine—but he wouldn’t stand for being cut. Wasn’t he making +nineteen dollars a week, as against the ticket-taker’s ten or twelve? He +shook his head with the defiance of a cornered mouse, fussed with his mustache, +and regarded the moving pictures gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +They helped him. After a Selig domestic drama came a stirring Vitagraph Western +scene, “The Goat of the Rancho,” which depicted with much humor and +tumult the revolt of a ranch cook, a Chinaman. Mr. Wrenn was really seeing, not +cow-punchers and sage-brush, but himself, defying the office manager’s +surliness and revolting against the ticket-man’s rudeness. Now he was +ready for the nearly overpowering delight of travel-pictures. He bounced +slightly as a Gaumont film presented Java. +</p> + +<p> +He was a connoisseur of travel-pictures, for all his life he had been planning +a great journey. Though he had done Staten Island and patronized an excursion +to Bound Brook, neither of these was his grand tour. It was yet to be taken. In +Mr. Wrenn, apparently fastened to New York like a domestic-minded barnacle, lay +the possibilities of heroic roaming. He knew it. He, too, like the man who had +taken the Gaumont pictures, would saunter among dusky Javan natives in +“markets with tiles on the roofs and temples and—and—uh, +well—places!” The scent of Oriental spices was in his broadened +nostrils as he scampered out of the Nickelorion, without a look at the +ticket-taker, and headed for “home”—for his third-floor-front +on West Sixteenth Street. He wanted to prowl through his collection of +steamship brochures for a description of Java. But, of course, when one’s +landlady has both the sciatica and a case of Patient Suffering one stops in the +basement dining-room to inquire how she is. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Zapp was a fat landlady. When she sat down there was a straight line from +her chin to her knees. She was usually sitting down. When she moved she +groaned, and her apparel creaked. She groaned and creaked from bed to +breakfast, and ate five griddle-cakes, two helpin’s of scrapple, an egg, +some rump steak, and three cups of coffee, slowly and resentfully. She creaked +and groaned from breakfast to her rocking-chair, and sat about wondering why +Providence had inflicted upon her a weak digestion. Mr. Wrenn also wondered +why, sympathetically, but Mrs. Zapp was too conscientiously dolorous to be much +cheered by the sympathy of a nigger-lovin’ Yankee, who couldn’t +appreciate the subtle sorrows of a Zapp of Zapp’s Bog, allied to all the +First Families of Virginia. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn did nothing more presumptuous than sit still, in the stuffy +furniture-crowded basement room, which smelled of dead food and deader pride in +a race that had never existed. He sat still because the chair was broken. It +had been broken now for four years. +</p> + +<p> +For the hundred and twenty-ninth time in those years Mrs. Zapp said, in her +rich corruption of Southern negro dialect, which can only be indicated here, +“Ah been meaning to get that chair mended, Mist’ Wrenn.” He +looked gratified and gazed upon the crayon enlargements of Lee Theresa, the +older Zapp daughter (who was forewoman in a factory), and of Godiva. Godiva +Zapp was usually called “Goaty,” and many times a day was she +called by Mrs. Zapp. A tamed child drudge was Goaty, with adenoids, which Mrs. +Zapp had been meanin’ to have removed, and which she would continue to +have benevolent meanin’s about till it should be too late, and she should +discover that Providence never would let Goaty go to school. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mist’ Wrenn, Ah told Goaty she was to see the man about +getting that chair fixed, but she nev’ does nothing Ah tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +In the kitchen was the noise of Goaty, ungovernable Goaty, aged eight, still +snivelingly washing, though not cleaning, the incredible pile of dinner dishes. +With a trail of hesitating remarks on the sadness of sciatica and windy +evenings Mr. Wrenn sneaked forth from the august presence of Mrs. Zapp and +mounted to paradise—his third-floor-front. +</p> + +<p> +It was an abjectly respectable room—the bedspread patched; no two pieces +of furniture from the same family; half-tones from the magazines pinned on the +wall. But on the old marble mantelpiece lived his friends, books from +wanderland. Other friends the room had rarely known. It was hard enough for Mr. +Wrenn to get acquainted with people, anyway, and Mrs. Zapp did not expect her +gennulman lodgers to entertain. So Mr. Wrenn had given up asking even Charley +Carpenter, the assistant bookkeeper at the Souvenir Company, to call. That left +him the books, which he now caressed with small eager finger-tips. He picked +out a P. & O. circular, and hastily left for fairyland. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The April skies glowed with benevolence this Saturday morning. The Metropolitan +Tower was singing, bright ivory tipped with gold, uplifted and intensely glad +of the morning. The buildings walling in Madison Square were jubilant; the +honest red-brick fronts, radiant; the new marble, witty. The sparrows in the +middle of Fifth Avenue were all talking at once, scandalously but cleverly. The +polished brass of limousines threw off teethy smiles. At least so Mr. Wrenn +fancied as he whisked up Fifth Avenue, the skirts of his small blue +double-breasted coat wagging. He was going blocks out of his way to the office; +ready to defy time and eternity, yes, and even the office manager. He had +awakened with Defiance as his bedfellow, and throughout breakfast at the +hustler Dairy Lunch sunshine had flickered over the dirty tessellated floor. +</p> + +<p> +He pranced up to the Souvenir Company’s brick building, on Twenty-eighth +Street near Sixth Avenue. In the office he chuckled at his ink-well and the +untorn blotters on his orderly desk. Though he sat under the weary unnatural +brilliance of a mercury-vapor light, he dashed into his work, and was too keen +about this business of living merrily to be much flustered by the bustle of the +lady buyer’s superior “<i>Good</i> morning.” Even up to +ten-thirty he was still slamming down papers on his desk. Just let any one try +to stop his course, his readiness for snapping fingers at The Job; just let +them <i>try</i> it, that was all he wanted! +</p> + +<p> +Then he was shot out of his chair and four feet along the corridor, in reflex +response to the surly “Bur-r-r-r-r” of the buzzer. Mr. Mortimer R. +Guilfogle, the manager, desired to see him. He scampered along the corridor and +slid decorously through the manager’s doorway into the long sun-bright +room, ornate with rugs and souvenirs. Seven Novelties glittered on the desk +alone, including a large rococo Shakespeare-style glass ink-well containing +cloves and a small iron Pittsburg-style one containing ink. Mr. Wrenn blinked +like a noon-roused owlet in the brilliance. The manager dropped his fist on the +desk, glared, smoothed his flowered prairie of waistcoat, and growled, his red +jowls quivering: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Wrenn, what’s the matter with you? The Bronx Emporium +order for May Day novelties was filled twice, they write me.” +</p> + +<p> +“They ordered twice, sir. By ’phone,” smiled Mr. Wrenn, in an +agony of politeness. +</p> + +<p> +“They ordered hell, sir! Twice—the same order?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; their buyer was prob—” +</p> + +<p> +“They say they’ve looked it up. Anyway, they won’t pay twice. +I know, em. We’ll have to crawl down graceful, and all because +you—I want to know why you ain’t more careful!” +</p> + +<p> +The announcement that Mr. Wrenn twice wriggled his head, and once tossed it, +would not half denote his wrath. At last! It was here—the time for +revolt, when he was going to be defiant. He had been careful; old Goglefogle +was only barking; but why should <i>he</i> be barked at? With his voice +palpitating and his heart thudding so that he felt sick he declared: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m <i>sure</i>, sir, about that order. I looked it up. Their +buyer was drunk!” +</p> + +<p> +It was done. And now would he be discharged? The manager was speaking: +</p> + +<p> +“Probably. You looked it up, eh? Um! Send me in the two order-records. +Well. But, anyway, I want you to be more careful after this, Wrenn. +You’re pretty sloppy. Now get out. Expect me to make firms pay twice for +the same order, cause of your carelessness?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn found himself outside in the dark corridor. The manager hadn’t +seemed much impressed by his revolt. +</p> + +<p> +The manager wasn’t. He called a stenographer and dictated: +</p> + +<p> +“Bronx Emporium: +</p> + +<p> +“G<small>ENTLEMEN</small>:—Our Mr. Wrenn has again (underline that +‘again,’ Miss Blaustein), again looked up your order for May Day +novelties. As we wrote before, order certainly was duplicated by ’phone. +Our Mr. Wrenn is thoroughly reliable, and we have his records of these two +orders. We shall therefore have to push collection on both—” +</p> + +<p> +After all, Mr. Wrenn was thinking, the crafty manager might be merely +concealing his hand. Perhaps he had understood the defiance. That gladdened him +till after lunch. But at three, when his head was again foggy with work and he +had forgotten whether there was still April anywhere, he began to dread what +the manager might do to him. Suppose he lost his job; The Job! He worked +unnecessarily late, hoping that the manager would learn of it. As he wavered +home, drunk with weariness, his fear of losing The Job was almost equal to his +desire to resign from The Job. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He had worked so late that when he awoke on Sunday morning he was still in a +whirl of figures. As he went out to his breakfast of coffee and whisked wheat +at the Hustler Lunch the lines between the blocks of the cement walk, radiant +in a white flare of sunshine, irritatingly recalled the cross-lines of +order-lists, with the narrow cement blocks at the curb standing for unfilled +column-headings. Even the ridges of the Hustler Lunch’s imitation steel +ceiling, running in parallel lines, jeered down at him that he was a prosaic +man whose path was a ruler. +</p> + +<p> +He went clear up to the branch post-office after breakfast to get the Sunday +mail, but the mail was a disappointment. He was awaiting a wonderful fully +illustrated guide to the Land of the Midnight Sun, a suggestion of possible and +coyly improbable trips, whereas he got only a letter from his oldest +acquaintance—Cousin John, of Parthenon, New York, the +boy-who-comes-to-play of Mr. Wrenn’s back-yard days in Parthenon. Without +opening the letter Mr. Wrenn tucked it into his inside coat pocket, threw away +his toothpick, and turned to Sunday wayfaring. +</p> + +<p> +He jogged down Twenty-third Street to the North River ferries afoot. Trolleys +took money, and of course one saves up for future great traveling. Over him the +April clouds were fetterless vagabonds whose gaiety made him shrug with +excitement and take a curb with a frisk as gambolsome as a Central Park lamb. +There was no hint of sales-lists in the clouds, at least. And with them Mr. +Wrenn’s soul swept along, while his half-soled Cum-Fee-Best $3.80 shoes +were ambling past warehouses. Only once did he condescend to being really on +Twenty-third Street. At the Ninth Avenue corner, under the grimy Elevated, he +sighted two blocks down to the General Theological Seminary’s brick +Gothic and found in a pointed doorway suggestions of alien beauty. +</p> + +<p> +But his real object was to loll on a West and South Railroad in luxury, and go +sailing out into the foam and perilous seas of North River. He passed through +the smoking-cabin. He didn’t smoke—the habit used up travel-money. +Once seated on the upper deck, he knew that at last he was outward-bound on a +liner. True, there was no great motion, but Mr. Wrenn was inclined to let +realism off easily in this feature of his voyage. At least there were undoubted +life-preservers in the white racks overhead; and everywhere the world, to his +certain witnessing, was turned to crusading, to setting forth in great ships as +if it were again in the brisk morning of history when the joy of adventure +possessed the Argonauts. +</p> + +<p> +He wasn’t excited over the liners they passed. He was so experienced in +all of travel, save the traveling, as to have gained a calm interested +knowledge. He knew the <i>Campagnia</i> three docks away, and explained to a +Harlem grocer her fine points, speaking earnestly of stacks and sticks, tonnage +and knots. +</p> + +<p> +Not excited, but—where couldn’t he go if he were pulling out for +Arcady on the <i>Campagnia!</i> Gee! What were even the building-block towers +of the Metropolitan and Singer buildings and the <i>Times’s</i> +cream-stick compared with some old shrine in a cathedral close that was misted +with centuries! +</p> + +<p> +All this he felt and hummed to himself, though not in words. He had never heard +of Arcady, though for many years he had been a citizen of that demesne. +</p> + +<p> +Sure, he declared to himself, he was on the liner now; he was sliding up the +muddy Mersey (see the <i>W. S. Travel Notes</i> for the source of his visions); +he was off to St. George’s Square for an organ-recital (see the English +Baedeker); then an express for London and—Gee! +</p> + +<p> +The ferryboat was entering her slip. Mr. Wrenn trotted toward the bow to thrill +over the bump of the boat’s snub nose against the lofty swaying piles and +the swash of the brown waves heaped before her as she sidled into place. He was +carried by the herd on into the station. +</p> + +<p> +He did not notice the individual people in his exultation as he heard the great +chords of the station’s paean. The vast roof roared as the iron coursers +stamped titanic hoofs of scorn at the little stay-at-home. +</p> + +<p> +That is a washed-out hint of how the poets might describe Mr. Wrenn’s +passion. What he said was “Gee!” +</p> + +<p> +He strolled by the lists of destinations hung on the track gates. Chicago (the +plains! the Rockies! sunset over mining-camps!), Washington, and the magic +Southland—thither the iron horses would be galloping, their swarthy smoke +manes whipped back by the whirlwind, pounding out with clamorous strong hoofs +their sixty miles an hour. Very well. In time he also would mount upon the iron +coursers and charge upon Chicago and the Southland; just as soon as he got +ready. +</p> + +<p> +Then he headed for Cortlandt Street; for Long Island, City. finally, the Navy +Yard. Along his way were the docks of the tramp steamers where he might ship as +steward in the all-promising Sometime. He had never done anything so reckless +as actually to ask a skipper for the chance to go a-sailing, but he had once +gone into a mission society’s free shipping-office on West Street where a +disapproving elder had grumped at him, “Are you a sailor? No? Can’t +do anything for you, my friend. Are you saved?” He wasn’t going to +risk another horror like that, yet when the golden morning of Sometime dawned +he certainly was going to go cruising off to palm-bordered lagoons. +</p> + +<p> +As he walked through Long Island City he contrived conversations with the +sailors he passed. It would have surprised a Norwegian bos’un’s +mate to learn that he was really a gun-runner, and that, as a matter of fact, +he was now telling yarns of the Spanish Main to the man who slid deprecatingly +by him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn envied the jackies on the training-ship and carelessly went to sea as +the President’s guest in the admiral’s barge and was frightened by +the stare of a sauntering shop-girl and arrived home before dusk, to Mrs. +Zapp’s straitened approval. +</p> + +<p> +Dusk made incantations in his third-floor-front. Pleasantly fagged in those +slight neat legs, after his walk, Mr. Wrenn sat in the wicker rocker by the +window, patting his scrubby tan mustache and reviewing the day’s +wandering. When the gas was lighted he yearned over pictures in a geographical +magazine for a happy hour, then yawned to himself, “Well-l-l, Willum, +guess it’s time to crawl into the downy.” +</p> + +<p> +He undressed and smoothed his ready-made suit on the rocking-chair back. +Sitting on the edge of his bed, quaint in his cotton night-gown, like a rare +little bird of dull plumage, he rubbed his head sleepily. Um-m-m-m-m! How tired +he was! He went to open the window. Then his tamed heart leaped into a waltz, +and he forgot third-floor-fronts and sleepiness. +</p> + +<p> +Through the window came the chorus of fog-horns on North River. +“Boom-m-m!” That must be a giant liner, battling up through the +fog. (It was a ferry.) A liner! She’d be roaring just like that if she +were off the Banks! If he were only off the Banks! “Toot! Toot!” +That was a tug. “Whawn-n-n!” Another liner. The tumultuous chorus +repeated to him all the adventures of the day. +</p> + +<p> +He dropped upon the bed again and stared absently at his clothes. Out of the +inside coat pocket stuck the unopened letter from Cousin John. +</p> + +<p> +He read a paragraph of it. He sprang from the bed and danced a tarantella, +pranced in his cottony nightgown like a drunken Yaqui. The letter announced +that the flinty farm at Parthenon, left to Mr. Wrenn by his father, had been +sold. Its location on a river bluff had made it valuable to the Parthenon +Chautauqua Association. There was now to his credit in the Parthenon National +Bank nine hundred and forty dollars! +</p> + +<p> +He was wealthy, then. He had enough to stalk up and down the earth for many +venturesome (but economical) months, till he should learn the trade of +wandering, and its mysterious trick of living without a job or a salary. +</p> + +<p> +He crushed his pillow with burrowing head and sobbed excitedly, with a terrible +stomach-sinking and a chill shaking. Then he laughed and wanted to—but +didn’t—rush into the adjacent hall room and tell the total stranger +there of this world-changing news. He listened in the hall to learn whether the +Zapps were up, but heard nothing; returned and cantered up and down, gloating +on a map of the world. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! It’s happened. I could travel all the time. I guess I +won’t be—very much—afraid of wrecks and stuff. . . . Things +like that. . . . Gee! If I don’t get to bed I’ll be late at the +office in the morning!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn lay awake till three o’clock. Monday morning he felt rather +ashamed of having done so eccentric a thing. But he got to the office on time. +He was worried with the cares of wealth, with having to decide when to leave +for his world-wanderings, but he was also very much aware that office managers +are disagreeable if one isn’t on time. All morning he did nothing more +reckless than balance his new fortune, plus his savings, against steamship +fares on a waste half-sheet of paper. +</p> + +<p> +The noon-hour was not The Job’s, but his, for exploration of the parlous +lands of romance that lie hard by Twenty-eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. But he +had to go out to lunch with Charley Carpenter, the assistant bookkeeper, that +he might tell the news. As for Charley, He needed frequently to have a +confidant who knew personally the tyrannous ways of the office manager, Mr. +Guilfogle. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn and Charley chose (that is to say, Charley chose) a table at +Drubel’s Eating House. Mr. Wrenn timidly hinted, “I’ve got +some big news to tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +But Charley interrupted, “Say, did you hear old Goglefogle light into me +this morning? I won’t stand for it. Say, did you hear him—the +old—” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the trouble, Charley?” +</p> + +<p> +“Trouble? Nothing was the trouble. Except with old Goglefogle. I made one +little break in my accounts. Why, if old Gogie had to keep track of +seventy-’leven accounts and watch every single last movement of a fool +girl that can’t even run the adding-machine, why, he’d get green +around the gills. He’d never do anything <i>but</i> make mistakes! Well, +I guess the old codger must have had a bum breakfast this morning. Wanted some +exercise to digest it. Me, I was the exercise—I was the goat. He calls me +in, and he calls me <i>down</i>, and me—well, just lemme tell you, Wrenn, +I calls his bluff!” +</p> + +<p> +Charley Carpenter stopped his rapid tirade, delivered with quick head-shakes +like those of palsy, to raise his smelly cigarette to his mouth. Midway in this +slow gesture the memory of his wrongs again overpowered him. He flung his right +hand back on the table, scattering cigarette ashes, jerked back his head with +the irritated patience of a nervous martyr, then waved both hands about +spasmodically, while he snarled, with his cheaply handsome smooth face more +flushed than usual: +</p> + +<p> +“Sure! You can just bet your bottom dollar I let him see from the way I +looked at him that I wasn’t going to stand for no more monkey business. +You bet I did!… I’ll fix him, I will. You just <i>watch</i> me. (Hey, +Drubel, got any lemon merang? Bring me a hunk, will yuh?) Why, Wrenn, that +cross-eyed double-jointed fat old slob, I’ll slam him in the slats so +hard some day—I will, you just watch my smoke. If it wasn’t for +that messy wife of mine—I ought to desert her, and I will some day, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh.” Mr. Wrenn was curt for a second…. “I know how it is, +Charley. But you’ll get over it, honest you will. Say, I’ve got +some news. Some land that my dad left me has sold for nearly a thousand plunks. +By the way, this lunch is on me. Let me pay for it, Charley.” +</p> + +<p> +Charley promised to let him pay, quite readily. And, expanding, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Great, Wrenn! Great! Lemme congratulate you. Don’t know anybody +I’d rather’ve had this happen to. You’re a meek little +baa-lamb, but you’ve got lots of stuff in you, old Wrennski. Oh say, by +the way, could. you let me have fifty cents till Saturday? Thanks. I’ll +pay it back sure. By golly! you’re the only man around the office that +’preciates what a double duck-lined old fiend old Goglefogle is, the +old—” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, gee, Charley, I wish you wouldn’t jump on Guilfogle so hard. +He’s always treated me square.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gogie—square? Yuh, he’s square just like a hoop. You know +it, too, Wrenn. Now that you’ve got enough money so’s you +don’t need to be scared about the job you’ll realize it, and +you’ll want to soak him, same’s I do. <i>Say!</i>” The +impulse of a great idea made him gleefully shake his fist sidewise. “Say! +Why <i>don’t</i> you soak him? They bank on you at the Souvenir Company. +Darn’ sight more than you realize, lemme tell you. Why, you do about half +the stock-keeper’s work, sides your own. Tell you what you do. You go to +old Goglefogle and tell him you want a raise to twenty-five, and want it right +now. Yes, by golly, <i>thirty!</i> You’re worth that, or pretty +darn’ near it, but ’course old Goglefogle’ll never give it to +you. He’ll threaten to fire you if you say a thing more about it. You can +tell him to go ahead, and then where’ll he be? Guess that’ll call +his bluff some!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but, Charley, then if Guilfogle feels he can’t pay me that +much—you know he’s responsible to the directors; he can’t do +everything he wants to—why, he’ll just have to fire me, after +I’ve talked to him like that, whether he wants to or not. And +that’d leave us—that’d leave them—without a sales +clerk, right in the busy season.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sure, Wrenn; that’s what we want to do. If you go it ’d +leave ’em without just about <i>two</i> men. Bother ’em like the +deuce. It ’d bother Mr. Mortimer X. Y. Guglefugle most of all, thank the +Lord. He wouldn’t know where he was at—trying to break in a man +right in the busy season. Here’s your chance. Come on, kid; don’t +pass it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh gee, Charley, I can’t do that. You wouldn’t want me to +try to <i>hurt</i> the Souvenir Company after being there for—lemme see, +it must be seven years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, maybe you <i>like</i> to get your cute little nose rubbed on the +grindstone! I suppose you’d like to stay on at nineteen per for the rest +of your life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, Charley, don’t get sore; please don’t! I’d like to +get off, all right—like to go traveling, and stuff like that. Gee! +I’d like to wander round. But I can’t cut out right in the +bus—” +</p> + +<p> +“But can’t you see, you poor nut, you won’t be <i>leaving</i> +’em—they’ll either pay you what they ought to or lose +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know about that, Charley. +</p> + +<p> +“Charley was making up for some uncertainty as to his own logic by +beaming persuasiveness, and Mr. Wrenn was afraid of being hypnotized. +“No, no!” he throbbed, rising. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all right!” snarled Charley, “if you like to be +Gogie’s goat…. Oh, you’re all right, Wrennski. I suppose you had +ought to stay, if you feel you got to…. Well, so long. I’ve got to beat +it over and buy a pair of socks before I go back.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn crept out of Drubel’s behind him, very melancholy. Even Charley +admitted that he “had ought to stay,” then; and what chance was +there of persuading the dread Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle that he wished to be +looked upon as one resigning? Where, then, any chance of globe-trotting; +perhaps for months he would remain in slavery, and he had hoped just that +morning— One dreadful quarter-hour with Mr. Guilfogle and he might be +free. He grinned to himself as he admitted that this was like seeing Europe +after merely swimming the mid-winter Atlantic. +</p> + +<p> +Well, he had nine minutes more, by his two-dollar watch; nine minutes of +vagabondage. He gazed across at a Greek restaurant with signs in real Greek +letters like “ruins at—well, at Aythens.” A Chinese chop-suey +den with a red-and-yellow carved dragon, and at an upper window a squat +Chinaman who might easily be carrying a <i>kris</i>, “or whatever them +Chink knives are,” as he observed for the hundredth time he had taken +this journey. A rotisserie, before whose upright fender of scarlet coals whole +ducks were happily roasting to a shiny brown. In a furrier’s window were +Siberian foxes’ skins (Siberia! huts of “awful brave +convicks”; the steely Northern Sea; guards in blouses, just as he’d +seen them at an Academy of Music play) and a polar bear (meaning, to him, the +Northern Lights, the long hike, and the <i>igloo</i> at night). And the +florists! There were orchids that (though he only half knew it, and that all +inarticulately) whispered to him of jungles where, in the hot hush, he saw the +slumbering python and—“What was it in that poem, that, Mandalay, +thing? <i>was</i> it about jungles? Anyway: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Them garlicky smells,<br/> +And the sunshine and the palms and the bells.’” +</p> + +<p> +He had to hurry back to the office. He stopped only to pat the head of a +florist’s delivery horse that looked wistfully at him from the curb. +“Poor old fella. What you thinking about? Want to be a circus horse and +wander? Le’s beat it together. You can’t, eh? Poor old +fella!” +</p> + +<p> +At three-thirty, the time when it seems to office persons that the day’s +work never will end, even by a miracle, Mr. Wrenn was shaky about his duty to +the firm. He was more so after an electrical interview with the manager, who +spent a few minutes, which he happened to have free, in roaring “I want +to know why” at Mr. Wrenn. There was no particular “why” that +he wanted to know; he was merely getting scientific efficiency out of +employees, a phrase which Mr. Guilfogle had taken from a business magazine that +dilutes efficiency theories for inefficient employers. +</p> + +<p> +At five-twenty the manager summoned him, complimented him on nothing in +particular, and suggested that he stay late with Charley Carpenter and the +stock-keeper to inventory a line of desk-clocks which they were closing out. +</p> + +<p> +As Mr. Wrenn returned to his desk he stopped at a window on the corridor and +coveted the bright late afternoon. The cornices of lofty buildings glistened; +the sunset shone fierily through the glass-inclosed layer-like upper floors. He +wanted to be out there in the streets with the shopping crowds. Old Goglefogle +didn’t consider him; why should he consider the firm? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II<br/> +HE WALKS WITH MISS THERESA</h2> + +<p> +As he left the Souvenir Company building after working late at taking inventory +and roamed down toward Fourteenth Street, Mr. Wrenn felt forlornly aimless. The +worst of it all was that he could not go to the Nickelorion for moving +pictures; not after having been cut by the ticket-taker. Then, there before him +was the glaring sign of the Nickelorion tempting him; a bill with “Great +Train Robbery Film Tonight” made his heart thump like +stair-climbing—and he dashed at the ticket-booth with a nickel doughtily +extended. He felt queer about the scalp as the cashier girl slid out a coupon. +Why did she seem to be watching him so closely? As he dropped the ticket in the +chopper he tried to glance away from the Brass-button Man. For one- nineteenth +of a second he kept his head turned. It turned back of itself; he stared full +at the man, half bowed—and received a hearty absent-minded nod and a +“Fine evenin’.” He sang to himself a monotonous song of great +joy. When he stumbled over the feet of a large German in getting to a seat, he +apologized as though he were accustomed to laugh easily with many friends. +</p> + +<p> +The train-robbery film was—well, he kept repeating “Gee!” to +himself pantingly. How the masked men did sneak, simply sneak and sneak, behind +the bushes! Mr. Wrenn shrank as one of them leered out of the picture at him. +How gallantly the train dashed toward the robbers, to the spirit-stirring roll +of the snare-drum. The rush from the bushes followed; the battle with +detectives concealed in the express-car. Mr. Wrenn was standing sturdily and +shooting coolly with the slender hawk-faced Pinkerton man in puttees; with him +he leaped to horse and followed the robbers through the forest. He stayed +through the whole program twice to see the train robbery again. +</p> + +<p> +As he started to go out he found the ticket-taker changing his long light-blue +robe of state for a highly commonplace sack-coat without brass buttons. In his +astonishment at seeing how a Highness could be transformed into an every-day +man, Mr. Wrenn stopped, and, having stopped, spoke: +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—that was quite a—quite a picture—that train +robbery. Wasn’t it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh, I guess—Now where’s the devil and his wife flew away to +with my hat? Them guys is always swiping it. Picture, mister? Why, I +didn’t see it no more ’n—Say you, Pink Eye, say you +crab-footed usher, did you swipe my hat? Ain’t he the cut-up, mister! +Ain’t both them ushers the jingling sheepsheads, though! Being cute and +hiding my hat in the box-office. <i>Picture?</i> I don’t get no chance to +see any of ’em. Funny, ain’t it?—me barking for ’em +like I was the grandmother of the guy that invented ’em, and not knowing +whether the train robbery—Now who stole my going-home shoes?… Why, I +don’t know whether the train did any robbing or not!” +</p> + +<p> +He slapped Mr. Wrenn on the back, and the sales clerk’s heart bounded in +comradeship. He was surprised into declaring: +</p> + +<p> +“Say—uh—I bowed to you the other night and you—well, +honestly, you acted like you never saw me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, now, and that’s what happens to me for being the dad +of five kids and a she-girl and a tom-cat. Sure, I couldn’t ’ve +seen you. Me, I was probably that busy with fambly cares—I was probably +thinking who was it et the lemon pie on me—was it Pete or Johnny, or +shall I lick ’em both together, or just bite me wife.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn knew that the ticket-taker had never, never really considered biting +his wife. <i>He</i> knew! His nod and grin and “That’s the +idea!” were urbanely sophisticated. He urged: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I’m sure you didn’t intend to hand me the icy mitt. +Say! I’m thirsty. Come on over to Moje’s and I’ll buy you a +drink.” +</p> + +<p> +He was aghast at this abyss of money-spending into which he had leaped, and the +Brass-button Man was suspiciously wondering what this person wanted of him; but +they crossed to the adjacent saloon, a New York corner saloon, which of course +“glittered” with a large mirror, heaped glasses, and a long shining +foot-rail on which, in bravado, Mr. Wrenn placed his Cum-Fee-Best shoe. +</p> + +<p> +“Uh?” said the bartender. +</p> + +<p> +“Rye, Jimmy,” said the Brass-button Man. +</p> + +<p> +“Uh-h-h-h-h,” said Mr. Wrenn, in a frightened diminuendo, now +that—wealthy citizen though he had become—he was in danger of +exposure as a mollycoddle who couldn’t choose his drink properly. +“Stummick been hurting me. Guess I’d better just take a +lemonade.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the brother-in-law to a wise one,” commented the +Brass-button Man. “Me, I ain’t never got the sense to do the +traffic cop on the booze. The old woman she says to me, ‘Mory,’ she +says, ‘if you was in heaven and there was a pail of beer on one side and +a gold harp on the other,’ she says, ‘and you was to have your +pick, which would you take?’ And what ’d yuh think I answers +her?” +</p> + +<p> +“The beer,” said the bartender. “She had your number, all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not on your tin-type,” declared the ticket-taker. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Me?’ I says to her. ‘Me? I’d pinch the harp and +pawn it for ten growlers of Dutch beer and some man-sized rum!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Hee, hee hee!” grinned Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha, ha, ha!” grumbled the bartender. +</p> + +<p> +“Well-l-l,” yawned the ticket-taker, “the old woman’ll +be chasing me best pants around the flat, if she don’t have me to chase, +pretty soon. Guess I’d better beat it. Much obliged for the drink, Mr. +Uh. So long, Jimmy.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn set off for home in a high state of exhilaration which, he noticed, +exactly resembled driving an aeroplane, and went briskly up the steps of the +Zapps’ genteel but unexciting residence. He was much nearer to heaven +than West Sixteenth Street appears to be to the outsider. For he was an +explorer of the Arctic, a trusted man on the job, an associate of witty +Bohemians. He was an army lieutenant who had, with his friend the hawk-faced +Pinkerton man, stood off bandits in an attack on a train. He opened and closed +the door gaily. +</p> + +<p> +He was an apologetic little Mr. Wrenn. His landlady stood on the bottom step of +the hall stairs in a bunchy Mother Hubbard, groaning: +</p> + +<p> +“Mist’ Wrenn, if you got to come in so late, Ah wish you +wouldn’t just make all the noise you can. Ah don’t see why Ah +should have to be kept awake all night. Ah suppose it’s the will of the +Lord that whenever Ah go out to see Mrs. Muzzy and just drink a drop of coffee +Ah must get insomina, but Ah don’t see why anybody that tries to be a +gennulman should have to go and bang the door and just rack mah nerves.” +</p> + +<p> +He slunk up-stairs behind Mrs. Zapp’s lumbering gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something I wanted to tell you, Mrs. Zapp—something +that’s happened to me. That’s why I was out celebrating last +evening and got in so late.” Mr. Wrenn was diffidently sitting in the +basement. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” dryly, “Ah noticed you was out late, Mist’ +Wrenn.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Mrs. Zapp, I—uh—my father left me some land, and +it’s been sold for about one thousand plunks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah’m awful’ glad, Mist’ Wrenn,” she said, +funereally. “Maybe you’d like to take that hall room beside yours +now. The two rooms’d make a nice apartment.” (She really said +“nahs ‘pahtmun’,” you understand.) +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I hadn’t thought much about that yet.” He felt guilty, +and was profusely cordial to Lee Theresa Zapp, the factory forewoman, who had +just thumped down-stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Theresa was a large young lady with a bust, much black hair, and a +handsome disdainful discontented face. She waited till he had finished greeting +her, then sniffed, and at her mother she snarled: +</p> + +<p> +“Ma, they went and kept us late again to-night. I’m getting just +about tired of having a bunch of Jews and Yankees think I’m a nigger. +Uff! I hate them!” +</p> + +<p> +“T’resa, Mist’ Wrenn’s just inherited two thousand +dollars, and he’s going to take that upper hall room.” Mrs. Zapp +beamed with maternal fondness at the timid lodger. +</p> + +<p> +But the gallant friend of Pinkertons faced her—for the first time. +“Waste his travel-money?” he was inwardly exclaiming as he said: +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought you had some one in that room. I heard som—” +</p> + +<p> +“That fellow! Oh, he ain’t going to be perm’nent. And he +promised me—So you can have—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m <i>awful</i> sorry, Mrs. Zapp, but I’m afraid I +can’t take it. Fact is, I may go traveling for a while.” +</p> + +<p> +“Co’se you’ll keep your room if you do, Mist’ +Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I’m afraid I’ll have to give it up, but—Oh, I may +not be going for a long long while yet; and of course I’ll be glad to +come—I’ll want to come back here when I get back to New York. I +won’t be gone for more than, oh, probably not more than a year anyway, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“And Ah thought you said you was going to be perm’nent!” Mrs. +Zapp began quietly, prefatory to working herself up into hysterics. “And +here Ah’ve gone and had your room fixed up just for you, and new paper +put in, and you’ve always been talking such a lot about how you wanted +your furniture arranged, and Ah’ve gone and made all mah +plans—” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn had been a shyly paying guest of the Zapps for four years. That +famous new paper had been put up two years before. So he spluttered: “Oh, +I’m <i>awfully</i> sorry. I wish—uh—I +don’t—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah’d <i>thank</i> you, Mist’ Wrenn, if you could +<i>conveniently</i> let me <i>know</i> before you go running off and leaving me +with empty rooms, with the landlord after the rent, and me turning away people +that ’d pay more for the room, because Ah wanted to keep it for you. And +people always coming to see you and making me answer the door and—” +</p> + +<p> +Even the rooming-house worm was making small worm-like sounds that presaged +turning. Lee Theresa snapped just in time, “Oh, cut it out, Ma, will +you!” She had been staring at the worm, for he had suddenly become +interesting and adorable and, incidentally, an heir. “I don’t see +why Mr. Wrenn ain’t giving us all the notice we can expect. He said he +mightn’t be going for a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” grunted Mrs. Zapp. “So mah own flesh and blood is going +to turn against me!” +</p> + +<p> +She rose. Her appearance of majesty was somewhat lessened by the creak of +stays, but her instinct for unpleasantness was always good. She said nothing as +she left them, and she plodded up-stairs with a train of sighs. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn looked as though sudden illness had overpowered him. But Theresa +laughed, and remarked: “You don’t want to let Ma get on her high +horse, Mr. Wrenn. She’s a bluff.” +</p> + +<p> +With much billowing of the lower, less stiff part of her garments, she sailed +to the cloudy mirror over the magazine-filled bookcase and inspected her cap of +false curls, with many prods of her large firm hands which flashed with +Brazilian diamonds. Though he had heard the word “puffs,” he did +not know that half her hair was false. He stared at it. Though in disgrace, he +felt the honor of knowing so ample and rustling a woman as Miss Lee Theresa. +</p> + +<p> +“But, say, I wish I could ’ve let her know I was going earlier, +Miss Zapp. I didn’t know it myself, but it does seem like a mean trick. I +s’pose I ought to pay her something extra.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, child, you won’t do anything of the sort. Ma hasn’t got +a bit of kick coming. You’ve always been awful nice, far as I can +see.” She smiled lavishly. “I went for a walk to-night…. I wish all +those men wouldn’t stare at a girl so. I’m sure I don’t see +why they should stare at me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn nodded, but that didn’t seem to be the right comment, so he +shook his head, then looked frightfully embarrassed. +</p> + +<p> +“I went by that Armenian restaurant you were telling me about, Mr. Wrenn. +Some time I believe I’ll go dine there.” Again she paused. +</p> + +<p> +He said only, “Yes, it is a nice place.” +</p> + +<p> +Remarking to herself that there was no question about it, after all, he +<i>was</i> a little fool, Theresa continued the siege. “Do you dine there +often?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes. It is a nice place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could a lady go there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so,” he finished. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!… I do get so awfully tired of the greasy stuff Ma and Goaty dish up. +They think a big stew that tastes like dish-water is a dinner, and if they do +have anything I like they keep on having the same thing every day till I throw +it in the sink. I wish I could go to a restaurant once in a while for a change, +but of course—I dunno’s it would be proper for a lady to go alone +even there. What do you think? Oh dear!” She sat brooding sadly. +</p> + +<p> +He had an inspiration. Perhaps Miss Theresa could be persuaded to go out to +dinner with him some time. He begged: +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, I wish you’d let me take you up there some evening, Miss +Zapp.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, didn’t I tell you to call me ‘Miss Theresa’? +Well, I suppose you just don’t want to be friends with me. Nobody +does.” She brooded again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Honest I didn’t. +I’ve always thought you’d think I was fresh if I called you +‘Miss Theresa,’ and so I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I guess I could go up to the Armenian with you, perhaps. When would +you like to go? You know I’ve always got lots of dates but +I—um—let’s see, I think I could go to-morrow evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s do it! Shall I call for you, +Miss—uh—Theresa?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you may if you’ll be a good boy. Good night.” She +departed with an air of intimacy. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn scuttled to the Nickelorion, and admitted to the Brass-button Man +that he was “feeling pretty good ’s evening.” +</p> + +<p> +He had never supposed that a handsome creature like Miss Theresa could ever +endure such a “slow fellow” as himself. For about one minute he +considered with a chill the question of whether she was agreeable because of +his new wealth, but reproved the fiend who was making the suggestion; for had +he not heard her mention with great scorn a second cousin who had married an +old Yankee for his money? That just settled <i>that</i>, he assured himself, +and scowled at a passing messenger-boy for having thus hinted, but hastily +grimaced as the youngster showed signs of loud displeasure. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The Armenian restaurant is peculiar, for it has foreign food at low prices, and +is below Thirtieth Street, yet it has not become Bohemian. Consequently it has +no bad music and no crowd of persons from Missouri whose women risk salvation +for an evening by smoking cigarettes. Here prosperous Oriental merchants, of +mild natures and bandit faces, drink semi-liquid Turkish coffee and discuss +rugs and revolutions. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, the place seemed so unartificial that Theresa, facing Mr. Wrenn, was +bored. And the menu was foreign without being Society viands. It suggested +rats’ tails and birds’ nests, she was quite sure. She would gladly +have experimented with <i>paté de foie gras</i> or alligator-pears, but what +social prestige was there to be gained at the factory by remarking that she +“always did like <i>pahklava</i>”? Mr. Wrenn did not see that she +was glancing about discontentedly, for he was delightedly listening to a lanky +young man at the next table who was remarking to his <i>vis-à-vis</i>, a pale +slithey lady in black, with the lines of a torpedo-boat: “Try some of the +stuffed vine-leaves, child of the angels, and some wheat <i>pilaf</i> and some +<i>bourma</i>. Your wheat <i>pilaf</i> is a comfortable food and cheering to +the stomach of man. Simply <i>won</i>-derful. As for the <i>bourma</i>, he is a +merry beast, a brown rose of pastry with honey cunningly secreted between his +petals and—Here! Waiter! Stuffed vine-leaves, wheat <i>p’laf, +bourm’</i>—twice on the order and hustle it.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you get through listening to that man—he talks like a bar of +soap—tell me what there is on this bill of fare that’s safe to +eat,” snorted Theresa. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought he was real funny,” insisted Mr. Wrenn…. +“I’m sure you’ll like <i>shish kebab</i> and s—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Shish kibub!</i> Who ever heard of such a thing! Haven’t they +any—oh, I thought they’d have stuff they call ‘Turkish +Delight’ and things like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Turkish Delights’ is cigarettes, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I know it isn’t, because I read about it in a story in a +magazine. And they were eating it. On the terrace…. What is that <i>shish +kibub</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Kebab</i>…. It’s lamb roasted on skewers. I know you’ll +like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m not going to trust any heathens to cook my meat. +I’ll take some eggs and some of that—what was it the idiot was +talking about—<i>berma</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Bourma</i>…. That’s awful nice. With honey. And do try some of +the stuffed peppers and rice.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Theresa, gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +Somehow Mr. Wrenn wasn’t vastly transformed even by the possession of the +two thousand dollars her mother had reported. He was still “funny and +sort of scary,” not like the overpowering Southern gentlemen she supposed +she remembered. Also, she was hungry. She listened with stolid glumness to Mr. +Wrenn’s observation that that was “an awful big hat the lady with +the funny guy had on.” +</p> + +<p> +He was chilled into quietness till Papa Gouroff, the owner of the restaurant, +arrived from above-stairs. Papa Gouroff was a Russian Jew who had been a police +spy in Poland and a hotel proprietor in Mogador, where he called himself +Turkish and married a renegade Armenian. He had a nose like a sickle and a neck +like a blue-gum nigger. He hoped that the place would degenerate into a +Bohemian restaurant where liberal clergymen would think they were slumming, and +barbers would think they were entering society, so he always wore a <i>fez</i> +and talked bad Arabic. He was local color, atmosphere, Bohemian flavor. Mr. +Wrenn murmured to Theresa: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, do you see that man? He’s Signor Gouroff, the owner. +I’ve talked to him a lot of times. Ain’t he great! Golly! look at +that beak of his. Don’t he make you think of <i>kiosks</i> and +<i>hyrems</i> and stuff? Gee! What does he make you think—” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got on a dirty collar…. That waiter’s awful slow…. +Would you please be so kind and pour me another glass of water?” +</p> + +<p> +But when she reached the honied <i>bourma</i> she grew tolerant toward Mr. +Wrenn. She had two cups of cocoa and felt fat about the eyes and affectionate. +She had mentioned that there were good shows in town. Now she resumed: +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been to ‘The Gold Brick’ yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I—uh—I don’t go to the theater much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gwendolyn Muzzy was telling me that this was the funniest show +she’d ever seen. Tells how two confidence men fooled one of those +terrible little jay towns. Shows all the funny people, you know, like they have +in jay towns…. I wish I could go to it, but of course I have to help out the +folks at home, so— Well…. Oh dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say! I’d like to take you, if I could. Let’s go—this +evening!” He quivered with the adventure of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I don’t know; I didn’t tell Ma I was going to be out. +But—oh, I guess it would be all right if I was with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go right up and get some tickets.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” Her assent was too eager, but she immediately +corrected that error by yawning, “I don’t suppose I’d ought +to go, but if you want to—” +</p> + +<p> +They were a very lively couple as they walked up. He trickled sympathy when she +told of the selfishness of the factory girls under her and the meanness of the +superintendent over her, and he laughed several times as she remarked that the +superintendent “ought to be boiled alive—that’s what +<i>all</i> lobsters ought to be,” so she repeated the epigram with such +increased jollity that they swung up to the theater in a gale; and, once facing +the ennuied ticket-seller, he demanded dollar seats just as though he had not +been doing sums all the way up to prove that seventy-five-cent seats were the +best he could afford. +</p> + +<p> +The play was a glorification of Yankee smartness. Mr. Wrenn was disturbed by +the fact that the swindler heroes robbed quite all the others, but he was +stirred by the brisk romance of money-making. The swindlers were +supermen—blonde beasts with card indices and options instead of clubs. +Not that Mr. Wrenn made any observations regarding supermen. But when, by way +of commercial genius, the swindler robbed a young night clerk Mr. Wrenn +whispered to Theresa, “Gee! he certainly does know how to jolly them, +heh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-h-h-h-h-h!” said Theresa. +</p> + +<p> +Every one made millions, victims and all, in the last act, as a proof of the +social value of being a live American business man. As they oozed along with +the departing audience Mr. Wrenn gurgled: +</p> + +<p> +“That makes me feel just like I’d been making a million +dollars.” Masterfully, he proposed, “Say, let’s go some place +and have something to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s—I almost feel as if I could afford Rector’s, +after that play; but, anyway, let’s go to Allaire’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Though he was ashamed of himself for it afterward, he was almost haughty toward +his waiter, and ordered Welsh rabbits and beer quite as though he usually +breakfasted on them. He may even have strutted a little as he hailed a car with +an imaginary walking-stick. His parting with Miss Theresa was intimate; he +shook her hand warmly. +</p> + +<p> +As he undressed he hoped that he had not been too abrupt with the waiter, +“poor cuss.” But he lay awake to think of Theresa’s hair and +hand-clasp; of polished desks and florid gentlemen who curtly summoned +bank-presidents and who had—he tossed the bedclothes about in his +struggle to get the word—who had a <i>punch!</i> +</p> + +<p> +He would do that Great Traveling of his in the land of Big Business! +</p> + +<p> +The five thousand princes of New York to protect themselves against the four +million ungrateful slaves had devised the sacred symbols of dress-coats, large +houses, and automobiles as the outward and visible signs of the virtue of +making money, to lure rebels into respectability and teach them the social +value of getting a dollar away from that inhuman, socially injurious fiend, +Some One Else. That Our Mr. Wrenn should dream for dreaming’s sake was +catastrophic; he might do things because he wanted to, not because they were +fashionable; whereupon, police forces and the clergy would disband, Wall Street +and Fifth Avenue would go thundering down. Hence, for him were provided those +Y. M. C. A. night bookkeeping classes administered by solemn earnest men of +thirty for solemn credulous youths of twenty-nine; those sermons on content; +articles on “building up the rundown store by live advertising”; +Kiplingesque stories about playing the game; and correspondence-school +advertisements that shrieked, “Mount the ladder to thorough +knowledge—the path to power and to the fuller pay-envelope.” +</p> + +<p> +To all these Mr. Wrenn had been indifferent, for they showed no imagination. +But when he saw Big Business glorified by a humorous melodrama, then The Job +appeared to him as picaresque adventure, and he was in peril of his +imagination. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The eight-o’clock sun, which usually found a wildly shaving Mr. Wrenn, +discovered him dreaming that he was the manager of the Souvenir Company. But +that was a complete misunderstanding of the case. The manager of the Souvenir +Company was Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle, and he called Mr. Wrenn in to acquaint +him with that fact when the new magnate started his career in Big Business by +arriving at the office one hour late. +</p> + +<p> +What made it worse, considered Mr. Guilfogle, was that this Wrenn had a higher +average of punctuality than any one else in the office, which proved that he +knew better. Worst of all, the Guilfogle family eggs had not been scrambled +right at breakfast; they had been anemic. Mr. Guilfogle punched the buzzer and +set his face toward the door, with a scowl prepared. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn seemed weary, and not so intimidated as usual. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Wrenn; you were just about two hours late this morning. What +do you think this office is? A club or a reading-room for hoboes? Ever occur to +you we’d like to have you favor us with a call now and then so’s we +can learn how you’re getting along at golf or whatever you’re doing +these days?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a sample baby-shoe office pin-cushion on the manager’s desk. +Mr. Wrenn eyed this, and said nothing. The manager: +</p> + +<p> +“Hear what I said? D’yuh think I’m talking to give my throat +exercise?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was stubborn. “I couldn’t help it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t help—! And you call that an explanation! I know +just exactly what you’re thinking, Wrenn; you’re thinking that +because I’ve let you have a lot of chances to really work into the +business lately you’re necessary to us, and not simply an +expense—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Mr. Guilfogle; honest, I didn’t think—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, hang it, man, you <i>want</i> to think. What do you suppose we pay +you a salary for? And just let me tell you, Wrenn, right here and now, that if +you can’t condescend to spare us some of your valuable time, now and +then, we can good and plenty get along without you.” +</p> + +<p> +An old tale, oft told and never believed; but it interested Mr. Wrenn just now. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m real glad you can get along without me. I’ve just +inherited a big wad of money! I think I’ll resign! Right now!” +</p> + +<p> +Whether he or Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle was the more aghast at hearing him bawl +this no one knows. The manager was so worried at the thought of breaking in a +new man that his eye-glasses slipped off his poor perspiring nose. He begged, +in sudden tones of old friendship: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you can’t be thinking of leaving us! Why, we expect to make a +big man of you, Wrenn. I was joking about firing you. You ought to know that, +after the talk we had at Mouquin’s the other night. You can’t be +thinking of leaving us! There’s no end of possibilities here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry,” said the dogged soldier of dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—” wailed that hurt and astonished victim of ingratitude, +Mr. Guilfogle. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll leave the middle of June. That’s plenty of +notice,” chirruped Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +At five that evening Mr. Wrenn dashed up to the Brass-button Man at his station +before the Nickelorion, crying: +</p> + +<p> +“Say! You come from Ireland, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now what would you think? Me—oh no; I’m a Chinaman from +Oshkosh!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, honest, straight, tell me. I’ve got a chance to travel. What +d’yuh think of that? Ain’t it great! And I’m going right +away. What I wanted to ask you was, what’s the best place in Ireland to +see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Donegal, o’ course. I was born there.” +</p> + +<p> +Hauling from his pocket a pencil and a worn envelope, Mr. Wrenn joyously added +the new point of interest to a list ranging from Delagoa Bay to Denver. +</p> + +<p> +He skipped up-town, looking at the stars. He shouted as he saw the stacks of a +big Cunarder bulking up at the end of Fourteenth Street. He stopped to chuckle +over a lithograph of the Parthenon at the window of a Greek bootblack’s +stand. Stars—steamer—temples, all these were his. He owned them +now. He was free. +</p> + +<p> +Lee Theresa sat waiting for him in the basement livingroom till ten-thirty +while he was flirting with trainboards at the Grand Central. Then she went to +bed, and, though he knew it not, that prince of wealthy suitors, Mr. Wrenn, had +entirely lost the heart and hand of Miss Zapp of the F. F. V. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He stood before the manager’s god-like desk on June 14, 1910. Sadly: +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Mr. Guilfogle. Leaving to-day. I wish—Gee! I wish I could +tell you, you know—about how much I appreciate—” +</p> + +<p> +The manager moved a wire basket of carbon copies of letters from the left side +of his desk to the right, staring at them thoughtfully; rearranged his pencils +in a pile before his ink-well; glanced at the point of an indelible pencil with +a manner of startled examination; tapped his desk-blotter with his knuckles; +then raised his eyes. He studied Mr. Wrenn, smiled, put on the look he used +when inviting him out for a drink. Mr. Guilfogle was essentially an honest +fellow, harshened by The Job; a well-satisfied victim, with the imagination +clean gone out of him, so that he took follow-up letters and the celerity of +office-boys as the only serious things in the world. He was strong, alive, not +at all a bad chap, merely efficient. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Wrenn, I suppose there’s no use of rubbing it in. Course you +know what I think about the whole thing. It strikes me you’re a fool to +leave a good job. But, after all, that’s your business, not ours. We like +you, and when you get tired of being just a bum, why, come back; we’ll +always try to have a job open for you. Meanwhile I hope you’ll have a +mighty good time, old man. Where you going? When d’yuh start out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, first I’m going to just kind of wander round generally. Lots +of things I’d like to do. I think I’ll get away real soon now…. +Thank you awfully, Mr. Guilfogle, for keeping a place open for me. Course I +prob’ly won’t need it, but gee! I sure do appreciate it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, I don’t believe you’re so plumb crazy about leaving us, +after all, now that the cards are all dole out. Straight now, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, it does make me feel a little blue—been here so long. +But it’ll be awful good to get out at sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh, I know, Wrenn. I’d like to go traveling myself—I +suppose you fellows think I wouldn’t care to go bumming around like you +do and never have to worry about how the firm’s going to break even. +But—Well, good-by, old man, and don’t forget us. Drop me a line now +and then and let me know how you’re getting along. Oh say, if you happen +to see any novelties that look good let us hear about them. But drop me a line, +anyway. We’ll always be glad to hear from you. Well, good-by and good +luck. Sure and drop me a line.” +</p> + +<p> +In the corner which had been his home for eight years Mr. Wrenn could not +devise any new and yet more improved arrangement of the wire baskets and clips +and desk reminders, so he cleaned a pen, blew some gray eraser-dust from under +his iron ink-well standard, and decided that his desk was in order; reflecting: +</p> + +<p> +He’d been there a long time. Now he could never come back to it, no +matter how much he wanted to…. How good the manager had been to him. Gee! he +hadn’t appreciated how considerut Guilfogle was! +</p> + +<p> +He started down the corridor on a round of farewells to the boys. “Too +bad he hadn’t never got better acquainted with them, but it was too late +now. Anyway, they were such fine jolly sports; they’d never miss a stupid +guy like him.” +</p> + +<p> +Just then he met them in the corridor, all of them except Guilfogle, headed by +Rabin, the traveling salesman, and Charley Carpenter, who was bearing a box of +handkerchiefs with a large green-and-crimson-paper label. +</p> + +<p> +“Gov’nor Wrenn,” orated Charley, “upon this suspicious +occasion we have the pleasure of showing by this small token of our esteem our +’preciation of your untiring efforts in the investigation of Mortimer R. +Gugglegiggle of the Graft Trust and— +</p> + +<p> +“Say, old man, joking aside, we’re mighty sorry you’re going +and—uh—well, we’d like to give you something to show +we’re—uh—mighty sorry you’re going. We thought of a box +of cigars, but you don’t smoke much; anyway, these +han’k’chiefs’ll help to show—Three cheers for Wrenn, +fellows!” +</p> + +<p> +Afterward, by his desk, alone, holding the box of handkerchiefs with the +resplendent red-and-green label, Mr. Wrenn began to cry. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He was lying abed at eight-thirty on a morning of late June, two weeks after +leaving the Souvenir Company, deliberately hunting over his pillow for cool +spots, very hot and restless in the legs and enormously depressed in the soul. +He would have got up had there been anything to get up for. There was nothing, +yet he felt uneasily guilty. For two weeks he had been afraid of losing, by +neglect, the job he had already voluntarily given up. So there are men whom the +fear of death has driven to suicide. +</p> + +<p> +Nearly every morning he had driven himself from bed and had finished shaving +before he was quite satisfied that he didn’t have to get to the office on +time. As he wandered about during the day he remarked with frequency, +“I’m scared as teacher’s pet playing hookey for the first +time, like what we used to do in Parthenon.” All proper persons were at +work of a week-day afternoon. What, then, was he doing walking along the street +when all morality demanded his sitting at a desk at the Souvenir Company, being +a little more careful, to win the divine favor of Mortimer R. Guilfogle? +</p> + +<p> +He was sure that if he were already out on the Great Traveling he would be able +to “push the buzzer on himself and get up his nerve.” But he did +not know where to go. He had planned so many trips these years that now he +couldn’t keep any one of them finally decided on for more than an hour. +It rather stretched his short arms to embrace at once a gay old dream of seeing +Venice and the stern civic duty of hunting abominably dangerous beasts in the +Guatemala bush. +</p> + +<p> +The expense bothered him, too. He had through many years so persistently saved +money for the Great Traveling that he begrudged money for that Traveling +itself. Indeed, he planned to spend not more than $300 of the $1,235.80 he had +now accumulated, on his first venture, during which he hoped to learn the trade +of wandering. +</p> + +<p> +He was always influenced by a sentence he had read somewhere about “one +of those globe-trotters you meet carrying a monkey-wrench in Calcutta, then in +raiment and a monocle at the Athenaeum.” He would learn some Kiplingy +trade that would teach him the use of astonishingly technical tools, also +daring and the location of smugglers’ haunts, copra islands, and +whaling-stations with curious names. +</p> + +<p> +He pictured himself shipping as third engineer at the Manihiki Islands or +engaged for taking moving pictures of an aeroplane flight in Algiers. He +<i>had</i> to get away from Zappism. He had to be out on the iron seas, where +the battle-ships and liners went by like a marching military band. But he +couldn’t get started. +</p> + +<p> +Once beyond Sandy Hook, he would immediately know all about engines and +fighting. It would help, he was certain, to be shanghaied. But no matter how +wistfully, no matter how late at night he timorously forced himself to loiter +among unwashed English stokers on West Street, he couldn’t get himself +molested except by glib persons wishing ten cents “for a place to +sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +When he had dallied through breakfast that particular morning he sat about. +Once he had pictured sitting about reading travel-books as a perfect +occupation. But it concealed no exciting little surprises when he could be a +Sunday loafer on any plain Monday. Furthermore, Goaty never made his bed till +noon, and the gray-and-brown-patched coverlet seemed to trail all about the +disordered room. +</p> + +<p> +Midway in a paragraph he rose, threw <i>One Hundred Ways to See California</i> +on the tumbled bed, and ran away from Our Mr. Wrenn. But Our Mr. Wrenn pursued +him along the wharves, where the sun glared on oily water. He had seen the +wharves twelve times that fortnight. In fact, he even cried viciously that +“he had seen too blame much of the blame wharves.” +</p> + +<p> +Early in the afternoon he went to a moving-picture show, but the first sight of +the white giant figures bulking against the gray background was wearily unreal; +and when the inevitable large-eyed black-braided Indian maiden met the +canonical cow-puncher he threshed about in his seat, was irritated by the +nervous click of the machine and the hot stuffiness of the room, and ran away +just at the exciting moment when the Indian chief dashed into camp and summoned +his braves to the war-path. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he could hide from thought at home. +</p> + +<p> +As he came into his room he stood at gaze like a kitten of good family +beholding a mangy mongrel asleep in its pink basket. For on his bed was Mrs. +Zapp, her rotund curves stretching behind her large flat feet, whose soles were +toward him. She was noisily somnolent; her stays creaked regularly as she +breathed, except when she moved slightly and groaned. +</p> + +<p> +Guiltily he tiptoed down-stairs and went snuffling along the dusty unvaried +brick side streets, wondering where in all New York he could go. He read +minutely a placard advertising an excursion to the Catskills, to start that +evening. For an exhilarated moment he resolved to go, but—” oh, +there was a lot of them rich society folks up there.” He bought a morning +<i>American</i> and, sitting in Union Square, gravely studied the humorous +drawings. +</p> + +<p> +He casually noticed the “Help Wanted” advertisements. +</p> + +<p> +They suggested an uninteresting idea that somehow he might find it economical +to go venturing as a waiter or farm-hand. +</p> + +<p> +And so he came to the gate of paradise: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +MEN WANTED. Free passage on cattle-boats to Liverpool feeding cattle. Low fee. +Easy work. Fast boats. Apply International and Atlantic Employment +Bureau,—Greenwich Street. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” he cried, “I guess Providence has picked out my first +hike for me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III<br/> +HE STARTS FOR THE LAND OF ELSEWHERE</h2> + +<p> +The International and Atlantic Employment Bureau is a long dirty room with the +plaster cracked like the outlines on a map, hung with steamship posters and the +laws of New York regarding employment offices, which are regarded as humorous +by the proprietor, M. Baraieff, a short slender ejaculatory person with a +nervous black beard, lively blandness, and a knowledge of all the incorrect +usages of nine languages. Mr. Wrenn edged into this junk-heap of nationalities +with interested wonder. M. Baraieff rubbed his smooth wicked hands together and +bowed a number of times. +</p> + +<p> +Confidentially leaning across the counter, Mr. Wrenn murmured: “Say, I +read your ad. about wanting cattlemen. I want to make a trip to Europe. +How—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, yes, yes, Mistaire. I feex you up right away. Ten dollars +pleas-s-s-s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what does that entitle me to?” +</p> + +<p> +“I tole you I feex you up. Ha! Ha! I know it; you are a gentleman; you +want a nice leetle trip on Europe. Sure. I feex you right up. I send you off on +a nice easy cattleboat where you won’t have to work much hardly any. +Right away it goes. Ten dollars pleas-s-s-s.” +</p> + +<p> +“But when does the boat start? Where does it start from?” Mr. Wrenn +was a bit confused. He had never met a man who grimaced so politely and so +rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Next Tuesday I send you right off.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn regretfully exchanged ten dollars for a card informing Trubiggs, +Atlantic Avenue, Boston, that Mr. “Ren” was to be “ship 1st +poss. catel boat right away and charge my acct. fee paid Baraieff.” +Brightly declaring “I geef you a fine ship,” M. Baraieff added, on +the margin of the card, in copper-plate script, “Best ship, easy +work.” He caroled, “Come early next Tuesday morning, “and +bowed out Mr. Wrenn like a Parisian shopkeeper. The row of waiting +servant-girls curtsied as though they were a hedge swayed by the wind, while +Mr. Wrenn self-consciously hurried to get past them. +</p> + +<p> +He was too excited to worry over the patient and quiet suffering with which +Mrs. Zapp heard the announcement that he was going. That Theresa laughed at him +for a cattleman, while Goaty, in the kitchen, audibly observed that +“nobody but a Yankee would travel in a pig-pen, “merely increased +his joy in moving his belongings to a storage warehouse. +</p> + +<p> +Tuesday morning, clad in a sweater-jacket, tennis-shoes, an old felt hat, a +khaki shirt and corduroys, carrying a suit-case packed to bursting with clothes +and Baedekers, with one hundred and fifty dollars in express-company drafts +craftily concealed, he dashed down to Baraieff’s hole. Though it was only +eight-thirty, he was afraid he was going to be late. +</p> + +<p> +Till 2 <small>P.M</small>. he sat waiting, then was sent to the Joy Steamship +Line wharf with a ticket to Boston and a letter to Trubiggs’s +shipping-office: “Give bearer Ren as per inclosed receet one trip England +catel boat charge my acct. S<small>YLVESTRE</small> B<small>ARAIEFF</small>, N. +Y.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Standing on the hurricane-deck of the Joy Line boat, with his suit-case +guardedly beside him, he crooned to himself tuneless chants with the refrain, +“Free, free, out to sea. Free, free, that’s <i>me!</i>” He +had persuaded himself that there was practically no danger of the boat’s +sinking or catching fire. Anyway, he just wasn’t going to be scared. As +the steamer trudged up East River he watched the late afternoon sun brighten +the Manhattan factories and make soft the stretches of Westchester fields. (Of +course, he “thrilled.”) +</p> + +<p> +He had no state-room, but was entitled to a place in a twelve-berth room in the +hold. Here large farmers without their shoes were grumpily talking all at once, +so he returned to the deck; and the rest of the night, while the other +passengers snored, he sat modestly on a canvas stool, unblinkingly gloating +over a sea-fabric of frosty blue that was shot through with golden threads when +they passed lighthouses or ships. At dawn he was weary, peppery-eyed, but he +viewed the flooding light with approval. +</p> + +<p> +At last, Boston. +</p> + +<p> +The front part of the shipping-office on Atlantic Avenue was a glass-inclosed +room littered with chairs, piles of circulars, old pictures of Cunarders, older +calendars, and directories to be ranked as antiques. In the midst of these +remains a red-headed Yankee of forty, smoking a Pittsburg stogie, sat tilted +back in a kitchen chair, reading the Boston <i>American</i>. Mr. Wrenn +delivered M. Baraieff’s letter and stood waiting, holding his suit-case, +ready to skip out and go aboard a cattle-boat immediately. +</p> + +<p> +The shipping-agent glanced through the letter, then snapped: +</p> + +<p> +“Bryff’s crazy. Always sends ’em too early. Wrenn, you ought +to come to me first. What j’yuh go to that Jew first for? Here he goes +and sends you a day late—or couple days too early. ’F you’d +got here last night I could ’ve sent you off this morning on a Dominion +Line boat. All I got now is a Leyland boat that starts from Portland Saturday. +Le’s see; this is Wednesday. Thursday, Friday—you’ll have to +wait three days. Now you want me to fix you up, don’t you? I might not be +able to get you off till a week from now, but you’d like to get off on a +good boat Saturday instead, wouldn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; I <i>would</i>. I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll try to fix it. You can see for yourself; boats +ain’t leaving every minute just to please Bryff. And it’s the busy +season. Bunches of rah-rah boys wanting to cross, and Canadians wanting to get +back to England, and Jews beating it to Poland—to sling bombs at the +Czar, I guess. And lemme tell you, them Jews is all right. They’re +willing to pay for a man’s time and trouble in getting ’em fixed +up, and so—” +</p> + +<p> +With dignity Mr. William Wrenn stated, “Of course I’ll be glad +to—uh—make it worth your while.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>thought</i> you was a gentleman. Hey, Al! <i>Al!</i>” An +underfed boy with few teeth, dusty and grown out of his trousers, appeared. +“Clear off a chair for the gentleman. Stick that valise on top my desk…. +Sit down, Mr. Wrenn. You see, it’s like this: I’ll tell you in +confidence, you understand. This letter from Bryff ain’t worth the paper +it’s written on. He ain’t got any right to be sending out men for +cattle-boats. Me, I’m running that. I deal direct with all the Boston and +Portland lines. If you don’t believe it just go out in the back room and +ask any of the cattlemen out there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I see,” Mr. Wrenn observed, as though he were ill, and toed +an old almanac about the floor. “Uh—Mr.—Trubiggs, is +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yump. Yump, my boy. Trubiggs. Tru by name and true by nature. +Heh?” +</p> + +<p> +This last was said quite without conviction. It was evidently a joke which had +come down from earlier years. Mr. Wrenn ignored it and declared, as stoutly as +he could: +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Mr. Trubiggs, I’d be willing to pay you—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you just how it is, Mr. Wrenn. I ain’t one of +these Sheeny employment bureaus; I’m an American; I like to look out for +Americans. Even if you <i>didn’t</i> come to me first I’ll watch +out for your interests, same’s if they was mine. Now, do you want to get +fixed up with a nice fast boat that leaves Portland next Saturday, just a +couple of days’ wait?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I <i>do</i>, Mr. Trubiggs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my list is really full—men waiting, too—but if it +’d be worth five dollars to you to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s the five dollars.” +</p> + +<p> +The shipping-agent was disgusted. He had estimated from Mr. Wrenn’s cheap +sweater-jacket and tennis-shoes that he would be able to squeeze out only three +or four dollars, and here he might have made ten. More in sorrow than in anger: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you understand I may have a lot of trouble working you in on +the <i>next</i> boat, you coming as late as this. Course five dollars is less +’n what I usually get.” He contemptuously tossed the bill on his +desk. “If you want me to slip a little something extra to the +agents—” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was too head-achy to be customarily timid. “Let’s see +that. Did I give you only five dollars?” Receiving the bill, he folded it +with much primness, tucked it into the pocket of his shirt, and remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, you said you’d fix me up for five dollars. Besides, that +letter from Baraieff is a form with your name printed on it; so I know you do +business with him right along. If five dollars ain’t enough, why, then +you can just go to hell, Mr. Trubiggs; yes, sir, that’s what you can do. +I’m just getting tired of monkeying around. If five <i>is</i> enough +I’ll give this back to you Friday, when you send me off to Portland, if +you give me a receipt. There!” He almost snarled, so weary and +discouraged was he. +</p> + +<p> +Now, Trubiggs was a warm-hearted rogue, and he liked the society of what he +called “white people.” He laughed, poked a Pittsburg stogie at Mr. +Wrenn, and consented: +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I’ll fix you up. Have a smoke. Pay me the five Friday, +or pay it to my foreman when he puts you on the cattle-boat. I don’t care +a rap which. You’re all right. Can’t bluff you, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +And, further bluffing Mr. Wrenn, he suggested to him a lodging-house for his +two nights in Boston. “Tell the clerk that red-headed Trubiggs sent you, +and he’ll give you the best in the house. Tell him you’re a friend +of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Wrenn had gone Mr. Trubiggs remarked to some one, by telephone, +“’Nother sucker coming, Blaugeld. Now don’t try to do me out +of my bit or I’ll cap for some other joint, understand? Huh? Yuh, stick +him for a thirty-five-cent bed. S’ long.” +</p> + +<p> +The caravan of Trubiggs’s cattlemen who left for Portland by night +steamer, Friday, was headed by a bulky-shouldered boss, who wore no coat and +whose corduroy vest swung cheerfully open. A motley troupe were the +cattlemen—Jews with small trunks, large imitation-leather valises and +assorted bundles, a stolid prophet-bearded procession of weary men in tattered +derbies and sweat-shop clothes. +</p> + +<p> +There were Englishmen with rope-bound pine chests. A lewd-mouthed American +named Tim, who said he was a hatter out of work, and a loud-talking tough +called Pete mingled with a straggle of hoboes. +</p> + +<p> +The boss counted the group and selected his confidants for the trip to +Portland—Mr. Wrenn and a youth named Morton. +</p> + +<p> +Morton was a square heavy-fleshed young man with stubby hands, who, up to his +eyes, was stolid and solid as a granite monument, but merry of eye and hinting +friendliness in his tousled soft-brown hair. He was always wielding a pipe and +artfully blowing smoke through his nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn and he smiled at each other searchingly as the Portland boat pulled +out, and a wind swept straight from the Land of Elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner Morton, smoking a pipe shaped somewhat like a golf-stick head and +somewhat like a toad, at the rail of the steamer, turned to Mr. Wrenn with: +</p> + +<p> +“Classy bunch of cattlemen we’ve got to go with. Not!… My +name’s Morton.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awful glad to meet you, Mr. Morton. My name’s +Wrenn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glad to be off at last, ain’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Golly! I should say I <i>am!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“So’m I. Been waiting for this for years. I’m a clerk for the +P. R. R. in N’ York.” +</p> + +<p> +“I come from New York, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“So? Lived there long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh-huh, I—” began Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I been working for the Penn. for seven years now. Now I’ve +got a vacation of three months. On me. Gives me a chance to travel a little. +Got ten plunks and a second-class ticket back from Glasgow. But I’m going +to see England and France just the same. Prob’ly Germany, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Second class? Why don’t you go steerage, and save?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, got to come back like a gentleman. You know. You’re from New +York, too, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m with an art-novelty company on Twenty-eighth Street. I +been wanting to get away for quite some time, too…. How are you going to travel +on ten dollars?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, work m’ way. Cinch. Always land on my feet. Not on my uppers, +at that. I’m only twenty-eight, but I’ve been on my own, like the +English fellow says, since I was twelve…. Well, how about you? Traveling or +going somewhere?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just traveling. I’m glad we’re going together, Mr. Morton. I +don’t think most of these cattlemen are very nice. Except for the old +Jews. They seem to be fine old coots. They make you think of—oh—you +know—prophets and stuff. Watch ’em, over there, making tea. I +suppose the steamer grub ain’t kosher. I seen one on the Joy Line saying +his prayers—I suppose he was—in a kind of shawl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well! You don’t say so!” +</p> + +<p> +Distinctly, Mr. Wrenn felt that he was one of the gentlemen who, in Kipling, +stand at steamer rails exchanging observations on strange lands. He uttered, +cosmopolitanly: +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! Look at that sunset. Ain’t that grand!” +</p> + +<p> +“Holy smoke! it sure is. I don’t see how anybody could believe in +religion after looking at that.” +</p> + +<p> +Shocked and confused at such a theory, yet excited at finding that Morton +apparently had thoughts, Mr. Wrenn piped: “Honestly, I don’t see +that at <i>all</i>. I don’t see how anybody could disbelieve anything +after a sunset like that. Makes me believe all sorts of thing—gets me +going—I imagine I’m all sorts of places—on the Nile and so +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure! That’s just it. Everything’s so peaceful and natural. +Just <i>is</i>. Gives the imagination enough to do, even by itself, without +having to have religion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” reflected Mr. Wrenn, “I don’t hardly ever go to +church. I don’t believe much in all them highbrow sermons that +don’t come down to brass tacks—ain’t got nothing to do with +real folks. But just the same, I love to go up to St. Patrick’s +Cathedral. Why, I get real <i>thrilled</i>—I hope you won’t think +I’m trying to get high-browed, Mr. Morton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no. Cer’nly not. I understand. Gwan.” +</p> + +<p> +“It gets me going when I look down the aisle at the altar and see the +arches and so on. And the priests in their robes—they look so—so +way up—oh, I dunno just how to say it—so kind of +<i>uplifted</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, I know. Just the esthetic end of the game. Esthetic, you +know—the beauty part of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh, sure, that’s the word. ’Sthetic, that’s what it +is. Yes, ’sthetic. But, just the same, it makes me feel’s though I +believed in all sorts of things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you what I believe may happen, though,” exulted Morton. +“This socialism, and maybe even these here International Workers of the +World, may pan out as a new kind of religion. I don’t know much about it, +I got to admit. But looks as though it might be that way. It’s dead +certain the old political parties are just gangs—don’t stand for +anything except the name. But this comrade business—good stunt. +Brotherhood of man—real brotherhood. My idea of religion. One that is +because it’s got to be, not just because it always has been. Yessir, me +for a religion of guys working together to make things easier for each +other.” +</p> + +<p> +“You bet!” commented Mr. Wrenn, and they smote each other upon the +shoulder and laughed together in a fine flame of shared hope. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I knew something about this socialism stuff,” mused Mr. +Wrenn, with tilted head, examining the burnt-umber edges of the sunset. +</p> + +<p> +“Great stuff. Not working for some lazy cuss that’s inherited the +right to boss you. And <i>international</i> brotherhood, not just +neighborhoods. New thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! I surely would like that, awfully,” sighed Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +He saw the processional of world brotherhood tramp steadily through the paling +sunset; saffron-vestured Mandarin marching by flax-faced Norseman and languid +South Sea Islander—the diverse peoples toward whom he had always yearned. +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t care so much for some of these ranting street-corner +socialists, though,” mused Morton. “The kind that holler +‘Come get saved <i>our</i> way or go to hell! Keep off scab guides to +prosperity.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh, sure. Ha! ha! ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“Huh! huh!” +</p> + +<p> +Morton soon had another thought. “Still, same time, us guys that do the +work have got to work out something for ourselves. We can’t bank on the +rah-rah boys that wear eye-glasses and condescend to like us, cause they think +we ain’t entirely too dirty for ’em to associate with, and all +these writer guys and so on. That’s where you got to hand it to the +street-corner shouters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s <i>so</i>. Y’ right there, I guess, all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +They looked at each other and laughed again; initiated friends; tasting each +other’s souls. They shared sandwiches and confessions. When the other +passengers had gone to bed and the sailors on watch seemed lonely the two men +were still declaring, shyly but delightedly, that “things is +curious.” +</p> + +<p> +In the damp discomfort of early morning the cattlemen shuffled from the steamer +at Portland and were herded to a lunch-room by the boss, who cheerfully smoked +his corn-cob and ejaculated to Mr. Wrenn and Morton such interesting facts as: +</p> + +<p> +“Trubiggs is a lobster. You don’t want to let the bosses bluff you +aboard the <i>Merian</i>. They’ll try to chase you in where the +steers’ll gore you. The grub’ll be—” +</p> + +<p> +“What grub do you get?” +</p> + +<p> +“Scouse and bread. And water.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s scouse?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beef stew without the beef. Oh, the grub’ll be rotten. Trubiggs is +a lobster. He wouldn’t be nowhere if ’t wa’n’t for +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn appreciated England’s need of roast beef, but he timidly +desired not to be gored by steers, which seemed imminent, before breakfast +coffee. The streets were coldly empty, and he was sleepy, and Morton was +silent. At the restaurant, sitting on a high stool before a pine counter, he +choked over an egg sandwich made with thick crumby slices of a bread that had +no personality to it. He roved forlornly about Portland, beside the gloomy +pipe-valiant Morton, fighting two fears: the company might not need all of them +this trip, and he might have to wait; secondly, if he incredibly did get +shipped and started for England the steers might prove dreadfully dangerous. +After intense thinking he ejaculated, “Gee! it’s be bored or get +gored.” Which was much too good not to tell Morton, so they laughed very +much, and at ten o’clock were signed on for the trip and led, whooping, +to the deck of the S.S. <i>Merian</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Cattle were still struggling down the chutes from the dock. The dirty decks +were confusingly littered with cordage and the cattlemen’s luggage. The +Jewish elders stared sepulchrally at the wilderness of open hatches and rude +passageways, as though they were prophesying death. +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Wrenn, standing sturdily beside his suit-case to guard it, fawned with +romantic love upon the rusty iron sides of their pilgrims’ caravel; and +as the <i>Merian</i> left the wharf with no more handkerchief-waving or tears +than attends a ferry’s leaving he mumbled: +</p> + +<p> +“Free, free, out to sea. Free, free, that’s <i>me!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Then, “Gee!… Gee whittakers!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV<br/> +HE BECOMES THE GREAT LITTLE BILL WRENN</h2> + +<p> +When the <i>Merian</i> was three days out from Portland the frightened +cattleman stiff known as “Wrennie” wanted to die, for he was now +sure that the smell of the fo’c’sle, in which he was lying on a +thin mattress of straw covered with damp gunny-sacking, both could and would +become daily a thicker smell, a stronger smell, a smell increasingly diverse +and deadly. +</p> + +<p> +Though it was so late as eight bells of the evening, Pete, the tough factory +hand, and Tim, the down-and-out hatter, were still playing seven-up at the +dirty fo’c’sle table, while McGarver, under-boss of the Morris +cattle gang, lay in his berth, heavily studying the game and blowing sulphurous +fumes of Lunch Pail Plug Cut tobacco up toward Wrennie. +</p> + +<p> +Pete, the tough, was very evil. He sneered. He stole. He bullied. He was a +drunkard and a person without cleanliness of speech. Tim, the hatter, was a +loud-talking weakling, under Pete’s domination. Tim wore a dirty rubber +collar without a tie, and his soul was like his neckware. +</p> + +<p> +McGarver, the under-boss, was a good shepherd among the men, though he had +recently lost the head foremanship by a spree complicated with language and +violence. He looked like one of the <i>Merian</i> bulls, with broad short neck +and short curly hair above a thick-skinned deeply wrinkled low forehead. He +never undressed, but was always seen, as now, in heavy shoes and blue-gray +woolen socks tucked over the bottoms of his overalls. He was gruff and kind and +tyrannical and honest. +</p> + +<p> +Wrennie shook and drew his breath sharply as the foghorn yawped out its +“Whawn-n-n-n” again, reminding him that they were still in the Bank +fog; that at any moment they were likely to be stunned by a heart-stopping +crash as some liner’s bow burst through the fo’c’sle’s +walls in a collision. Bow-plates buckling in and shredding, the in-thrust of an +enormous black bow, water flooding in, cries and—However, the horn did at +least show that They were awake up there on the bridge to steer him through the +fog; and weren’t They experienced seamen? Hadn’t They made this +trip ever so many times and never got killed? Wouldn’t They take all +sorts of pains on Their own account as well as on his? +</p> + +<p> +But—just the same, would he really ever get to England alive? And if he +did, would he have to go on holding his breath in terror for nine more days? +Would the fo’c’sle always keep heaving up—up—up, like +this, then down—down—down, as though it were going to sink? +</p> + +<p> +“How do yuh like de fog-horn, Wrennie?” +</p> + +<p> +Pete, the tough, spit the question up at him from a corner of his mouth. +“Hope we don’t run into no ships.” +</p> + +<p> +He winked at Tim, the weakling hatter, who took the cue and mourned: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m kinda afraid we’re going to, ain’t you, Pete? The +mate was telling me he was scared we would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sures’ t’ing you know. Hey, Wrennie, wait till youse have to +beat it down-stairs and tie up a bull in a storm. Hully gee! Youse’ll +last quick on de game, Birdie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up,” snapped Wrennie’s friend Morton. +</p> + +<p> +But Morton was seasick; and Pete, not heeding him, outlined other dangers which +he was happily sure were threatening them. Wrennie shivered to hear that the +“grub ’d git worse.” He writhed under Pete’s loud +questions about his loss, in some cattle-pen, of the gray-and-scarlet +sweater-jacket which he had proudly and gaily purchased in New York for his +work on the ship. And the card-players assured him that his suit-case, which he +had intrusted to the Croac ship’s carpenter, would probably be stolen by +“Satan.” +</p> + +<p> +Satan! Wrennie shuddered still more. For Satan, the gaunt-jawed hook-nosed +rail-faced head foreman, diabolically smiling when angry, sardonically sneering +when calm, was a lean human whip-lash. Pete sniggered. He dilated upon +Satan’s wrath at Wrennie for not “coming across” with ten +dollars for a bribe as he, Pete, had done. +</p> + +<p> +(He lied, of course. And his words have not been given literally. They were not +beautiful words.) +</p> + +<p> +McGarver, the straw-boss, would always lie awake to enjoy a good brisk indecent +story, but he liked Wrennie’s admiration of him, so, lunging with his +bull-like head out of his berth, he snorted: +</p> + +<p> +“Hey, you, Pete, it’s time to pound your ear. Cut it out.” +</p> + +<p> +Wrennie called down, sternly, “I ain’t no theological student, +Pete, and I don’t mind profanity, but I wish you wouldn’t talk like +a garbage-scow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hey, Poicy, did yuh bring your dictionary?” Pete bellowed to Tim, +two feet distant from him. To Wrennie, “Say, Gladys, ain’t you +afraid one of them long woids like, t’eological, will turn around and +bite you right on the wrist?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dry up!” irritatedly snapped a Canadian. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, cut it out, you—,” groaned another. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up,” added McGarver, the straw-boss. “Both of +you.” Raging: “Gwan to bed, Pete, or I’ll beat your block +clean off. I mean it, see? <i>Hear me?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, Pete heard him. Doubtless the first officer on the bridge heard, too, and +perhaps the inhabitants of Newfoundland. But Pete took his time in scratching +the back of his neck and stretching before he crawled into his berth. For half +an hour he talked softly to Tim, for Wrennie’s benefit, stating his +belief that Satan, the head boss, had once thrown overboard a Jew much like +Wrennie, and was likely thus to serve Wrennie, too. Tim pictured the result +when, after the capsizing of the steamer which would undoubtedly occur if this +long sickening motion kept up, Wrennie had to take to a boat with Satan. +</p> + +<p> +The fingers of Wrennie curled into shape for strangling some one. +</p> + +<p> +When Pete was asleep he worried off into thin slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Then, there was Satan, the head boss, jerking him out of his berth, stirring +his cramped joints to another dawn of drudgery—two hours of work and two +of waiting before the daily eight-o’clock insult called breakfast. He +tugged on his shoes, marveling at Mr. Wrenn’s really being there, at his +sitting in cramped stoop on the side of a berth in a dark filthy place that +went up and down like a freight elevator, subject to the orders of persons whom +he did not in the least like. +</p> + +<p> +Through the damp gray sea-air he staggered hungrily along the gangway to the +hatch amidships, and trembled down the iron ladder to McGarver’s crew +’tween-decks. +</p> + +<p> +First, watering the steers. Sickened by walking backward with pails of water he +carried till he could see and think of nothing in the world save the +water-butt, the puddle in front of it, and the cattlemen mercilessly dipping +out pails there, through centuries that would never end. How those steers did +drink! +</p> + +<p> +McGarver’s favorite bull, which he called “the Grenadier,” +took ten pails and still persisted in leering with dripping gray mouth beyond +the headboard, trying to reach more. As Wrennie was carrying a pail to the +heifers beyond, the Grenadier’s horn caught and tore his overalls. The +boat lurched. The pail whirled out of his hand. He grasped an iron stanchion +and kicked the Grenadier in the jaw till the steer backed off, a reformed +character. +</p> + +<p> +McGarver cheered, for such kicks were a rule of the game. +</p> + +<p> +“Good work,” ironically remarked Tim, the weakling hatter. +</p> + +<p> +“You go to hell,” snapped Wrennie, and Tim looked much more +respectful. +</p> + +<p> +But Wrennie lost this credit before they had finished feeding out the hay, for +he grew too dizzy to resent Tim’s remarks. +</p> + +<p> +Straining to pitch forkfuls into the pens while the boat rolled, slopping along +the wet gangway, down by the bunkers of coal, where the heat seemed a +close-wound choking shroud and the darkness was made only a little pale by +light coming through dust-caked port-holes, he sneezed and coughed and grunted +till he was exhausted. The floating bits of hay-dust were a thousand impish +hands with poisoned nails scratching at the roof of his mouth. His skin +prickled all over. He constantly discovered new and aching muscles. But he +wabbled on until he finished the work, fifteen minutes after Tim had given out. +</p> + +<p> +He crawled up to the main deck and huddled in the shelter of a pile of +hay-bales where Pete was declaring to Tim and the rest that Satan +“couldn’t never get nothing on him.” +</p> + +<p> +Morton broke into Pete’s publicity with the question, “Say, is it +straight what they say, Pete, that you’re the guy that owns the Leyland +Line and that’s why you know so much more than the rest of us poor +lollops? Watson, the needle, quick!” [Applause and laughter.] +</p> + +<p> +Wrennie felt personally grateful to Morton for this, but he went up to the aft +top deck, where he could lie alone on a pile of tarpaulins. He made himself +observe the sea which, as Kipling and Jack London had specifically promised him +in their stories, surrounded him, everywhere shining free; but he glanced at it +only once. To the north was a liner bound for home. +</p> + +<p> +Home! Gee! That <i>was</i> rubbing it in! While at work, whether he was sick or +not, he could forget—things. But the liner, fleeting on with bright ease, +made the cattle-boat seem about as romantic as Mrs. Zapp’s kitchen sink. +</p> + +<p> +Why, he wondered—“why had he been a chump? Him a wanderer? No; he +was a hired man on a sea-going dairy-farm. Well, he’d get onto this +confounded job before he was through with it, but then—gee! back to +God’s Country!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +While the <i>Merian</i>, eleven days out, pleasantly rocked through the Irish +Sea, with the moon revealing the coast of Anglesey, one Bill Wrenn lay on the +after-deck, condescending to the heavens. It was so warm that they did not need +to sleep below, and half a dozen of the cattlemen had brought their mattresses +up on deck. Beside Bill Wrenn lay the man who had given him that +name—Tim, the hatter, who had become weakly alarmed and admiring as +Wrennie learned to rise feeling like a boy in early vacation-time, and to find +shouting exhilaration in sending a forkful of hay fifteen good feet. +</p> + +<p> +Morton, who lay near by, had also adopted the name “Bill Wrenn.” +Most of the trip Morton had discussed Pete and Tim instead of the fact that +“things is curious.” Mr. Wrenn had been jealous at first, but when +he learned from Morton the theory that even a Pete was a “victim of +’vironment” he went out for knowing him quite systematically. +</p> + +<p> +To McGarver he had been “Bill Wrenn” since the fifth day, when he +had kept a hay-bale from slipping back into the hold on the boss’s head. +Satan and Pete still called him “Wrennie,” but he was not thinking +about them just now with Tim listening admiringly to his observations on +socialism. +</p> + +<p> +Tim fell asleep. Bill Wrenn lay quiet and let memory color the sky above him. +He recalled the gardens of water which had flowered in foam for him, strange +ships and nomadic gulls, and the schools of sleekly black porpoises that, for +him, had whisked through violet waves. Most of all, he brought back the +yesterday’s long excitement and delight of seeing the Irish coast +hills—his first foreign land—whose faint sky fresco had seemed +magical with the elfin lore of Ireland, a country that had ever been to him the +haunt not of potatoes and politicians, but of fays. He had wanted fays. They +were not common on the asphalt of West Sixteenth Street. But now he had seen +them beckoning in Wanderland. +</p> + +<p> +He was falling asleep under the dancing dome of the sky, a happy Mr. Wrenn, +when he was aroused as a furious Bill, the cattleman. Pete was clogging near +by, singing hoarsely, “Dey was a skoit and ’er name was +Goity.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shut up!” commanded Bill Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, be careful!” the awakened Tim implored of him. Pete snorted: +“Who says to ‘shut up,’ hey? Who was it, Satan?” +</p> + +<p> +From the capstan, where he was still smoking, the head foreman muttered: +“What’s the odds? The little man won’t say it again.” +</p> + +<p> +Pete stood by Bill Wrenn’s mattress. “Who said ‘shut +up’?” sounded ominously. +</p> + +<p> +Bill popped out of bed with what he regarded as a vicious fighting-crouch. For +he was too sleepy to be afraid. “I did! What you going to do about +it?” More mildly, as a fear of his own courage began to form, “I +want to sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! You want to sleep. Little mollycoddle wants to sleep, does he? Come +here!” +</p> + +<p> +The tough grabbed at Bill’s shirt-collar across the mattress. Bill +ducked, stuck out his arm wildly, and struck Pete, half by accident. Roaring, +Pete bunted him, and he went down, with Pete kneeling on his stomach and +pounding him. +</p> + +<p> +Morton and honest McGarver, the straw-boss, sprang to drag off Pete, while +Satan, the panther, with the first interest they had ever seen in his eyes, +snarled: “Let ’em fight fair. Rounds. You’re a’ right, +Bill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right,” commended Morton. +</p> + +<p> +Armored with Satan’s praise, firm but fearful in his rubber sneakers, +surprised and shocked to find himself here doing this, Bill Wrenn squared at +the rowdy. The moon touched sadly the lightly sketched Anglesey coast and the +rippling wake, but Bill Wrenn, oblivious of dream moon and headland, faced his +fellow-bruiser. +</p> + +<p> +They circled. Pete stuck out his foot gently. Morton sprang in, bawling +furiously, “None o’ them rough-and-tumble tricks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right-o,” added McGarver. +</p> + +<p> +Pete scowled. He was left powerless. He puffed and grew dizzy as Bill Wrenn +danced delicately about him, for he could do nothing without back-street +tactics. He did bloody the nose of Bill and pummel his ribs, but many +cigarettes and much whisky told, and he was ready to laugh foolishly and make +peace when, at the end of the sixth round, he felt Bill’s neat little +fist in a straight—and entirely accidental—rip to the point of his +jaw. +</p> + +<p> +Pete sent his opponent spinning with a back-hander which awoke all the cruelty +of the terrible Bill. Silently Bill Wrenn plunged in with a smash! smash! +smash! like a murderous savage, using every grain of his strength. +</p> + +<p> +Let us turn from the lamentable luck of Pete. He had now got the idea that his +supposed victim could really fight. Dismayed, shocked, disgusted, he stumbled +and sought to flee, and was sent flat. +</p> + +<p> +This time it was the great little Bill who had to be dragged off. McGarver held +him, kicking and yammering, his mild mustache bristling like a battling +cat’s, till the next round, when Pete was knocked out by a clumsy +whirlwind of fists. +</p> + +<p> +He lay on the deck, with Bill standing over him and demanding, +“What’s my name, <i>heh?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I t’ink it’s Bill now, all right, Wrennie, old +hoss—Bill, old hoss,” groaned Pete. +</p> + +<p> +He was permitted to sneak off into oblivion. +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn went below. In the dark passage by the fidley he fell to tremorous +weeping. But the brackish hydrant water that stopped his nose-bleed saved him +from hysterics. He climbed to the top deck, and now he could again see his +brother pilgrim, the moon. +</p> + +<p> +The stiffs and bosses were talking excitedly of the fight. Tim rushed up to +gurgle: “Great, Bill, old man! You done just what I’d +’a’ done if he’d cussed me. I told you Pete was a +bluffer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Git out,” said Satan. +</p> + +<p> +Tim fled. +</p> + +<p> +Morton came up, looked at Bill Wrenn, pounded him on the shoulder, and went off +to his mattress. The other stiffs slouched away, but McGarver and Satan were +still discussing the fight. +</p> + +<p> +Snuggling on the hard black pile of tarpaulins, Bill talked to them, warmed to +them, and became Mr. Wrenn. He announced his determination to wander adown +every shining road of Europe. +</p> + +<p> +“Nice work.” “Sure.” “You’ll make a snappy +little ole globe-trotter.” “Sure; ought to be able to get the +slickest kind of grub for four bits a day.” “Nice work,” +Satan interjected from time to time, with smooth irony. “Sure. Go ahead. +Like to hear your plans.” +</p> + +<p> +McGarver broke in: “Cut that out, Marvin. You’re a +‘Satan’ all right. Quit your kidding the little man. He’s all +right. And he done fine on the job last three-four days.” +</p> + +<p> +Lying on his mattress, Bill stared at the network of the ratlines against the +brilliant sky. The crisscross lines made him think of the ruled order-blanks of +the Souvenir Company. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” he mused, “I’d like to know if Jake is handling +my work the way we—they—like it. I’d like to see the old +office again, and Charley Carpenter, just for a couple of minutes. Gee! I wish +they could have seen me put it all over Pete to-night! That’s what +I’m going to do to the blooming Englishmen if they don’t like +me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The S.S. <i>Merian</i> panted softly beside the landing-stage at Birkenhead, +Liverpool’s Jersey City, resting in the sunshine after her voyage, while +the cattle were unloaded. They had encountered fog-banks at the mouth of the +Mersey River. Mr. Wrenn had ecstatically watched the shores of +England—<i>England!</i>—ride at him through the fog, and had panted +over the lines of English villas among the dunes. It was like a dream, yet the +shore had such amazingly safe solid colors, real red and green and yellow, when +contrasted with the fog-wet deck unearthily glancing with mist-lights. +</p> + +<p> +Now he was seeing his first foreign city, and to Morton, stolidly curious +beside him, he could say nothing save “Gee!” With church-tower and +swarthy dome behind dome, Liverpool lay across the Mersey. Up through the +Liverpool streets that ran down to the river, as though through peep-holes +slashed straight back into the Middle Ages, his vision plunged, and it wandered +unchecked through each street while he hummed: +</p> + +<p> +“Free, free, in Eu-ro-pee, that’s <i>me!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +The cattlemen were called to help unload the remaining hay. They made a game of +it. Even Satan smiled, even the Jewish elders were lightly affable as they made +pretendedly fierce gestures at the squat patient hay-bales. Tim, the hatter, +danced a limber foolish jig upon the deck, and McGarver bellowed, “The +bon-nee bon-nee banks of Loch Lo-o-o-o-mond.” +</p> + +<p> +The crowd bawled: “Come on, Bill Wrenn; your turn. Hustle up with that +bale, Pete, or we’ll sic Bill on you.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn, standing very dignified, piped: “I’m Colonel Armour. I +own all these cattle, ’cept the Morris uns, see? Gotta do what I say, +savvy? Tim, walk on your ear.” +</p> + +<p> +The hatter laid his head on the deck and waved his anemic legs in accordance +with directions from Colonel Armour (late Wrenn). +</p> + +<p> +The hay was off. The <i>Merian</i> tooted and headed across the Mersey to the +Huskinson Dock, in Liverpool, while the cattlemen played tag about the deck. +Whooping and laughing, they made last splashy toilets at the water-butts, +dragged out their luggage, and descended to the dock-house. +</p> + +<p> +As the cattlemen passed Bill Wrenn and Morton, shouting affectionate good-bys +in English or courteous Yiddish, Bill commented profanely to Morton on the fact +that the solid stone floor of the great shed seemed to have enough sea-motion +to “make a guy sick.” It was nearly his last utterance as Bill +Wrenn. He became Mr. Wrenn, absolute Mr. Wrenn, on the street, as he saw a real +English bobby, a real English carter, and the sign, “Cocoa House. Tea +<i>Id</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +England! +</p> + +<p> +“Now for some real grub!” cried Morton. “No more scouse and +willow-leaf tea.” +</p> + +<p> +Stretching out their legs under a table glorified with toasted Sally Lunns and +Melton Mowbrays, served by a waitress who said “Thank <i>you</i>” +with a rising inflection, they gazed at the line of mirrors running Britishly +all around the room over the long lounge seat, and smiled with the triumphant +content which comes to him whose hunger for dreams and hunger for meat-pies are +satisfied together. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V<br/> +HE FINDS MUCH QUAINT ENGLISH FLAVOR</h2> + +<p> +Big wharves, all right. England sure is queen of the sea, heh? Busy town, +Liverpool. But, say, there is a quaint English flavor to these shops…. Look at +that: ‘Red Lion Inn.’… ‘Overhead trams’ they call the +elevated. Real flavor, all right. English as can be…. I sure like to wander +around these little shops. Street crowd. That’s where you get the real +quaint flavor.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus Morton, to the glowing Mr. Wrenn, as they turned into St. George’s +Square, noting the Lipton’s Tea establishment. <i>Sir</i> Thomas +Lipton—wasn’t he a friend of the king? Anyway, he was some kind of +a lord, and he owned big society racing-yachts. +</p> + +<p> +In the grandiose square Mr. Wrenn prayerfully remarked, “Gee!” +</p> + +<p> +“Greek temple. Fine,” agreed Morton. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s St. George’s Hall, where they have big organ +concerts,” explained Mr. Wrenn. “And there’s the art-gallery +across the Square, and here’s the Lime Street Station.” He had +studied his Baedeker as club women study the cyclopedia. “Let’s go +over and look at the trains.” +</p> + +<p> +“Funny little boxes, ain’t they, Wrenn, them cars! Quaint things. +What is it they call ’em—carriages? First, second, third +class….” +</p> + +<p> +“Just like in books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Booking-office. That’s tickets…. Funny, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn insisted on paying for both their high teas at the cheap restaurant, +timidly but earnestly. Morton was troubled. As they sat on a park bench, +smoking those most Anglican cigarettes, “Dainty Bits,” Mr. Wrenn +begged: +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing. Just thinking.” Morton smiled artificially. He added, +presently: “Well, old Bill, got to make the break. Can’t go on +living on you this way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, thunder! You ain’t living on me. Besides, I want you to. +Honest I do. We can have a whole lot better time together, Morty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—Nope; I can’t do it. Nice of you. Can’t do +it, though. Got to go on my own, like the fellow says.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, come on. Look here; it’s my money, ain’t it? I got a +right to spend it the way I want to, haven’t I? Aw, come on. We’ll +bum along together, and then when the money is gone we’ll get some kind +of job together. Honest, I want you to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hunka. Don’t believe you’d care for the kind of knockabout +jobs I’ll have to get.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure I would. Aw, come on, Morty. I—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re too level-headed to like to bum around like a fool hobo. +You’d dam soon get tired of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What if I did? Morty, look here. I’ve been learning something on +this trip. I’ve always wanted to just do one thing—see foreign +places. Well, I want to do that just as much as ever. But there’s +something that’s a whole lot more important. Somehow, I ain’t ever +had many friends. Some ways you’re about the best friend I’ve ever +had—you ain’t neither too highbrow or too lowbrow. And this +friendship business—it means such an awful lot. It’s like what I +was reading about—something by Elbert Hubbard or—thunder, I +can’t remember his name, but, anyway, it’s one of those poet guys +that writes for the back page of the <i>Journal</i>—something about a +<i>joyous adventure</i>. That’s what being friends is. Course you +understand I wouldn’t want to say this to most people, but you’ll +understand how I mean. It’s—this friendship business is just like +those old crusaders— you know—they’d start out on a fine +morning—you know; armor shining, all that stuff. It wouldn’t make +any dif. what they met as long as they was fighting together. Rainy nights with +folks sneaking through the rain to get at ’em, and all sorts of +things— ready for anything, long as they just stuck together. +That’s the way this friendship business is, I b’lieve. Just like it +said in the <i>Journal</i>. Yump, sure is. Gee! it’s—Chance to tell +folks what you think and really get some fun out of seeing places together. And +I ain’t ever done it much. Course I don’t mean to say I’ve +been living off on any blooming desert island all my life, but, just the same, +I’ve always been kind of alone—not knowing many folks. You know how +it is in a New York rooming-house. So now—Aw, don’t slip up on me, +Morty. Honestly, I don’t care what kind of work we do as long as we can +stick together; I don’t care a hang if we don’t get anything better +to do than scrub floors!” +</p> + +<p> +Morton patted his arm and did not answer for a while. Then: +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh, I know how you mean. And it’s good of you to like beating it +around with me. But you sure got the exaggerated idee of me. And you’d +get sick of the holes I’m likely to land in.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a certain pride which seemed dreadfully to shut Mr. Wrenn out as +Morton added: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, man, I’m going to do all of Europe. From the Turkish jails +to—oh, St. Petersburg…. You made good on the <i>Merian</i>, all right. +But you do like things shipshape.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’d—” +</p> + +<p> +“We might stay friends if we busted up now and met in New York again. But +not if you get into all sorts of bum places w—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, look here, Morty—” +</p> + +<p> +“—with me…. However, I’ll think it over. Let’s not talk +about it till to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please do think it over, Morty, old man, won’t you? And +to-night you’ll let me take you to a music-hall, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—yes,” Morton hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +A music-hall—not mere vaudeville! Mr. Wrenn could hardly keep his feet on +the pavement as they scampered to it and got ninepenny seats. He would have +thought it absurd to pay eighteen cents for a ticket, but pence—They were +out at nine-thirty. Happily tired, Mr. Wrenn suggested that they go to a +temperance hotel at his expense, for he had read in Baedeker that temperance +hotels were respectable—also cheap. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” frowned Morton. “Tell you what you do, Bill. You go +to a hotel, and I’ll beat it down to a lodging-house on Duke Street…. +Juke Street!… Remember how I ran onto Pete on the street? He told me you could +get a cot down there for fourpence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, come on to a hotel. Please do! It ’d just hurt me to think of +you sleeping in one of them holes. I wouldn’t sleep a bit +if—” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, for the love of Mike, Wrenn, get wise! Get wise, son! I’m not +going to sponge on you, and that’s all there is to it.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn strode into their company for a minute, and quoth the terrible Bill: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you don’t need to get so sore about it. I don’t go +around asking folks can I give ’em a meal ticket all the time, let me +tell you, and when I do—Oh rats! Say, I didn’t mean to get huffy, +Morty. But, doggone you, old man, you can’t shake me this easy. I sye, +old top, I’m peeved; yessir. We’ll go Dutch to a lodging-house, or +even walk the streets.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, sir; all right. I’ll take you up on that. We’ll +sleep in an areaway some place.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked to the outskirts of Liverpool, questing the desirable dark alley. +Awed by the solid quietude and semigrandeur of the large private estates, +through narrow streets where dim trees leaned over high walls whose long silent +stretches were broken only by mysterious little doors, they tramped bashfully, +inspecting, but always rejecting, nooks by lodge gates. +</p> + +<p> +They came to a stone church with a porch easily reached from the street, a +large and airy stone porch, just suited, Morton declared, “to a couple of +hoboes like us. If a bobby butts in, why, we’ll just slide under them +seats. Then the bobby can go soak his head.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn had never so far defied society as to steal a place for sleeping. He +felt very uneasy, like a man left naked on the street by robbers, as he rolled +up his coat for a pillow and removed his shoes in a place that was perfectly +open to the street. The paved floor was cold to his bare feet, and, as he tried +to go to sleep, it kept getting colder and colder to his back. Reaching out his +hand, he fretfully rubbed the cracks between stones. He scowled up at the +ceiling of the porch. He couldn’t bear to look out through the door, for +it framed the vicar’s house, with lamplight bodying forth latticed +windows, suggesting soft beds and laughter and comfortable books. All the while +his chilled back was aching in new places. +</p> + +<p> +He sprang up, put on his shoes, and paced the churchyard. It seemed a great +waste of educational advantages not to study the tower of this foreign church, +but he thought much more about his aching shoulder-blades. +</p> + +<p> +Morton came from the porch stiff but grinning. “Didn’t like it +much, eh, Bill? Afraid you wouldn’t. Must say I didn’t either, +though. Well, come on. Let’s beat it around and see if we can’t +find a better place.” +</p> + +<p> +In a vacant lot they discovered a pile of hay. Mr. Wrenn hardly winced at the +hearty slap Morton gave his back, and he pronounced, “Some +Waldorf-Astoria, that stack!” as they sneaked into the lot. They had laid +loving hands upon the hay, remarking, “Well, I <i>guess!</i>” when +they heard from a low stable at the very back of the lot: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you chaps, what are you doing there?” +</p> + +<p> +A reflective carter, who had been twisting two straws, ambled out of the shadow +of the stable and prepared to do battle. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, old man, can’t we sleep in your hay just to-night?” +argued Morton. “We’re Americans. Came over on a cattle-boat. We +ain’t got only enough money to last us for food,” while Mr. Wrenn +begged, “Aw, please let us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! You’re Americans, are you? You seem decent enough. I’ve +got a brother in the States. He used to own this stable with me. In St. Cloud, +Minnesota, he is, you know. Minnesota’s some kind of a shire. Either of +you chaps been in Minnesota?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” lied Morton; “I’ve hunted bear there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say, bear now! My brother’s never written m—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that was way up in the northern part, in the Big Woods. I’ve +had some narrow escapes.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Morton, who had never been west of Pittsburg, sang somewhat in this wise +the epic of the hunting he had never done: +</p> + +<p> +Alone. Among the pines. Dead o’ winter. Only one shell in his rifle. Cold +of winter. Snow—deep snow. Snow-shoes. Hiking along—reg’lar +mushing—packing grub to the lumber-camp. Way up near the Canadian border. +Cold, terrible cold. Stars looked like little bits of steel. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn thought he remembered the story. He had read it in a magazine. Morton +was continuing: +</p> + +<p> +Snow stretched out among the pines. He was wearing a Mackinaw and shoe-packs. +Saw a bear loping along. He had—Morton had—a .44-.40 Marlin, but +only one shell. Thrust the muzzle of his rifle right into the bear’s +mouth. Scared for a minute. Almost fell off his snow-shoes. Hardest thing he +ever did, to pull that trigger. Fired. Bear sort of jumped at him, then rolled +over, clawing. Great place, those Minnesota Big— +</p> + +<p> +“What’s a shoe-pack?” the Englishman stolidly interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“Kind of a moccasin…. Great place, those woods. Hope your brother gets +the chance to get up there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I wonder did you ever meet him? Scrabble is his name, Jock +Scrabble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jock Scrabble—no, but <i>say!</i> By golly, there was a fellow up +in the Big Woods that came from St. Cl—St. Cloud? Yes, that was it. He +was telling us about the town. I remember he said your brother had great +chances there.” +</p> + +<p> +The Englishman meditatively accepted a bad cigar from Mr. Wrenn. Suddenly: +“You chaps can sleep in the stable-loft if you’d like. But you must +blooming well stop smoking.” +</p> + +<p> +So in the dark odorous hay-mow Mr. Wrenn stretched out his legs with an +affectionate “good night” to Morton. He slept nine hours. When he +awoke, at the sound of a chain clanking in the stable below, Morton was gone. +This note was pinned to his sleeve: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> O<small>LD</small> M<small>AN</small>,—I still feel +sure that you will not enjoy the hiking. Bumming is not much fun for most +people, I don’t think, even if they say it is. I do not want to live on +you. I always did hate to graft on people. So I am going to beat it off alone. +But I hope I will see you in N Y & we will enjoy many a good laugh together +over our trip. If you will phone the P. R. R. you can find out when I get back +& so on. As I do not know what your address will be. Please look me up +& I hope you will have a good trip. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Yours truly,<br/> +H<small>ARRY</small> P. M<small>ORTON</small>. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn lay listening to the unfriendly rattling of the chain harness below +for a long time. When he crawled languidly down from the hay-loft he glowered +in a manner which was decidedly surly even for Bill Wrenn at a middle-aged +English stranger who was stooping over a cow’s hoof in a stall facing the +ladder. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot you doing here?” asked the Englishman, raising his head and +regarding Mr. Wrenn as a housewife does a cockroach in the salad-bowl. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was bored. This seemed a very poor sort of man; a bloated Cockney, +with a dirty neck-cloth, vile cuffs of grayish black, and a waistcoat cut +foolishly high. +</p> + +<p> +“The owner said I could sleep here,” he snapped. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow. ’E did, did ’e? ’E ayn’t been giving you any +of the perishin’ ’osses, too, ’as ’e?” +</p> + +<p> +It was sturdy old Bill Wrenn who snarled, “Oh, shut up!” Bill +didn’t feel like standing much just then. He’d punch this fellow as +he’d punched Pete, as soon as not—or even sooner. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow…. It’s shut up, is it?… I’ve ’arf a mind to set the +’tecs on you, but I’m lyte. I’ll just ’it you on the +bloody nowse.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn stepped off the ladder and squared at him. He was sorry that the +Cockney was smaller than Pete. +</p> + +<p> +The Cockney came over, feinted in an absent-minded manner, made swift and +confusing circles with his left hand, and hit Bill Wrenn on the aforesaid +bloody nose, which immediately became a bleeding nose. Bill Wrenn felt dizzy +and, sitting on a grain-sack, listened amazedly to the Cockney’s +apologetic: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry I ayn’t got time to ’ave the law on you, but +I could spare time to ’it you again.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill shook the blood from his nose and staggered at the Cockney, who seized his +collar, set him down outside the stable with a jarring bump, and walked away, +whistling: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Come, oh come to our Sunday-school,<br/> +Ev-v-v-v-v-v-ry Sunday morn-ing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” mourned Mr. William Wrenn, “and I thought I was +getting this hobo business down pat…. Gee! I wonder if Pete <i>was</i> so hard +to lick?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI<br/> +HE IS AN ORPHAN</h2> + +<p> +Sadly clinging to the plan of the walking-trip he was to have made with Morton, +Mr. Wrenn crossed by ferry to Birkenhead, quite unhappily, for he wanted to be +discussing with Morton the quaintness of the uniformed functionaries. He looked +for the <i>Merian</i> half the way over. As he walked through Birkenhead, bound +for Chester, he pricked himself on to note red-brick house-rows, almost +shocking in their lack of high front stoops. Along the country road he +reflected: “Wouldn’t Morty enjoy this! Farm-yard all paved. +Haystack with a little roof on it. Kitchen stove stuck in a kind of fireplace. +Foreign as the deuce.” +</p> + +<p> +But Morton was off some place, in a darkness where there weren’t things +to enjoy. Mr. Wrenn had lost him forever. Once he heard himself wishing that +even Tim, the hatter, or “good old McGarver” were along. A scene so +British that it seemed proper to enjoy it alone he did find in a real +garden-party, with what appeared to be a real curate, out of a story in <i>The +Strand</i>, passing teacups; but he passed out of that hot glow into a cold +plodding that led him to Chester and a dull hotel which might as well have been +in Bridgeport or Hoboken. +</p> + +<p> +He somewhat timidly enjoyed Chester the early part of the next day, docilely +following a guide about the walls, gaping at the mill on the Dee and asking the +guide two intelligent questions about Roman remains. He snooped through the +galleried streets, peering up dark stairways set in heavy masonry that spoke of +historic sieges, and imagined that he was historically besieging. For a time +Mr. Wrenn’s fancies contented him. +</p> + +<p> +He smiled as he addressed glossy red and green postcards to Lee Theresa and +Goaty, Cousin John and Mr. Guilfogle, writing on each a variation of +“Having a splendid trip. This is a very interesting old town. Wish you +were here.” Pantingly, he found a panorama showing the hotel where he was +staying—or at least two of its chimneys—and, marking it with a +heavy cross and the announcement “This is my hotel where I am +staying,” he sent it to Charley Carpenter. +</p> + +<p> +He was at his nearest to greatness at Chester Cathedral. He chuckled aloud as +he passed the remains of a refectory of monastic days, in the close, where +knights had tied their romantically pawing chargers, “just like +he’d read about in a story about the olden times.” He was really +there. He glanced about and assured himself of it. He wasn’t in the +office. He was in an English cathedral close! +</p> + +<p> +But shortly thereafter he was in an English temperance hotel, sitting still, +almost weeping with the longing to see Morton. He walked abroad, feeling like +an intruder on the lively night crowd; in a tap-room he drank a glass of +English porter and tried to make himself believe that he was acquainted with +the others in the room, to which theory they gave but little support. All this +while his loneliness shadowed him. +</p> + +<p> +Of that loneliness one could make many books; how it sat down with him; how he +crouched in his chair, be-spelled by it, till he violently rose and fled, with +loneliness for companion in his flight. He was lonely. He sighed that he was +“lonely as fits.” Lonely—the word obsessed him. Doubtless he +was a bit mad, as are all the isolated men who sit in distant lands longing for +the voices of friendship. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning he hastened to take the train for Oxford to get away from his +loneliness, which lolled evilly beside him in the compartment. He tried to +convey to a stodgy North Countryman his interest in the way the seats faced +each other. The man said “Oh aye?” insultingly and returned to his +Manchester newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +Feeling that he was so offensive that it was a matter of honor for him to keep +his eyes away, Mr. Wrenn dutifully stared out of the door till they reached +Oxford. +</p> + +<p> +There is a calm beauty to New College gardens. There is, Mr. Wrenn observed, +“something simply <i>slick</i> about all these old quatrangleses,” +crossed by summering students in short flappy gowns. But he always returned to +his exile’s room, where he now began to hear the new voice of shapeless +nameless Fear—fear of all this alien world that didn’t care whether +he loved it or not. +</p> + +<p> +He sat thinking of the cattle-boat as a home which he had loved but which he +would never see again. He had to use force on himself to keep from hurrying +back to Liverpool while there still was time to return on the same boat. +</p> + +<p> +No! He was going to “stick it out somehow, and get onto the hang of all +this highbrow business.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he said: “Oh, darn it all. I feel rotten. I wish I was dead!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Those, sir, are the windows of the apartment once occupied by Walter +Pater,” said the cultured American after whom he was trailing. Mr. Wrenn +viewed them attentively, and with shame remembered that he didn’t know +who Walter Pater was. But—oh yes, now he remembered; Walter was the guy +that ’d murdered his whole family. So, aloud, “Well, I guess +Oxford’s sorry Walt ever come here, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir, Mr. Pater was the most immaculate genius of the nineteenth +century,” lectured Dr. Mittyford, the cultured American, severely. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn had met Mittyford, Ph.D., near the barges; had, upon polite request, +still more politely lent him a match, and seized the chance to confide in +somebody. Mittyford had a bald head, neat eye-glasses, a fair family income, a +chatty good-fellowship at the Faculty Club, and a chilly contemptuousness in +his rhetoric class-room at Leland Stanford, Jr., University. He wrote poetry, +which he filed away under the letter “P” in his letter-file. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Mittyford grudgingly took Mr. Wrenn about, to teach him what not to enjoy. +He pointed at Shelley’s rooms as at a certificated angel’s feather, +but Mr. Wrenn writhingly admitted that he had never heard of Shelley, whose +name he confused with Max O’Rell’s, which Dr. Mittyford deemed an +error. Then, Pater’s window. The doctor shrugged. Oh well, what could you +expect of the proletariat! Swinging his stick aloofly, he stalked to the +Bodleian and vouchsafed, “That, sir, is the <i>AEschylus</i> Shelley had +in his pocket when he was drowned.” +</p> + +<p> +Though he heard with sincere regret the news that his new idol was drowned, Mr. +Wrenn found that <i>AEschylus</i> left him cold. It seemed to be printed in a +foreign language. But perhaps it was merely a very old book. +</p> + +<p> +Standing before a case in which was an exquisite book in a queer wrigglesome +language, bearing the legend that from this volume Fitzgerald had translated +the <i>Rubaiyat</i>, Dr. Mittyford waved his hand and looked for thanks. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty book,” said Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“And did you note who used it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—yes.” He hastily glanced at the placard. “Mr. +Fitzgerald. Say, I think I read some of that Rubaiyat. It was something about a +Persian kitten—I don’t remember exactly.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Mittyford walked bitterly to the other end of the room. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +About eight in the evening Mr. Wrenn’s landlady knocked with, +“There’s a gentleman below to see you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” blurted Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +He galloped down-stairs, panting to himself that Morton had at last found him. +He peered out and was overwhelmed by a motor-car, with Dr. Mittyford waiting in +awesome fur coat, goggles, and gauntlets, centered in the car-lamplight that +loomed in the shivery evening fog. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! just like a hero in a novel!” reflected Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Get on your things,” said the pedagogue. “I’m going to +give you the time of your life.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn obediently went up and put on his cap. He was excited, yet frightened +and resentful at being “dragged into all this highbrow business” +which he had resolutely been putting away the past two hours. +</p> + +<p> +As he stole into the car Dr. Mittyford seemed comparatively human, remarking: +“I feel bored this evening. I thought I would give you a <i>nuit +blanche</i>. How would you like to go to the Red Unicorn at Brempton—one +of the few untouched old inns?” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be nice,” said Mr. Wrenn, unenthusiastically. +</p> + +<p> +His chilliness impressed Dr. Mittyford, who promptly told one of the best of +his well-known whimsical yet scholarly stories. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha!” remarked Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +He had been saying to himself: “By golly! I ain’t going to even try +to be a society guy with him no more. I’m just going to be <i>me</i>, and +if he don’t like it he can go to the dickens.” +</p> + +<p> +So he was gentle and sympathetic and talked West Sixteenth Street slang, to the +rhetorician’s lofty amusement. +</p> + +<p> +The tap-room of the Red Unicorn was lighted by candles and a fireplace. That is +a simple thing to say, but it was not a simple thing for Mr. Wrenn to see. As +he observed the trembling shadows on the sanded floor he wriggled and excitedly +murmured, “Gee!… Gee whittakers!” +</p> + +<p> +The shadows slipped in arabesques over the dust-gray floor and scampered as +bravely among the rafters as though they were in such a tale as men told in +believing days. Rustics in smocks drank ale from tankards; and in a corner was +snoring an ear-ringed peddler with his beetle-black head propped on an oilcloth +pack. +</p> + +<p> +Stamping in, chilly from the ride, Mr. Wrenn laughed aloud. With a comfortable +feeling on the side toward the fire he stuck his slight legs straight out +before the old-time settle, looked devil-may-care, made delightful ridges on +the sanded floor with his toe, and clapped a pewter pot on his knee with a +small emphatic “Wop!” After about two and a quarter tankards he +broke out, “Say, that peddler guy there, don’t he look like he was +a gipsy—you know—sneaking through the hedges around the +manner-house to steal the earl’s daughter, huh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes…. You’re a romanticist, then, I take it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I guess I am. Kind of. Like to read romances and stuff.” He +stared at Mittyford beseechingly. “But, say—say, I wonder +why—Somehow, I haven’t enjoyed Oxford and the rest of the places +like I ought to. See, I’d always thought I’d be simply nutty about +the quatrangles and stuff, but I’m afraid they’re too highbrow for +me. I hate to own up, but sometimes I wonder if I can get away with this +traveling stunt.” +</p> + +<p> +Mittyford, the magnificent, had mixed ale and whisky punch. He was mellowly +instructive: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know, I’ve been wondering just what you <i>would</i> get +out of all this. You really have a very fine imagination of a sort, you know, +but of course you’re lacking in certain factual bases. As I see it, your +<i>metier</i> would be to travel with a pleasant wife, the two of you hand in +hand, so to speak, looking at the more obvious public buildings and +plesaunces—avenues and plesuances. There must be a certain portion of the +tripper class which really has the ability ‘for to admire and for to +see.’” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Mittyford finished his second toddy and with a wave of his hand presented +to Mr. Wrenn the world and all the plesaunces thereof, for to see, though not, +of course, to admire Mittyfordianly. +</p> + +<p> +“But—what are you to do now about Oxford? Well, I’m afraid +you’re taken into captivity a bit late to be trained for that sort of +thing. Do about Oxford? Why, go back, master the world you understand. By the +way, have you seen my book on <i>Saxon Derivatives?</i> Not that I’m +prejudiced in its favor, but it might give you a glimmering of what this +difficile thing ‘culture’ really is.” +</p> + +<p> +The rustics were droning a church anthem. The glow of the ale was in Mr. Wrenn. +He leaned back, entirely happy, and it seemed confusedly to him that what +little he had heard of his learned and affectionate friend’s advice +gratefully confirmed his own theory that what one wanted was friends—a +“nice wife”—folks. “Yes, sir, by golly! It was awfully +nice of the Doc.” He pictured a tender girl in golden brown back in the +New York he so much desired to see who would await him evenings with a smile +that was kept for him. Homey—that was what <i>he</i> was going to be! He +happily and thoughtfully ran his finger about the rim of his glass ten times. +</p> + +<p> +“Time to go, I’ m afraid,” Dr. Mittyford was saying. Through +the exquisite haze that now filled the room Mr. Wrenn saw him dimly, as a +triangle of shirt-front and two gleaming ellipses for eyes…. His dear friend, +the Doc!… As he walked through the room chairs got humorously in his way, but +he good-naturedly picked a path among them, and fell asleep in the motor-car. +All the ride back he made soft mouse-like sounds of snoring. +</p> + +<p> +When he awoke in the morning with a headache and surveyed his unchangeably +dingy room he realized slowly, after smothering his head in the pillow to shut +off the light from his scorching eyeballs, that Dr. Mittyford had called him a +fool for trying to wander. He protested, but not for long, for he hated to +venture out there among the dreadfully learned colleges and try to understand +stuff written in letters that look like crow-tracks. +</p> + +<p> +He packed his suit-case slowly, feeling that he was very wicked in leaving +Oxford’s opportunities. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Mr. Wrenn rode down on a Tottenham Court Road bus, viewing the quaintness of +London. Life was a rosy ringing valiant pursuit, for he was about to ship on a +Mediterranean steamer laden chiefly with adventurous friends. The bus passed a +victoria containing a man with a real monocle. A newsboy smiled up at him. The +Strand roared with lively traffic. +</p> + +<p> +But the gray stonework and curtained windows of the Anglo-Southern Steamship +Company’s office did not invite any Mr. Wrenns to come in and ship, nor +did the hall porter, a beefy person with a huge collar and sparse painfully +sleek hair, whose eyes were like cold boiled mackerel as Mr. Wrenn yearned: +</p> + +<p> +“Please—uh—please will you be so kind and tell me where I can +ship as a steward for the Med—” +</p> + +<p> +“None needed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or Spain? I just want to get any kind of a job at first. Peeling +potatoes or—It don’t make any difference—” +</p> + +<p> +“None needed, I said, my man.” The porter examined the hall clock +extensively. +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn suddenly popped into being and demanded: “Look here, you; I +want to see somebody in authority. I want to know what I <i>can</i> ship +as.” +</p> + +<p> +The porter turned round and started. All his faith in mankind was destroyed by +the shock of finding the fellow still there. “Nothing, I told you. No one +needed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here; can I see somebody in authority or not?” +</p> + +<p> +The porter was privately esteemed a wit at his motherin-law’s. Waddling +away, he answered, “Or not.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn drooped out of the corridor. He had planned to see the Tate Gallery, +but now he hadn’t the courage to face the difficulties of enjoying +pictures. He zig-zagged home, mourning: “What’s the use. And +I’ll be hung if I’ll try any other offices, either. The icy mitt, +that’s what they hand you here. Some day I’ll go down to the docks +and try to ship there. Prob’ly. Gee! I feel rotten!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Out of all this fog of unfriendliness appeared the waitress at the St. Brasten +Cocoa House; first, as a human being to whom he could talk, second, as a woman. +She was ignorant and vulgar; she misused English cruelly; she wore greasy +cotton garments, planted her large feet on the floor with firm clumsiness, and +always laughed at the wrong cue in his diffident jests. But she did laugh; she +did listen while he stammered his ideas of meat-pies and St. Paul’s and +aeroplanes and Shelley and fog and tan shoes. In fact, she supposed him to be a +gentleman and scholar, not an American. +</p> + +<p> +He went to the cocoa-house daily. +</p> + +<p> +She let him know that he was a man and she a woman, young and kindly, +clear-skinned and joyous-eyed. She touched him with warm elbow and plump hip, +leaning against his chair as he gave his order. To that he looked forward from +meal to meal, though he never ceased harrowing over what he considered a +shameful intrigue. +</p> + +<p> +That opinion of his actions did not keep him from tingling one lunch-time when +he suddenly understood that she was expecting to be tempted. He tempted her +without the slightest delay, muttering, “Let’s take a walk this +evening?” +</p> + +<p> +She accepted. He was shivery and short of breath while he was trying to smile +at her during the rest of the meal, and so he remained all afternoon at the +Tower of London, though he very well knew that all this +history—“kings and gwillotines and stuff”—demanded real +Wrenn thrills. +</p> + +<p> +They were to meet on a street-corner at eight. At seven-thirty he was waiting +for her. At eight-thirty he indignantly walked away, but he hastily returned, +and stood there another half-hour. She did not come. +</p> + +<p> +When he finally fled home he was glad to have escaped the great mystery of +life, then distressingly angry at the waitress, and desolate in the desert +stillness of his room. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He sat in his cold hygienic uncomfortable room on Tavistock Place trying to +keep his attention on the “tick, tick, tick, tick” of his +two-dollar watch, but really cowering before the vast shadowy presences that +slunk in from the hostile city. +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t in the least know what he was afraid of. The actual Englishman +whom he passed on the streets did not seem to threaten his life, yet his +friendly watch and familiar suit-case seemed the only things he could trust in +all the menacing world as he sat there, so vividly conscious of his fear and +loneliness that he dared not move his cramped legs. +</p> + +<p> +The tension could not last. For a time he was able to laugh at himself, and he +made pleasant pictures—Charley Carpenter telling him a story at +Drubel’s; Morton companionably smoking on the top deck; Lee Theresa +flattering him during an evening walk. Most of all he pictured the brown-eyed +sweetheart he was going to meet somewhere, sometime. He thought with sophomoric +shame of his futile affair with the waitress, then forgot her as he seemed +almost to touch the comforting hand of the brown-eyed girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Friends, that’s what I want. You bet!” That was the work he +was going to do—make acquaintances. A girl who would understand him, with +whom he could trot about, seeing department-store windows and moving-picture +shows. +</p> + +<p> +It was then, probably, hunched up in the dowdy chair of faded upholstery, that +he created the two phrases which became his formula for happiness. He desired +“somebody to go home to evenings”; still more, “some one to +work with and work for.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to him that he had mapped out his whole life. He sat back, satisfied, +and caught the sound of emptiness in his room, emphasized by the stilly tick of +his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—Morton—” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +He leaped up and raised the window. It was raining, but through the slow splash +came the night rattle of hostile London. Staring down, he studied the desolate +circle of light a street-lamp cast on the wet pavement. A cat gray as +dish-water, its fur worn off in spots, lean and horrible, sneaked through the +circle of light like the spirit of unhappiness, like London’s sneer at +solitary Americans in Russell Square rooms. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn gulped. Through the light skipped a man and a girl, so little aware +of him that they stopped, laughingly, wrestling for an umbrella, then +disappeared, and the street was like a forgotten tomb. A hansom swung by, the +hoofbeats sharp and cheerless. The rain dripped. Nothing else. Mr. Wrenn +slammed down the window. +</p> + +<p> +He smoothed the sides of his suit-case and reckoned the number of miles it had +traveled with him. He spun his watch about on the table, and listened to its +rapid mocking speech, “Friends, friends; friends, friends.” +</p> + +<p> +Sobbing, he began to undress, laying down each garment as though he were going +to the scaffold. When the room was dark the great shadowy forms of fear +thronged unchecked about his narrow dingy bed. +</p> + +<p> +Once during the night he woke. Some sound was threatening him. It was London, +coming to get him and torture him. The light in his room was dusty, mottled, +gray, lifeless. He saw his door, half ajar, and for some moments lay +motionless, watching stark and bodiless heads thrust themselves through the +opening and withdraw with sinister alertness till he sprang up and opened the +door wide. +</p> + +<p> +But he did not even stop to glance down the hall for the crowd of phantoms that +had gathered there. Some hidden manful scorn of weakness made him sneer aloud, +“Don’t be a baby even if you <i>are</i> lonely.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice was deeper than usual, and he went to bed to sleep, throwing himself +down with a coarse wholesome scorn of his nervousness. +</p> + +<p> +He awoke after dawn, and for a moment curled in happy wriggles of satisfaction +over a good sleep. Then he remembered that he was in the cold and friendless +prison of England, and lay there panting with desire to get away, to get back +to America, where he would be safe. +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to leap out of bed, dash for the Liverpool train, and take passage +for America on the first boat. But perhaps the officials in charge of the +emigrants and the steerage (and of course a fellow would go steerage to save +money) would want to know his religion and the color of his hair—as bad +as trying to ship. They might hold him up for a couple of days. There were +quarantines and customs and things, of which he had heard. Perhaps for two or +even three days more he would have to stay in this nauseating prison-land. +</p> + +<p> +This was the morning of August 3, 1910, two weeks after his arrival in London, +and twenty-two days after victoriously reaching England, the land of romance. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII<br/> +HE MEETS A TEMPERAMENT</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was sulkily breakfasting at Mrs. Cattermole’s Tea House, which +Mrs. Cattermole kept in a genteel fashion in a basement three doors from his +rooming-house on Tavistock Place. After his night of fear and tragic portents +he resented the general flowered-paper-napkin aspect of Mrs. Cattermole’s +establishment. “Hungh!” he grunted, as he jabbed at the fringed +doily under the silly pink-and-white tea-cup on the green-and-white lacquered +tray brought him by a fat waitress in a frilly apron which must have been made +for a Christmas pantomime fairy who was not fat. “Hurump!” he +snorted at the pictures of lambs and radishes and cathedrals and little duckies +on Mrs. Cattermole’s pink-and-white wall. +</p> + +<p> +He wished it were possible—which, of course, it was not—to go back +to the St. Brasten Cocoa House, where he could talk to the honest flat-footed +galumping waitress, and cross his feet under his chair. For here he was +daintily, yes, daintily, studied by the tea-room habitues—two bouncing +and talkative daughters of an American tourist, a slender pale-haired English +girl student of Assyriology with large top-barred eye-glasses over her +protesting eyes, and a sprinkling of people living along Tavistock Place, who +looked as though they wanted to know if your opinions on the National Gallery +and abstinence were sound. +</p> + +<p> +His disapproval of the lambiness of Mrs. Cattermole’s was turned to a +feeling of comradeship with the other patrons as he turned, with the rest, to +stare hostilely at a girl just entering. The talk in the room halted, startled. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn gasped. With his head solemnly revolving, his eyes followed the young +woman about his table to a table opposite. “A freak! Gee, what red +hair!” was his private comment. +</p> + +<p> +A slender girl of twenty-eight or twenty-nine, clad in a one-piece gown of +sage-green, its lines unbroken by either belt or collar-brooch, fitting her as +though it had been pasted on, and showing the long beautiful sweep of her +fragile thighs and long-curving breast. Her collar, of the material of the +dress, was so high that it touched her delicate jaw, and it was set off only by +a fine silver chain, with a La Vallière of silver and carved Burmese jade. Her +red hair, red as a poinsettia, parted and drawn severely back, made a sweep +about the fair dead-white skin of her bored sensitive face. Bored blue-gray +eyes, with pathetic crescents of faintly violet-hued wrinkles beneath them, and +a scarce noticeable web of tinier wrinkles at the side. Thin long cheeks, a +delicate nose, and a straight strong mouth of thin but startlingly red lips. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the new patron of Mrs. Cattermole. +</p> + +<p> +She stared about the tea-room like an officer inspecting raw recruits, sniffed +at the stare of the thin girl student, ordered breakfast in a low voice, then +languidly considered her toast and marmalade. Once she glanced about the room. +Her heavy brows were drawn close for a second, making a deep-cleft wrinkle of +ennui over her nose, and two little indentations, like the impressions of a box +corner, in her forehead over her brows. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn’s gaze ran down the line of her bosom again, and he wondered at +her hands, which touched the heavy bread-and-butter knife as though it were a +fine-point pen. Long hands, colored like ivory; the joint wrinkles etched into +her skin; orange cigarette stains on the second finger; the nails— +</p> + +<p> +He stared at them. To himself he commented, “Gee! I never did see such +freak finger-nails in my life.” Instead of such smoothly rounded nails as +Theresa Zapp displayed, the new young lady had nails narrow and sharp-pointed, +the ends like little triangles of stiff white writing-paper. +</p> + +<p> +As she breakfasted she scanned Mr. Wrenn for a second. He was too obviously +caught staring to be able to drop his eyes. She studied him all out, with +almost as much interest as a policeman gives to a passing trolley-car, yawned +delicately, and forgot him. +</p> + +<p> +Though you should penetrate Greenland or talk anarchism to the daughter of a +millionaire grocer, never shall you feel a more devouring chill than enveloped +Mr. Wrenn as the new young lady glanced away from him, paid her check, rose +slithily from her table, and departed. She rounded his table; not stalking out +of its way, as Theresa would have done, but bending from the hips. Thus was it +revealed to Mr. Wrenn that— +</p> + +<p> +He was almost too horrified to put it into words…. He had noticed that there +was something kind of funny in regard to her waist; he had had an impression of +remarkably smooth waist curves and an unjagged sweep of back. Now he saw +that—It was unheard of; not at all like Lee Theresa Zapp or ladies in the +Subway. For—the freak girl wasn’t wearing corsets! +</p> + +<p> +When she had passed him he again studied her back, swiftly and covertly. No, +sir. No question about it. It couldn’t be denied by any one now that the +girl was a freak, for, charitable though Our Mr. Wrenn was, he had to admit +that there was no sign of the midback ridge and little rounded knobbinesses of +corseted respectability. And he had a closer view of the texture of her +sage-green crash gown. +</p> + +<p> +“Golly!” he said to himself; “of all the doggone cloth for a +dress! Reg’lar gunny-sacking. She’s skinny, too. Bright-red hair. +She sure is the prize freak. Kind of good-looking, but—get a +brick!” +</p> + +<p> +He hated to rule so clever-seeming a woman quite out of court. But he +remembered her scissors glance at him, and his soft little heart became very +hard. +</p> + +<p> +How brittle are our steel resolves! When Mr. Wrenn walked out of Mrs. +Cattermole’s excellent establishment and heavily inspected the quiet +Bloomsbury Street, with a cat’s-meat-man stolidly clopping along the +pavement, as loneliness rushed on him and he wondered what in the world he +could do, he mused, “Gee! I bet that red-headed lady would be +interestin’ to know.” +</p> + +<p> +A day of furtive darts out from his room to do London, which glumly declined to +be done. He went back to the Zoological Gardens and made friends with a tiger +which, though it presumably came from an English colony, was the friendliest +thing he had seen for a week. It did yawn, but it let him talk to it for a long +while. He stood before the bars, peering in, and whenever no one else was about +he murmured: “Poor fella, they won’t let you go, heh? You got a +worse boss ’n Goglefogle, heh? Poor old fella.” +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t at all mind the disorder and rancid smell of the cage; he had +no fear of the tiger’s sleek murderous power. But he was somewhat afraid +of the sound of his own tremorous voice. He had spoken aloud so little lately. +</p> + +<p> +A man came, an Englishman in a high offensively well-fitting waistcoat, and +stood before the cage. Mr. Wrenn slunk away, robbed of his new friend, the +tiger, the forlornest person in all London, kicking at pebbles in the path. +</p> + +<p> +As half-dusk made the quiet street even more detached, he sat on the steps of +his rooming-house on Tavistock Place, keeping himself from the one definite +thing he wanted to do—the thing he keenly imagined a happy Mr. Wrenn +doing—dashing over to the Euston Station to find out how soon and where +he could get a train for Liverpool and a boat for America. +</p> + +<p> +A girl was approaching the house. He viewed her carelessly, then intently. It +was the freak lady of Mrs. Cattermole’s Tea House—the corsetless +young woman of the tight-fitting crash gown and flame-colored hair. She was +coming up the steps of his house. +</p> + +<p> +He made room for her with feverish courtesy. She lived in the same +house—He instantly, without a bit of encouragement from the uninterested +way in which she snipped the door to, made up a whole novel about her. Gee! She +was a French countess, who lived in a reg’lar chateau, and she was +staying in Bloomsbury incognito, seeing the sights. She was a noble. She +was— +</p> + +<p> +Above him a window opened. He glanced up. The countess incog. was leaning out, +scanning the street uncaringly. Why—her windows were next to his! He was +living next room to an unusual person—as unusual as Dr. Mittyford. +</p> + +<p> +He hurried up-stairs with a fervid but vague plan to meet her. Maybe she really +was a French countess or somepun’. All evening, sitting by the window, he +was comforted as he heard her move about her room. He had a friend. He had +started that great work of making friends—well, not started, but started +starting—then he got confused, but the idea was a flame to warm the +fog-chilled spaces of the London street. +</p> + +<p> +At his Cattermole breakfast he waited long. She did not come. Another +day—but why paint another day that was but a smear of flat dull slate? +Yet another breakfast, and the lady of mystery came. Before he knew he was +doing it he had bowed to her, a slight uneasy bend of his neck. She peered at +him, unseeing, and sat down with her back to him. +</p> + +<p> +He got much good healthy human vindictive satisfaction in evicting her +violently from the French chateau he had given her, and remembering that, of +course, she was just a “fool freak Englishwoman—prob’ly a +bloomin’ stoodent” he scorned, and so settled <i>her!</i> Also he +told her, by telepathy, that her new gown was freakier than ever—a +pale-green thing, with large white buttons. +</p> + +<p> +As he was coming in that evening he passed her in the hall. She was clad in +what he called a bathrobe, and what she called an Arabian <i>burnoose</i>, of +black embroidered with dull-gold crescents and stars, showing a V of exquisite +flesh at her throat. A shred of tenuous lace straggled loose at the opening of +the <i>burnoose</i>. Her radiant hair, tangled over her forehead, shone with a +thousand various gleams from the gas-light over her head as she moved back +against the wall and stood waiting for him to pass. She smiled very doubtfully, +distantly—the smile, he felt, of a great lady from Mayfair. He bobbed his +head, lowered his eyes abashedly, and noticed that along the shelf of her +forearm, held against her waist, she bore many silver toilet articles, and such +a huge heavy fringed Turkish bath-towel as he had never seen before. +</p> + +<p> +He lay awake to picture her brilliant throat and shining hair. He rebuked +himself for the lack of dignity in “thinking of that freak, when she +wouldn’t even return a fellow’s bow.” But her shimmering hair +was the star of his dreams. +</p> + +<p> +Napping in his room in the afternoon, Mr. Wrenn heard slight active sounds from +her, next room. He hurried down to the stoop. +</p> + +<p> +She stood behind him on the door-step, glaring up and down the street, as bored +and as ready to spring as the Zoo tiger. Mr. Wrenn heard himself saying to the +girl, “Please, miss, do you mind telling me—I’m an American; +I’m a stranger in London—I want to go to a good play or something +and what would I—what would be good—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, reahlly,” she said, with much hauteur. +“Everything’s rather rotten this season, I fancy.” Her voice +ran fluting up and down the scale. Her a’s were very broad. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—oh—y-you <i>are</i> English, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Yes!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I just had a fool idea maybe you might be French.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I am, y’ know. I’m not reahlly English,” she +said, blandly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—” +</p> + +<p> +“What made you think I was French? Tell me; I’m interested.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I guess I was just—well, it was almost +make-b’lieve—how you had a castle in France—just a kind of a +fool game.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>don’t</i> be ashamed of imagination,” she demanded, +stamping her foot, while her voice fluttered, low and beautifully controlled, +through half a dozen notes. “Tell me the rest of your story about +me.” +</p> + +<p> +She was sitting on the rail above him now. As he spoke she cupped her chin with +the palm of her delicate hand and observed him curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing much more. You were a countess—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please! Not just ‘were.’ Please, sir, mayn’t I be a +countess now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of course you are!” he cried, delight submerging timidity. +“And your father was sick with somepun’ mysterious, and all the +docs shook their heads and said ‘Gee! we dunno what it is,’ and so +you sneaked down to the treasure-chamber—you see, your dad—your +father, I should say—he was a cranky old Frenchman—just in the +story, you know. He didn’t think you could do anything yourself about him +being mysteriously sick. So one night you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, was it dark? Very <i>very</i> dark? And silent? And my footsteps +rang on the hollow flagstones? And I swiped the gold and went forth into the +night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, <i>yes!</i> That’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did I swipe it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m just coming to that,” he said, sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, sir, I’m awful sorry I interrupted.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was like this: You wanted to come over here and study medicine +so’s you could cure your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“But please, sir,” said the girl, with immense gravity, +“mayn’t I let him die, and not find out what’s ailing him, so +I can marry the <i>maire?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope,” firmly, “you got to—Say, <i>gee!</i> I +didn’t expect to tell you all this make-b’lieve…. I’m afraid +you’ll think it’s awful fresh of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I loved it—really I did—because you liked to make it up +about poor Istra. (My name is Istra Nash.) I’m sorry to say I’m not +reahlly”—her two “reallys” were quite +different—“a countess, you know. Tell me—you live in this +same house, don’t you? Please tell me that you’re not an +interesting Person. Please!” +</p> + +<p> +“I—gee! I guess I don’t quite get you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, stupid, an Interesting Person is a writer or an artist or an editor +or a girl who’s been in Holloway Jail or Canongate for suffraging, or any +one else who depends on an accident to be tolerable.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m afraid not; I’m just a kind of clerk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good! Good! My dear sir—whom I’ve never seen +before—have I? By the way, please don’t think I usually pick up +stray gentlemen and talk to them about my pure white soul. But you, you know, +made stories about me…. I was saying: If you could only know how I loathe and +hate and despise Interesting People just now! I’ve seen so much of them. +They talk and talk and talk—they’re just like Kipling’s +bandar-log—What is it? +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“See us rise in a flung festoon<br/> +Half-way up to the jealous moon.<br/> +Don’t you wish you— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +could know all about art and economics as we do?’ That’s what they +say. Umph!” +</p> + +<p> +Then she wriggled her fingers in the air like white butterflies, shrugged her +shoulders elaborately, rose from the rail, and sat down beside him on the +steps, quite matter-of-factly. +</p> + +<p> +He could feel his temple-pulses beat with excitement. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her pale sensitive vivid face slowly toward him. +</p> + +<p> +“When did you see me—to make up the story?” +</p> + +<p> +“Breakfasts. At Mrs. Cattermole’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes…. How is it you aren’t out sight-seeing? Or is it blessedly +possible that you aren’t a tripper—a tourist?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I dunno.” He hunted uneasily for the right answer. “Not +exactly. I tried a stunt—coming over on a cattle-boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good. Much better.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat silent while, with enormous and self-betraying pains to avoid +detection, he studied her firm thin brilliantly red lips. At last he tried: +</p> + +<p> +“Please tell me something about London. Some of you English— Oh, I +dunno. I can’t get acquainted easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child, I’m not English! I’m quite as American as +yourself. I was born in California. I never saw England till two years ago, on +my way to Paris. I’m an art student…. That’s why my accent is so +perishin’ English—I can’t afford to be just <i>ordinary</i> +British, y’ know.” +</p> + +<p> +Her laugh had an October tang of bitterness in it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll—say, what do you know about that!” he said, +weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me about yourself—since apparently we’re now +acquainted…. Unless you want to go to that music-hall?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no, no! Gee, I was just <i>crazy</i> to have somebody to talk +to—somebody nice—I was just about nutty, I was so lonely,” +all in a burst. He finished, hesitatingly, “I guess the English are kinda +hard to get acquainted with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lonely, eh?” she mused, abrupt and bluffly kind as a man, for all +her modulating woman’s voice. “You don’t know any of the +people here in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“No’m. Say, I guess we got rooms next to each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“How romantic!” she mocked. +</p> + +<p> +“Wrenn’s my name; William Wrenn. I work for—I used to work +for the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. In New York.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh. I see. Novelties? Nice little ash-trays with ‘Love from the +Erie Station’? And woggly pin-cushions?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! And fat pug-dogs with black eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no-o-o! Please not black! Pale sympathetic blue eyes—nice +honest blue eyes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope. Black. Awful black…. Say, gee, I ain’t talking too nutty, am +I?” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Nutty’? You mean ‘idiotically’? The +slang’s changed since—Oh yes, of course; you’ve succeeded in +talking quite nice and ‘idiotic.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, say, gee, I didn’t mean to—When you been so nice and all +to me—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t apologize!” Istra Nash demanded, savagely. +“Haven’t they taught you that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes’m,” he mumbled, apologetically. +</p> + +<p> +She sat silent again, apparently not at all satisfied with the architecture of +the opposite side of Tavistock Place. Diffidently he edged into speech: +</p> + +<p> +“Honest, I did think you was English. You came from California? Oh, say, +I wonder if you’ve ever heard of Dr. Mittyford. He’s some kind of +school-teacher. I think he teaches in Leland Stamford College.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leland Stanford? You know him?” She dropped into interested +familiarity. +</p> + +<p> +“I met him at Oxford.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really?… My brother was at Stanford. I think I’ve heard him speak +of—Oh yes. He said that Mittyford was a cultural climber, if you know +what I mean; rather—oh, how shall I express it?—oh, shall we put +it, finicky about things people have just told him to be finicky about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” glowed Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +To the luxury of feeling that he knew the unusual Miss Istra Nash he sacrificed +Dr. Mittyford, scholarship and eye-glasses and Shelley and all, without mercy. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he was awfully funny. Gee! I didn’t care much for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you know he’s a great man, however?” Istra was as +bland as though she had meant that all along, which left Mr. Wrenn nowhere at +all when it came to deciding what she meant. +</p> + +<p> +Without warning she rose from the steps, flung at him “G’ +night,” and was off down the street. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting alone, all excited happiness, Mr. Wrenn muttered: “Ain’t +she a wonder! Gee! she’s striking-lookin’! Gee whittakers!” +</p> + +<p> +Some hours later he said aloud, tossing about in bed: “I wonder if I was +too fresh. I hope I wasn’t. I ought to be careful.” +</p> + +<p> +He was so worried about it that he got up and smoked a cigarette, remembered +that he was breaking still another rule by smoking too much, then got angry and +snapped defiantly at his suit-case: “Well, what do I care if I <i>am</i> +smoking too much? And I’ll be as fresh as I want to.” He threw a +newspaper at the censorious suit-case and, much relieved, went to bed to dream +that he was a rabbit making enormously amusing jests, at which he laughed +rollickingly in half-dream, till he realized that he was being awakened by the +sound of long sobs from the room of Istra Nash. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Afternoon; Mr. Wrenn in his room. Miss Nash was back from tea, but there was +not a sound to be heard from her room, though he listened with mouth open, bent +forward in his chair, his hands clutching the wooden seat, his finger-tips +rubbing nervously back and forth over the rough under-surface of the wood. He +wanted to help her—the wonderful lady who had been sobbing in the night. +He had a plan, in which he really believed, to say to her, “Please let me +help you, princess, jus’ like I was a knight.” +</p> + +<p> +At last he heard her moving about. He rushed downstairs and waited on the +stoop. +</p> + +<p> +When she came out she glanced down and smiled contentedly. He was flutteringly +sure that she expected to see him there. But all his plan of proffering +assistance vanished as he saw her impatient eyes and her splendors of +dress—another tight-fitting gown, of smoky gray, with faint silvery +lights gliding along the fabric. +</p> + +<p> +She sat on the rail above him, immediately, unhesitatingly, and answered his +“Evenin’” cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +He wanted so much to sit beside her, to be friends with her. But, he felt, it +took courage to sit beside her. She was likely to stare haughtily at him. +However, he did go up to the rail and sit, shyly kicking his feet, beside her, +and she did not stare haughtily. Instead she moved over an inch or two, glanced +at him almost as though they were sharing a secret, and said, quietly: +</p> + +<p> +“I thought quite a bit about you last evening. I believe you really have +an imagination, even though you are a salesman—I mean so many +don’t; you know how it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes.” +</p> + +<p> +You see, Mr. Wrenn didn’t know he was commonplace. +</p> + +<p> +“After I left here last night I went over to Olympia Johns’, and +she dragged me off to a play. I thought of you at it because there was an +imaginative butler in it. You don’t mind my comparing you to a butler, do +you? He was really quite the nicest person in the play, y’ know. Most of +it was gorgeously rotten. It used to be a French farce, but they sent it to +Sunday-school and gave it a nice fresh frock. It seemed that a gentleman-tabby +had been trying to make a match between his nephew and his ward. The ward +arted. Personally I think it was by tonsorial art. But, anyway, the uncle knew +that nothing brings people together so well as hating the same person. You +know, like hating the cousin, when you’re a kiddy, hating the cousin that +always keeps her nails clean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! That’s <i>so!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“So he turned nasty, and of course the nephew and ward clinched till +death did them part—which, I’m very sorry to have to tell you, +death wasn’t decent enough to do on the stage. If the play could only +have ended with everybody’s funeral I should have called it a real happy +ending.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn laughed gratefully, though uncertainly. He knew that she had made +jokes for him, but he didn’t exactly know what they were. +</p> + +<p> +“The imaginative butler, he was rather good. But the +rest—Ugh!” +</p> + +<p> +“That must have been a funny play,” he said, politely. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him sidewise and confided, “Will you do me a favor?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ever been married?” +</p> + +<p> +He was frightfully startled. His “No” sounded as though he +couldn’t quite remember. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed much amused. You wouldn’t have believed that this superior +quizzical woman who tapped her fingers carelessly on her slim exquisite knee +had ever sobbed in the night. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that wasn’t a personal question,” she said. “I +just wanted to know what you’re like. Don’t you ever collect +people? I do—chloroform ’em quite cruelly and pin their poor little +corpses out on nice clean corks…. You live alone in New York, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Y-yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who do you play with—know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not—not much of anybody. Except maybe Charley Carpenter. +He’s assistant bookkeeper for the Souvenir Company. “He had wanted +to, and immediately decided not to, invent <i>grandes mondes</i> whereof he was +an intimate. +</p> + +<p> +“What do—oh, you know—people in New York who don’t go +to parties or read much—what do they do for amusement? I’m so +interested in types.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—” said he. +</p> + +<p> +That was all he could say till he had digested a pair of thoughts: Just what +did she mean by “types”? Had it something to do with printing +stories? And what could he say about the people, anyway? He observed: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know—just talk about—oh, cards and jobs +and folks and things and—oh, you know; go to moving pictures and +vaudeville and go to Coney Island and—oh, sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I read a good deal. Quite a little. Shakespeare and geography and +a lot of stuff. I like reading.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how do you place Nietzsche?” she gravely desired to know. +</p> + +<p> +“?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nietzsche. You know—the German humorist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—uh—let me see now; he’s—uh—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you remember, don’t you? Haeckel and he wrote the great +musical comedy of the century. And Matisse did the music—Matisse and +Rodin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t been to it,” he said, vaguely. “…I +don’t know much German. Course I know a few words, like <i>Spricken Sie +Dutch</i> and <i>Bitty, sir</i>, that Rabin at the Souvenir +Company—he’s a German Jew, I guess—learnt me…. But, say, +isn’t Kipling great! Gee! when I read <i>Kim</i> I can imagine I’m +hiking along one of those roads in India just like I was there—you know, +all those magicians and so on…. Readin’s wonderful, ain’t +it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Um. Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I bet you read an awful lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little. Oh—D’Annunzio and some Turgenev and a little +Tourgenieff…. That last was a joke, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” disconcertedly. +</p> + +<p> +“What sorts of plays do you go to, Mr. Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Moving pictures mostly,” he said, easily, then bitterly wished he +hadn’t confessed so low-life a habit. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—tell me, my dear—Oh, I didn’t mean that; artists +use it a good deal; it just means ‘old chap.’ You +<i>don’t</i> mind my asking such beastly personal questions, do you? +I’m interested in people…. And now I must go up and write a letter. I was +going over to Olympia’s—she’s one of the Interesting People I +spoke of—but you see you have been much more amusing. Good night. +You’re lonely in London, aren’t you? We’ll have to go +sightseeing some day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am lonely!” he exploded. Then, meekly: “Oh, thank +you! I sh’d be awful pleased to…. Have you seen the Tower, Miss +Nash?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Never. Have you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. You see, I thought it ’d be kind of a gloomy thing to see all +alone. Is that why you haven’t never been there, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear man, I see I shall have to educate you. Shall I? I’ve been +taken in hand by so many people—it would be a pleasure to pass on the +implied slur. Shall I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please do.” +</p> + +<p> +“One simply doesn’t go and see the Tower, because that’s what +trippers do. Don’t you understand, my dear? (Pardon the ‘my +dear’ again.) The Tower is the sort of thing school superintendents see +and then go back and lecture on in school assembly-room and the G. A. R. hall. +I’ll take you to the Tate Gallery.” Then, very abruptly, +“G’ night,” and she was gone. +</p> + +<p> +He stared after her smooth back, thinking: “Gee! I wonder if she got sore +at something I said. I don’t think I was fresh this time. But she beat it +so quick…. Them lips of hers—I never knew there was such red lips. And an +artist—paints pictures!… Read a lot—Nitchy—German musical +comedy. Wonder if that’s that ‘Merry Widow’ thing?… That gray +dress of hers makes me think of fog. Cur’ous.” +</p> + +<p> +In her room Istra Nash inspected her nose in a mirror, powdered, and sat down +to write, on thick creamy paper: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Skilly dear, I’m in a fierce Bloomsbury boarding-house—bores +—except for a Phe-nomenon—little man of 35 or 40 with embryonic +imagination & a virgin soul. I’ll try to keep from planting radical +thoughts in the virgin soul, but I’m tempted. +</p> + +<p> +Oh Skilly dear I’m lonely as the devil. Would it be too bromid. to say I +wish you were here? I put out my hand in the darkness, & yours wasn’t +there. My dear, my dear, how desolate—Oh you understand it only too well +with your supercilious grin & your superior eye-glasses & your beatific +Oxonian ignorance of poor eager America. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose I <i>am</i> just a barbarous Californian kiddy. It’s just as +Pere Dureon said at the atelier, “You haf a’ onderstanding of the +’igher immorality, but I ’ope you can cook—paint you +cannot.” +</p> + +<p> +He wins. I can’t sell a single thing to the art editors here or get one +single order. One horrid eye-glassed earnest youth who Sees People at a +magazine, he vouchsafed that they “didn’t use any Outsiders.” +Outsiders! And his hair was nearly as red as my wretched mop. So I came home +& howled & burned Milan tapers before your picture. I did. Though you +don’t deserve it. +</p> + +<p> +Oh damn it, am I getting sentimental? You’ll read this at Petit Monsard +over your drip & grin at your poor unnietzschean barbarian. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +I. N. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br/> +HE TIFFINS</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn, chewing and chewing and chewing the cud of thought in his room next +evening, after an hour had proved two things; thus: +</p> + +<p> +(a) The only thing he wanted to do was to go back to America at once, because +England was a country where every one—native or American—was so +unfriendly and so vastly wise that he could never understand them. +</p> + +<p> +(b) The one thing in the world that he wanted to do was to be right here, for +the most miraculous event of which he had ever heard was meeting Miss Nash. +First one, then the other, these thoughts swashed back and forth like the +swinging tides. He got away from them only long enough to rejoice that +somehow—he didn’t know how—he was going to be her most +intimate friend, because they were both Americans in a strange land and because +they both could make-believe. +</p> + +<p> +Then he was proving that Istra would, and would not, be the perfect comrade +among women when some one knocked at his door. +</p> + +<p> +Electrified, his cramped body shot up from its crouch, and he darted to the +door. +</p> + +<p> +Istra Nash stood there, tapping her foot on the sill with apologetic haste in +her manner. Abruptly she said: +</p> + +<p> +“So sorry to bother you. I just wondered if you could let me have a +match? I’m all out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh <i>yes!</i> Here’s a whole box. Please take ’em. I got +plenty more.” [Which was absolutely untrue.] +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. S’ good o’ you,” she said, hurriedly. +“G’ night.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned away, but he followed her into the hall, bashfully urging: +“Have you been to another show? Gee! I hope you draw a better one next +time ’n the one about the guy with the nephew.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced back in the half dark hall from her door—some fifteen feet +from his. He was scratching at the wall-paper with a diffident finger, hopeful +for a talk. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come in?” she said, hesitatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank you, but I guess I hadn’t better.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she flashed out the humanest of smiles, her blue-gray eyes crinkling +with cheery friendship. “Come in, come in, child.” As he +hesitatingly entered she warbled: “Needn’t both be so lonely all +the time, after all, need we? Even if you <i>don’t</i> like poor Istra. +You don’t—do you?” Seemingly she didn’t expect an +answer to her question, for she was busy lighting a Russian cigarette. It was +the first time in his life that he had seen a woman smoke. +</p> + +<p> +With embarrassed politeness he glanced away from her as she threw back her head +and inhaled deeply. He blushingly scrutinized the room. +</p> + +<p> +In the farther corner two trunks stood open. One had the tray removed, and out +of the lower part hung a confusion of lacey things from which he turned away +uncomfortable eyes. He recognized the black-and-gold burnoose, which was +tumbled on the bed, with a nightgown of lace insertions and soft wrinkles in +the lawn, a green book with a paper label bearing the title <i>Three Plays for +Puritans</i>, a red slipper, and an open box of chocolates. +</p> + +<p> +On the plain kitchen-ware table was spread a cloth of Reseda green, like a dull +old leaf in color. On it lay a gold-mounted fountain-pen, huge and +stub-pointed; a medley of papers and torn envelopes, a bottle of Creme Yvette, +and a silver-framed portrait of a lean smiling man with a single eye-glass. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn did not really see all these details, but he had an impression of +luxury and high artistic success. He considered the Yvette flask the largest +bottle of perfume he’d ever seen; and remarked that there was “some +guy’s picture on the table.” He had but a moment to reconnoiter, +for she was astonishingly saying: +</p> + +<p> +“So you were lonely when I knocked?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, how—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I could see it. We all get lonely, don’t we? I do, of course. +Just now I’m getting sorer and sorer on Interesting People. I think +I’ll go back to Paris. There even the Interesting People are—why, +they’re interesting. Savvy—you see I <i>am</i> an +American—savvy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—uh—uh—I d-don’t exactly get what +you mean. How do you mean about ‘Interesting People’?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child, of course you don’t get me.” She went to the +mirror and patted her hair, then curled on the bed, with an offhand +“Won’t you sit down?” and smoked elaborately, blowing the +blue tendrils toward the ceiling as she continued: “Of course you +don’t get it. You’re a nice sensible clerk who’ve had enough +real work to do to keep you from being afraid that other people will think +you’re commonplace. You don’t have to coddle yourself into working +enough to earn a living by talking about temperament. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, these Interesting People—You find ’em in London and New +York and San Francisco just the same. They’re convinced they’re the +wisest people on earth. There’s a few artists and a bum novelist or two +always, and some social workers. The particular bunch that it amuses me to hate +just now—and that I apparently can’t do without—they gather +around Olympia Johns, who makes a kind of salon out of her rooms on Great James +Street, off Theobald’s Road…. They might just as well be in New York; but +they’re even stodgier. They don’t get sick of the game of being on +intellectual heights as soon as New-Yorkers do. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have to take you there. It’s a cheery sensation, you +know, to find a man who has some imagination, but who has been unspoiled by +Interesting People, and take him to hear them wamble. They sit around and growl +and rush the growler—I hope you know growler-rushing—and rejoice +that they’re free spirits. Being Free, of course, they’re not +allowed to go and play with nice people, for when a person is Free, you know, +he is never free to be anything but Free. That may seem confusing, but they +understand it at Olympia’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course there’s different sorts of intellectuals, and each cult +despises all the others. Mostly, each cult consists of one person, but +sometimes there’s two—a talker and an audience—or even three. +For instance, you may be a militant and a vegetarian, but if some one is a +militant and has a good figure, why then—oof!… That’s what I mean +by ‘Interesting People.’ I loathe them! So, of course, being one of +them, I go from one bunch to another, and, upon my honor, every single time I +think that the new bunch <i>is</i> interesting!” +</p> + +<p> +Then she smoked in gloomy silence, while Mr. Wrenn remarked, after some mental +labor, “I guess they’re like cattlemen—the cattle-ier they +are, the more romantic they look, and then when you get to know them the chief +trouble with them is that they’re cattlemen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s it. They’re—why, they’re—Oh, +poor dear, there, there, there! It <i>sha’n’t</i> have so much +intellekchool discussion, <i>shall</i> it!… I think you’re a very nice +person, and I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll have a small +fire, shall we? In the fireplace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +She pulled the old-fashioned bell-cord, and the old-fashioned North Country +landlady came—tall, thin, parchment-faced, musty-looking as though she +had been dressed up in Victorian garments in 1880 and left to stand in an +unaired parlor ever since. She glowered silent disapproval at the presence of +Mr. Wrenn in Istra’s room, but sent a slavey to make the +fire—“saxpence uxtry.” Mr. Wrenn felt guilty till the coming +of the slavey, a perfect Christmas-story-book slavey, a small and merry lump of +soot, who sang out, “Chilly t’-night, ayn’t it?” and +made a fire that was soon singing “Chilly t’-night,” like the +slavey. +</p> + +<p> +Istra sat on the floor before the fire, Turk-wise, her quick delicate fingers +drumming excitedly on her knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Come sit by me. You, with your sense of the romantic, ought to +appreciate sitting by the fire. You know it’s always done.” +</p> + +<p> +He slumped down by her, clasping his knees and trying to appear the dignified +American business man in his country-house. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled at him intimately, and quizzed: +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me about the last time you sat with a girl by the fire. Tell poor +Istra the dark secret. Was she the perfect among pink faces?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve—never—sat—before—any—fireplace—with +—any—one! Except when I was about nine—one +Hallowe’en—at a party in Parthenon—little town up York +State.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really? Poor kiddy!” +</p> + +<p> +She reached out her hand and took his. He was terrifically conscious of the +warm smoothness of her fingers playing a soft tattoo on the back of his hand, +while she said: +</p> + +<p> +“But you have been in love? Drefful in love?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear child, you’ve missed so much of the tea and cakes of life, +haven’t you? And you have an interest in life. Do you know, when I think +of the jaded Interesting People I’ve met—Why do I leave you to be +spoiled by some shop-girl in a flowered hat? She’d drag you to +moving-picture shows…. Oh! You didn’t tell me that you went to moving +pictures, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” he lied, fervently, then, feeling guilty, “I used to, +but no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>shall</i> go to the nice moving pictures if it wants to! It shall +take me, too. We’ll forget there are any syndicalists or broken-colorists +for a while, won’t we? We’ll let the robins cover us with +leaves.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean like the babes in the woods? But, say, I’m afraid you +ain’t just a babe in the woods! You’re the first person with brains +I ever met, ’cept, maybe, Dr. Mittyford; and the Doc never would play +games, I don’t believe. The very first one, really.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you!” Her warm pressure on his hand tightened. His heart was +making the maddest gladdest leaps, and timidly, with a feeling of historic +daring, he ventured to explore with his thumb-tip the fine lines of the side of +her hand…. It actually was he, sitting here with a princess, and he actually +did feel the softness of her hand, he pantingly assured himself. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she gave his hand a parting pressure and sprang up. +</p> + +<p> +“Come. We’ll have tiffin, and then I’ll send you away, and +to-morrow we’ll go see the Tate Gallery.” +</p> + +<p> +While Istra was sending the slavey for cakes and a pint of light wine Mr. Wrenn +sat in a chair—just sat in it; he wanted to show that he could be +dignified and not take advantage of Miss Nash’s kindness by +slouchin’ round. Having read much Kipling, he had an idea that tiffin was +some kind of lunch in the afternoon, but of course if Miss Nash used the word +for evening supper, then he had been wrong. +</p> + +<p> +Istra whisked the writing-table with the Reseda-green cover over before the +fire, chucked its papers on the bed, and placed a bunch of roses on one end, +moving the small blue vase two inches to the right, then two inches forward. +</p> + +<p> +The wine she poured into a decanter. Wine was distinctly a problem to him. He +was excited over his sudden rise into a society where one took wine as a matter +of course. Mrs. Zapp wouldn’t take it as a matter of course. He rejoiced +that he wasn’t narrow-minded, like Mrs. Zapp. He worked so hard at not +being narrow-minded like Mrs. Zapp that he started when he was called out of +his day-dream by a mocking voice: +</p> + +<p> +“But you might look at the cakes. Just once, anyway. They are very nice +cakes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know the wine is wine. Beastly of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Miss Nash, I did get you this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t tell me that my presiding goddessship is over +already.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—sure! Now I’m going to be a cruel boss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dee-lighted! Are you going to be a caveman?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry. I don’t quite get you on that.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s too bad, isn’t it. I think I’d rather like to +meet a caveman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh say, I know about that caveman—Jack London’s guys. +I’m afraid I ain’t one. Still—on the cattle-boat—Say, I +wish you could of seen it when the gang were tying up the bulls, before +starting. Dark close place ’tween-decks, with the steers bellowin’ +and all packed tight together, and the stiffs gettin’ seasick—so +seasick we just kind of staggered around; and we’d get hold of a head +rope and yank and then let go, and the bosses’d yell, ‘Pull, or +I’ll brain you.’ And then the fo’c’sle—men packed +in like herrings.” +</p> + +<p> +She was leaning over the table, making a labyrinth with the currants from a +cake and listening intently. He stopped politely, feeling that he was talking +too much. But, “Go on, please do,” she commanded, and he told +simply, seeing it more and more, of Satan and the Grenadier, of the fairies who +had beckoned to him from the Irish coast hills, and the comradeship of Morton. +</p> + +<p> +She interrupted only once, murmuring, “My dear, it’s a good thing +you’re articulate, anyway—” which didn’t seem to have +any bearing on hay-bales. +</p> + +<p> +She sent him away with a light “It’s been a good party, +hasn’t it, caveman? (If you <i>are</i> a caveman.) Call for me tomorrow +at three. We’ll go to the Tate Gallery.” +</p> + +<p> +She touched his hand in the fleetingest of grasps. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Good night, Miss Nash,” he quavered. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A morning of planning his conduct so that in accompanying Istra Nash to the +Tate Gallery he might be the faithful shadow and beautiful transcript of +Mittyford, Ph.D. As a result, when he stood before the large canvases of Mr. +Watts at the Tate he was so heavy and correctly appreciative, so ready not to +enjoy the stories in the pictures of Millais, that Istra suddenly demanded: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear child, I have taken a great deal on my hands. You’ve +got to learn to play. You don’t know how to play. Come. I shall teach +you. I don’t know why I should, either. But—come.” +</p> + +<p> +She explained as they left the gallery: “First, the art of riding on the +buses. Oh, it is an art, you know. You must appreciate the flower-girls and the +gr-r-rand young bobbies. You must learn to watch for the blossoms on the +restaurant terraces and roll on the grass in the parks. You’re much too +respectable to roll on the grass, aren’t you? I’ll try ever so hard +to teach you not to be. And we’ll go to tea. How many kinds of tea are +there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Ceylon and English Breakfast and—oh—Chinese.” +</p> + +<p> +“B—” +</p> + +<p> +“And golf tees!” he added, excitedly, as they took a seat in front +atop the bus. +</p> + +<p> +“Puns are a beginning at least,” she reflected. +</p> + +<p> +“But how many kinds of tea <i>are</i> there, Istra?… Oh say, I +hadn’t ought to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Course; call me Istra or anything else. Only, you mustn’t call my +bluff. What do I know about tea? All of us who play are bluffers, more or less, +and we are ever so polite in pretending not to know the others are bluffing…. +There’s lots of kinds of tea. In the New York Chinatown I saw +once—Do you know Chinatown? Being a New-Yorker, I don’t suppose you +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes. And Italiantown. I used to wander round there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, down at the Seven Flowery Kingdoms Chop Suey and American Cooking +there’s tea at five dollars a cup that they advertise is grown on +‘cloud-covered mountain-tops.’ I suppose when the tops aren’t +cloud-covered they only charge three dollars a cup…. But, serious-like, +there’s really only two kinds of teas—those you go to to meet the +man you love and ought to hate, and those you give to spite the women you hate +but ought to—hate! Isn’t that lovely and complicated? That’s +playing. With words. My aged parent calls it ‘talking too much and not +saying anything.’ Note that last—not saying <i>anything!</i> +It’s one of the rules in playing that mustn’t be broken.” +</p> + +<p> +He understood that better than most of the things she said. “Why,” +he exclaimed, “it’s kind of talking sideways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes. Of course. Talking sideways. Don’t you see now?” +</p> + +<p> +Gallant gentleman as he was, he let her think she had invented the phrase. +</p> + +<p> +She said many other things; things implying such vast learning that he made +gigantic resolves to “read like thunder.” +</p> + +<p> +Her great lesson was the art of taking tea. He found, surprisedly, that they +weren’t really going to endanger their clothes by rolling on park grass. +Instead, she led him to a tea-room behind a candy-shop on Tottenham Court Road, +a low room with white wicker chairs, colored tiles set in the wall, and green +Sedji-ware jugs with irregular bunches of white roses. A waitress with +wild-rose cheeks and a busy step brought Orange Pekoe and lemon for her, Ceylon +and Russian Caravan tea and a jug of clotted cream for him, with a pile of +cinnamon buns. +</p> + +<p> +“But—” said Istra. “Isn’t this like Alice in +Wonderland! But you must learn the buttering of English muffins most of all. If +you get to be very good at it the flunkies will let you take tea at the +Carleton. They are such hypercritical flunkies, and the one that brings the +gold butter-measuring rod to test your skill, why, he always wears +knee-breeches of silver gray. So you can see, Billy, how careful you have to +be. And eat them without buttering your nose. For if you butter your nose +they’ll think you’re a Greek professor. And you wouldn’t like +that, would you, honey?” He learned how to pat the butter into the +comfortable brown insides of the muffins that looked so cold and floury +without. But Istra seemed to have lost interest; and he didn’t in the +least follow her when she observed: +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless it <i>was</i> the best butter. But where, where, dear +dormouse, are the hatter and hare? Especially the sweet bunny rabbit that +wriggled his ears and loved Gralice, the <i>princesse d’outre-mer.</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Where, where are the hatter and hare,<br/> +And where is the best butter gone?” +</p> + +<p> +Presently: “Come on. Let’s beat it down to Soho for dinner. +Or—no! Now you shall lead me. Show me where you’d go for dinner. +And you shall take me to a music-hall, and make me enjoy it. Now <i>you</i> +teach <i>me</i> to play.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! I’m afraid I don’t know a single thing to teach +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—See here! We are two lonely Western barbarians in a +strange land. We’ll play together for a little while. We’re not +used to each other’s sort of play, but that will break up the monotony of +life all the more. I don’t know how long we’ll play or—Shall +we?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now show me how you play.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe I ever did much, really.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you shall take me to your kind of a restaurant.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe you’d care much for penny meat-pies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Little meat-pies?” +</p> + +<p> +“Um-huh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Little <i>crispy</i> ones? With flaky covers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Um-huh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, course I would! And ha’p’ny tea? Lead me to it, O brave +knight! And to a vaudeville.” +</p> + +<p> +He found that this devoted attendant of theaters had never seen the beautiful +Italians who pounce upon protesting zylophones with small clubs, or the +side-splitting juggler’s assistant who breaks up piles and piles of +plates. And as to the top hat that turns into an accordion and produces much +melody, she was ecstatic. +</p> + +<p> +At after-theater supper he talked of Theresa and South Beach, of Charley +Carpenter and Morton—Morton—Morton. +</p> + +<p> +They sat, at midnight, on the steps of the house in Tavistock Place. +</p> + +<p> +“I do know you now, “she mused. “It’s curious how any +two babes in a strange-enough woods get acquainted. You <i>are</i> a lonely +child, aren’t you?” Her voice was mother-soft. “We will play +just a little—” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I had some games to teach. But you know so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m a perfect beauty, too, aren’t I?” she said, +gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are!” stoutly. +</p> + +<p> +“You would be loyal…. And I need some one’s admiration…. Mostly, +Paris and London hold their sides laughing at poor Istra.” +</p> + +<p> +He caught her hand. “Oh, don’t! They <i>must</i> ’preciate +you. I’d like to kill anybody that didn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks.” She gave his hand a return pressure and hastily withdrew +her own. “You’ll be good to some sweet pink face…. And I’ll +go on being discontented. Oh, isn ’t life the fiercest proposition!… We +seem different, you and I, but maybe it’s mostly surface—down deep +we’re alike in being desperately unhappy because we never know what +we’re unhappy about. Well—” +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to put his head down on her knees and rest there. But he sat still, +and presently their cold hands snuggled together. +</p> + +<p> +After a silence, in which they were talking of themselves, he burst out: +“But I don’t see how Paris could help ’preciating you. +I’ll bet you’re one of the best artists they ever saw…. The way you +made up a picture in your mind about that juggler!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope. Sorry. Can’t paint at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, stuff!” with a rudeness quite masterful. “I’ll bet +your pictures are corkers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Um.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please, would you let me see some of them some time. I suppose it would +bother—” +</p> + +<p> +“Come up-stairs. I feel inspired. You are about to hear some great though +nasty criticisms on the works of the unfortunate Miss Nash.” +</p> + +<p> +She led the way, laughing to herself over something. She gave him no time to +blush and hesitate over the impropriety of entering a lady’s room at +midnight, but stalked ahead with a brief “Come in.” +</p> + +<p> +She opened a large portfolio covered with green-veined black paper and yanked +out a dozen unframed pastels and wash-drawings which she scornfully tossed on +the bed, saying, as she pointed to a mass of Marseilles roofs: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you see this sketch? The only good thing about it is the thing that +last art editor, that red-headed youth, probably didn’t like. Don’t +you hate red hair? You see these ridiculous glaring purple shadows under the +<i>clocher?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She stared down at the picture interestedly, forgetting him, pinching her chin +thoughtfully, while she murmured: “They’re rather nice. Rather +good. Rather good.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, quickly twisting her shoulders about, she poured out: +</p> + +<p> +“But look at this. Consider this arch. It’s miserably out of +drawing. And see how I’ve faked this figure? It isn’t a real person +at all. Don’t you notice how I’ve juggled with this stairway? Why, +my dear man, every bit of the drawing in this thing would disgrace a +seventh-grade drawing-class in Dos Puentes. And regard the bunch of lombardies +in this other picture. They look like umbrellas upside down in a silly +wash-basin. Uff! It’s terrible. <i>Affreux!</i> Don’t act as though +you liked them. You really needn’t, you know. Can’t you see now +that they’re hideously out of drawing?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn’s fancy was walking down a green lane of old France toward a +white cottage with orange-trees gleaming against its walls. In her pictures he +had found the land of all his forsaken dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I—I—” was all he could say, but admiration +pulsed in it. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you…. Yes, we <i>will</i> play. Good night. To-morrow!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX<br/> +HE ENCOUNTERS THE INTELLECTUALS</h2> + +<p> +He wanted to find a cable office, stalk in, and nonchalantly send to his bank +for more money. He could see himself doing it. Maybe the cable clerk would +think he was a rich American. What did he care if he spent all he had? A guy, +he admonished himself, just had to have coin when he was goin’ with a +girl like Miss Istra. At least seven times he darted up from the door-step, +where he was on watch for her, and briskly trotted as far as the corner. Each +time his courage melted, and he slumped back to the door-step. Sending for +money—gee, he groaned, that was pretty dangerous. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, he didn’t wish to go away. Istra might come down and play with +him. +</p> + +<p> +For three hours he writhed on that door-step, till he came to hate it; it was +as much a prison as his room at the Zapps’ had been. He hated the areaway +grill, and a big brown spot on the pavement, and, as a truck-driver hates a +motorman, so did he hate a pudgy woman across the street who peeped out from a +second-story window and watched him with cynical interest. He finally could +endure no longer the world’s criticism, as expressed by the woman +opposite. He started as though he were going to go right now to some place he +had been intending to go to all the time, and stalked away, ignoring the woman. +</p> + +<p> +He caught a bus, then another, then walked a while. Now that he was moving, he +was agonizedly considering his problem: What was Istra to him, really? What +could he be to her? He <i>was</i> just a clerk. She could never love him. +“And of course,” he explained to himself, “you hadn’t +oughta love a person without you expected to marry them; you oughtn’t +never even touch her hand.” Yet he did want to touch hers. He suddenly +threw his chin back, high and firm, in defiance. He didn’t care if he was +wicked, he declared. He wanted to shout to Istra across all the city: Let us be +great lovers! Let us be mad! Let us stride over the hilltops. Though that was +not at all the way he phrased it. +</p> + +<p> +Then he bumped into a knot of people standing on the walk, and came down from +the hilltops in one swoop. +</p> + +<p> +A crowd was collecting before Rothsey Hall, which bore the sign: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +GLORY—GLORY—GLORY<br/> +<br/> +SPECIAL SALVATION ARMY JUBILEE MEETING<br/> +<br/> +<small>EXPERIENCES OF ADJUTANT CRABBENTHWAITE IN AFRICA</small> +</p> + +<p> +He gaped at the sign. A Salvationist in the crowd, trim and well set up, his +red-ribboned Salvation Army cap at a jaunty angle, said, “Won’t you +come in, brother?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn meekly followed into the hall. Bill Wrenn was nowhere in sight. +</p> + +<p> +Now it chanced that Adjutant Crabbenthwaite told much of Houssas and the +N’Gombi, of saraweks and week-long treks, but Mr. Wrenn’s +imagination was not for a second drawn to Africa, nor did he even glance at the +sun-bonneted Salvationist women packed in the hall. He was going over and over +the Adjutant’s denunciations of the Englishmen and Englishwomen who flirt +on the mail-boats. +</p> + +<p> +Suppose it had been himself and his madness over Istra—at the moment he +quite called it madness—that the Adjutant had denounced! +</p> + +<p> +A Salvationist near by was staring at him most accusingly…. +</p> + +<p> +He walked away from the jubilee reflectively. He ate his dinner with a grave +courtesy toward the food and the waiter. He was positively courtly to his fork. +For he was just reformed. He was going to “steer clear” of mad +artist women—of all but nice good girls whom you could marry. He +remembered the Adjutant’s thundered words: +</p> + +<p> +“Flirting you call it—flirting! Look into your hearts. God Himself +hath looked into them and found flirtation the gateway to hell. And I tell you +that these army officers and the bedizened women, with their wine and +cigarettes, with their devil’s calling-cards and their jewels, with their +hell-lighted talk of the sacrilegious follies of socialism and art and +horse-racing, O my brothers, it was all but a cloak for looking upon one +another to lust after one another. Rotten is this empire, and shall fall when +our soldiers seek flirtation instead of kneeling in prayer like the iron men of +Cromwell.” +</p> + +<p> +Istra…. Card-playing…. Talk of socialism and art. Mr. Wrenn felt very guilty. +Istra…. Smoking and drinking wine…. But his moral reflections brought the +picture of Istra the more clearly before him—the persuasive warmth of her +perfect fingers; the curve of her backward-bent throat as she talked in her +melodious voice of all the beautiful things made by the wise hands of great +men. +</p> + +<p> +He dashed out of the restaurant. No matter what happened, good or bad, he had +to see her. While he was climbing to the upper deck of a bus he was trying to +invent an excuse for seeing her…. Of course one couldn’t “go and +call on ladies in their rooms without havin’ some special excuse; they +would think that was awful fresh.” +</p> + +<p> +He left the bus midway, at the sign of a periodical shop, and purchased a +<i>Blackwood’s</i> and a <i>Nineteenth Century</i>. Morton had told him +these were the chief English “highbrow magazines.” +</p> + +<p> +He carried them to his room, rubbed his thumb in the lampblack on the +gas-fixture, and smeared the magazine covers, then cut the leaves and ruffled +the margins to make the magazines look dog-eared with much reading; not because +he wanted to appear to have read them, but because he felt that Istra would not +permit him to buy things just for her. +</p> + +<p> +All this business with details so calmed him that he wondered if he really +cared to see her at all. Besides, it was so late—after half-past eight. +</p> + +<p> +“Rats! Hang it all! I wish I was dead. I don’t know what I do want +to do,” he groaned, and cast himself upon his bed. He was sure of nothing +but the fact that he was unhappy. He considered suicide in a dignified manner, +but not for long enough to get much frightened about it. +</p> + +<p> +He did not know that he was the toy of forces which, working on him through the +strangeness of passionate womanhood, could have made him a great cad or a petty +hero as easily as they did make him confusedly sorry for himself. That he +wasn’t very much of a cad or anything of a hero is a detail, an accident +resulting from his thirty-five or thirty-six years of stodgy environment. Cad +or hero, filling scandal columns or histories, he would have been the same +William Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +He was thinking of Istra as he lay on his bed. In a few minutes he dashed to +his bureau and brushed his thinning hair so nervously that he had to try three +times for a straight parting. While brushing his eyebrows and mustache he +solemnly contemplated himself in the mirror. +</p> + +<p> +“I look like a damn rabbit,” he scorned, and marched half-way to +Istra’s room. He went back to change his tie to a navy-blue bow which +made him appear younger. He was feeling rather resentful at everything, +including Istra, as he finally knocked and heard her “Yes? Come +in.” +</p> + +<p> +There was in her room a wonderful being lolling in a wing-chair, one leg over +the chair-arm; a young young man, with broken brown teeth, always seen in his +perpetual grin, but a godlike Grecian nose, a high forehead, and bristly yellow +hair. The being wore large round tortoise-shell spectacles, a soft shirt with a +gold-plated collar-pin, and delicately gray garments. +</p> + +<p> +Istra was curled on the bed in a leaf-green silk kimono with a great +gold-mounted medallion pinned at her breast. Mr. Wrenn tried not to be shocked +at the kimono. +</p> + +<p> +She had been frowning as he came in and fingering a long thin green book of +verses, but she glowed at Mr. Wrenn as though he were her most familiar friend, +murmuring, “Mouse dear, I’m <i>so</i> glad you could come +in.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn stood there awkwardly. He hadn’t expected to find another +visitor. He seemed to have heard her call him “Mouse.” Yes, but +what did Mouse mean? It wasn’t his name at all. This was all very +confusing. But how awful glad she was to see him! +</p> + +<p> +“Mouse dear, this is one of our best little indecent poets, Mr. Carson +Haggerty. From America—California—too. Mr. Hag’ty, Mr. +Wrenn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pleased meet you,” said both men in the same tone of annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn implored: “I—uh—I thought you might like to look at +these magazines. Just dropped in to give them to you.” He was ready to +go. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you—so good of you. <i>Please</i> sit down. Carson and I +were only fighting—he’s going pretty soon. We knew each other at +art school in Berkeley. Now he knows all the toffs in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Wrenn,” said the best little poet, “I hope you’ll +back up my contention. Izzy says th—” +</p> + +<p> +“Carson, I have told you just about enough times that I do not intend to +stand for ‘Izzy’ any more! I should think that even <i>you</i> +would be able to outgrow the standard of wit that obtains in first-year art +class at Berkeley.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Haggerty showed quite all of his ragged teeth in a noisy joyous grin and +went on, unperturbed: “Miss Nash says that the best European thought, +personally gathered in the best salons, shows that the Rodin vogue is getting +the pickle-eye from all the real yearners. What is your opinion?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn turned to Istra for protection. She promptly announced: “Mr. +Wrenn absolutely agrees with me. By the way, he’s doing a big book on the +recrudescence of Kipling, after his slump, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come off, now! Kipling! Blatant imperialist, anti-Stirner!” +cried Carson Haggerty, kicking out each word with the assistance of his +swinging left foot. +</p> + +<p> +Much relieved that the storm-center had passed over him, Mr. Wrenn sat on the +front edge of a cane-seated chair, with the magazines between his hands, and +his hands pressed between his forward-cocked knees. Always, in the hundreds of +times he went over the scene in that room afterward, he remembered how cool and +smooth the magazine covers felt to the palms of his flattened hands. For he +associated the papery surfaces with the apprehension he then had that Istra +might give him up to the jag-toothed grin of Carson Haggerty, who would laugh +him out of the room and out of Istra’s world. +</p> + +<p> +He hated the poetic youth, and would gladly have broken all of Carson’s +teeth short off. Yet the dread of having to try the feat himself made him +admire the manner in which Carson tossed about long creepy-sounding words, like +a bush-ape playing with scarlet spiders. He talked insultingly of Yeats and the +commutation of sex-energy and Isadora Duncan and the poetry of Carson Haggerty. +</p> + +<p> +Istra yawned openly on the bed, kicking a pillow, but she was surprised into +energetic discussion now and then, till Haggerty intentionally called her Izzy +again, when she sat up and remarked to Mr. Wrenn: “Oh, don’t go +yet. You can tell me about the article when Carson goes. Dear Carson said he +was only going to stay till ten.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn hadn’t had any intention of going, so he merely smiled and +bobbed his head to the room in general, and stammered “Y-yes,” +while he tried to remember what he had told her about some article. Article. +Perhaps it was a Souvenir Company novelty article. Great idea! Perhaps she +wanted to design a motto for them. He decidedly hoped that he could fix it up +for her—he’d sure do his best. He’d be glad to write over to +Mr. Guilfogle about it. Anyway, she seemed willing to have him stick here. +</p> + +<p> +Yet when dear Carson had jauntily departed, leaving the room still loud with +the smack of his grin, Istra seemed to have forgotten that Mr. Wrenn was alive. +She was scowling at a book on the bed as though it had said things to her. So +he sat quiet and crushed the magazine covers more closely till the silence +choked him, and he dared, “Mr. Carson is an awful well-educated +man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a bounder,” she snapped. She softened her voice as she +continued: “He was in the art school in California when I was there, and +he presumes on that…. It was good of you to stay and help me get rid of him…. +I’m getting—I’m sorry I’m so dull to-night. I suppose +I’ll get sent off to bed right now, if I can’t be more +entertaining. It was sweet of you to come in, Mouse…. You don’t mind my +calling you ‘Mouse,’ do you? I won’t, if you do mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He awkwardly walked over and laid the magazines on the bed. “Why, +it’s all right…. What was it about some novelty—some article? If +there’s anything I could do—anything—” +</p> + +<p> +“Article?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes. That you wanted to see me about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Oh, that was just to get rid of Carson…. His <i>insufferable</i> +familiarity! The penalty for my having been a naive kiddy, hungry for +friendship, once. And now, good n—. Oh, Mouse, he says my eyes—even +with this green kimono on— Come here, dear. tell me what color my eyes +are.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved with a quick swing to the side of her bed. Thrusting out her two +arms, she laid ivory hands clutchingly on his shoulder. He stood quaking, +forgetting every one of the Wrennish rules by which he had edged a shy polite +way through life. He fearfully reached out his hands toward her shoulders in +turn, but his arms were shorter than hers, and his hands rested on the +sensitive warmth of her upper arms. He peered at those dear gray-blue eyes of +hers, but he could not calm himself enough to tell whether they were china-blue +or basalt-black. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” she demanded; “<i>aren’t</i> they +green?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he quavered. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sweet,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Leaning out from the side of her bed, she kissed him. She sprang up, and +hastened to the window, laughing nervously, and deploring: “I +shouldn’t have done that! I shouldn’t! Forgive me!” +Plaintively, like a child: “Istra was so bad, so bad. Now you must +go.” As she turned back to him her eyes had the peace of an old +friend’s. +</p> + +<p> +Because he had wished to be kind to people, because he had been pitiful toward +Goaty Zapp, Mr. Wrenn was able to understand that she was trying to be a kindly +big sister to him, and he said “Good night, Istra,” and smiled in a +lively way and walked out. He got out the smile by wrenching his nerves, for +which he paid in agony as he knelt by his bed, acknowledging that Istra would +never love him and that therefore he was not to love, would be a fool to love, +never would love her—and seeing again her white arms softly shadowed by +her green kimono sleeves. +</p> + +<p> +No sight of Istra, no scent of her hair, no sound of her always-changing voice +for two days. Twice, seeing a sliver of light under her door as he came up the +darkened stairs, he knocked, but there was no answer, and he marched into his +room with the dignity of fury. +</p> + +<p> +Numbers of times he quite gave her up, decided he wanted never to see her +again. But after one of the savagest of these renunciations, while he was +stamping defiantly down Tottenham Court Road, he saw in a window a +walking-stick that he was sure she would like his carrying. And it cost only +two-and-six. Hastily, before he changed his mind, he rushed in and slammed down +his money. It was a very beautiful stick indeed, and of a modesty to commend +itself to Istra, just a plain straight stick with a cap of metal curiously like +silver. He was conscious that the whole world was leering at him, demanding +“What’re <i>you</i> carrying a cane for?” but he—the +misunderstood—was willing to wait for the reward of this martyrdom in +Istra’s approval. +</p> + +<p> +The third night, as he stood at the window watching two children playing in the +dusk, there was a knock. It was Istra. She stood at his door, smart and +inconspicuous in a black suit with a small toque that hid the flare of her red +hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” she said, abruptly. “I want you to take me to +Olympia’s—Olympia Johns’ flat. I’ve been reading all +the Balzac there is. I want to talk. Can you come?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, of course—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurry, then!” +</p> + +<p> +He seized his small foolishly round hat, and he tucked his new walking-stick +under his arm without displaying it too proudly, waiting for her comment. +</p> + +<p> +She led the way down-stairs and across the quiet streets and squares of +Bloomsbury to Great James Street. She did not even see the stick. +</p> + +<p> +She said scarce a word beyond: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sick of Olympia’s bunch—I never want to dine in +Soho with an inhibition and a varietistic sex instinct again—<i>jamais de +la vie.</i> But one has to play with somebody.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he was so cheered that he tapped the pavements boldly with his stick and +delicately touched her arm as they crossed the street. For she added: +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll just run in and see them for a little while, and then you +can take me out and buy me a Rhine wine and seltzer…. Poor Mouse, it shall have +its play!” +</p> + +<p> +Olympia Johns’ residence consisted of four small rooms. When Istra opened +the door, after tapping, the living-room was occupied by seven people, all +interrupting one another and drinking fourpenny ale; seven people and a fog of +cigarette smoke and a tangle of papers and books and hats. A swamp of unwashed +dishes appeared on a large table in the room just beyond, divided off from the +living-room by a burlap curtain to which were pinned suffrage buttons and +medallions. This last he remembered afterward, thinking over the room, for the +medals’ glittering points of light relieved his eyes from the intolerable +glances of the people as he was hastily introduced to them. He was afraid that +he would be dragged into a discussion, and sat looking away from them to the +medals, and to the walls, on which were posters, showing mighty fists with +hammers and flaming torches, or hog-like men lolling on the chests of workmen, +which they seemed to enjoy more than the workmen. By and by he ventured to scan +the group. +</p> + +<p> +Carson Haggerty, the American poet, was there. But the center of them all was +Olympia Johns herself—spinster, thirty-four, as small and active and +excitedly energetic as an ant trying to get around a match. She had much of the +ant’s brownness and slimness, too. Her pale hair was always falling from +under her fillet of worn black velvet (with the dingy under side of the velvet +showing curled up at the edges). A lock would tangle in front of her eyes, and +she would impatiently shove it back with a jab of her thin rough hands, never +stopping in her machine-gun volley of words. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” she would pour out. “Don’t you +<i>see?</i> We must do something. I tell you the conditions are intolerable, +simply intolerable. We must <i>do</i> something.” +</p> + +<p> +The conditions were, it seemed, intolerable in the several branches of +education of female infants, water rates in Bloomsbury, the cutlery industry, +and ballad-singing. +</p> + +<p> +And mostly she was right. Only her rightness was so demanding, so restless, +that it left Mr. Wrenn gasping. +</p> + +<p> +Olympia depended on Carson Haggerty for most of the “Yes, that’s +so’s,” though he seemed to be trying to steal glances at another +woman, a young woman, a lazy smiling pretty girl of twenty, who, Istra told Mr. +Wrenn, studied Greek archaeology at the Museum. No one knew why she studied it. +She seemed peacefully ignorant of everything but her kissable lips, and she +adorably poked at things with lazy graceful fingers, and talked the Little +Language to Carson Haggerty, at which Olympia shrugged her shoulders and turned +to the others. +</p> + +<p> +There were a Mr. and Mrs. Stettinius—she a poet; he a bleached man, with +goatish whiskers and a sanctimonious white neck-cloth, who was Puritanically, +ethically, gloomily, religiously atheistic. Items in the room were a young man +who taught in Mr. Jeney’s Select School and an Established Church mission +worker from Whitechapel, who loved to be shocked. +</p> + +<p> +It was Mr. Wrenn who was really shocked, however, not by the noise and odor; +not by the smoking of the women; not by the demand that “we” tear +down the state; no, not by these was Our Mr. Wrenn of the Souvenir Company +shocked, but by his own fascinated interest in the frank talk of sex. He had +always had a quite undefined supposition that it was wicked to talk of sex +unless one made a joke of it. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the superradicals, to confuse the radicals who confused Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +For always there is a greater rebellion; and though you sell your prayer-book +to buy Bakunine, and esteem yourself revolutionary to a point of madness, you +shall find one who calls you reactionary. The scorners came in +together—Moe Tchatzsky, the syndicalist and direct actionist, and Jane +Schott, the writer of impressionistic prose—and they sat silently +sneering on a couch. +</p> + +<p> +Istra rose, nodded at Mr. Wrenn, and departed, despite Olympia’s +hospitable shrieks after them of “Oh stay! It’s only a little after +ten. Do stay and have something to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +Istra shut the door resolutely. The hall was dark. It was gratefully quiet. She +snatched up Mr. Wrenn’s hand and held it to her breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mouse dear, I’m so bored! I want some real things. They talk +and talk in there, and every night they settle all the fate of all the nations, +always the same way. I don’t suppose there’s ever been a bunch that +knew more things incorrectly. You hated them, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I don’t think you ought to talk about them so severe,” +he implored, as they started down-stairs. “I don’t mean +they’re like you. They don’t savvy like you do. I mean it! But I +was awful int’rested in what that Miss Johns said about kids in school +getting crushed into a mold. Gee! that’s so; ain’t it? Never +thought of it before. And that Mrs. Stettinius talked about Yeats so +beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear, you make my task so much harder. I want you to be +different. Can’t you see your cattle-boat experience is realer than any +of the things those half-baked thinkers have done? I <i>know</i>. I’m +half-baked myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve never done nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re ready to. Oh, I don’t know. I want—I wish +Jock Seton—the filibuster I met in San Francisco—I wish he were +here. Mouse, maybe I can make a filibuster of you. I’ve got to create +something. Oh, those people! If you just knew them! That fool Mary Stettinius +is mad about that Tchatzsky person, and her husband invites him to teas. +Stettinius is mad about Olympia, who’ll probably take Carson out and +marry him, and he’ll keep on hanging about the Greek girl. Ungh!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—I don’t know—” +</p> + +<p> +But as he didn’t know what he didn’t know she merely patted his arm +and said, soothingly: “I won’t criticize your first specimens of +radicals any more. They are trying to do something, anyway.” Then she +added, in an irrelevant tone, “You’re exactly as tall as I am. +Mouse dear, you ought to be taller.” +</p> + +<p> +They were entering the drab stretch of Tavistock Place, after a silence as +drab, when she exclaimed: “Mouse, I am <i>so</i> sick of everything. I +want to get out, away, anywhere, and do something, anything, just so’s +it’s different. Even the country. I’d like—Why couldn’t +we?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go out on a picnic to-morrow, Istra.” +</p> + +<p> +“A picnic picnic? With pickles and a pillow cushion and several kinds of +cake?… I’m afraid the Bois Boulogne has spoiled me for that…. Let me +think.” +</p> + +<p> +She drooped down on the steps of their house. Her head back, her supple strong +throat arched with the passion of hating boredom, she devoured the starlight +dim over the stale old roofs across the way. +</p> + +<p> +“Stars,” she said. “Out on the moors they would come down by +you…. What is <i>your</i> adventure—your formula for it?… Let’s +see; you take common roadside things seriously; you’d be dear and excited +over a Red Lion Inn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there more than one Red Li—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Mouse, England is a menagerie of Red Lions and White Lions and +fuzzy Green Unicorns…. Why not, why not, <i>why not!</i> Let’s walk to +Aengusmere. It’s a fool colony of artists and so on, up in Suffolk; but +they <i>have</i> got some beautiful cottages, and they’re more Celt than +Dublin…. Start right now; take a train to Chelmsford, say, and tramp all night. +Take a couple of days or so to get there. Think of it! Tramping through dawn, +past English fields. Think of it, Yankee. And not caring what anybody in the +world thinks. Gipsies. Shall we?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wh-h-h-h-y—” He was sure she was mad. Tramping all night! He +couldn’t let her do this. +</p> + +<p> +She sprang up. She stared down at him in revulsion, her hands clenched. Her +voice was hostile as she demanded: +</p> + +<p> +“What? Don’t you want to? With <i>me?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He was up beside her, angry, dignified; a man. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here. You know I want to. You’re the elegantest—I mean +you’re—Oh, you ought to know! Can’t you see how I feel about +you? Why, I’d rather do this than anything I ever heard of in my life. I +just don’t want to do anything that would get people to talking about +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who would know? Besides, my dear man, I don’t regard it as exactly +wicked to walk decently along a country road.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it isn’t that. Oh, please, Istra, don’t look at me like +that—like you hated me.” +</p> + +<p> +She calmed at once, drummed on his arm, sat down on the railing, and drew him +to a seat beside her. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, Mouse. It’s silly to be angry. Yes, I do believe you +want to take care of me. But don’t worry…. Come! Shall we go?” +</p> + +<p> +“But wouldn’t you rather wait till to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. The whole thing’s so mad that if I wait till then I’ll +never want to do it. And you’ve got to come, so that I’ll have some +one to quarrel with…. I hate the smugness of London, especially the smugness of +the anti-smug anti-bourgeois radicals, so that I have the finest mad mood! +Come. We’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +Even this logical exposition had not convinced him, but he did not gainsay as +they entered the hall and Istra rang for the landlady. His knees grew sick and +old and quavery as he heard the landlady’s voice loud below-stairs: +“Now wot do they want? It’s eleven o’clock. Aren’t they +ever done a-ringing and a-ringing?” +</p> + +<p> +The landlady, the tired thin parchment-faced North Countrywoman, whose god was +Respectability of Lodgings, listened in a frightened way to Istra’s +blandly superior statement: “Mr. Wrenn and I have been invited to join an +excursion out of town that leaves to-night. We’ll pay our rent and leave +our things here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Going off together—” +</p> + +<p> +“My good woman, we are going to Aengusmere. Here’s two pound. +Don’t allow any one in my room. And I may send for my things from out of +town. Be ready to pack them in my trunks and send them to me. Do you +understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, miss, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“My good woman, do you realize that your ‘buts’ are +insulting?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I didn’t go to be insulting—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that’s all…. Hurry now, Mouse!” +</p> + +<p> +On the stairs, ascending, she whispered, with the excitement not of a tired +woman, but of a tennis-and-dancing-mad girl: “We’re off! Just take +a tooth-brush. Put on an outing suit—any old thing—and an old +cap.” +</p> + +<p> +She darted into her room. +</p> + +<p> +Now Mr. Wrenn had, for any old thing, as well as for afternoon and evening +dress, only the sturdy undistinguished clothes he was wearing, so he put on a +cap, and hoped she wouldn’t notice. She didn’t. She came knocking +in fifteen minutes, trim in a khaki suit, with low thick boots and a jolly +tousled blue tam-o’-shanter. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on. There’s a train for Chelmsford in half an hour, my +time-table confided to me. I feel like singing.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X<br/> +HE GOES A-GIPSYING</h2> + +<p> +They rode out of London in a third-class compartment, opposite a curate and two +stodgy people who were just people and defied you (Istra cheerfully explained +to Mr. Wrenn) to make anything of them but just people. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t they stare if they knew what idiocy we’re up +to!” she suggested. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn bobbed his head in entire agreement. He was trying, without any +slightest success, to make himself believe that Mr. William Wrenn, Our Mr. +Wrenn, late of the Souvenir Company, was starting out for a country tramp at +midnight with an artist girl. +</p> + +<p> +The night foreman of the station, a person of bedizenment and pride, stared at +them as they alighted at Chelmsford and glanced around like strangers. Mr. +Wrenn stared back defiantly and marched with Istra from the station, through +the sleeping town, past its ragged edges, into the country. +</p> + +<p> +They tramped on, a bit wearily. Mr. Wrenn was beginning to wonder if +they’d better go back to Chelmsford. Mist was dripping and blind and +silent about them, weaving its heavy gray with the night. Suddenly Istra caught +his arm at the gate to a farm-yard, and cried, “Look!” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!… Gee! we’re in England. We’re abroad!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +A paved courtyard with farm outbuildings thatched and ancient was lit faintly +by a lantern hung from a post that was thumbed to a soft smoothness by +centuries. +</p> + +<p> +“That couldn’t be America,” he exulted. “Gee! I’m +just gettin’ it! I’m so darn glad we came…. Here’s real +England. No tourists. It’s what I’ve always wanted—a country +that’s old. And different…. Thatched houses!… And pretty soon it’ll +be dawn, summer dawn; with you, with Istra! <i>Gee!</i> It’s the darndest +adventure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes…. Come on. Let’s walk fast or we’ll get sleepy, and then +your romantic heroine will be a grouchy Interesting People!… Listen! +There’s a sleepy dog barking, a million miles away…. I feel like telling +you about myself. You don’t know me. Or do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I dunno just how you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it shall have its romance! But some time I’ll tell +you—perhaps I will—how I’m not really a clever person at all, +but just a savage from outer darkness, who pretends to understand London and +Paris and Munich, and gets frightfully scared of them…. Wait! Listen! Hear the +mist drip from that tree. Are you nice and drowned?” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—kind of. But I been worrying about you being soaked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see. Why, your sleeve is wet clear through. This khaki of mine +keeps out the water better…. But I don’t mind getting wet. All I mind is +being bored. I’d like to run up this hill without a thing on—just +feeling the good healthy real mist on my skin. But I’m afraid it +isn’t done.” +</p> + +<p> +Mile after mile. Mostly she talked of the boulevards and Pere Dureon, of +Debussy and artichokes, in little laughing sentences that sprang like fire out +of the dimness of the mist. +</p> + +<p> +Dawn came. From a hilltop they made out the roofs of a town and stopped to +wonder at its silence, as though through long ages past no happy footstep had +echoed there. The fog lifted. The morning was new-born and clean, and they +fairly sang as they clattered up to an old coaching inn and demanded breakfast +of an amazed rustic pottering about the inn yard in a smock. He did not know +that to a “thrilling” Mr. Wrenn he—or perhaps it was his +smock—was the hero in an English melodrama. Nor, doubtless, did the +English crisp bacon and eggs which a sleepy housemaid prepared know that they +were theater properties. Why, they were English eggs, served at dawn in an +English inn—a stone-floored raftered room with a starling hanging in a +little cage of withes outside the latticed window. And there were no trippers +to bother them! (Mr. Wrenn really used the word “trippers” in his +cogitations; he had it from Istra.) +</p> + +<p> +When he informed her of this occult fact she laughed, “You know mighty +well, Mouse, that you have a sneaking wish there were one Yankee stranger here +to see our glory.” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess that’s right.” +</p> + +<p> +“But maybe I’m just as bad.” +</p> + +<p> +For once their tones had not been those of teacher and pupil, but of comrades. +They set out from the inn through the brightening morning like lively boys on a +vacation tramp. +</p> + +<p> +The sun crept out, with the warmth and the dust, and Istra’s steps +lagged. As they passed the outlying corner of a farm where a straw-stack was +secluded in a clump of willows Istra smiled and sighed: “I’m pretty +tired, dear. I’m going to sleep in that straw-stack. I’ve always +wanted to sleep in a straw-stack. It’s <i>comme il faut</i> for vagabonds +in the best set, you know. And one can burrow. Exciting, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +She made a pillow of her khaki jacket, while he dug down to a dry place for +her. He found another den on the other side of the stack. +</p> + +<p> +It was afternoon when he awoke. He sprang up and rushed around the stack. Istra +was still asleep, curled in a pathetically small childish heap, her tired face +in repose against the brown-yellow of her khaki jacket. Her red hair had come +down and shone about her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +She looked so frail that he was frightened. Surely, too, she’d be very +angry with him for letting her come on this jaunt. +</p> + +<p> +He scribbled on a leaf from his address-book—religiously carried for six +years, but containing only four addresses—this note: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Gone to get stuff for bxfst be right back.—W. W. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and, softly crawling up the straw, left the note by her head. He hastened to a +farm-house. The farm-wife was inclined to be curious. O curious farm-wife, you +of the cream-thick Essex speech and the shuffling feet, you were brave indeed +to face Bill Wrenn the Great, with his curt self-possession, for he was on a +mission for Istra, and he cared not for the goggling eyes of all England. What +though he was a bunny-faced man with an innocuous mustache? Istra would be +awakening hungry. That was why he bullied you into selling him a stew-pan and a +bundle of faggots along with the tea and eggs and a bread loaf and a jar of the +marmalade your husband’s farm had been making these two hundred years. +And you should have had coffee for him, not tea, woman of Essex. +</p> + +<p> +When he returned to their outdoor inn the late afternoon glow lay along the +rich fields that sloped down from their well-concealed nook. Istra was still +asleep, but her cheek now lay wistfully on the crook of her thin arm. He looked +at the auburn-framed paleness of her face, its lines of thought and ambition, +unmasked, unprotected by the swift changes of expression which defended her +while she was awake. He sobbed. If he could only make her happy! But he was +afraid of her moods. +</p> + +<p> +He built a fire by a brooklet beyond the willows, boiled the eggs and toasted +the bread and made the tea, with cream ready in a jar. He remembered boyhood +camping days in Parthenon and old camp lore. He returned to the stack and +called, “Istra—oh, Is-tra!” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, nestled closer into the straw, then sat up, her hair about +her shoulders. She smiled and called down: “Good morning. Why, it’s +afternoon! Did you sleep well, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Did you? Gee, I hope you did!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never better in my life. I’m so sleepy yet. But comfy. I needed a +quiet sleep outdoors, and it’s so peaceful here. Breakfast! I roar for +breakfast! Where’s the nearest house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Got breakfast all ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a dear!” +</p> + +<p> +She went to wash in the brook, and came back with eyes dancing and hair trim, +and they laughed over breakfast, glancing down the slope of golden hazy fields. +Only once did Istra pass out of the land of their intimacy into some hinterland +of analysis—when she looked at him as he drank his tea aloud out of the +stew-pan, and wondered: “Is this really you here with me? But you +<i>aren’t</i> a boulevardier. I must say I don’t understand what +you’re doing here at all…. Nor a caveman, either. I don’t +understand it…. But you <i>sha’n’t</i> be worried by bad Istra. +Let’s see; we went to grammar-school together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and we were in college. Don’t you remember when I was +baseball captain? You don’t? Gee, you got a bad memory!” +</p> + +<p> +At which she smiled properly, and they were away for Suffolk again. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I suppose now it’ll go and rain,” said Istra, viciously, at +dusk. It was the first time she had spoken for a mile. Then, after another +quarter-mile: “Please don’t mind my being silent. I’m sort of +stiff, and my feet hurt most unromantically. You won’t mind, will +you?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course he did mind, and of course he said he didn’t. He artfully +skirted the field of conversation by very West Sixteenth Street observations on +a town through which they passed, while she merely smiled wearily, and at best +remarked “Yes, that’s so,” whether it was so or not. +</p> + +<p> +He was reflecting: “Istra’s terrible tired. I ought to take care of +her.” He stopped at the wood-pillared entrance of a temperance inn and +commanded: “Come! We’ll have something to eat here.” To the +astonishment of both of them, she meekly obeyed with “If you wish.” +</p> + +<p> +It cannot be truthfully said that Mr. Wrenn proved himself a person of +<i>savoir faire</i> in choosing a temperance hotel for their dinner. Istra +didn’t seem so much to mind the fact that the table-cloth was coarse and +the water-glasses thick, and that everywhere the elbow ran into a superfluity +of greasy pepper and salt castors. But when she raised her head wearily to peer +around the room she started, glared at Mr. Wrenn, and accused: “Are you +by any chance aware of the fact that this place is crowded with tourists? There +are two family parties from Davenport or Omaha; I <i>know</i> they are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they ain’t such bad-looking people,” protested Mr. +Wrenn…. Just because he had induced her to stop for dinner the poor man thought +his masculine superiority had been recognized. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’re <i>terrible!</i> Can’t you <i>see</i> it? Oh, +you’re <i>hopeless</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that big guy—that big man with the rimless spectacles looks +like he might be a good civil engineer, and I think that lady opposite +him—” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re Americans.” +</p> + +<p> +“So’re we!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought—why—” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I was born there, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, just the same, I think they’re nice people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now see here. Must I argue with you? Can I have no peace, tired as I am? +Those trippers are speaking of ‘quaint English flavor.’ Can you +want anything more than that to damn them? And they’ve been touring by +motor—seeing every inn on the road.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe it’s fun for—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now <i>don’t</i> argue with me. I know what I’m talking +about. Why do I have to explain everything? They’re hopeless!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn felt a good wholesome desire to spank her, but he said, most +politely: “You’re awful tired. Don’t you want to stay here +tonight? Or maybe some other hotel; and I’ll stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Don’t want to stay any place. Want to get away from +myself,” she said, exactly like a naughty child. +</p> + +<p> +So they tramped on again. +</p> + +<p> +Darkness was near. They had plunged into a country which in the night seemed to +be a stretch of desolate moorlands. As they were silently plodding up a hill +the rain came. It came with a roar, a pitiless drenching against which they +fought uselessly, soaking them, slapping their faces, blinding their eyes. He +caught her arm and dragged her ahead. She would be furious with him because it +rained, of course, but this was no time to think of that; he had to get her to +a dry place. +</p> + +<p> +Istra laughed: “Oh, isn’t this great! We’re real vagabonds +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why! Doesn’t that khaki soak through? Aren’t you wet?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the skin!” she shouted, gleefully. “And I don’t +care! We’re <i>doing</i> something. Poor dear, is it worried? I’ll +race you to the top of the hill.” +</p> + +<p> +The dark bulk of a building struck their sight at the top, and they ran to it. +Just now Mr. Wrenn was ready to devour alive any irate householder who might +try to turn them out. He found the building to be a ruined stable—the +door off the hinges, the desolate thatch falling in. He struck a match and, +holding it up, standing straight, the master, all unconscious for once in his +deprecating life of the Wrennishness of Mr. Wrenn, he discovered that the +thatch above the horse-manger was fairly waterproof. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on! Up on the edge of the manger, Istra,” he ordered. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a perfectly good place for a murder,” she grinned, as they +sat swinging their legs. +</p> + +<p> +He could fancy her grinning. He was sure about it, and well content. +</p> + +<p> +“Have I been so very grouchy, Mouse? Don’t you want to murder me? +I’ll try to find you a long pin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope; I don’t think so, much. I guess we can get along without it +this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, dear! This is very dreadful. You’re so used to me now +that you aren’t even scared of me any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! I guess I’ll be scared of you all right as soon as I get you +into a dry place, but I ain’t got time now. Sitting on a manger! +Ain’t this the funniest place!… Now I must beat it out and find a house. +There ought to be one somewheres near here.” +</p> + +<p> +“And leave me here in the darknesses and wetnesses? Not a chance. The +rain’ll soon be over, anyway. Really, I don’t mind a bit. I think +it’s rather fun.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was natural again, natural and companionable and brave. She laughed +as she stroked her wet shoulder and held his hand, sitting quietly and bidding +him listen to the soft forlorn sound of the rain on the thatch. +</p> + +<p> +But the rain was not soon over, and their dangling position was very much like +riding a rail. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so uncomfortable!” fretted Istra. +</p> + +<p> +“See here, Istra, please, I think I’d better go see if I +can’t find a house for you to get dry in.” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel too wretched to go any place. Too wretched to move.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I’ll make a fire here. There ain’t much +danger.” +</p> + +<p> +“The place will catch fire,” she began, querulously. +</p> + +<p> +But he interrupted her. “Oh, <i>let</i> the darn place catch fire! +I’m going to make a fire, I tell you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to move. It’ll just be another kind of +discomfort, that’s all. Why couldn’t you try and take a little bit +of care of me, anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hon-ey!” he wailed, in youthful bewilderment. “I did try +to get you to stay at that hotel in town and get some rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you ought to have made me. Don’t you realize that I took you +along to take care of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t argue about it. I can’t stand argument all the +time.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought instantly of Lee Theresa Zapp quarreling with her mother, but he +said nothing. He gathered the driest bits of thatch and wood he could find in +the litter on the stable floor and kindled a fire, while she sat sullenly +glaring at him, her face wrinkled and tired in the wan firelight. When the +blaze was going steadily, a compact and safe little fire, he spread his coat as +a seat for her, and called, cheerily, “Come on now, honey; here’s a +regular home and hearthstone for you.” +</p> + +<p> +She slipped down from the manger edge and stood in front of him, looking into +his eyes—which were level with her own. +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>are</i> good to me,” she half whispered, and smoothed his +cheek, then slipped down on the outspread coat, and murmured, “Come; sit +here by me, and we’ll both get warm.” +</p> + +<p> +All night the rain dribbled, but no one came to drive them away from the fire, +and they dozed side by side, their hands close and their garments steaming. +Istra fell asleep, and her head drooped on his shoulder. He straightened to +bear its weight, though his back twinged with stiffness, and there he sat +unmoving, through an hour of pain and happiness and confused meditation, +studying the curious background—the dark roof of broken thatch, the +age-corroded walls, the littered earthen floor. His hand pressed lightly the +clammy smoothness of the wet khaki of her shoulder; his wet sleeve stuck to his +arm, and he wanted to pull it free. His eyes stung. But he sat tight, while his +mind ran round in circles, considering that he loved Istra, and that he would +not be entirely sorry when he was no longer the slave to her moods; that this +adventure was the strangest and most romantic, also the most idiotic and +useless, in history. +</p> + +<p> +Toward dawn she stirred, and, slipping stiffly from his position, he moved her +so that her back, which was still wet, faced the fire. He built up the fire +again, and sat brooding beside her, dozing and starting awake, till morning. +Then his head bobbed, and he was dimly awake again, to find her sitting up +straight, looking at him in amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“It simply can’t be, that’s all…. Did you curl me up? +I’m nice and dry all over now. It was very good of you. You’ve been +a most commendable person…. But I think we’ll take a train for the rest +of our pilgrimage. It hasn’t been entirely successful, I’m +afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps we’d better.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment he hated her, with her smooth politeness, after a night when she +had been unbearable and human by turns. He hated her bedraggled hair and tired +face. Then he could have wept, so deeply did he desire to pull her head down on +his shoulder and smooth the wrinkles of weariness out of her dear face, the +dearer because they had endured the weariness together. But he said, +“Well, let’s try to get some breakfast first, Istra.” +</p> + +<p> +With their garments wrinkled from rain, half asleep and rather cross, they +arrived at the esthetic but respectable colony of Aengusmere by the noon train. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI<br/> +HE BUYS AN ORANGE TIE</h2> + +<p> +The Aengusmere Caravanserai is so unyieldingly cheerful and artistic that it +makes the ordinary person long for a dingy old-fashioned room in which he can +play solitaire and chew gum without being rebuked with exasperating patience by +the wall stencils and clever etchings and polished brasses. It is +adjectiferous. The common room (which is uncommon for hotel parlor) is all in +superlatives and chintzes. +</p> + +<p> +Istra had gone up to her room to sleep, bidding Mr. Wrenn do likewise and avoid +the wrong bunch at the Caravanserai; for besides the wrong bunch of Interesting +People there were, she explained, a right bunch, of working artists. But he +wanted to get some new clothes, to replace his rain-wrinkled ready-mades. He +was tottering through the common room, wondering whether he could find a +clothing-shop in Aengusmere, when a shrill gurgle from a wing-chair by the +rough-brick fireplace halted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h-h-h, <i>Mister</i> Wrenn; Mr. <i>Wrenn!</i>” There sat Mrs. +Stettinius, the poet-lady of Olympia’s rooms on Great James Street. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h-h-h, Mr. Wrenn, you <i>bad</i> man, <i>do</i> come sit down and +tell me all <i>about</i> your <i>wonderful</i> trek with Istra Nash. I +<i>just</i> met <i>dear</i> Istra in the upper hall. Poor dear, she was +<i>so</i> crumpled, but her hair was like a sunset over mountain +peaks—you know, as Yeats says: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“A stormy sunset were her lips,<br/> +A stormy sunset on doomed ships, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +only of course this was her <i>hair</i> and not her <i>lips</i>—and she +told me that you had tramped all the <i>way</i> from London. I’ve never +heard of anything so romantic—or no, I won’t say +‘romantic’—I <i>do</i> agree with dear +Olympia—<i>isn’t</i> she a mag<i>nifi</i>cent woman—<i>so</i> +fearless and progressive—didn’t you <i>adore</i> meeting +her?—she is our modern Joan of Arc—such a <i>noble</i> +figure—I <i>do</i> agree with her that <i>romantic</i> love is +<i>passé</i>, that we have entered the era of glorious companionship that +regards varietism as <i>exactly</i> as romantic as monogamy. +But—but—where was I?—I think your gipsying down from London +was <i>most</i> exciting. Now <i>do</i> tell us all about it, Mr. Wrenn. First, +I want you to meet Miss Saxonby and Mr. Gutch and <i>dear</i> Yilyena +Dourschetsky and Mr. Howard Bancock Binch—of course you know his +poetry.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she drew a breath and flopped back into the wing-chair’s +muffling depths. +</p> + +<p> +During all this Mr. Wrenn had stood, frightened and unprotected and +rain-wrinkled, before the gathering by the fireless fireplace, wondering how +Mrs. Stettinius could get her nose so blue and yet so powdery. Despite her +encouragement he gave no fuller account of the “gipsying” than, +“Why—uh—we just tramped down,” till Russian-Jewish +Yilyena rolled her ebony eyes at him and insisted, “Yez, you mus’ +tale us about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, Yilyena had a pretty neck, colored like a cigar of mild flavor, and a +trick of smiling. She was accustomed to having men obey her. Mr. Wrenn +stammered: +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—we just walked, and we got caught in the rain. Say, +Miss Nash was a wonder. She never peeped when she got soaked through—she +just laughed and beat it like everything. And we saw a lot of quaint English +places along the road—got away from all them +tourists—trippers—you know.” +</p> + +<p> +A perfectly strange person, a heavy old man with horn spectacles and a soft +shirt, who had joined the group unbidden, cleared his throat and interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it not a strange paradox that in traveling, the most observant of all +pursuits, one should have to encounter the eternal bourgeoisie!” +</p> + +<p> +From the Cockney Greek chorus about the unlighted fire: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uh—” began Mr. Gutch. He apparently had something to say. +But the chorus went on: +</p> + +<p> +“And just as swelteringly monogamic in Port Said as in Brum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Wr-r-renn,” thrilled Mrs. Stettinius, the lady poet, +“didn’t you notice that they were perfectly oblivious of all +economic movements; that their observations never post-dated ruins?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess they wanted to make sure they were admirin’ the right +things,” ventured Mr. Wrenn, with secret terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s so,” came so approvingly from the Greek chorus +that the personal pupil of Mittyford, Ph.D., made his first epigram: +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t so much what you like as what you don’t like that +shows if you’re wise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” they gurgled; and Mr. Wrenn, much pleased with himself, +smiled <i>au prince</i> upon his new friends. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Stettinius was getting into her stride for a few remarks upon the poetry +of industrialism when Mr. Gutch, who had been “Uh—”ing for +some moments, trying to get in his remark, winked with sly rudeness at Miss +Saxonby and observed: +</p> + +<p> +“I fancy romance isn’t quite dead yet, y’ know. Our friends +here seem to have had quite a ro-mantic little journey.” Then he winked +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, what do you mean?” demanded Bill Wrenn, hot-eyed, fists +clenched, but very quiet. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m not <i>blaming</i> you and Miss Nash—quite the +reverse!” tittered the Gutch person, wagging his head sagely. +</p> + +<p> +Then Bill Wrenn, with his fist at Mr. Gutch’s nose, spoke his mind: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you white-faced unhealthy dirty-minded lump, I ain’t much of +a fighter, but I’m going to muss you up so’s you can’t find +your ears if you don’t apologize for those insinuations.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Wrenn—” +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t mean—” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean—” +</p> + +<p> +“He was just spoofing—” +</p> + +<p> +“I was just spoofing—” +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn, watching the dramatization of himself as hero, was enjoying the +drama. “You apologize, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why certainly, Mr. Wrenn. Let me explain—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t explain,” snortled Miss Saxonby. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” from Mr. Bancock Binch, “explanations are <i>so</i> +conventional, old chap.” +</p> + +<p> +Do you see them?—Mr. Wrenn, self-conscious and ready to turn into a blind +belligerent Bill Wrenn at the first disrespect; the talkers sitting about and +assassinating all the princes and proprieties and, poor things, taking Mr. +Wrenn quite seriously because he had uncovered the great truth that the +important thing in sight-seeing is not to see sights. He was most unhappy, Mr. +Wrenn was, and wanted to be away from there. He darted as from a spring when he +heard Istra’s voice, from the edge of the group, calling, “Come +here a sec’, Billy.” +</p> + +<p> +She was standing with a chair-back for support, tired but smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t get to sleep yet. Don’t you want me to show you some +of the buildings here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh <i>yes!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“If Mrs. Stettinius can spare you!” +</p> + +<p> +This by way of remarking on the fact that the female poet was staring volubly. +</p> + +<p> +“G-g-g-g-g-g—” said Mrs. Stettinius, which seemed to imply +perfect consent. +</p> + +<p> +Istra took him to the belvedere on a little slope overlooking the lawns of +Aengusmere, scattered with low bungalows and rose-gardens. +</p> + +<p> +“It is beautiful, isn’t it? Perhaps one could be happy +here—if one could kill all the people except the architect,” she +mused. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it is,” he glowed. +</p> + +<p> +Standing there beside her, happiness enveloping them, looking across the +marvelous sward, Bill Wrenn was at the climax of his comedy of triumph. +Admitted to a world of lawns and bungalows and big studio windows, standing in +a belvedere beside Istra Nash as her friend— +</p> + +<p> +“Mouse dear,” she said, hesitatingly, “the reason why I +wanted to have you come out here, why I couldn’t sleep, I wanted to tell +you how ashamed I am for having been peevish, being petulant, last night. +I’m so sorry, because you were very patient with me, you were very good +to me. I don’t want you to think of me just as a crochety woman who +didn’t appreciate you. You are very kind, and when I hear that +you’re married to some nice girl I’ll be as happy as can be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Istra,” he cried, grasping her arm, “I don’t want +any girl in the world—I mean—oh, I just want to be let go +’round with you when you’ll let me—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, dear. You must have seen last night; that’s impossible. +Please don’t argue about it now; I’m too tired. I just wanted to +tell you I appreciated—And when you get back to America you won’t +be any the worse for playing around with poor Istra because she told you about +different things from what you’ve played with, about rearing children as +individuals and painting in <i>tempera</i> and all those things? And—and +I don’t want you to get too fond of me, because +we’re—different…. But we have had an adventure, even if it was a +little moist.” She paused; then, cheerily: “Well, I’m going +to beat it back and try to sleep again. Good-by, Mouse dear. No, don’t +come back to the Cara-advanced-serai. Play around and see the animiles. +G’-by.” +</p> + +<p> +He watched her straight swaying figure swing across the lawn and up the steps +of the half-timbered inn. He watched her enter the door before he hastened to +the shops which clustered about the railway- station, outside of the poetic +preserves of the colony proper. +</p> + +<p> +He noticed, as he went, that the men crossing the green were mostly clad in +Norfolk jackets and knickers, so he purchased the first pair of unrespectable +un-ankle-concealing trousers he had owned since small boyhood, and a jacket of +rough serge, with a gaudy buckle on the belt. Also, he actually dared an orange +tie! +</p> + +<p> +He wanted something for Istra at dinner—“a s’prise,” he +whispered under his breath, with fond babying. For the first time in his life +he entered a florist’s shop…. Normally, you know, the poor of the city +cannot afford flowers till they are dead, and then for but one day…. He came +out with a bunch of orchids, and remembered the days when he had envied the +people he had seen in florists’ shops actually buying flowers. When he +was almost at the Caravanserai he wanted to go back and change the orchids for +simpler flowers, roses or carnations, but he got himself not to. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The linen and glassware and silver of the Caravanserai were almost as coarse as +those of a temperance hotel, for all the raftered ceiling and the etchings in +the dining-room. Hunting up the stewardess of the inn, a bustling young woman +who was reading Keats energetically at an office-like desk, Mr. Wrenn begged: +“I wonder could I get some special cups and plates and stuff for high tea +tonight. I got a kind of party—” +</p> + +<p> +“How many?” The stewardess issued the words as though he had put a +penny in the slot. +</p> + +<p> +“Just two. Kind of a birthday party.” Mendacious Mr. Wrenn! +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. Of course there’s a small extra charge. I have a Royal +Satsuma tea-service—practically Royal Satsuma, at least—and some +special Limoges.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think Royal Sats’ma would be nice. And some silverware?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely.” +</p> + +<p> +“And could we get some special stuff to eat?” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—” +</p> + +<p> +Mendacious Mr. Wrenn! as we have commented. He put his head on one side, rubbed +his chin with nice consideration, and condescended, “What would you +suggest?” +</p> + +<p> +“For a party high tea? Why, perhaps consomme and omelet Bergerac and a +salad and a sweet and <i>cafe diable</i>. We have a chef who does French eggs +rather remarkably. That would be simple, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that would be very good,” gravely granted the patron of +cuisine. “At six; for two.” +</p> + +<p> +As he walked away he grinned within. “Gee! I talked to that omelet +Berg’ rac like I’d known it all my life!” +</p> + +<p> +Other s’prises for Istra’s party he sought. Let’s see; +suppose it really were her birthday, wouldn’t she like to have a letter +from some important guy? he queried of himself. He’d write her a +make-b’lieve letter from a duke. Which he did. Purchasing a stamp, he +humped over a desk in the common room and with infinite pains he inked the +stamp in imitation of a postmark and addressed the letter to “Lady Istra +Nash, Mouse Castle, Suffolk.” +</p> + +<p> +Some one sat down at the desk opposite him, and he jealously carried the task +upstairs to his room. He rang for pen and ink as regally as though he had never +sat at the wrong end of a buzzer. After half an hour of trying to visualize a +duke writing a letter he produced this: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +L<small>ADY</small> I<small>STRA</small> N<small>ASH</small>,<br/> + Mouse Castle. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> M<small>ADAM</small>,—We hear from our friend Sir +William Wrenn that some folks are saying that to-day is not your birthday & +want to stop your celebration, so if you should need somebody to make them +believe to-day is your birthday we have sent our secretary, Sir Percival +Montague. Sir William Wrenn will hide him behind his chair, and if they bother +you just call for Sir Percival and he will tell them. Permit us, dear Lady +Nash, to wish you all the greetings of the season, and in close we beg to +remain, as ever, Yours sincerely, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +D<small>UKE</small> V<small>ERE DE</small> V<small>ERE</small>. +</p> + +<p> +He was very tired. When he lay down for a minute, with a pillow tucked over his +head, he was almost asleep in ten seconds. But he sprang up, washed his prickly +eyes with cold water, and began to dress. He was shy of the knickers and +golf-stockings, but it was the orange tie that gave him real alarm. He dared +it, though, and went downstairs to make sure they were setting the table with +glory befitting the party. +</p> + +<p> +As he went through the common room he watched the three or four groups +scattered through it. They seemed to take his clothes as a matter of course. He +was glad. He wanted so much to be a credit to Istra. +</p> + +<p> +Returning from the dining-room to the common room, he passed a group standing +in a window recess and looking away from him. He overheard: +</p> + +<p> +“Who is the remarkable new person with the orange tie and the rococo +buckle on his jacket belt—the one that just went through? Did you ever +<i>see</i> anything so funny! His collar didn’t come within an inch and a +half of fitting his neck. He must be a poet. I wonder if his verses are as +jerry-built as his garments!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn stopped. +</p> + +<p> +Another voice: +</p> + +<p> +“And the beautiful lack of development of his legs! It’s like the +good old cycling days, when every draper’s assistant went +bank-holidaying…. I don’t know him, but I suppose he’s some +tuppeny-ha’p’ny illustrator.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or perhaps he has convictions about fried bananas, and dines on a bean +saute. O Aengusmere! Shades of Aengus!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. When they look as gentle as he they always hate the +capitalists as a militant hates a cabinet minister. He probably dines on the +left ear of a South-African millionaire every evening before exercise at the +barricades…. I say, look over there; there’s a real artist going across +the green. You can tell he’s a real artist because he’s dressed +like a navvy and—” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was walking away, across the common room, quite sure that every one +was eying him with amusement. And it was too late to change his clothes. It was +six already. +</p> + +<p> +He stuck out his jaw, and remembered that he had planned to hide the +“letter from the duke” in Istra’s napkin that it might be the +greater surprise. He sat down at their table. He tucked the letter into the +napkin folds. He moved the vase of orchids nearer the center of the table, and +the table nearer the open window giving on the green. He rebuked himself for +not being able to think of something else to change. He forgot his clothes, and +was happy. +</p> + +<p> +At six-fifteen he summoned a boy and sent him up with a message that Mr. Wrenn +was waiting and high tea ready. +</p> + +<p> +The boy came back muttering, “Miss Nash left this note for you, sir, the +stewardess says.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn opened the green-and-white Caravanserai letter excitedly. Perhaps +Istra, too, was dressing for the party! He loved all s’prises just then. +He read: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Mouse dear, I’m sorrier than I can tell you, but you know I warrned you +that bad Istra was a creature of moods, and just now my mood orders me to beat +it for Paris, which I’m doing, on the 5.17 train. I won’t say +good-by—I hate good-bys, they’re so stupid, don’t you think? +Write me some time, better make it care Amer. Express Co., Paris, because I +don’t know yet just where I’ll be. And please don’t look me +up in Paris, because it’s always better to end up an affair without +explanations, don’t you think? You have been wonderfully kind to me, and +I’ll send you some good thought-forms, shall I? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +I. N. +</p> + +<p> +He walked to the office of the Caravanserai, blindly, quietly. He paid his +bill, and found that he had only fifty dollars left. He could not get himself +to eat the waiting high tea. There was a seven-fourteen train for London. He +took it. Meantime he wrote out a cable to his New York bank for a hundred and +fifty dollars. To keep from thinking in the train he talked gravely and gently +to an old man about the brave days of England, when men threw quoits. He kept +thinking over and over, to the tune set by the rattling of the train trucks: +“Friends… I got to make friends, now I know what they are…. Funny some +guys don’t make friends. Mustn’t forget. Got to make lots of +’em in New York. Learn how to make ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +He arrived at his room on Tavistock Place about eleven, and tried to think for +the rest of the night of how deeply he was missing Morton of the cattle-boat +now that—now that he had no friend in all the hostile world. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +In a London A. B. C. restaurant Mr. Wrenn was talking to an American who had a +clipped mustache, brisk manners, a Knight-of-Pythias pin, and a mind for +duck-shooting, hardware-selling, and cigars. +</p> + +<p> +“No more England for mine,” the American snapped, good-humoredly. +“I’m going to get out of this foggy hole and get back to +God’s country just as soon as I can. I want to find out what’s +doing at the store, and I want to sit down to a plate of flapjacks. I’m +good and plenty sick of tea and marmalade. Why, I wouldn’t take this fool +country for a gift. No, sir! Me for God’s country—Sleepy Eye, Brown +County, Minnesota. You bet!” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like England much, then?” Mr. Wrenn carefully +reasoned. +</p> + +<p> +“Like it? Like this damp crowded hole, where they can’t talk +English, and have a fool coinage—Say, that’s a great system, that +metric system they’ve got over in France, but here—why, they +don’t know whether Kansas City is in Kansas or Missouri or both…. +‘Right as rain’—that’s what a fellow said to me for +‘all right’! Ever hear such nonsense?…. And tea for breakfast! Not +for me! No, sir! I’m going to take the first steamer!” +</p> + +<p> +With a gigantic smoke-puff of disgust the man from Sleepy Eye stalked out, +jingling the keys in his trousers pocket, cocking up his cigar, and looking as +though he owned the restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn, picturing him greeting the Singer Tower from an incoming steamer, +longed to see the tower. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! I’ll do it!” +</p> + +<p> +He rose and, from that table in the basement of an A. B. C. restaurant, he fled +to America. +</p> + +<p> +He dashed up-stairs, fidgeted while the cashier made his change, rang for a +bus, whisked into his room, slammed his things into his suit-case, announced to +it wildly that they were going home, and scampered to the Northwestem Station. +He walked nervously up and down till the Liverpool train departed. +“Suppose Istra wanted to make up, and came back to London?” was a +terrifying thought that hounded him. He dashed into the waiting-room and wrote +to her, on a souvenir post-card showing the Abbey: “Called back to +America—will write. Address care of Souvenir Company, Twenty-eighth +Street.” But he didn’t mail the card. +</p> + +<p> +Once settled in a second-class compartment, with the train in motion, he seemed +already much nearer America, and, humming, to the great annoyance of a lady +with bangs, he planned his new great work—the making of friends; the +discovery, some day, if Istra should not relent, of “somebody to go home +to.” There was no end to the “societies and lodges and stuff” +he was going to join directly he landed. +</p> + +<p> +At Liverpool he suddenly stopped at a post-box and mailed his card to Istra. +That ended his debate. Of course after that he had to go back to America. +</p> + +<p> +He sailed exultantly, one month and seventeen days after leaving Portland. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII<br/> +HE DISCOVERS AMERICA</h2> + +<p> +In his white-painted steerage berth Mr. Wrenn lay, with a scratch-pad on his +raised knees and a small mean pillow doubled under his head, writing sample +follow-up letters to present to the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company, +interrupting his work at intervals to add to a list of the books which, +beginning about five minutes after he landed in New York, he was going to +master. He puzzled over Marie Corelli. Morton liked Miss Corelli so much; but +would her works appeal to Istra Nash? +</p> + +<p> +He had worked for many hours on a letter to Istra in which he avoided mention +of such indecent matters as steerages and immigrants. He was grateful, he told +her, for “all you learned me,” and he had thought that Aengusmere +was a beautiful place, though he now saw “what you meant about them +interesting people,” and his New York address would be the Souvenir +Company. +</p> + +<p> +He tore up the several pages that repeated that oldest most melancholy cry of +the lover, which rang among the deodars, from viking ships, from the moonlit +courtyards of Provence, the cry which always sounded about Mr. Wrenn as he +walked the deck: “I want you so much; I miss you so unendingly; I am so +lonely for you, dear.” For no more clearly, no more nobly did the golden +Aucassin or lean Dante word that cry in their thoughts than did Mr. William +Wrenn, Our Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +A third-class steward with a mangy mustache and setter-like tan eyes came +teetering down-stairs, each step like a nervous pencil tap on a table, and +peered over the side of Mr. Wrenn’s berth. He loved Mr. Wrenn, who was +proven a scholar by the reading of real bound books—an English history +and a second-hand copy of <i>Haunts of Historic English Writers</i>, purchased +in Liverpool—and who was willing to listen to the steward’s serial +story of how his woman, Mrs. Wargle, faithlessly consorted with Foddle, the +cat’s-meat man, when the steward was away, and, when he was home, cooked +for him lights and liver that unquestionably were purchased from the same +cat’s-meat man. He now leered with a fond and watery gaze upon Mr. +Wrenn’s scholarly pursuits, and announced in a whisper: +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve sighted land.” +</p> + +<p> +“Land?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh aye.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn sat up so vigorously that he bumped his head. He chucked his papers +beneath the pillow with his right hand, while the left was feeling for the side +of the berth. “Land!” he bellowed to drowsing cabin-mates as he +vaulted out. +</p> + +<p> +The steerage promenade-deck, iron-sided, black-floored, ending in the iron +approaches to the galley at one end and the iron superstructures about a hatch +at the other, was like a grim swart oilily clean machine-shop aisle, so +inclosed, so over-roofed, that the side toward the sea seemed merely a long +factory window. But he loved it and, except when he had guiltily remembered the +books he had to read, he had stayed on deck, worshiping the naive bright attire +of immigrants and the dark roll and glory of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Now, out there was a blue shading, made by a magic pencil; land, his land, +where he was going to become the beloved comrade of all the friends whose +likenesses he saw in the white-caps flashing before him. +</p> + +<p> +Humming, he paraded down to the buffet, where small beer and smaller tobacco +were sold, to buy another pound of striped candy for the offspring of the +Russian Jews. +</p> + +<p> +The children knew he was coming. “Fat rascals,” he chuckled, +touching their dark cheeks, pretending to be frightened as they pounded soft +fists against the iron side of the ship or rolled unregarded in the scuppers. +Their shawled mothers knew him, too, and as he shyly handed about the candy the +chattering stately line of Jewish elders nodded their beards like the forest +primeval in a breeze, saying words of blessing in a strange tongue. +</p> + +<p> +He smiled back and made gestures, and shouted “Land! Land!” with +several variations in key, to make it sound foreign. +</p> + +<p> +But he withdrew for the sacred moment of seeing the Land of Promise he was +newly discovering—the Long Island shore; the grass-clad redouts at Fort +Wadsworth; the vast pile of New York sky-scrapers, standing in a mist like an +enormous burned forest. +</p> + +<p> +“Singer Tower…. Butterick Building,” he murmured, as they proceeded +toward their dock. “That’s something like…. Let’s see; yes, +sir, by golly, right up there between the Met. Tower and the +<i>Times</i>—good old Souvenir Company office. Jiminy! ‘One Dollar +to Albany’—something <i>like</i> a sign, that is—good old +dollar! To thunder with their darn shillings. Home!… Gee! there’s where I +used to moon on a wharf!… Gosh! the old town looks good.” +</p> + +<p> +And all this was his to conquer, for friendship’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +He went to a hotel. While he had to go back to the Zapps’, of course, he +did not wish, by meeting those old friends, to spoil his first day. No, it was +cheerfuler to stand at a window of his cheap hotel on Seventh Avenue, watching +the “good old American crowd”—Germans, Irishmen, Italians, +and Jews. He went to the Nickelorion and grasped the hand of the ticket-taker, +the Brass-button Man, ejaculating: “How are you? Well, how’s things +going with the old show?… I been away couple of months.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine and dandy! Been away, uh? Well, it’s good to get back to the +old town, heh? Summer hotel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’re the waiter at Pat Maloney’s, ain’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +Next morning Mr. Wrenn made himself go to the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. +He wanted to get the teasing, due him for staying away so short a time, over as +soon as possible. The office girl, addressing circulars, seemed surprised when +he stepped from the elevator, and blushed her usual shy gratitude to the men of +the office for allowing her to exist and take away six dollars weekly. +</p> + +<p> +Then into the entry-room ran Rabin, one of the traveling salesmen. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, hul-lo, Wrenn! Wondered if that could be you. Back so soon? Thought +you were going to Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just got back. Couldn’t stand it away from you, old scout!” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have been learning to sass back real smart, in the Old Country, +heh? Going to be with us again? Well, see you again soon. Glad see you +back.” +</p> + +<p> +He was not madly excited at seeing Rabin; still, the drummer was part of the +good old Souvenir Company, the one place in the world on which he could +absolutely depend, the one place where they always wanted him. +</p> + +<p> +He had been absently staring at the sample-tables, noting new novelties. The +office girl, speaking sweetly, but as to an outsider, inquired, “Who did +you wish to see, Mr. Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why! Mr. Guilfogle.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s busy, but if you’ll sit down I think you can see him in +a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn felt like the prodigal son, with no calf in sight, at having to wait +on the callers’ bench, but he shook with faint excited gurgles of mirth +at the thought of the delightful surprise Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle, the office +manager, was going to have. He kept an eye out for Charley Carpenter. If +Charley didn’t come through the entry-room he’d go into the +bookkeeping-room, and—“talk about your surprises—” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Guilfogle will see you now,” said the office girl. +</p> + +<p> +As he entered the manager’s office Mr. Guilfogle made much of glancing up +with busy amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, Wrenn! Back so soon? Thought you were going to be gone quite +a while.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t keep away from the office, Mr. Guilfogle,” with an +uneasy smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Have a good trip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a dandy.” +</p> + +<p> +“How’d you happen to get back so soon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wanted to—Say, Mr. Guilfogle, I really wanted to get back to +the office again. I’m awfully glad to see it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glad see <i>you</i>. Well, where did you go? I got the card you sent me +from Chesterton with the picture of the old church on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I went to Liverpool and Oxford and London and—well—Kew +and Ealing and places and—And I tramped through Essex and +Suffolk—all through—on foot. Aengusmere and them places.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just a moment. (Well, Rabin, what is it? Why certainly. I’ve told +you that already about five times. <i>Yes</i>, I said—that’s what I +had the samples made up for. I wish you’d be a little more careful, +d’ ye hear?) You went to London, did you, Wrenn? Say, did you notice any +novelties we could copy?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m afraid I didn’t, Mr. Guilfogle. I’m awfully +sorry. I hunted around, but I couldn’t find a thing we could use. I mean +I couldn’t find anything that began to come up to our line. Them English +are pretty slow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t, eh? Well, what’s your plans now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—I kind of thought—Honestly, Mr. Guilfogle, +I’d like to get back on my old job. You remember—it was to be fixed +so—” +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid there’s nothing doing just now, Wrenn. Not a thing. Course +I can’t tell what may happen, and you want to keep in touch with us, but +we’re pretty well filled up just now. Jake is getting along better than +we thought. He’s learning—” Not one word regarding +Jake’s excellence did Mr. Wrenn hear. +</p> + +<p> +Not get the job back? He sat down and stammered: +</p> + +<p> +“Gee! I hadn’t thought of that. I’d kind of banked on the +Souvenir Company, Mr. Guilfogle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know I told you I thought you were an idiot to go. I warned +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He timidly agreed, mourning: “Yes, that so; I know you did. But +uh—well—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, Wrenn. That’s the way it goes in business, though. If you +will go beating it around—A rolling stone don’t gather any moss. +Well, cheer up! Possibly there may be something doing in—” +</p> + +<p> +“Tr-r-r-r-r-r-r,” said the telephone. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Guilfogle remarked into it: “Hello. Yes, it’s me. Well, who did +you think it was? The cat? Yuh. Sure. No. Well, to-morrow, probably. All right. +Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he glanced at his watch and up at Mr. Wrenn impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Mr. Guilfogle, you say there’ll be—when will there be +likely to be an opening?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, how can I tell, my boy? We’ll work you in if we can—you +ain’t a bad clerk; or at least you wouldn’t be if you’d be a +little more careful. By the way, of course you understand that if we try to +work you in it’ll take lots of trouble, and we’ll expect you to not +go flirting round with other firms, looking for a job. Understand that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. We appreciate your work all right, but of course you can +’t expect us to fire any of our present force just because you take the +notion to come back whenever you want to…. Hiking off to Europe, leaving a good +job!… You didn’t get on the Continent, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well…. Oh, say, how’s the grub in London? Cheaper than it is here? +The wife was saying this morning we’d have to stop eating if the high +cost of living goes on going up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s quite a little cheaper. You can get fine tea for two and +three cents a cup. Clothes is cheaper, too. But I don’t care much for the +English, though there is all sorts of quaint places with a real flavor…. Say, +Mr. Guilfogle, you know I inherited a little money, and I can wait awhile, and +you’ll kind of keep me in mind for a place if one—” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I <i>say</i> I would?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“You come around and see me a week from now. And leave your address with +Rosey. I don’t know, though, as we can afford to pay you quite the same +salary at first, even if we can work you in—the season’s been very +slack. But I’ll do what I can for you. Come in and see me in about a +week. Goo’ day.” +</p> + +<p> +Rabin, the salesman, waylaid Mr. Wrenn in the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +“You look kind of peeked, Wrenn. Old Goglefogle been lighting into you? +Say, I ought to have told you first. I forgot it. The old rat, he’s been +planning to stick the knife into you all the while. ’Bout two weeks ago +me and him had a couple of cocktails at Mouquin’s. You know how chummy he +always gets after a couple of smiles. Well, he was talking about—I was +saying you’re a good man and hoping you were having a good time—and +he said, ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘he’s a good man, but he sure +did lay himself wide open by taking this trip. I’ve got him dead to +rights,’ he says to me. ‘I’ve got a hunch he’ll be back +here in three or four months,’ he says to me. ‘And do you think +he’ll walk in and get what he wants? Not him. I’ll keep him waiting +a month before I give him back his job, and then you watch, Rabin,’ he +says to me, ‘you’ll see he’ll be tickled to death to go back +to work at less salary than he was getting, and he’ll have sense enough +to not try this stunt of getting off the job again after that. And the +trip’ll be good for him, anyway—he’ll do better +work—vacation at his own expense—save us money all round. I tell +you, Rabin,’ he says to me, ‘if any of you boys think you can get +the best of the company or me you just want to try it, that’s all.’ +Yessir, that’s what the old rat told me. You want to watch out for +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I will; indeed I will—” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he spring any of this fairy tale just now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, kind of. Say, thanks, I’m awful obliged to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, for the love of Mike, don’t let him know I told you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I sure won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +They parted. Eager though he was for the great moment of again seeing his +comrade, Charley Carpenter, Mr. Wrenn dribbled toward the bookkeeping-room +mournfully, planning to tell Charley of Guilfogle’s wickedness. +</p> + +<p> +The head bookkeeper shook his head at Mr. Wrenn’s inquiry: +</p> + +<p> +“Charley ain’t here any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t <i>here?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He got through. He got to boozing pretty bad, and one morning about +three weeks ago, when he had a pretty bad hang-over, he told Guilfogle what he +thought of him, so of course Guilfogle fired him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s too <i>bad</i>. Say, you don’t know his address, +do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“—East a Hundred and Eighteenth…. Well, I’m glad to see you +back, Wrenn. Didn’t expect to see you back so soon, but always glad to +see you. Going to be with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t sure,” said Mr. Wrenn, crabbedly, then shook hands +warmly with the bookkeeper, to show there was nothing personal in his +snippishness. +</p> + +<p> +For nearly a hundred blocks Mr. Wrenn scowled at an advertisement of Corn +Flakes in the Third Avenue Elevated without really seeing it…. Should he go +back to the Souvenir Company at all? +</p> + +<p> +Yes. He would. That was the best way to start making friends. But he would +“get our friend Guilfogle at recess,” he assured himself, with an +out-thrust of the jaw like that of the great Bill Wrenn. He knew +Guilfogle’s lead now, and he would show that gentleman that he could play +the game. He’d take that lower salary and pretend to be frightened, but +when he got the chance— +</p> + +<p> +He did not proclaim even to himself what dreadful thing he was going to do, but +as he left the Elevated he said over and over, shaking his closed fist inside +his coat pocket: +</p> + +<p> +“When I get the chance—when I <i>get</i> it—” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The flat-building where Charley Carpenter lived was one of hundreds of +pressed-brick structures, apparently all turned out of the same mold. It was +filled with the smells of steamy washing and fried fish. Languid with the heat, +Mr. Wrenn crawled up an infinity of iron steps and knocked three times at +Charley’s door. No answer. He crawled down again and sought out the +janitress, who stopped watching an ice-wagon in the street to say: +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you’ll be finding him asleep up there, sir. He do be lying +there drunk most of the day. His wife’s left him. The landlord’s +give him notice to quit, end of August. Warm day, sir. Be you a bill-collector? +Mostly, it’s bill-collectors that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is hot.” +</p> + +<p> +Superior in manner, but deeply dejected, Mr. Wrenn rang the down-stairs bell +long enough to wake Charley, pantingly got himself up the interminable stairs, +and kicked the door till Charley’s voice quavered inside: +</p> + +<p> +“Who zhat?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s me, Charley. Wrenn.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re in Yurp. Can’t fool me. G’ ’way from +there.” +</p> + +<p> +Three other doors on the same landing were now partly open and blocked with the +heads of frowsy inquisitive women. The steamy smell was thicker in the +darkness. Mr. Wrenn felt prickly, then angry at this curiosity, and again +demanded: +</p> + +<p> +“Lemme in, I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you it ain’t you. I know you!” +</p> + +<p> +Charley Carpenter’s pale face leered out. His tousled hair was stuck to +his forehead by perspiration; his eyes were red and vaguely staring. His +clothes were badlv wrinkled. He wore a collarless shirt with a frilled bosom of +virulent pink, its cuffs grimy and limp. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s ol’ Wrenn. C’m in. C’m in quick. Collectors +always hanging around. They can’t catch me. You bet.” +</p> + +<p> +He closed the door and wabbled swiftly down the long drab hall of the +“railroad flat,” evidently trying to walk straight. The reeking +stifling main room at the end of the hall was terrible as Charley’s eyes. +Flies boomed everywhere. The oak table, which Charley and his bride had once +spent four happy hours in selecting, was littered with half a dozen empty +whisky-flasks, collars, torn sensational newspapers, dirty plates and +coffee-cups. The cheap brocade cover, which a bride had once joyed to embroider +with red and green roses, was half pulled off and dragged on the floor amid the +cigarette butts, Durham tobacco, and bacon rinds which covered the +green-and-yellow carpet-rug. +</p> + +<p> +This much Mr. Wrenn saw. Then he set himself to the hard task of listening to +Charley, who was muttering: +</p> + +<p> +“Back quick, ain’t you, ol’ Wrenn? You come up to see me, +didn’t you? You’re m’ friend, ain’t you, eh? I got an +awful hang-over, ain’t I? You don’t care, do you, ol’ +Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn stared at him weakly, but only for a minute. Perhaps it was his +cattle-boat experience which now made him deal directly with such drunkenness +as would have nauseated him three months before; perhaps his attendance on a +weary Istra. +</p> + +<p> +“Come now, Charley, you got to buck up,” he crooned. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>All</i> ri’.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble? How did you get going like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wife left me. I was drinking. You think I’m drunk, don’t +you? But I ain’t. She went off with her sister—always hated me. She +took my money out of savings-bank—three hundred; all money I had +’cept fifty dollars. I’ll fix her. I’ll kill her. Took to +hitting the booze. Goglefogle fired me. Don’t care. Drink all I want. +Keep young fellows from getting it! Say, go down and get me pint. Just finished +up pint. Got to have one-die of thirst. Bourbon. Get—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go and get you a drink, Charley—just one drink, +savvy?—if you’ll promise to get cleaned up, like I tell you, +afterward.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>All</i> ri’.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn hastened out with a whisky-flask, muttering, feverishly, “Gee! +I got to save him.” Returning, he poured out one drink, as though it were +medicine for a refractory patient, and said, soothingly: +</p> + +<p> +“Now we’ll take a cold bath, heh? and get cleaned up and sobered +up. Then we’ll talk about a job, heh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, don’t want a bath. Say, I feel better now. Let’s go out +and have a drink. Gimme that flask. Where j’ yuh put it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn went to the bathroom, turned on the cold-water tap, returned, and +undressed Charley, who struggled and laughed and let his whole inert weight +rest against Mr. Wrenn’s shoulder. Though normally Charley could have +beaten three Mr. Wrenns, he was run into the bath-room and poked into the tub. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly he began to splash, throwing up water in handfuls, singing. The water +poured over the side of the tub. Mr. Wrenn tried to hold him still, but the wet +sleek shoulders slipped through his hand like a wet platter. Wholesomely vexed, +he turned off the water and slammed the bathroom door. +</p> + +<p> +In the bedroom he found an unwrinkled winter-weight suit and one clean shirt. +In the living-room he hung up his coat, covering it with a newspaper, pulled +the broom from under the table, and prepared to sweep. +</p> + +<p> +The disorder was so great that he made one of the inevitable discoveries of +every housekeeper, and admitted to himself that he “didn’t know +where to begin.” He stumblingly lugged a heavy pile of dishes from the +center-table to the kitchen, shook and beat and folded the table-cover, stuck +the chairs atop the table, and began to sweep. +</p> + +<p> +At the door a shining wet naked figure stood, bellowing: +</p> + +<p> +“Hey! What d’ yuh think you’re doing? Cut it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just sweeping, Charley,” from Mr. Wrenn, and an uninterrupted +“Tuff, tuff, tuff” from the broom. +</p> + +<p> +“Cut it out, I said. Whose house <i>is</i> this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gwan back in the bath-tub, Charley.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, d’ yuh think you can run me? Get out of this, or I’ll +throw you out. Got house way I want it.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn, the cattleman, rushed at him, smacked him with the broom, drove him +back into the tub, and waited. He laughed. It was all a good joke; his friend +Charley and he were playing a little game. Charley also laughed and splashed +some more. Then he wept and said that the water was cold, and that he was now +deserted by his only friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up,” remarked Bill Wrenn, and swept the bathroom floor. +</p> + +<p> +Charley stopped swashing about to sneer: +</p> + +<p> +“Li’l ministering angel, ain’t you? You think you’re +awful good, don’t you? Come up here and bother me. When I ain’t +well. Salvation Army. You——. Aw, lemme <i>’lone</i>, will +you?” Bill Wrenn kept on sweeping. “Get out, +you——.” +</p> + +<p> +There was enough energy in Charley’s voice to indicate that he was +getting sober. Bill Wrenn soused him under once more, so thoroughly that his +own cuffs were reduced to a state of flabbiness. He dragged Charley out, helped +him dry himself, and drove him to bed. +</p> + +<p> +He went out and bought dish-towels, soap, washing-powder, and collars of +Charley’s size, which was an inch larger than his own. He finished +sweeping and dusting and washing the dishes—all of them. He—who had +learned to comfort Istra—he really enjoyed it. His sense of order made it +a pleasure to see a plate yellow with dried egg glisten iridescently and flash +into shining whiteness; or a room corner filled with dust and tobacco flakes +become again a “nice square clean corner with the baseboard shining, gee! +just like it was new.” +</p> + +<p> +An irate grocer called with a bill for fifteen dollars. Mr. Wrenn blandly heard +his threats all through, pretending to himself that this was his home, whose +honor was his honor. He paid the man eight dollars on account and loftily +dismissed him. He sat down to wait for Charley, reading a newspaper most of the +time, but rising to pursue stray flies furiously, stumbling over chairs, and +making murderous flappings with a folded newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +When Charley awoke, after three hours, clear of mind but not at all clear as +regards the roof of his mouth, Mr. Wrenn gave him a very little whisky, with +considerable coffee, toast, and bacon. The toast was not bad. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Charley,” he said, cheerfully, “your bat’s over, +ain’t it, old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you been darn’ decent to me, old man. Lord! how you’ve +been sweeping up! How was I—was I pretty soused?” +</p> + +<p> +“Honest, you were fierce. You will sober up, now, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s no wonder I had a classy hang-over, Wrenn. I was at the +Amusieren Rathskeller till four this morning, and then I had a couple of nips +before breakfast, and then I didn’t have any breakfast. But sa-a-a-ay, +man, I sure did have some fiesta last night. There was a little peroxide blonde +that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you look here, Carpenter; you listen to me. You’re sober now. +Have you tried to find another job?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did. But I got down in the mouth. Didn’t feel like I had a +friend left.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you h—” +</p> + +<p> +“But I guess I have now, old Wrennski.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Charley, you know I don’t want to pull off no Charity +Society stunt or talk like I was a preacher. But I like you so darn much I want +to see you sober up and get another job. Honestly I do, Charley. Are you +broke?” +</p> + +<p> +“Prett’ nearly. Only got about ten dollars to my name…. I +<i>will</i> take a brace, old man. I know you ain’t no preacher. Course +if you came around with any ‘holierthan-thou’ stunt I’d have +to go right out and get soused on general principles…. Yuh—I’ll try +to get a job.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s ten dollars. Please take it—aw—please, +Charley.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>All</i> right; anything to oblige.” +</p> + +<p> +“What ’ve you got in sight in the job line?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there’s a chance at night clerking in a little hotel where I +was a bell-hop long time ago. The night clerk’s going to get through, but +I don’t know just when—prob’ly in a week or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, keep after it. And <i>please</i> come down to see me—the old +place—West Sixteenth Street.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about the old girl with the ingrowing grouch? What’s her +name? She ain’t stuck on me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Zapp? Oh—hope she chokes. She can just kick all she wants to. +I’m just going to have all the visitors I want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. Say, tell us something about your trip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I had a great time. Lots of nice fellows on the cattle-boat. I went +over on one, you know. Fellow named Morton—awfully nice fellow. Say, +Charley, you ought to seen me being butler to the steers. Handing ’em +hay. But say, the sea was fine; all kinds of colors. Awful dirty on the +cattle-boat, though.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hard work?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh—kind of hard. Oh, not so very.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you see in England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a lot of different places. Say, I seen some great vaudeville in +Liverpool, Charley, with Morton—he’s a slick fellow; works for the +Pennsylvania, here in town. I got to look him up. Say, I wish we had an agency +for college sofa-pillows and banners and souvenir stuff in Oxford. +There’s a whole bunch of colleges there, all right in the same town. I +met a prof. there from some American college—he hired an automobubble and +took me down to a reg’lar old inn—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well!” +</p> + +<p> +“—like you read about; sanded floor!” +</p> + +<p> +“Get to London?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh. Gee! it’s a big place. Say, that Westminster Abbey’s a +great place. I was in there a couple of times. More darn tombs of kings and +stuff. And I see a bishop, with leggins on! But I got kind of lonely. I thought +of you a lot of times. Wished we could go out and get an ale together. Maybe +pick up a couple of pretty girls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you sport!… Say, didn’t get over to gay Paree, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope…. Well, I guess I’d better beat it now. Got to move +in—I’m at a hotel. You will come down and see me to-night, +won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“So you thought of me, eh?… Yuh—sure, old socks. I’ll be down +to-night. And I’ll get right after that job.” +</p> + +<p> +It is doubtful whether Mr. Wrenn would ever have returned to the Zapps’ +had he not promised to see Charley there. Even while he was carrying his +suit-case down West Sixteenth, broiling by degrees in the sunshine, he felt +like rushing up to Charley’s and telling him to come to the hotel +instead. +</p> + +<p> +Lee Theresa, taking the day off with a headache, answered the bell, and +ejaculated: +</p> + +<p> +“Well! So it’s you, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, are you back so soon? Why, you ain’t been gone more than a +month and a half, have you?” +</p> + +<p> +Beware, daughter of Southern pride! The little Yankee is regarding your +full-blown curves and empty eyes with rebellion, though he says, ever so +meekly: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I guess it is about that, Miss Theresa.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I just knew you couldn’t stand it away from us. I suppose +you’ll want your room back. Ma, here’s Mr. Wrenn back +again—Mr. Wrenn! <i>Ma!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h-h-h!” sounded Goaty Zapp’s voice, in impish disdain, +below. “Mr. Wrenn’s back. Hee, hee! Couldn’t stand it. +Ain’t that like a Yankee!” +</p> + +<p> +A slap, a wail, then Mrs. Zapp’s elephantine slowness on the stairs from +the basement. She appeared, buttoning her collar, smiling almost pleasantly, +for she disliked Mr. Wrenn less than she did any other of her lodgers. +</p> + +<p> +“Back already, Mist’ Wrenn? Ah declare, Ah was saying to Lee +Theresa just yest’day, Ah just knew you’d be wishing you was back +with us. Won’t you come in?” +</p> + +<p> +He edged into the parlor with, “How is the sciatica, Mrs. Zapp?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah ain’t feeling right smart.” +</p> + +<p> +“My room occupied yet?” +</p> + +<p> +He was surveying the airless parlor rather heavily, and his curt manner was not +pleasing to the head of the house of Zapp, who remarked, funereally: +</p> + +<p> +“It ain’t taken just now, Mist’ Wrenn, but Ah dunno. There +was a gennulman a-looking at it just yesterday, and he said he’d be +permanent if he came. Ah declare, Mist’ Wrenn, Ah dunno’s Ah like +to have my gennulmen just get up and go without giving me notice.” +</p> + +<p> +Lee Theresa scowled at her. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn retorted, “I <i>did</i> give you notice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah know, but—well, Ah reckon Ah can let you have it, but +Ah’ll have to have four and a half a week instead of four. Prices is all +going up so, Ah declare, Ah was just saying to Lee T’resa Ah dunno what +we’re all going to do if the dear Lord don’t look out for us. And, +Mist’ Wrenn, Ah dunno’s Ah like to have you coming in so late +nights. But Ah reckon Ah can accommodate you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a good deal of a favor, isn’t it, Mrs. Zapp?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was dangerously polite. Let gentility look out for the sharp +practices of the Yankee. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—” +</p> + +<p> +It was our hero, our madman of the seven and seventy seas, our revolutionist +friend of Istra, who leaped straight from the salt-incrusted decks of his +laboring steamer to the musty parlor and declared, quietly but +unmovably-practically unmovably—“Well, then, I guess I’d +better not take it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“So that’s the way you’re going to treat us!” bellowed +Mrs. Zapp. “You go off and leave us with an unoccupied room and— +Oh! You poor white trash—you—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Ma!</i> You shut up and go down-stairs-s-s-s-s!” Theresa +hissed. “Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Zapp wabbled regally out. Lee Theresa spoke to Mr. Wrenn: +</p> + +<p> +“Ma ain’t feeling a bit well this afternoon. I’m sorry she +talked like that. You will come back, won’t you?” She showed all +her teeth in a genuine smile, and in her anxiety reached his heart. +“Remember, you promised you would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I will, but—” +</p> + +<p> +Bill Wrenn was fading, an affrighted specter. The “but” was the +last glimpse of him, and that Theresa overlooked, as she bustlingly chirruped: +“I <i>knew</i> you would understand. I’ll skip right up and look at +the room and put on fresh sheets.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +One month, one hot New York month, passed before the imperial Mr. Guilfogle +gave him back The Job, and then at seventeen dollars and fifty cents a week +instead of his former nineteen dollars. Mr. Wrenn refused, upon pretexts, to go +out with the manager for a drink, and presented him with twenty suggestions for +new novelties and circular letters. He rearranged the unsystematic methods of +Jake, the cub, and two days later he was at work as though he had never in his +life been farther from the Souvenir Company than Newark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br/> +HE IS “OUR MR. WRENN”</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> I<small>STRA</small>,—I am back in New York feeling +very well & hope this finds you the same. I have been wanting to write to +you for quite a while now but there has not been much news of any kind & so +I have not written to you. But now I am back working for the Souvenir Company. +I hope you are having a good time in Paris it must be a very pretty city & +I have often wished to be there perhaps some day I shall go. I [several +erasures here] have been reading quite a few books since I got back & think +now I shall get on better with my reading. You told me so many things about +books & so on & I do appreciate it. In closing, I am yours very +sincerely, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +W<small>ILLIAM</small> W<small>RENN</small>. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing else he could say. But there were a terrifying number of +things he could think as he crouched by the window overlooking West Sixteenth +Street, whose dull hue had not changed during the centuries while he had been +tramping England. Her smile he remembered—and he cried, “Oh, I want +to see her so much.” Her gallant dash through the rain—and again +the cry. +</p> + +<p> +At last he cursed himself, “Why don’t you <i>do</i> something that +’d count for her, and not sit around yammering for her like a +fool?” +</p> + +<p> +He worked on his plan to “bring the South into line”—the +Souvenir Company’s line. Again and again he sprang up from the +writing-table in his hot room when the presence of Istra came and stood +compellingly by his chair. But he worked. +</p> + +<p> +The Souvenir Company salesmen had not been able to get from the South the +business which the company deserved if right and justice were to prevail. On +the steamer from England Mr. Wrenn had conceived the idea that a Dixieland +Ink-well, with the Confederate and Union flags draped in graceful cast iron, +would make an admirable present with which to draw the attention of the Southem +trade. The ink-well was to be followed by a series of letters, sent on the +slightest provocation, on order or re-order, tactfully hoping the various +healths of the Southland were good and the baseball season important; all to +insure a welcome to the salesmen on the Southem route. +</p> + +<p> +He drew up his letters; he sketched his ink-well; he got up the courage to talk +with the office manager…. To forget love and the beloved, men have ascended in +aeroplanes and conquered African tribes. To forget love, a new, busy, much +absorbed Mr. Wrenn, very much Ours, bustled into Mr. Guilfogle’s office, +slapped down his papers on the desk, and demanded: “Here’s that +plan about gettin’ the South interested that I was telling you about. +Say, honest, I’d like awful much to try it on. I’d just have to +have part time of one stenographer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know our stenographers are pretty well crowded. But you can +leave the outline with me. I’ll look it over,” said Mr. Guilfogle. +</p> + +<p> +That same afternoon the manager enthusiastically O. K.’d the plan. To +enthusiastically—O. K. is an office technology for saying, gloomily, +“Well, I don’t suppose it ’d hurt to try it, anyway, but for +the love of Mike be careful, and let me see any letters you send out.” +</p> + +<p> +So Mr. Wrenn dictated a letter to each of their Southern merchants, sending him +a Dixieland Ink-well and inquiring about the crops. He had a stenographer, an +efficient intolerant young woman who wrote down his halting words as though +they were examples of bad English she wanted to show her friends, and waited +for the next word with cynical amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“By gosh!” growled Bill Wrenn, the cattleman, “I’ll +show her I’m running this. I’ll show her she’s got another +think coming.” But he dictated so busily and was so hot to get results +that he forgot the girl’s air of high-class martyrdom. +</p> + +<p> +He watched the Southern baseball results in the papers. He seized on every +salesman on the Southern route as he came in, and inquired about the religion +and politics of the merchants in his district. He even forgot to worry about +his next rise in salary, and found it much more exciting to rush back for an +important letter after a quick lunch than to watch the time and make sure that +he secured every minute of his lunch-hour. +</p> + +<p> +When October came—October of the vagabond, with the leaves brilliant out +on the Palisades, and Sixth Avenue moving-picture palaces cool again and +gay—Mr. Wrenn stayed late, under the mercury-vapor lights, making card +cross-files of the Southern merchants, their hobbies and prejudices, and +whistling as he worked, stopping now and then to slap the desk and mutter, +“By gosh! I’m gettin’ ’em—gettin’ +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +He rarely thought of Istra till he was out on the street again, proud of having +worked so late that his eyes ached. In fact, his chief troubles these days came +when Mr. Guilfogle wouldn’t “let him put through an idea.” +</p> + +<p> +Their first battle was over Mr. Wrenn’s signing the letters personally; +for the letters, the office manager felt, were as much Ours as was Mr. Wrenn, +and should be signed by the firm. After some difficulty Mr. Wrenn persuaded him +that one of the best ways to handle a personal letter was to make it personal. +They nearly cursed each other before Mr. Wrenn was allowed to use his own +judgment. +</p> + +<p> +It’s not at all certain that Mr. Guilfogle should have yielded. +What’s the use of a manager if his underlings use judgment? +</p> + +<p> +The next battle Mr. Wrenn lost. He had demanded a monthly holiday for his +stenographer. Mr. Guilfogle pointed out that she’d merely be the worse +off for a holiday, that it ’d make her discontented, that it was a +kindness to her to keep her mind occupied. Mr. Wrenn was, however, granted a +new typewriter, in a manner which revealed the fact that the Souvenir Company +was filled with almost too much mercy in permitting an employee to follow his +own selfish and stubborn desires. +</p> + +<p> +You cannot trust these employees. Mr. Wrenn was getting so absorbed in his work +that he didn’t even act as though it was a favor when Mr. Guilfogle +allowed him to have his letters to the trade copied by carbon paper instead of +having them blurred by the wet tissue-paper of a copy-book. The manager did +grant the request, but he was justly indignant at the curt manner of the +rascal, whereupon our bumptious revolutionist, our friend to anarchists and +red-headed artists, demanded a “raise” and said that he +didn’t care a hang if the [qualified] letters never went out. The +kindness of chiefs! For Mr. Guilfogle apologized and raised the madman’s +wage from seventeen dollars and fifty cents a week to his former nineteen +dollars. [He had expected eighteen dollars; he had demanded twenty-two dollars +and fifty cents; he was worth on the labor market from twenty-five to thirty +dollars; while the profit to the Souvenir Company from his work was about sixty +dollars minus whatever salary he got.] +</p> + +<p> +Not only that. Mr. Guilfogle slapped him on the back and said: +“You’re doing good work, old man. It’s fine. I just +don’t want you to be too reckless.” +</p> + +<p> +That night Wrenn worked till eight. +</p> + +<p> +After his raise he could afford to go to the theater, since he was not saving +money for travel. He wrote small letters to Istra and read the books he +believed she would approve—a Paris Baedeker and the second volume of +Tolstoi’s <i>War and Peace</i>, which he bought at a second-hand +book-stall for five cents. He became interested in popular and inaccurate +French and English histories, and secreted any amount of footnote anecdotes +about Guy Fawkes and rush-lights and the divine right of kings. He thought +almost every night about making friends, which he intended—just as much +as ever—to do as soon as Sometime arrived. +</p> + +<p> +On the day on which one of the Southern merchants wrote him about his +son—“fine young fellow, sir—has every chance of rising to a +lieutenancy on the Atlanta police force”—Mr. Wrenn’s eyes +were moist. Here was a friend already. Sure. He would make friends. Then there +was the cripple with the Capitol Corner News and Souvenir Stand in Austin, +Texas. Mr. Wrenn secreted two extra Dixieland Ink-wells and a Yale football +banner and sent them to the cripple for his brothers, who were in the +Agricultural College. +</p> + +<p> +The orders—yes, they were growing larger. The Southern salesmen took him +out to dinner sometimes. But he was shy of them. They were so knowing and had +so many smoking-room stories. He still had not found the friends he desired. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Miggleton’s restaurant, on Forty-second Street, was a romantic discovery. +Though it had “popular prices”—plain omelet, fifteen +cents—it had red and green bracket lights, mission-style tables, and +music played by a sparrowlike pianist and a violinist. Mr. Wrenn never really +heard the music, but while it was quavering he had a happier appreciation of +the Silk-Hat-Harry humorous pictures in the <i>Journal</i>, which he always +propped up against an oil-cruet. [That never caused him inconvenience; he had +no convictions in regard to salads.] He would drop the paper to look out of the +window at the Lazydays Improvement Company’s electric sign, showing +gardens of paradise on the instalment plan, and dream of—well, he +hadn’t the slightest idea what—something distant and deliciously +likely to become intimate. Once or twice he knew that he was visioning the girl +in soft brown whom he would “go home to,” and who, in a Lazydays +suburban residence, would play just such music for him and the friends who +lived near by. She would be as clever as Istra, but “oh, more so’s +you can go regular places with her.”… Often he got good ideas about +letters South, to be jotted down on envelope backs, from that music. +</p> + +<p> +At last comes the historic match-box incident. +</p> + +<p> +On that October evening in 1910 he dined early at Miggleton’s. The +thirty-cent table d’hote was perfect. The cream-of-corn soup was, he went +so far as to remark to the waitress, “simply slick”; the Waldorf +salad had two whole walnuts in his portion alone. +</p> + +<p> +The fat man with the white waistcoat, whom he had often noted as dining in this +same corner of the restaurant, smiled at him and said “Pleasant +evening” as he sat down opposite Mr. Wrenn and smoothed the two sleek +bangs which decorated the front of his nearly bald head. +</p> + +<p> +The music included a “potpourri of airs from ‘The Merry +Widow,’” which set his foot tapping. All the while he was conscious +that he’d made the Seattle Novelty and Stationery Corner Store come +through with a five-hundred-dollar order on one of his letters. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Journal</i> contained an editorial essay on “Friendship” +which would have been, and was, a credit to Cicero. +</p> + +<p> +He laid down the paper, stirred his large cup of coffee, and stared at the +mother-of-pearl buttons on the waistcoat of the fat man, who was now gulping +down soup, opposite him. “My land!” he was thinking, +“friendship! I ain’t even begun to make all those friends I was +going to. Haven’t done a thing. Oh, I will; I must!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice night,” said the fat man. +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh—it sure is,” brightly agreed Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Reg’lar Indian-Summer weather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t it! I feel like taking a walk on Riverside +Drive—b’lieve I will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wish I had time. But I gotta get down to the store—cigar-store. +I’m on nights, three times a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh. I’ve seen you here most every time I eat early,” Mr. +Wrenn purred. +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh. The rest of the time I eat at the boarding-house.” +</p> + +<p> +Silence. But Mr. Wrenn was fighting for things to say, means of approach, for +the chance to become acquainted with a new person, for all the friendly human +ways he had desired in nights of loneliness. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder when they’ll get the Grand Central done?” asked the +fat man. +</p> + +<p> +“I s’pose it’ll take quite a few years,” said Mr. +Wrenn, conversationally. +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh. I s’pose it will.” +</p> + +<p> +Silence. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn sat trying to think of something else to say. Lonely people in city +restaurants simply do not get acquainted. Yet he did manage to observe, +“Great building that’ll be,” in the friendliest manner. +</p> + +<p> +Silence. +</p> + +<p> +Then the fat man went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder what Wolgast will do in his mill? Don’t believe he can +stand up.” +</p> + +<p> +Wolgast was, Mr. Wrenn seemed to remember, a pugilist. He agreed vaguely: +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty hard, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go out to the areoplane meet?” asked the fat man. +</p> + +<p> +“No. But I’d like to see it. Gee! there must be kind of—kind +of adventure in them things, heh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh—sure is. First machine I saw, though—I was just getting +off the train at Belmont Park, and there was an areoplane up in the air, and it +looked like one of them big mechanical beetles these fellows sell on the street +buzzing around up there. I was kind of disappointed. But what do you think? It +was that J. A. D. McCurdy, in a Curtiss biplane—I think it was—and +by golly! he got to circling around and racing and tipping so’s I thought +I’d loose my hat off, I was so excited. And, say, what do you think? I +see McCurdy himself, afterward, standing near one of the—the +handgars—handsome young chap, not over twenty-eight or thirty, built like +a half-miler. And then I see Ralph Johnstone and Arch Hoxey—” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” Mr. Wrenn was breathing. +</p> + +<p> +“—dipping and doing the—what do you call it?—Dutch +sausage-roll or something like that. Yelled my head off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it must have been great to see ’em, and so close, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh—it sure was.” +</p> + +<p> +There seemed to be no other questions to settle. Mr. Wrenn slowly folded up his +paper, pursued his check under three plates and the menu-card to its +hiding-place beyond the catsup-bottle, and left the table with a regretful +“Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +At the desk of the cashier, a decorative blonde, he put a cent in the machine +which good-naturedly drops out boxes of matches. No box dropped this time, +though he worked the lever noisily. +</p> + +<p> +“Out of order?” asked the cashier lady. “Here’s two +boxes of matches. Guess you’ve earned them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, well, well!” sounded the voice of his friend, the fat +man, who stood at the desk paying his bill. “Pretty easy, heh? Two boxes +for one cent! Sting the restaurant.” Cocking his head, he carefully +inserted a cent in the slot and clattered the lever, turning to grin at Mr. +Wrenn, who grinned back as the machine failed to work. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me try it,” caroled Mr. Wrenn, and pounded the lever with the +enthusiasm of comradeship. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing doing, lady,” crowed the fat man to the cashier. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess <i>I</i> draw two boxes, too, eh? And I’m in a +cigar-store. How’s that for stinging your competitors, heh? Ho, ho, +ho!” +</p> + +<p> +The cashier handed him two boxes, with an embarrassed simper, and the fat man +clapped Mr. Wrenn’s shoulder joyously. +</p> + +<p> +“My turn!” shouted a young man in a fuzzy green hat and a +bright-brown suit, who had been watching with the sudden friendship which +unites a crowd brought together by an accident. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn was glowing. “No, it ain’t—it’s mine,” +he achieved. “I invented this game.” Never had he so stood forth in +a crowd. He was a Bill Wrenn with the cosmopolitan polish of a floor-walker. He +stood beside the fat man as a friend of sorts, a person to be taken perfectly +seriously. +</p> + +<p> +It is true that he didn’t add to this spiritual triumph the triumph of +getting two more boxes of matches, for the cashier-girl exclaimed, “No +indeedy; it’s my turn!” and lifted the match machine to a high +shelf behind her. But Mr. Wrenn went out of the restaurant with his old friend, +the fat man, saying to him quite as would a wit, “I guess we get stung, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh!” gurgled the fat man. +</p> + +<p> +Walking down to your store?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh—sure—won’t you walk down a piece?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I would like to. Which way is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fourth Avenue and Twenty-eighth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Walk down with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine!” +</p> + +<p> +And the fat man seemed to mean it. He confided to Mr. Wrenn that the fishing +was something elegant at Trulen, New Jersey; that he was some punkins at the +casting of flies in fishing; that he wished exceedingly to be at Trulen fishing +with flies, but was prevented by the manager of the cigar-store; that the +manager was an old devil; that his (the fat man’s own) name was Tom +Poppins; that the store had a slick new brand of Manila cigars, kept in a swell +new humidor bought upon the advice of himself (Mr. Poppins); that one of the +young clerks in the store had done fine in the Modified Marathon; that the Cubs +had had a great team this year; that he’d be glad to give Mr.—Mr. +Wrenn, eh?—one of those Manila cigars—great cigars they were, too; +and that he hadn’t “laughed so much for a month of Sundays as he +had over the way they stung Miggleton’s on them matches.” +</p> + +<p> +All this in the easy, affectionate, slightly wistful manner of fat men. Mr. +Poppins’s large round friendly childish eyes were never sarcastic. He was +the man who makes of a crowd in the Pullman smoking-room old friends in half an +hour. In turn, Mr. Wrenn did not shy off; he hinted at most of his lifelong +ambitions and a fair number of his sorrows and, when they reached the store, +not only calmly accepted, but even sneezingly ignited one of the “slick +new Manila cigars.” +</p> + +<p> +As he left the store he knew that the golden age had begun. He had a friend! +</p> + +<p> +He was to see Tom Poppins the coming Thursday at Miggleton’s. And now he +was going to find Morton! He laughed so loudly that the policeman at +Thirty-fourth Street looked self-conscious and felt secretively to find out +what was the matter with his uniform. Now, this evening, he’d try to get +on the track of Morton. Well, perhaps not this evening—the Pennsylvania +offices wouldn’t be open, but some time this week, anyway. +</p> + +<p> +Two nights later, as he waited for Tom Poppins at Miggleton’s, he lashed +himself with the thought that he had not started to find Morton; good old +Morton of the cattle-boat. But that was forgotten in the wonder of Tom +Poppins’s account of Mrs. Arty’s, a boarding-house “where all +the folks likes each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve never fed at a boarding-house, eh?” said Tom. +“Well, I guess most of ’em are pretty poor feed. And pretty sad +bunch. But Mrs. Arty’s is about as near like home as most of us poor +bachelors ever gets. Nice crowd there. If Mrs. Arty—Mrs. R. T. Ferrard is +her name, but we always call her Mrs. Arty—if she don’t take to you +she don’t mind letting you know she won’t take you in at all; but +if she does she’ll worry over the holes in your socks as if they was her +husband’s. All the bunch there drop into the parlor when they come in, +pretty near any time clear up till twelve-thirty, and talk and laugh and rush +the growler and play Five Hundred. Just like home! +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Arty’s nearly as fat as I am, but she can be pretty spry if +there’s something she can do for you. Nice crowd there, too except that +Teddem—he’s one of these here Willy-boy actors, always out of work; +I guess Mrs. Arty is kind of sorry for him. Say, Wrenn—you seem to me +like a good fellow—why don’t you get acquainted with the bunch? +Maybe you’d like to move up there some time. You was telling me about +what a cranky old party your landlady is. Anyway, come on up there to dinner. +On me. Got anything on for next Monday evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“N-no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on up then——East Thirtieth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, I’d like to!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, why don’t you, then? Get there about six. Ask for me. +Monday. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I don’t have to get to the store +evenings. Come on; you’ll find out if you like the place.” +</p> + +<p> +“By jiminy, I will!” Mr. Wrenn slapped the table, socially. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At last he was “through, just <i>through</i> with loafing around and not +getting acquainted,” he told himself. He was tired of Zapps. There was +nothing to Zapps. He would go up to Mrs. Arty’s and now—he was +going to find Morton. Next morning, marveling at himself for not having done +this easy task before, he telephoned to the Pennsylvania Railroad offices, +asked for Morton, and in one-half minute heard: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes? This is Harry Morton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Mr. Morton! I’ll just bet you can’t guess who this +is.” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you’ve got me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, who do you think it—” +</p> + +<p> +“Jack?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hunka.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle Henry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope.” Mr. Wrenn felt lonely at finding himself so completely +outside Morton’s own world that he was not thought of. He hastened to +claim a part in that world: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Mr. Morton, I wonder if you’ve ever heard of a cattle-boat +called the <i>Merian?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I—Say! Is this Bill Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, well! Where are you? When’d you get back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I been back quite a little while, Morty. Tried to get hold of +you—almost called up couple of times. I’m in my +office—Souvenir Company—now. Back on the old job. Say, I’d +like to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’d like to see <i>you</i>, old Bill!” +</p> + +<p> +“Got a date for dinner this evening, Morty?” +</p> + +<p> +“N-no. No, I don’t <i>think</i> I’ve got anything on.” +Morton’s voice seemed to sound a doubt. Mr. Wrenn reflected that Morton +must be a society person; and he made his invitation highly polite: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, say, old man, I’d be awful happy if you could come over and +feed on me. Can’t you come over and meet me, Morty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Y-yes, I guess I can. Yes, I’ll do it. Where’ll I meet +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“How about Twenty-eighth and Sixth Avenue?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll be all right, Bill. ’Bout six o’clock?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine! Be awful nice to see you again, old Morty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Same here. Goo’-by.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Gazing across the table at Miggleton’s, Mr. Wrenn saw, in the squat +familiar body and sturdy face of Morton of the cattle-boat, a stranger, +slightly uneasy and very quiet, wearing garments that had nothing whatever to +do with the cattle-boats—a crimson scarf with a horseshoe-pin of +“Brazilian diamonds,” and sleek brown ready-made clothes with +ornately curved cuffs and pocket flaps. +</p> + +<p> +Morton would say nothing of his wanderings after their parting in Liverpool +beyond: “Oh, I just bummed around. Places…. Warm to-night. For this time +of year.” Thrice he explained, “I was kind of afraid you’d be +sore at me for the way I left you; that’s why I’ve never looked you +up.” Thrice Mr. Wrenn declared that he had not been “sore,” +then ceased trying to make himself understood. +</p> + +<p> +Their talk wilted. Both of them played with their knives a good deal. Morton +built a set of triangles out of toothpicks while pretending to give hushed +attention to the pianist’s rendition of “Mammy’s Little +Cootsie Bootsie Coon,” while Mr. Wrenn stared out of the window as though +he expected to see the building across get afire immediately. When either of +them invented something to say they started chattering with guilty haste, and +each agreed hectically with any opinion the other advanced. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn surprised himself in the thought that Morton hadn’t anything +very new to say, which made him feel so disloyal that he burst out, effusively: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, come on now, old man; I just got to hear about what you did after +you left Liverpool.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—” +</p> + +<p> +“I never got out of Liverpool! Worked in a restaurant…. But next +time—! I’ll go clean to Constantinople!” Morton exploded. +“And I did see a lot of English life in Liverpool.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn talked long and rapidly of the world’s baseball series, and +Regal <i>vs.</i> Walkover shoes. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to think of something they could do. Suddenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Morty, I know an awful nice guy down here in a cigar-store. +Let’s go down and see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Poppins was very cordial to them. He dragged brown canvas stools out of the +tobacco-scented room where cigars were made, and the three of them squatted in +the back of the store, while Tom gossiped of the Juarez races, Taft, +cigar-wrappers, and Jews. Morton was aroused to tell the time-mellowed story of +the judge and the darky. He was cheerful and laughed much and frequently said +“Ah there, cull!” in general commendation. But he kept looking at +the clock on the jog in the wall over the watercooler. Just at ten he rose +abashedly, hesitated, and murmured, “Well, I guess I’ll have to be +beating it home.” +</p> + +<p> +From Mr. Wrenn: “Oh, Morty! So early?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom: “What’s the big hurry?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to run clear over to Jersey City.” Morton was +cordial, but not convincing. +</p> + +<p> +“Say—uh—Morton,” said Tom, kindly of face, his bald +head shining behind his twin bangs, as he rose, “I’m going to have +Wrenn up to dinner at my boarding-house next Monday. Like to have you come +along. It’s a fine place—Mrs. Arty—she’s the +landlady—she’s a wonder. There’s going to be a vacant room +there—maybe you two fellows could frame it up to take it, heh? +Understand, I don’t get no rake-off on this, but we all like to do what +we can for M—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” said Morton. “Sorry. Couldn’t do it. Staying +with my brother-in-law—costs me only ’bout half as much as it would +I don’t do much chasing around when I’m in town…. I’m going +to save up enough money for a good long hike. I’m going clean to St. +Petersburg!… But I’ve had a good time to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glad. Great stuff about you fellows on the cattle-ship,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +Morton hastened on, protectively, a bit critically: “You fellows sport +around a good deal, don’t you?… I can’t afford to…. Well, good +night. Glad to met you, Mr. Poppins. G’ night, old Wr—” +</p> + +<p> +“Going to the ferry? For Jersey? I’ll walk over with you,” +said Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +Their walk was quiet and, for Mr. Wrenn, tragically sad. He saw Morton +(presumably) doing the wandering he had once planned. He felt that, while +making his vast new circle of friends, he was losing all the wild +adventurousness of Bill Wrenn. And he was parting with his first friend. +</p> + +<p> +At the ferry-house Morton pronounced his “Well, so long, old +fellow” with an affection that meant finality. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn fled back to Tom Poppins’s store. On the way he was shocked to +find himself relieved at having parted with Morton. The cigar-store was closed. +</p> + +<p> +At home Mrs. Zapp waylaid him for his rent (a day overdue), and he was very +curt. That was to keep back the “O God, how rotten I feel!” with +which, in his room, he voiced the desolation of loneliness. +</p> + +<p> +The ghost of Morton, dead and forgotten, was with him all next day, till he got +home and unbelievably found on the staid black-walnut Zapp hat-rack a letter +from Paris, in a gray foreign-appearing envelope with Istra’s intensely +black scrawl on it. +</p> + +<p> +He put off the luxury of opening the letter till after the rites of brushing +his teeth, putting on his slippers, pounding his rocking-chair cushion into +softness. Panting with the joy to come, he stared out of the window at a giant +and glorious figure of Istra—the laughing Istra of breakfast +camp-fire—which towered from the street below. He sighed joyously and +read: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Mouse dear, just a word to let you know I haven’t forgotten you and am +very glad indeed to get your letters. Not much to write about. Frightfully busy +with work and fool parties. You <i>are</i> a dear good soul and I hope +you’ll keep on writing me. In haste, I. N.<br/> + Longer letter next time. +</p> + +<p> +He came to the end so soon. Istra was gone again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br/> +HE ENTERS SOCIETY</h2> + +<p> +England, in all its Istra-ness, scarce gave Mr. Wrenn a better thrill for his +collection than the thrill he received on the November evening when he saw the +white doorway of Mrs. R. T. Ferrard, in a decorous row of houses on Thirtieth +Street near Lexington Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +It is a block where the citizens have civic pride. A newspaper has not the +least chance of lying about on the asphalt—some householder with a +frequently barbered mustache will indignantly pounce upon it inside of an hour. +No awe. is caused by the sight of vestibules floored with marble in alternate +black and white tiles, scrubbed not by landladies, but by maids. There are +dotted Swiss curtains at the basement windows and Irish point curtains on the +first floors. There are two polished brass doorplates in a stretch of less than +eight houses. Distinctly, it is not a quarter where children fill the street +with shouting and little sticks. +</p> + +<p> +Occasionally a taxicab drives up to some door without a crowd of small boys +gathering; and young men in evening clothes are not infrequently seen to take +out young ladies wearing tight-fitting gowns of black, and light scarfs over +their heads. A Middle Western college fraternity has a club-house in the block, +and four of the houses are private—one of them belonging to a police +inspector and one to a school principal who wears spats. +</p> + +<p> +It is a block that is satisfied with itself; as different from the Zapp +district, where landladies in gingham run out to squabble with berry-venders, +as the Zapp district is from the Ghetto. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Arty Ferrard’s house is a poor relation to most of the residences +there. The black areaway rail is broken, and the basement-door grill is rusty. +But at the windows are red-and-white-figured chintz curtains, with a $2.98 +bisque figurine of an unclothed lady between them; the door is of spotless +white, with a bell-pull of polished brass. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn yanked this bell-pull with an urbane briskness which, he hoped, would +conceal his nervousness and delight in dining out. For he was one of the lonely +men in New York. He had dined out four times in eight years. +</p> + +<p> +The woman of thirty-five or thirty-eight who opened the door to him was very +fat, two-thirds as fat as Mrs. Zapp, but she had young eyes. Her mouth was +small, arched, and quivering in a grin. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Mr. Wrenn, isn’t it?” she gurgled, and leaned +against the doorpost, merry, apparently indolent. “I’m Mrs. +Ferrard. Mr. Poppins told me you were coming, and he said you were a terribly +nice man, and I was to be sure and welcome you. Come right in.” +</p> + +<p> +Her indolence turned to energy as she charged down the hall to the large double +door on the right and threw it open, revealing to him a scene of splendor and +revelry by night. +</p> + +<p> +Several persons [they seemed dozens, in their liveliness] were singing and +shouting to piano music, in the midst of a general redness and brightness of +furnishings—red paper and worn red carpet and a high ceiling with +circular moldings tinted in pink. Hand-painted pictures of old mills and ladies +brooding over salmon sunsets, and an especially hand-painted Christmas scene +with snow of inlaid mother-of-pearl, animated the walls. On a golden-oak +center-table was a large lamp with a mosaic shade, and through its mingled bits +of green and red and pearl glass stormed the brilliance of a mantle-light. +</p> + +<p> +The room was crowded with tufted plush and imitation-leather chairs, +side-tables and corner brackets, a couch and a “lady’s desk.” +Green and red and yellow vases adorned with figures of youthful lovers crammed +the top of the piano at the farther end of the room and the polished +black-marble mantel of the fireplace. The glaring gas raced the hearth-fire for +snap and glare and excitement. The profusion of furniture was like a tumult; +the redness and oakness and polishedness of furniture was a dizzying activity; +and it was all overwhelmingly magnified by the laughter and singing about the +piano. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Poppins lumbered up from a couch of terrifically new and red leather, and +Mr. Wrenn was introduced to the five new people in the room with dismaying +swiftness. There seemed to be fifty times five unapproachable and magnificent +strangers from whom he wanted to flee. Of them all he was sure of only +two—a Miss Nelly somebody and what sounded like Horatio Hood Tem (Teddem +it was). +</p> + +<p> +He wished that he had caught Miss Nelly’s last name (which, at dinner, +proved to be Croubel), for he was instantly taken by her sweetness as she +smiled, held out a well-shaped hand, and said, “So pleased meet you, Mr. +Wrenn.” +</p> + +<p> +She returned to the front of the room and went on talking to a lank spinster +about ruchings, but Mr. Wrenn felt that he had known her long and as intimately +as it was possible to know so clever a young woman. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly Croubel gave him the impression of a delicate prettiness, a superior sort +of prettiness, like that of the daughter of the Big White House on the Hill, +the Squire’s house, at Parthenon; though Nelly was not unusually pretty. +Indeed, her mouth was too large, her hair of somewhat ordinary brown. But her +face was always changing with emotions of kindliness and life. Her skin was +perfect; her features fine, rather Greek; her smile, quick yet sensitive. She +was several inches shorter than Mr. Wrenn, and all curves. Her blouse of white +silk lay tenderly along the adorably smooth softness of her young shoulders. A +smart patent-leather belt encircled her sleek waist. Thin black lisle stockings +showed a modestly arched and rather small foot in a black pump. +</p> + +<p> +She looked as though she were trained for business; awake, self-reliant, +self-respecting, expecting to have to get things done, all done, yet she seemed +indestructibly gentle, indestructibly good and believing, and just a bit shy. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly Croubel was twenty-four or twenty-five in years, older in business, and +far younger in love. She was born in Upton’s Grove, Pennsylvania. There, +for eighteen years, she had played Skip to Malue at parties, hid away the notes +with which the boys invited her to picnics at Baptist Beach, read much Walter +Scott, and occasionally taught Sunday-school. Her parents died when she was +beginning her fourth year in high school, and she came to New York to work in +Wanamacy’s toy department at six dollars a week during the holiday rush. +Her patience with fussy old shoppers and her large sales-totals had gained her +a permanent place in the store. +</p> + +<p> +She had loftily climbed to the position of second assistant buyer in the +lingerie department, at fourteen dollars and eighty cents a week That was quite +all of her history except that she attended a Presbyterian church nearly every +Sunday. The only person she hated was Horatio Hood Teddem, the cheap actor who +was playing the piano at Mr. Wrenn’s entrance. +</p> + +<p> +Just now Horatio was playing ragtime with amazing rapidity, stamping his foot +and turning his head to smirk at the others. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Arty led her chattering flock to the basement dining-room, which had pink +wall-paper and a mountainous sideboard. Mr. Wrenn was placed between Mrs. Arty +and Nelly Croubel. Out of the mist of strangeness presently emerged the +personality of Miss Mary Proudfoot, a lively but religious spinster of forty +who made doilies for the Dorcas Women’s Exchange and had two hundred +dollars a year family income. To the right of the red-glass pickle-dish were +the elderly Ebbitts—Samuel Ebbitt, Esq., also Mrs. Ebbitt. Mr. Ebbitt had +come from Hartford five years before, but he always seemed just to have come +from there. He was in a real-estate office; he was gray, ill-tempered, +impatiently honest, and addicted to rheumatism and the newspapers. Mrs. Ebbitt +was addicted only to Mr. Ebbitt. +</p> + +<p> +Across the table was felt the presence of James T. Duncan, who looked like a +dignified red-mustached Sunday-school superintendent, but who traveled for a +cloak and suit house, gambled heavily on poker and auction pinochle, and was +esteemed for his straight back and knowledge of trains. +</p> + +<p> +Which is all of them. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as Mrs. Arty had guided Annie, the bashful maid, in serving the +vegetable soup, and had coaxed her into bringing Mr. Wrenn a napkin, she took +charge of the conversation, a luxury which she would never have intrusted to +her flock’s amateurish efforts. Mr. Poppins, said she, had spoken of +meeting a friend of Mr. Wrenn’s; Mr. Morton, was it not? A very nice man, +she understood. Was it true that Mr. Wrenn and Mr. Morton had gone clear across +the Atlantic on a cattle-boat? It really was? +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how interesting!” contributed pretty Nelly Croubel, beside Mr. +Wrenn, her young eyes filled with an admiration which caused him palpitation +and difficulty in swallowing his soup. He was confused by hearing old Samuel +Ebbitt state: +</p> + +<p> +“Uh-h-h-h—back in 18—uh—1872 the vessel +<i>Prissie</i>—no, it was 1873; no, it must have been +’72—” +</p> + +<p> +“It was 1872, father,” said Mrs. Ebbitt. +</p> + +<p> +“1873. I was on a coasting-vessel, young man. But we didn’t carry +cattle.” Mr. Ebbitt inspected Horatio Hood Teddem darkly, clicked his +spectacle case sharply shut, and fell to eating, as though he had settled all +this nonsense. +</p> + +<p> +With occasional witty interruptions from the actor, Mr. Wrenn told of pitching +hay, of the wit of Morton, and the wickedness of Satan, the boss. +</p> + +<p> +“But you haven’t told us about the brave things <i>you</i> +did,” cooed Mrs. Arty. She appealed to Nelly Croubel: “I’ll +bet he was a cool one. Don’t you think he was, Nelly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he was.” Nelly’s voice was like a flute. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn knew that there was just one thing in the world that he wanted to do; +to persuade Miss Nelly Croubel that (though he was a solid business man, indeed +yes, and honorable) he was a cool one, who had chosen, in wandering o’er +this world so wide, the most perilous and cattle-boaty places. He tried to +think of something modest yet striking to say, while Tom was arguing with Miss +Mary Proudfoot, the respectable spinster, about the ethics of giving away +street-car transfers. +</p> + +<p> +As they finished their floating custard Mr. Wrenn achieved, “Do you come +from New York, Miss Croubel?” and listened to the tale of +sleighing-parties in Upton’s Grove, Pennsylvania. He was absolutely +happy. +</p> + +<p> +“This is like getting home,” he thought. “And they’re +classy folks to get home to—now that I can tell ’em apart. Gee! +Miss Croubel is a peach. And brains—golly!” +</p> + +<p> +He had a frightened hope that after dinner he would be able to get into a +corner and talk with Nelly, but Tom Poppins conferred with Horatio Hood Teddenm +and called Mr. Wrenn aside. Teddem had been acting with a moving-picture +company for a week, and had three passes to the celebrated Waldorf Photoplay +Theater. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn had bloodthirstily disapproved Horatio Hood’s effeminate +remarks, such as “Tee <i>hee!</i>” and “Oh, you naughty +man,” but when he heard that this molly-coddle had shared in the glory of +making moving pictures he went proudly forth with him and Tom. He had no chance +to speak to Mrs. Arty about taking the room to be vacated. +</p> + +<p> +He wished that Charley Carpenter or the Zapps could see him sitting right +beside an actor who was shown in the pictures miraculously there before them, +asking him how they made movies, just as friendly as though they had known each +other always. +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to do something to entertain his friends beyond taking them out for a +drink. He invited them down to his room, and they came. +</p> + +<p> +Teddem was in wonderful form; he mimicked every one they saw so amiably that +Tom Poppins knew the actor wanted to borrow money. The party were lovingly +humming the popular song of the time—“Any Little Girl That’s +a Nice Little Girl is the Right Little Girl for Me”—as they frisked +up the gloomy steps of the Zapps. Entering, Poppins and Teddem struck attitudes +on the inside stairs and sang aloud. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn felt enormously conscious of Mrs. Zapp down below. He kept listening, +as he led them up-stairs and lighted the gas. But Teddem so imitated Colonel +Roosevelt, with two water-glasses for eye-glasses and a small hat-brush for +mustache, that Mr. Wrenn was moved wrigglingly to exclaim: “Say, +I’m going out and get some beer. Or ’d you rather have something +else? Some cheese sandwiches? How about ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine,” said Tom and Teddem together. +</p> + +<p> +Not only did Mr. Wrenn buy a large newspaper-covered bundle of bottles of beer +and Swiss-cheese sandwiches, but also a small can of caviar and salty crackers. +In his room he spread a clean towel, then two clean towels, on the bureau, and +arrayed the feast, with two water-glasses and a shaving-mug for cups. +</p> + +<p> +Horatio Hood Teddem, spreading caviar on a sandwich, and loudly singing his +masterpiece, “Waal I swan,” stopped short and fixed amazed eyes on +the door of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn hastily turned. The light fell—as on a cliff of crumbly gray +rock—on Mrs. Zapp, in the open door, vast in her ungirdled gray wrapper, +her arms folded, glowering speechlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mist’ Wrenn,” she began, in a high voice that promised to +burst into passion. +</p> + +<p> +But she was addressing the formidable adventurer, Bill Wrenn. He had to protect +his friends. He sprang up and walked across to her. +</p> + +<p> +He said, quietly, “I didn’t hear you knock, Mrs. Zapp.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah <i>didn’t</i> knock, and Ah want you should—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then please do knock, unless you want me to give notice.” +</p> + +<p> +He was quivering. His voice was shrill. +</p> + +<p> +From the hall below Theresa called up, “Ma, come down here. +<i>Ma!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Zapp was too well started. “If you think Ah’m going to +stand for a lazy sneaking little drunkard keeping the whole street awake, and +here it is prett’ nearly midnight—” +</p> + +<p> +Just then Mr. William Wrenn saw and heard the most astounding thing of his +life, and became an etemal slave to Tom Poppins. +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s broad face became hard, his voice businesslike. He shouted at Mrs. +Zapp: +</p> + +<p> +“Beat it or I’ll run you in. Trouble with you is, you old hag, you +don’t appreciate a nice quiet little chap like Wrenn, and you try to +bully him—and him here for years. Get out or I’ll put you out. +I’m no lamb, and I won’t stand for any of your monkey-shines. Get +out. This ain’t your room; he’s rented it—he’s paid the +rent—it’s his room. Get out!” +</p> + +<p> +Kindly Tom Poppins worked in a cigar-store and was accustomed to talk back to +drunken men six feet tall. His voice was tremendous, and he was fatly +immovable; he didn’t a bit mind the fact that Mrs. Zapp was still +“glaring speechless.” +</p> + +<p> +But behold an ally to the forlorn lady. When Theresa, in the hall below, heard +Tom, she knew that Mr. Wrenn would room here no more. She galloped up-stairs +and screeched over her mother’s shoulder: +</p> + +<p> +“You will pick on a lady, will you, you drunken scum—you—you +cads—I’ll have you arrested so quick you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, lady,” said Tom, gently. “I’m a +plain-clothes man, a detective.” His large voice purred like a +tiger-tabby’s. “I don’t want to run you in, but I will if you +don’t get out of here and shut that door. Or you might go down and call +the cop on this block. He’ll run you in—for breaking Code 2762 of +the Penal Law! Trespass and flotsam—that’s what it is!” +</p> + +<p> +Uneasy, frightened, then horrified, Mrs. Zapp swung bulkily about and slammed +the door. +</p> + +<p> +Sick, guilty, banished from home though he felt, Mr. Wrenn’s voice +quavered, with an attempt at dignity: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awful sorry she butted in while you fellows was here. I +don’t know how to apologize” +</p> + +<p> +“Forget it, old man,” rolled out Tom’s bass. “Come on, +let’s go up to Mrs. Arty’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, gee! it’s nearly a quarter to eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right. We can get up there by a little after, and Mrs. +Arty stays up playing cards till after twelve.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Golly!” Mr. Wrenn agitatedly ejaculated under his breath, as they +noisily entered Mrs. Arty’s—though not noisily on his part. +</p> + +<p> +The parlor door was open. Mrs. Arty’s broad back was toward them, and she +was announcing to James T. Duncan and Miss Proudfoot, with whom she was playing +three-handed Five Hundred, “Well, I’ll just bid seven on hearts if +you’re going to get so set up.” She glanced back, nodded, said, +“Come in, children,” picked up the “widow,” and +discarded with quick twitches of the cards. The frightened Mr. Wrenn, feeling +like a shipwrecked land-lubber, compared this gaming smoking woman unfavorably +with the intense respectability of his dear lost patron, Mrs. Zapp. He sat +uneasy till the hand of cards was finished, feeling as though they were only +tolerating him. And Nelly Croubel was nowhere in sight. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly said Mrs. Arty, “And now you would like to look at that room, +Mr. Wrenn, unless I’m wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—yes, I guess I would like to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come with me, child,” she said, in pretended severity. “Tom, +you take my hand in the game, and don’t let me hear you’ve been +bidding ten on no suit without the joker.” She led Mr. Wrenn to the +settee hat-rack in the hall. “The third-floor-back will be vacant in two +weeks, Mr. Wrenn. We can go up and look at it now if you’d like to. The +man who has it now works nights—he’s some kind of a head waiter at +Rector’s, or something like that, and he’s out till three or four. +Come.” +</p> + +<p> +When he saw that third-floor-back, the room that the smart people at Mrs. +Arty’s were really willing to let him have, he felt like a man just +engaged. It was all in soft green—grass-green matting, pale-green walls, +chairs of white wicker with green cushions; the bed, a couch with a denim cover +and four sofa pillows. It gave him the impression of being a guest on Fifth +Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s kind of a plain room,” Mrs. Arty said, doubtfully. +“The furniture is kind of plain. But my head-waiter man—it was +furnished for a friend of his—he says he likes it better than any other +room in the house. It <i>is</i> comfortable, and you get lots of sunlight +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take—How much is it, please, with board?” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke with a take-it-or-leave-it defiance. “Eleven-fifty a +week.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a terrible extravagance; much like marrying a sick woman on a salary of +ten a week, he reflected; nine-teen minus eleven-fifty left him only +seven-fifty for clothes and savings and things and—but—” +I’ll take it,” he said, hastily. He was frightened at himself, but +glad, very glad. He was to live in this heaven; he was going to be away from +that Zapp woman; and Nelly Croubel—Was she engaged to some man? he +wondered. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Arty was saying: “First, I want to ask you some questions, though. +Please sit down.” As she creaked into one of the wicker chairs she +suddenly changed from the cigarette-rolling chaffing card-player to a woman +dignified, reserved, commanding. “Mr. Wrenn, you see, Miss Proudfoot and +Miss Croubel are on this floor. Miss Proudfoot can take care of herself, all +right, but Nelly is such a trusting little thing—She’s like my +daughter. She’s the only one I’ve ever given a reduced rate +to—and I swore I never would to anybody!… Do +you—uh—drink—drink much, I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Nelly on this floor! Near him! Now! He had to have this room. He forced himself +to speak directly. +</p> + +<p> +“I know how you mean, Mrs. Ferrard. No, I don’t drink much of +any—hardly at all; just a glass of beer now and then; sometimes I +don’t even touch that a week at a time. And I don’t gamble +and—and I do try to keep—er—straight—and all that sort +of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good.” +</p> + +<p> +“I work for the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company on Twenty-eighth Street. +If you want to call them up I guess the manager’ll give me a pretty good +recommend.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe I’ll need it, Mr. Wrenn. It’s my +business to find out what sort of animiles men are by just talking to +them.” She rose, smiled, plumped out her hand. “You <i>will</i> be +nice to Nelly, <i>won’t</i> you! I’m going to fire that Teddem +out—don’t tell him, but I am—because he gets too fresh with +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly broke into laughter, and ejaculated: “<i>Say</i>, that was +hard work! Don’t you <i>hate</i> to have to be serious? Let’s trot +down, and I’ll make Tom or Duncan rush us a growler of beer to welcome +you to our midst…. I’ll bet your socks aren’t darned properly. +I’m going to sneak in and take a look at them, once I get you caged up +here…. But I won’t read your love-letters! Now let’s go down by the +fire, where it’s comfy.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV<br/> +HE STUDIES FIVE HUNDRED, SAVOUIR FAIRE, AND LOTSA-SNAP OFFICE MOTTOES</h2> + +<p> +On a couch of glossy red leather with glossy black buttons and stiff fringes +also of glossy red leather, Mr. William Wrenn sat upright and was very +confiding to Miss Nelly Croubel, who was curled among the satin pillows with +her skirts drawn carefully about her ankles. He had been at Mrs. Arty’s +for two weeks now. He wore a new light-blue tie, and his trousers were pressed +like sheet steel. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I suppose you’re engaged to some one, Miss Nelly, and +you’ll go off and leave us—go off to that blamed Upton’s +Grove or some place.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am <i>not</i> engaged. I’ve told you so. Who would want to marry +me? You stop teasing me—you’re mean as can be; I’ll just have +to get Tom to protect me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Course you’re engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t. Who would want to marry poor little me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, anybody, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>stop</i> teasing me…. Besides, probably you’re in love with +twenty girls.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am <i>not</i>. Why, I’ve never hardly known but just two girls +in my life. One was just a girl I went to theaters with once or twice—she +was the daughter of the landlady I used to have before I came here.” +</p> + +<p> + “If you don’t make love to the landlady’s +daughter<br/> + You won’t get a second piece of pie!” +</p> + +<p> +quoted Nelly, out of the treasure-house of literature. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure. That’s it. But I bet you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was the other girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! She…. She was a—an artist. I liked her—a lot. But she +was—oh, awful highbrow. Gee! if—But—” +</p> + +<p> +A sympathetic silence, which Nelly broke with: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they’re funny people. Artists…. Do you have your lesson in +Five Hundred tonight? Your very first one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so. Say, is it much like this here bridge-whist? Oh say, Miss +Nelly, why do they call it Five Hundred?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what you have to make to go out. No, I guess it isn’t +very much like bridge; though, to tell the truth, I haven’t ever played +bridge. . My! it must be a nice game, though.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I thought prob’ly you could play it. You can do ’most +everything. Honest, I’ve never seen nothing like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you stop, Mr. Wrenn. I know I’m a—what was it Mr. Teddem +used to call me? A minx. But—” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss <i>Nelly!</i> You <i>aren’t</i> a minx!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—” +</p> + +<p> +“Or a mink, either. You’re a—let’s see—an +antelope.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not! Even if I can wriggle my nose like a rabbit. Besides, it +sounds like a muskmelon. But, anyway, the head buyer said I was crazy +to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I heard him say you were crazy—” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you beat him for me?” She cuddled a cushion and smiled +gratefully. Her big eyes seemed to fill with light. +</p> + +<p> +He caught himself wanting to kiss the softness of her shoulder, but he said +only, “Well, I ain’t much of a scrapper, but I’d try to make +it interesting for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, did you ever have a fight? When you were a boy? Were you +<i>such</i> a bad boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never did when I was a boy, but—well—I did have a couple +of fights when I was on the cattle-boat and in England. Neither of them +amounted to very much, though, I guess. I was scared stiff!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t believe it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe you’d be scared. You’re too +earnest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Me, Miss Nelly? Why, I’m a regular cut-up.” +</p> + +<p> +“You stop making fun of yourself! I <i>like</i> it when you’re +earnest—like when you saw that beautiful snowfall last night…. Oh dear, +isn’t it hard to have to miss so many beautiful things here in the +city—there’s just the parks, and even there there aren’t any +birds, real wild birds, like we used to have in Pennsylvania.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t it! Isn’t it hard!” Mr. Wrenn drew nearer +and looked sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I’m getting gushy. Miss +Hartenstein—she’s in my department—she’d laugh at me…. +But I do love birds and squirrels and pussy-willows and all those things. In +summer I love to go on picnics on Staten Island or tramp in Van Cortlandt +Park.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you go on a picnic with me some day next spring?” Hastily, +“I mean with Miss Proudfoot and Mrs. Arty and me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be pleased to.” She was prim but trusting about it. +“Oh, listen, Mr. Wrenn; did you ever tramp along the Palisades as far as +Englewood? It’s lovely there—the woods and the river and all those +funny little tugs puffing along, way <i>way</i> down below you—why, I +could lie on the rocks up there and just dream and dream for hours. After +I’ve spent Sunday up there”—she was dreaming now, he saw, and +his heart was passionately tender toward her—“I don’t hardly +mind a bit having to go back to the store Monday morning…. You’ve been up +along there, haven’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Me? Why, I guess I’m the guy that discovered the Palisades!… Yes, +it is <i>won</i>-derful up there!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are, are you? I read about that in American history!… But +honestly, Mr. Wrenn, I do believe you care for tramps and things—not like +that Teddem or Mr. Duncan—they always want to just stay in town—or +even Tom, though he’s an old dear.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn looked jealous, with a small hot jealousy. She hastened on with: +“Of course, I mean he’s just like a big brother. To all of +us.” +</p> + +<p> +It was sweet to both of them, to her to declare and to him to hear, that +neither Tom nor any other possessed her heart. Their shy glances were like an +outreach of tenderly touching hands as she confided, “Mrs. Arty and he +get up picnics, and when we’re out on the Palisades he says to +me—you know, sometimes he almost makes me think he <i>is</i> sleepy, +though I do believe he just sneaks off under a tree and talks to Mrs. Arty or +reads a magazine—but I was saying: he always says to me, ‘Well, +sister, I suppose you want to mousey round and dream by yourself—you +won’t talk to a growly old bear like me. Well, I’m glad of it. I +want to sleep. I don’t want to be bothered by you and your everlasting +chatter. Get out!’ I b’lieve he just says that ’cause he +knows I wouldn’t want to run off by myself if they didn’t think it +was proper.” +</p> + +<p> +As he heard her lively effort to imitate Tom’s bass Mr. Wrenn laughed and +pounded his knee and agreed: “Yes, Tom’s an awfully fine fellow, +isn’t he!… I love to get out some place by myself, too. I like to wander +round places and make up the doggondest fool little stories to myself about +them; just as bad as a kiddy, that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you read such an awful lot, Mr. Wrenn! My! Oh, tell me, have you +ever read anything by Harold Bell Wright or Myrtle Reed, Mr. Wrenn? They write +such sweet stories.” +</p> + +<p> +He had not, but he expressed an unconquerable resolve so to do, and with +immediateness. She went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Arty told me you had a real big library—nearly a hundred +books and—Do you mind? I went in your room and peeked at them.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, course I don’t mind! If there’s any of them you’d +like to borrow any time, Miss Nelly, I would be awful glad to lend them to +you…. But, rats! Why, I haven’t got hardly any books.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s why you haven’t wasted any time learning Five Hundred +and things, isn’t it? Because you’ve been so busy reading and so +on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, kind of.” Mr. Wrenn looked modest. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you always been lots of—oh, haven’t you always +’magined lots?” +</p> + +<p> +She really seemed to care. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn felt excitedly sure of that, and imparted: “Yes, I guess I +have…. And I’ve always wanted to travel a lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“So have I! Isn’t it wonderful to go around and see new +places!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, <i>isn’t</i> it!” he breathed. “It was great to +be in England—though the people there are kind of chilly some ways. Even +when I’m on a wharf here in New York I feel just like I was off in China +or somewheres. I’d like to see China. And India…. Gee! when I hear the +waves down at Coney Island or some place—you know how the waves sound +when they come in. Well, sometimes I almost feel like they was talking to a +guy—you know—telling about ships. And, oh say, you know the +whitecaps—aren’t they just like the waves was motioning at +you—they want you to come and beat it with you—over to China and +places.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Wrenn, you’re a regular poet!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked doubtful. +</p> + +<p> +“Honest; I’m not teasing you; you are a poet. And I think +it’s fine that Mr. Teddem was saying that nobody could be a poet or like +that unless they drank an awful lot and—uh—oh, not be honest and be +on a job. But you aren’t like that. <i>Are</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked self-conscious and mumbled, earnestly, “Well, I try not to +be.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am going to make you go to church. You’ll be a socialist or +something like that if you get to be too much of a poet and +don’t—” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Nelly, please <i>may</i> I go to church with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—” +</p> + +<p> +“Next Sunday?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, I should be pleased. Are you a Presbyterian, though?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—I guess I’m kind of a Congregationalist; but +still, they’re all so much alike.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they really are. And besides, what does it matter if we all believe +the same and try to do right; and sometimes that’s hard, when +you’re poor, and it seems like—like—” +</p> + +<p> +“Seems like what?” Mr. Wrenn insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—nothing…. My, you’ll have to get up awful early Sunday +morning if you’d like to go with me. My church starts at +ten-thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’d get up at five to go with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stupid! Now you’re just trying to jolly me; you <i>are</i>; +because you men aren’t as fond of church as all that, I know you +aren’t. You’re real lazy Sunday mornings, and just want to sit +around and read the papers and leave the poor women—But please tell me +some more about your reading and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be all ready to go at nine-thirty…. I don’t know; +why, I haven’t done much reading. But I would like to travel +and—Say, wouldn’t it be great to—I suppose I’m sort of +a kid about it; of course, a guy has to tend right to business, but it would be +great—Say a man was in Europe with—with—a friend, and they +both knew a lot of history—say, they both knew a lot about Guy Fawkes (he +was the guy that tried to blow up the English Parliament), and then when they +were there in London they could almost think they saw him, and they could go +round together and look at Shelley’s window—he was a poet at +Oxford—Oh, it would be great with a—with a friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, wouldn’t it?… I wanted to work in the book department one +time. It’s so nice your being—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ready for Five Hundred?” bellowed Tom Poppins in the hall below. +“Ready partner—you, Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was to initiate Mr. Wrenn into the game, playing with him against Mrs. Arty +and Miss Mary Proudfoot. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Arty sounded the occasion’s pitch of high merriment by delivering +from the doorway the sacred old saying, “Well, the ladies against the +men, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +A general grunt that might be spelled “Hmmmmhm” assented. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a good suffragette,” she added. “Watch us squat +the men, Mary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like to smash windows? Let’s see—it’s red fours, black +fives up?” remarked Tom, as he prepared the pack of cards for playing. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I would! It makes me so tired,” asseverated Mrs. Arty, +“to think of the old goats that men put up for candidates when they +<i>know</i> they’re solemn old fools! I’d just like to get out and +vote my head off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think the woman’s place is in the home,” sniffed +Miss Proudfoot, decisively, tucking away a doily she was finishing for the +Women’s Exchange and jabbing at her bangs. +</p> + +<p> +They settled themselves about the glowing, glancing, glittering, golden-oak +center-table. Miss Proudfoot shuffled sternly. Mr. Wrenn sat still and +frightened, like a shipwrecked professor on a raft with two gamblers and a +press-agent, though Nelly was smiling encouragingly at him from the couch where +she had started her embroidery—a large Christmas lamp mat for the wife of +the Presbyterian pastor at Upton’s Grove. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you wish your little friend Horatio Hood Teddem was here to +play with you?” remarked Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>do</i> not,” declared Mrs. Arty. “Still, there was one +thing about Horatio. I never had to look up his account to find out how much he +owed me. He stopped calling me, Little Buttercup, when he owed me ten dollars, +and he even stopped slamming the front door when he got up to twenty. O Mr. +Wrenn, did I ever tell you about the time I asked him if he wanted to have +Annie sweep—” +</p> + +<p> +“Gerty!” protested Miss Proudfoot, while Nelly, on the couch, +ejaculated mechanically, “That story!” but Mrs. Arty chuckled +fatly, and continued: +</p> + +<p> +“I asked him if he wanted me to have Annie sweep his nightshirt when she +swept his room. He changed it next day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your bid, Mr. Poppins, “said Miss Proudfoot, severely. +</p> + +<p> +“First, I want to tell Wrenn how to play. You see, Wrenn, here’s +the schedule. We play Avondale Schedule, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Mr. Wrenn, timorously…. He had once heard of +Carbondale—in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or somewhere—but that +didn’t seem to help much. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you see, you either make or go back,” continued Tom. +“Plus and minus, you know. Joker is high, then right bower, left, and +ace. Then—uh—let’s see; high bid takes the cat—widdie, +you know—and discards. Ten tricks. Follow suit like whist, of course. I +guess that’s all—that ought to give you the hang of it, anyway. I +bid six on no trump.” +</p> + +<p> +As Tom Poppins finished these instructions, given in the card-player’s +rapid don’t-ask-me-any-more-fool-questions manner, Mr. Wrenn felt that he +was choking. He craned up his neck, trying to ease his stiff collar. So, then, +he was a failure, a social outcast already. +</p> + +<p> +So, then, he couldn’t learn Five Hundred! And he had been very proud of +knowing one card from another perfectly, having played a number of games of +two-handed poker with Tim on the cattle-boat. But what the dickens did +“left—cat—follow suit” mean? +</p> + +<p> +And to fail with Nelly watching him! He pulled at his collar again. +</p> + +<p> +Thus he reflected while Mrs. Arty and Tom were carrying on the following +brilliant but cryptic society-dialogue: +</p> + +<p> +<i>Mrs. Arty:</i> Well, I don’t know. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Tom:</i> Not failure, but low bid is crime, little one. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Mrs. Arty:</i> Mary, shall I make— +</p> + +<p> +<i>Tom:</i> Hey! No talking ’cross table! +</p> + +<p> +<i>Mrs. Arty:</i> Um—let—me—see. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Tom:</i> Bid up, bid up! Bid a little seven on hearts? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Mrs. Arty:</i> Just for that I <i>will</i> bid seven on hearts, smarty! +</p> + +<p> +<i>Tom:</i> Oh, how we will squat you!… What you bidding, Wrenn? +</p> + +<p> +Behind Mr. Wrenn, Nelly Croubel whispered to him: “Bid seven on no suit. +You’ve got the joker.” Her delicate forefinger, its nail shining, +was pointing at a curious card in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven nosut,” he mumbled. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight hearts,” snapped Miss Proudfoot. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly drew up a chair behind Mr. Wrenn’s. He listened to her soft +explanations with the desperate respect and affection which a green subaltern +would give to a general in battle. +</p> + +<p> +Tom and he won the hand. He glanced back at Nelly with awe, then clutched his +new hand, fearfully, dizzily, staring at it as though it might conceal one of +those malevolent deceivers of which Nelly had just warned him—a left +bower. +</p> + +<p> +“Good! Spades—see,” said Nelly. +</p> + +<p> +Fifteen minutes later Mr. Wrenn felt that Tom was hoping he would lead a club. +He played one, and the whole table said: “That’s right. +Fine!” +</p> + +<p> +On his shoulder he felt a light tap, and he blushed like a sunset as he peeped +back at Nelly. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Mr. Wrenn, the society light, was Our Mr. Wrenn of the Souvenir Company all +this time. Indeed, at present he intended to keep on taking The Job seriously +until that most mistily distant time, which we all await, “when something +turns up.” His fondling of the Southern merchants was showing such +results that he had grown from an interest in whatever papers were on his desk +to a belief in the divine necessity of The Job as a whole. Not now, as of old, +did he keep the personal letters in his desk tied up, ready for a sudden +departure for Vienna or Kamchatka. Also, he wished to earn much more money for +his new career of luxury. Mr. Guilfogle had assured him that there might be +chances ahead—business had been prospering, two new road salesmen and a +city-trade man had been added to the staff, and whereas the firm had formerly +been jobbers only, buying their novelties from manufacturers, now they were +having printed for them their own Lotsa-Snap Cardboard Office Mottoes, which +were making a big hit with the trade. +</p> + +<p> +Through his friend Rabin, the salesman, Mr. Wrenn got better acquainted with +two great men—Mr. L. J. Glover, the purchasing agent of the Souvenir +Company, and John Hensen, the newly engaged head of motto manufacturing. He +“wanted to get onto all the different lines of the business so’s he +could step right in anywhere”; and from these men he learned the valuable +secrets of business wherewith the marts of trade build up prosperity for all of +us: how to seat a selling agent facing the light, so you can see his face +better than he can see yours. How much ahead of time to telephone the +motto-printer that “we’ve simply got to have proof this afternoon; +what’s the matter with you, down there? Don’t you want our business +any more?” He also learned something of the various kinds of cardboard +and ink-well glass, though these, of course, were merely matters of knowledge, +not of brilliant business tactics, and far less important than what Tom Poppins +and Rabin called “handing out a snappy line of talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you’re getting quite chummy lately—reg’lar +society leader,” Rabin informed him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn’s answer was in itself a proof of the soundness of +Rabin’s observation: +</p> + +<p> +“Sure—I’m going to borrow some money from you fellows. Got to +make an impression, see?” +</p> + +<p> +A few hours after this commendation came Istra’s second letter: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Mouse dear, I’m so glad to hear about the simpatico boarding- house. Yes +indeed I would like to hear about the people in it. And you are reading +history? That’s good. I’m getting sick of Paris and some day +I’m going to stop an absinthe on the boulevard and slap its face to show +I’m a sturdy moving-picture Western Amurrican and then leap to saddle and +pursue the bandit. I’m working like the devil but what’s the use. +That is I mean unless one is doing the job well, as I’m glad you are. My +Dear, keep it up. You know I want you to be <i>real</i> whatever you are. I +didn’t mean to preach but you know I hate people who aren’t +real—that’s why I haven’t much of a flair for myself. <i>Au +récrire</i>, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +I. N. +</p> + +<p> +After he had read her letter for the third time he was horribly shocked and +regarded himself as a traitor, because he found that he was only pretending to +be enjoyably excited over it…. It seemed so detached from himself. +“Flair”—“<i>au recrire</i>.” Now, what did those +mean? And Istra was always so discontented. “What ’d she do if she +had to be on the job like Nelly?… Oh, Istra <i>is</i> wonderful. +But—gee!—I dunno—” +</p> + +<p> +And when he who has valorously loved says “But—gee!—I +dunno—” love flees in panic. +</p> + +<p> +He walked home thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner he said abruptly to Nelly, “I had a letter from Paris +to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Honestly? Who is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“G-g-g-g—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s always a she.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—it <i>is</i> from a girl. I started to tell you about +her one day. She’s an artist, and once we took a long tramp in the +country. I met her—she was staying at the same place as I was in London. +But—oh, gee! I dunno; she’s so blame literary. She <i>is</i> a +<i>fine</i> person—Do you think you’d like a girl like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe I would.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she was a man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes-s! Artists are so romantic.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they ain’t on the job more ’n half the time,” he +said, jealously. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s <i>so</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +His hand stole secretly, craftily skirting a cushion, to touch hers—which +she withdrew, laughing: +</p> + +<p> +“Hump-a! You go hold your artist’s hand!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Miss Nelly! When I <i>told</i> you about her <i>myself!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +She was contrite, and they played Five Hundred animatedly all evening. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br/> +HE BECOMES MILDLY RELIGIOUS AND HIGHLY LITERARY</h2> + +<p> +The hero of the one-act play at Hammerstein’s Victoria vaudeville theater +on that December evening was, it appeared, a wealthy young mine-owner in +disguise. He was working for the “fake mine promoter” because he +loved the promoter’s daughter with a love that passed all understanding +except that of the girls in the gallery. When the postal authorities were about +to arrest the promoter our young hero saved him by giving him a real mine, and +the ensuing kiss of the daughter ended the suspense in which Mr. Wrenn and +Nelly, Mrs. Arty and Tom had watched the play from the sixth row of the +balcony. +</p> + +<p> +Sighing happily, Nelly cried to the group: “Wasn’t that grand? I +got so excited! Wasn’t that young miner a dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully nice,” said Mr. Wrenn. “And, gee! wasn’t that +great, that office scene—with that safe and the rest of the +stuff—just like you was in a real office. But, say, they wouldn’t +have a copying-press in an office like that; those fake mine promoters send out +such swell letters; they’d use carbon copies and not muss the letters all +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“By gosh, that’s right!” and Tom nodded his chin toward his +right shoulder in approval. Nelly cried, “That’s so; they +would”; while Mrs. Arty, not knowing what a copying-press was, appeared +highly commendatory, and said nothing at all. +</p> + +<p> +During the moving pictures that followed, Mr. Wrenn felt proudly that he was +taken seriously, though he had known them but little over a month. He followed +up his conversational advantage by leading the chorus in wondering, +“which one of them two actors the heroine was married to?” and +“how much a week they get for acting in that thing?” It was Tom who +invited them to Miggleton’s for coffee and fried oysters. Mr. Wrenn was +silent for a while. But as they were stamping through the rivulets of +wheel-tracks that crisscrossed on a slushy street-crossing Mr. Wrenn regained +his advantage by crying, “Say, don’t you think that play ’d +have been better if the promoter ’d had an awful grouch on the young +miner and ’d had to crawfish when the miner saved him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes; it would!” Nelly glowed at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t wonder if it would,” agreed Tom, kicking the +December slush off his feet and patting Mr. Wrenn’s back. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look here,” said Mr. Wrenn, as they left Broadway, with its +crowds betokening the approach of Christmas, and stamped to the quieter side of +Forty-second, “why wouldn’t this make a slick play: say +there’s an awfully rich old guy; say he’s a railway president or +something, d’ you see? Well, he’s got a secretary there in the +office—on the stage, see? The scene is his office. Well, this +guy’s—the rich old guy’s—daughter comes in and says +she’s married to a poor man and she won’t tell his name, but she +wants some money from her dad. You see, her dad’s been planning for her +to marry a marquise or some kind of a lord, and he’s sore as can be, and +he won’t listen to her, and he just cusses her out something fierce, see? +Course he doesn’t really cuss, but he’s awful sore; and she tells +him didn’t he marry her mother when he was a poor young man; but he +won’t listen. Then the secretary butts in—my idea is he’s +been kind of keeping in the background, see—and <i>he’s</i> the +daughter’s husband all the while, see? and he tells the old codger how +he’s got some of his—some of the old fellow’s—papers +that give it away how he done something that was crooked—some kind of +deal—rebates and stuff, see how I mean?—and the secretary’s +going to spring this stuff on the newspapers if the old man don’t come +through and forgive them; so of course the president has to forgive them, +see?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean the secretary was the daughter’s husband all along, and +he heard what the president said right there?” Nelly panted, stopping +outside Miggleton’s, in the light from the oyster-filled window. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and he heard it all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I think that’s just a <i>fine</i> idea,” declared +Nelly, as they entered the restaurant. Though her little manner of dignity and +even restraint was evident as ever, she seemed keenly joyous over his genius. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, that’s a corking idea for a play, Wrenn,” exclaimed +Tom, at their table, gallantly removing the ladies’ wraps. +</p> + +<p> +“It surely is,” agreed Mrs. Arty. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you write it?” asked Nelly. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw—I couldn’t write it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sure you could, Bill,” insisted Tom. “Straight; you +ought to write it. (Hey, waiter! Four fries and coffee!) You ought to write it. +Why, it’s a wonder; it ’d make a dev— ’Scuse me, +ladies. It’d make a howling hit. You might make a lot of money out of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The renewed warmth of their wet feet on the red-tile floor, the scent of fried +oysters, the din of “Any Little Girl” on the piano, these added +color to this moment of Mr. Wrenn’s great resolve. The four stared at one +another excitedly. Mr. Wrenn’s eyelids fluttered. Tom brought his hand +down on the table with a soft flat “plob” and declared: “Say, +there might be a lot of money in it. Why, I’ve heard that Harry +Smith—writes the words for these musical comedies—makes a +<i>mint</i> of money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Poppins ought to help you in it—he’s seen such a lot of +plays,” Mrs. Arty anxiously advised. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a good idea,” said Mr. Wrenn. It had, apparently, +been ordained that he was to write it. They were now settling important +details. So when Nelly cried, “I think it’s just a fine idea; I +knew you had lots of imagination,” Tom interrupted her with: +</p> + +<p> +“No; you write it, Bill. I’ll help you all I can, of course…. Tell +you what you ought to do: get hold of Teddem—he’s had a lot of +stage experience; he’d help you about seeing the managers. That ’d +be the hard part—you can write it, all right, but you’d have to get +next to the guys on the inside, and Teddem—Say, you cer<i>tain</i>ly +ought to write this thing, Bill. Might make a lot of money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a lot!” breathed Nelly. +</p> + +<p> +“Heard about a fellow,” continued Tom—” fellow named +Gene Wolf, I think it was—that was so broke he was sleeping in Bryant +Park, and he made a <i>hundred thousand dollars</i> on his first play—or, +no; tell you how it was: he sold it outright for ten thousand—something +like that, anyway. I got that right from a fellow that’s met him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, an author’s got to go to college and stuff like +that.” Mr. Wrenn spoke as though he would be pleased to have the +objection overruled at once, which it was with a universal: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, rats!” +</p> + +<p> +Crunching oysters in a brown jacket of flour, whose every lump was a crisp +delight, hearing his genius lauded and himself called Bill thrice in a +quarter-hour, Mr. Wrenn was beatified. He asked the waiter for some paper, and +while the four hotly discussed things which “it would be slick to have +the president’s daughter do” he drew up a list of characters on a +sheet of paper he still keeps. It is headed, “Miggleton’s +Forty-second Street Branch.” At the bottom appear numerous scribblings of +the name Nelly. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/img01.jpg" width="408" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +“I think I’ll call the heroine ‘Nelly,’” he +mused. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly Croubel blushed. Mrs. Arty and Tom glanced at each other. Mr. Wrenn +realized that he had, even at this moment of social triumph, “made a +break.” +</p> + +<p> +He said, hastily; “I always liked that name. I—I had an aunt named +that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—” started Nelly. +</p> + +<p> +“She was fine to me when I was a kid, “Mr. Wrenn added, trying to +remember whether it was right to lie when in such need. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s a horrid name,” declared Nelly. “Why +don’t you call her something nice, like +Hazel—or—oh—Dolores.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope; Nelly’s an elegant name—an <i>elegant</i> name.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked with Nelly behind the others, along Forty-second Street. To the +outsider’s eye he was a small respectable clerk, slightly stooped, with a +polite mustache and the dignity that comes from knowing well a narrow world; +wearing an overcoat too light for winter; too busily edging out of the way of +people and guiding the nice girl beside him into clear spaces by diffidently +touching her elbow, too pettily busy to cast a glance out of the crowd and spy +the passing poet or king, or the iron night sky. He was as undistinguishable a +bit of the evening street life as any of the file of street-cars slashing +through the wet snow. Yet, he was the chivalrous squire to the greatest lady of +all his realm; he was a society author, and a man of great prospective wealth +and power over mankind! +</p> + +<p> +“Say, we’ll have the grandest dinner you ever saw if I get away +with the play,” he was saying. “Will you come, Miss Nelly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I will! Oh, you sha’n’t leave me out! Wasn’t I +there when—” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed you were! Oh, we’ll have a reg’lar feast at the +Astor—artichokes and truffles and all sorts of stuff…. Would—would +you like it if I sold the play?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Course</i> I would, silly!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d buy the business and make Rabin manager—the Souvenir +Company. +</p> + +<p> +So he came to relate all those intimacies of The Job; and he was overwhelmed at +the ease with which she “got onto old Goglefogle.” +</p> + +<p> +His preparations for writing the play were elaborate. +</p> + +<p> +He paced Tom’s room till twelve-thirty, consulting as to whether he had +to plan the stage-setting; smoking cigarettes in attitudes on chair arms. Next +morning in the office he made numerous plans of the setting on waste +half-sheets of paper. At noon he was telephoning at Tom regarding the question +of whether there ought to be one desk or two on the stage. +</p> + +<p> +He skipped the evening meal at Mrs. Arty’s, dining with literary +pensiveness at the Armenian, for he had subtle problems to meditate. He bought +a dollar fountain-pen, which had large gold-like bands and a rather scratchy +pen-point, and a box of fairly large sheets of paper. Pressing his literary +impedimenta tenderly under his arm, he attended four moving-picture and +vaudeville theaters. By eleven he had seen three more one-act plays and a +dramatic playlet. +</p> + +<p> +He slipped by the parlor door at Mrs. Arty’s. +</p> + +<p> +His room was quiet. The lamplight on the delicately green walls was like that +of a regular author’s den, he was quite sure. He happily tested the +fountain-pen by writing the names Nelly and William Wrenn on a bit of +wrapping-paper (which he guiltily burned in an ash-tray); washed his face with +water which he let run for a minute to cool; sat down before his table with a +grunt of content; went back and washed his hands; fiercely threw off the +bourgeois encumbrances of coat and collar; sat down again; got up to straighten +a picture; picked up his pen; laid it down, and glowed as he thought of Nelly, +slumbering there, near at hand, her exquisite cheek nestling silkenly against +her arm, perhaps, and her white dreams— +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he roared at himself, “Get on the job there, will yuh?” He +picked up the pen and wrote: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER<br/> +A ONE ACT DRAMATIC PLAYLET<br/> +by<br/> +WILLIAM WRENN<br/> +<br/> +CHARACTERS +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>John Warrington</i>, a railway president; quite rich.<br/> +<i>Nelly Warrington</i>, Mr. Warrington’s daughter.<br/> +<i>Reginald Thorne</i>, his secretary. +</p> + +<p> +He was jubilant. His pen whined at top speed, scattering a shower of tiny drops +of ink. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Stage Scene: An office. Very expensive. Mr. Warrington and Mr. Thorne are +sitting there. Miss Warrington comes in. She says:</i> +</p> + +<p> +He stopped. He thought. He held his head. He went over to the stationary bowl +and soaked his hair with water. He lay on the bed and kicked his heels, slowly +and gravely smoothing his mustache. Fifty minutes later he gave a portentous +groan and went to bed. +</p> + +<p> +He hadn’t been able to think of what Miss Warrington says beyond “I +have come to tell you that I am married, papa,” and that didn’t +sound just right; not for a first line it didn’t, anyway. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner next night—Saturday—Tom was rather inclined to make +references to “our author,” and to remark: “Well, I know +where somebody was last night, but of course I won’t tell. Say, them +authors are a wild lot.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn, who had permitted the teasing of even Tim, the hatter, +“wasn’t going to stand for no kidding from nobody—not when +Nelly was there,” and he called for a glass of water with the air of a +Harvard assistant professor forced to eat in a lunch-wagon and slapped on the +back by the cook. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly soothed him. “The play <i>is</i> going well, <i>isn’t</i> +it?” +</p> + +<p> +When he had, with a detached grandeur of which he was immediately ashamed, +vouchsafed that he was already “getting right down to brass tacks on +it,” that he had already investigated four more plays and begun the +actual writing, every one looked awed and asked him assorted questions. +</p> + +<p> +At nine-thirty that evening he combed and tightly brushed his hair, which he +had been pawing angrily for an hour and a half, went down the hall to +Nelly’s hall bedroom, and knocked with: “It’s Mr. Wrenn. May +I ask you something about the play?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just a moment,” he heard her say. +</p> + +<p> +He waited, panting softly, his lips apart. This was to be the first time he had +ever seen Nelly’s room. She opened the door part way, smiling shyly, +timidly, holding her pale-blue dressing-gown close. The pale blueness was a +modestly brilliant spot against the whiteness of the room—white bureau, +hung with dance programs and a yellow Upton’s Grove High School banner, +white tiny rocker, pale-yellow matting, white-and-silver wall-paper, and a +glimpse of a white soft bed. +</p> + +<p> +He was dizzy with the exaltation of that purity, but he got himself to say: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m kind of stuck on the first part of the play, Miss Nelly. +Please tell me how you think the heroine would speak to her dad. Would she call +him ‘papa’ or ‘sir,’ do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—let me see—” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re such awful high society—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s so. Why, I should think she’d say +‘sir.’ Maybe oh, what was it I heard in a play at the Academy of +Music? ‘Father, I have come back to you!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Sa-a-ay, that’s a fine line! That’ll get the crowd going +right from the first…. I <i>told</i> you you’d help me a lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully glad if I <i>have</i> helped you,” she said, +earnestly. Good night—and good, “awfully glad, but luck with the +play. Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good night. Thank you a lot, Miss Nelly. Church in the morning, +remember! Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +As it is well known that all playwrights labor with toy theaters before them +for working models, Mr. Wrenn ran to earth a fine unbroken pasteboard box in +which a ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock had recently arrived. He went out for +some glue and three small corks. Setting up his box stage, he glued a pill-box +and a match-box on the floor—the side of the box it had always been till +now—and there he had the mahogany desks. He thrust three matches into the +corks, and behold three graceful actors—graceful for corks, at least. +There was fascination in having them enter, through holes punched in the back +of the box, frisk up to their desks and deliver magic emotional speeches that +would cause any audience to weep; speeches regarding which he knew everything +but the words; a detail of which he was still quite ignorant after half an hour +of playing with his marionettes. +</p> + +<p> +Before he went despairingly to bed that Saturday night he had added to his +manuscript: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Mr. Thorne</i> says: Here are the papers, sir. As a great railway president +you should— +</p> + +<p> +The rest of that was to be filled in later. How the dickens could he let the +public know how truly great his president was? +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(<i>Daughter, Miss Nelly, comes in.</i>) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Miss Nelly:</i> Father, I have come back to you, sir.<br/> +<i>Mr. Warrington:</i> My Daughter!<br/> +<i>Nelly:</i> Father, I have something to tell you; something— +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast at Mrs. Arty’s was always an inspiration. In contrast to the +lonely dingy meal at the Hustler Dairy Lunch of his Zapp days, he sat next to a +trimly shirtwaisted Nelly, fresh and enthusiastic after nine hours’ +sleep. So much for ordinary days. But Sunday morning—that was paradise! +The oil-stove glowed and purred like a large tin pussy cat; it toasted their +legs into dreamy comfort, while they methodically stuffed themselves with toast +and waffles and coffee. Nelly and he always felt gently superior to Tom +Poppins, who would be a-sleeping late, as they talked of the joy of not having +to go to the office, of approaching Christmas, and of the superiority of +Upton’s Grove and Parthenon. +</p> + +<p> +This morning was to be Mr. Wrenn’s first attendance at church with Nelly. +The previous time they had planned to go, Mr. Wrenn had spent Sunday morning in +unreligious fervor at the Chelsea Dental Parlors with a young man in a white +jacket instead of at church with Nelly. +</p> + +<p> +This was also the first time that he had attended a church service in nine +years, except for mass at St. Patrick’s, which he regarded not as church, +but as beauty. He felt tremendously reformed, set upon new paths of virtue and +achievement. He thought slightingly of those lonely bachelors, Morton and +Mittyford, Ph. D. They just didn’t know what it meant to a fellow to be +going to church with a girl like Miss Nelly, he reflected, as he re brushed his +hair after breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +He walked proudly beside her, and made much of the gentility of entering the +church, as one of the well-to-do and intensely bathed congregation. He even +bowed to an almost painfully washed and brushed young usher with gold-rimmed +eye-glasses. He thought scornfully of his salad days, when he had bowed to the +Brass-button Man at the Nickelorion. +</p> + +<p> +The church interior was as comfortable as Sunday-morning toast and +marmalade—half a block of red carpet in the aisles; shiny solid-oak pews, +gorgeous stained-glass windows, and a general polite creaking of ladies’ +best stays and gentlemen’s stiff shirt-bosoms, and an odor of the best +cologne and moth-balls. +</p> + +<p> +It lacked but six days till Christmas. Mr. Wrenn’s heart was a little +garden, and his eyes were moist, and he peeped tenderly at Nelly as he saw the +holly and ivy and the frosted Christmas mottoes, “Peace on Earth, Good +Will to Men,” and the rest, that brightened the spaces between windows. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas—happy homes—laughter…. Since, as a boy, he had attended +the Christmas festivities of the Old Church Sunday-school at Parthenon, and got +highly colored candy in a net bag, his holidays had been celebrated by buying +himself plum pudding at lonely Christmas dinners at large cheap restaurants, +where there was no one to wish him “Merry Christmas” except his +waiter, whom he would quite probably never see again, nor ever wish to see. +</p> + +<p> +But this Christmas—he surprised himself and Nelly suddenly by hotly +thrusting out his hand and touching her sleeve with the searching finger-tips +of a child comforted from night fears. +</p> + +<p> +During the sermon he had an idea. What was it Nelly had told him about +“Peter Pan”? Oh yes; somebody in it had said “Do you believe +in fairies?” <i>Say</i>, why wouldn’t it be great to have the +millionaire’s daughter say to her father, “Do you believe in +love?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, <i>I</i> believe in love!” he yearned to himself, as he felt +Nelly’s arm unconsciously touch his. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Poppins had Horatio Hood Teddem in that afternoon for a hot toddy. Horatio +looked very boyish, very confiding, and borrowed five dollars from Mr. Wrenn +almost painlessly, so absorbed was Mr. Wrenn in learning from Horatio how to +sell a play. To know the address of the firm of Wendelbaum & Schirtz, +play-brokers, located in a Broadway theater building, seemed next door to +knowing a Broadway manager. +</p> + +<p> +When Horatio had gone Tom presented an idea which he had ponderously conceived +during his Sunday noon-hour at the cigar-store. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not have three of us—say me and you and Mrs. Arty—talk +the play, just like we was acting it?” +</p> + +<p> +He enthusiastically forced the plan on Mr. Wrenn. He pounded down-stairs and +brought up Mrs. Arty. He dashed about the room, shouting directions. He dragged +out his bureau for the railroad-president’s desk, and a table for the +secretary, and, after some consideration and much rubbing of his chin, with two +slams and a bang he converted his hard green Morris-chair into an office safe. +</p> + +<p> +The play was on. Mr. T. Poppins, in the role of the president, entered, with a +stern high expression on his face, threw a “Good morning, Thorne,” +at Wrenn, his secretary, and peeled off his gloves. (Mr. Wrenn noted the +gloves; they were a Touch.) +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn approached diffidently, his face expressionless, lest Mrs. Arty laugh +at him. “Here— +</p> + +<p> +“Say, what do you think would be a good way for the secretary to tell the +crowd that the other guy is the president? Say, how about this: ‘The +vice-president of the railway would like to have you sign these, sir, as +president’?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s fine!” exclaimed Mrs. Arty, whose satin dress was +carefully spread over her swelling knees, as she sat in the oak rocker, like a +cheerful bronze monument to Sunday propriety. “But don’t you think +he’d say, ‘when it’s convenient to you, sir’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, that’s dandy!” +</p> + +<p> +The play was on. +</p> + +<p> +It ended at seven. Mr. Wrenn took but fifteen minutes for Sunday supper, and +wrote till one of the morning, finishing the first draft of his manuscript. +</p> + +<p> +Revision was delightful, for it demanded many conferences with Nelly, sitting +at the parlor table, with shoulders confidentially touching. They were the more +intimate because Tom had invited Mr. Wrenn, Nelly, and Mrs. Arty to the Grand +Christmas Eve Ball of the Cigar-Makers’ Union at Melpomene Hall. Nelly +asked of Mr. Wrenn, almost as urgently as of Mrs. Arty, whether she should wear +her new white mull or her older rose-colored China silk. +</p> + +<p> +Two days before Christmas he timidly turned over the play for typing to a +haughty public stenographer who looked like Lee Theresa Zapp. She yawned at him +when he begged her to be careful of the manuscript. The gloriously pink-bound +and red-underlined typed manuscript of the play was mailed to Messrs. +Wendelbaum & Schirtz, play-brokers, at 6.15 P.M., Christmas Eve. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The four walked down Sixth Avenue to the Cigar-Makers’ Ball. They made an +Indian file through the Christmas shopping crowds, and stopped frequently and +noisily before the street-booths’ glamour of tinsel and teddy-bears. They +shrieked all with one rotund mad laughter as Tom Poppins capered over and +bought for seven cents a pink bisque doll, which he pinned to the lapel of his +plaid overcoat. They drank hot chocolate at the Olympic Confectionery Store, +pretending to each other that they were shivering with cold. +</p> + +<p> +It was here that Nelly reached up and patted Mr. Wrenn’s pale-blue tie +into better lines. In her hair was the scent which he had come to identify as +hers. Her white furs brushed against his overcoat. +</p> + +<p> +The cigar-makers, with seven of them in full evening-dress and two in +dinner-coats, were already dancing on the waxy floor of Melpomene Hall when +they arrived. A full orchestra was pounding and scraping itself into an +hysteria of merriment on the platform under the red stucco-fronted balcony, and +at the bar behind the balcony there was a spirit of beer and revelry by night. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn embarrassedly passed large groups of pretty girls. He felt very light +and insecure in his new gun-metal-finish pumps now that he had taken off his +rubbers and essayed the slippery floor. He tried desperately not to use his +handkerchief too conspicuously, though he had a cold. +</p> + +<p> +It was not till the choosing of partners for the next dance, when Tom Poppins +stood up beside Nelly, their arms swaying a little, their feet tapping, that +Mr. Wrenn quite got the fact that he could not dance. +</p> + +<p> +He had casually said to the others, a week before, that he knew only the square +dances which, as a boy, he had learned at parties at Parthenon. But they had +reassured him: “Oh, come on—we’ll teach you how to dance at +the ball—it won’t be formal. Besides, we’ll give you some +lessons before we go.” Playwriting and playing Five Hundred had prevented +their giving him the lessons. So he now sat terrified as a two-step began and +he saw what seemed to be thousands of glittering youths and maidens whirling +deftly in a most involved course, getting themselves past each other in a way +which he was sure he could never imitate. The orchestra yearned over music as +rich and smooth as milk chocolate, which made him intensely lonely for Nelly, +though she was only across the room from him. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Poppins immediately introduced Nelly to a facetious cigar salesman, who +introduced her to three of the beaux in evening clothes, while Tom led out Mrs. +Arty. Mr. Wrenn, sitting in a row of persons who were not at all interested in +his sorrows, glowered out across the hall, and wished, oh! so bitterly, to flee +home. Nelly came up, glowing, laughing, with black-mustached and +pearl-waistcoated men, and introduced him to them, but he glanced at them +disapprovingly; and always she was carried off to dance again. +</p> + +<p> +She found and hopefully introduced to Mr. Wrenn a wallflower who came from +Yonkers and had never heard of Tom Poppins or aeroplanes or Oxford or any other +topic upon which Mr. Wrenn uneasily tried to discourse as he watched Nelly +waltz and smile up at her partners. Presently the two sat silent. The +wallflower excused herself and went back to her mama from Yonkers. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn sat sulking, hating his friends for having brought him, hating the +sweetness of Nelly Croubel, and saying to himself, +“Oh—<i>sure</i>—she dances with all those other men—me, +I’m only the poor fool that talks to her when she’s tired and tries +to cheer her up.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer when Tom came and told him a new story he had just heard in +the barroom. +</p> + +<p> +Once Nelly landed beside him and bubblingly insisted on his coming out and +trying to learn to dance. He brightened, but shyly remarked, “Oh no, I +don’t think I’d better.” Just then the blackest-mustached and +pearl-waistcoatedest of all the cigar salesmen came begging for a dance, and +she was gone, with only: “Now get up your courage. I’m going to +<i>make</i> you dance.” +</p> + +<p> +At the intermission he watched her cross the floor with the hateful cigar +salesman, slender in her tight crisp new white mull, flourishing her fan and +talking with happy rapidity. She sat down beside him. He said nothing; he still +stared out across the glassy floor. She peeped at him curiously several times, +and made a low tapping with her fan on the side of her chair. +</p> + +<p> +She sighed a little. Cautiously, but very casually, she said, +“Aren’t you going to take me out for some refreshments, Mr. +Wrenn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh sure—I’m good enough to buy refreshments for her!” +he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Mr. Wrenn; he had not gone to enough parties in Parthenon, and he +hadn’t gone to any in New York. At nearly forty he was just learning the +drab sulkiness and churlishness and black jealousy of the lover…. To her: +“Why didn’t you go out with that guy with the black +mustache?” He still stared straight ahead. +</p> + +<p> +She was big-eyed, a tear showing. “Why, Billy—” was all she +answered. +</p> + +<p> +He clenched his hands to keep from bursting out with all the pitiful tears +which were surging in his eyes. But he said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Billy, what—” +</p> + +<p> +He turned shyly around to her; his hand touched hers softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m a beast,” he said, rapidly, low, his undertone +trembling to her ears through the laughter of a group next to them. “I +didn’t mean that, but I was—I felt like such a mutt—not being +able to dance. Oh, Nelly, I’m awfully sorry. You know I didn’t +mean—<i>Come on!</i> Let’s go get something to eat!” +</p> + +<p> +As they consumed ice-cream, fudge, doughnuts, and chicken sandwiches at the +refreshment counter they were very intimate, resenting the presence of others. +Tom and Mrs. Arty joined them. Tom made Nelly light her first cigarette. Mr. +Wrenn admired the shy way in which, taking the tiniest of puffs, she kept +drawing out her cigarette with little pouts and nose wriggles and pretended +sneezes, but he felt a lofty gladness when she threw it away after a minute, +declaring that she’d never smoke again, and that she was going to make +all three of her companions stop smoking, “now that she knew how horrid +and sneezy it was, so there!” +</p> + +<p> +With what he intended to be deep subtlety Mr. Wrenn drew her away to the +barroom, and these two children, over two glasses of ginger-ale, looked their +innocent and rustic love so plainly that Mrs. Arty and Tom sneaked away. Nelly +cut out a dance, which she had promised to a cigar-maker, and started homeward +with Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s not take a car—I want some fresh air after that smoky +place,” she said. “But it <i>was</i> grand…. Let’s walk up +Fifth Avenue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine…. Tired, Nelly?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought her voice somewhat chilly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nelly—I’m so sorry—I didn’t really have the +chance to tell you in there how sorry I was for the way I spoke to you. Gee! it +was fierce of me—but I felt—I couldn’t dance, +and—oh—” +</p> + +<p> +No answer. +</p> + +<p> +“And you did mind it, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I didn’t think you were so very nice about it—when +I’d tried so hard to have you have a good time—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Nelly, I’m so sorry—” +</p> + +<p> +There was tragedy in his voice. His shoulders, which he always tried to keep as +straight as though they were in a vise when he walked with her, were drooping. +</p> + +<p> +She touched his glove. “Oh don’t, Billy; it’s all right now. +I understand. Let’s forget—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re too good to me!” +</p> + +<p> +Silence. +</p> + +<p> +As they crossed Twenty-third on Fifth Avenue she took his arm. He squeezed her +hand. Suddenly the world was all young and beautiful and wonderful. It was the +first time in his life that he had ever walked thus, with the arm of a girl for +whom he cared cuddled in his. He glanced down at her cheap white furs. +Snowflakes, tremulous on the fur, were turned into diamond dust in the light +from a street-lamp which showed as well a tiny place where her collar had been +torn and mended ever so carefully. Then, in a millionth of a second, he who had +been a wanderer in the lonely gray regions of a detached man’s heart knew +the pity of love, all its emotion, and the infinite care for the beloved that +makes a man of a rusty sales-clerk. He lifted a face of adoration to the misty +wonder of the bare trees, whose tracery of twigs filled Madison Square; to the +Metropolitan Tower, with its vast upward stretch toward the ruddy sky of the +city’s winter night. All these mysteries he knew and sang. What he +<i>said</i> was: +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, those trees look like a reg’lar picture!… The Tower just kind +of fades away. Don’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is pretty,” she said, doubtfully, but with a pressure of +his arm. +</p> + +<p> +Then they talked like a summer-time brook, planning that he was to buy a +Christmas bough of evergreen, which she would smuggle to breakfast in the +morning. Through their chatter persisted the new intimacy which had been born +in the pain of their misunderstanding. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On January 10th the manuscript of “The Millionaire’s +Daughter” was returned by play-brokers Wendelbaum & Schirtz with this +letter: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> S<small>IR</small>,—We regret to say that we do not +find play available. We inclose our reader’s report on the same. Also +inclose bill for ten dollars for reading-fee, which kindly remit at early +convenience. +</p> + +<p> +He stood in the hall at Mrs. Arty’s just before dinner. He reread the +letter and slowly opened the reader’s report, which announced: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Millionaire’s Daughter.” One-act vlle. Utterly impos. +Amateurish to the limit. Dialogue sounds like burlesque of Laura Jean Libbey. +Can it. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly was coming down-stairs. He handed her the letter and report, then tried +to stick out his jaw. She read them. Her hand slipped into his. He went quickly +toward the basement and made himself read the letter—though not the +report—to the tableful. He burned the manuscript of his play before going +to bed. The next morning he waded into The Job as he never had before. He was +gloomily certain that he would never get away from The Job. But he thought of +Nelly a hundred times a day and hoped that sometime, some spring night of a +burning moon, he might dare the great adventure and kiss her. Istra— +Theoretically, he remembered her as a great experience. But what nebulous +bodies these theories are! +</p> + +<p> +That slow but absolutely accurate Five-Hundred player, Mr. William Wrenn, known +as Billy, glanced triumphantly at Miss Proudfoot, who was his partner against +Mrs. Arty and James T. Duncan, the traveling-man, on that night of late +February. His was the last bid in the crucial hand of the rubber game. The +others waited respectfully. Confidently, he bid “Nine on no trump.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord, Billl” exclaimed James T. Duncan. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll make it.” +</p> + +<p> +And he did. He arose a victor. There was no uneasiness, but rather all the +social polish of Mrs. Arty’s at its best, in his manner, as he crossed to +Mrs. Ebbitt’s chair and asked: “How is Mr. Ebbitt to-night? Pretty +rheumatic?” Miss Proudfoot offered him a lime tablet, and he accepted it +judicially. “I believe these tablets are just about as good as Park & +Tilford’s,” he said, cocking his head. “Say, Dunk, I’ll +match you to see who rushes a growler of beer. Tom’ll be here pretty +soon—store ought to be closed by now. We’ll have some ready for +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right, Bill,” agreed James T. Duncan. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn lost. He departed, after secretively obtaining not one, but two +pitchers, in one of which he got a “pint of dark” and in the other +a surprise. He bawled upstairs to Nelly, “Come on down, Nelly, +can’t you? Got a growler of ice-cream soda for the ladies!” +</p> + +<p> +It is true that when Tom arrived and fell to conversational blows with James T. +Duncan over the merits of a Tom Collins Mr. Wrenn was not brilliant, for the +reason that he took Tom Collins to be a man instead of the drink he really is. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, as they went up-stairs Miss Proudfoot said to Nelly: “Mr. Wrenn is +quiet, but I do think in some ways he’s one of the nicest men I’ve +seen in the house for years. And he is so earnest. And I think he’ll make +a good pinochle player, besides Five Hundred.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Nelly. +</p> + +<p> +“I think he was a little shy at first…. <i>I</i> was always shy…. But he +likes us, and I like folks that like folks.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Yes!</i>” said Nelly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br/> +HE IS BLOWN BY THE WHIRLWIND</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“He was blown by the whirlwind and followed a wandering flame through +perilous seas to a happy shore.”—<i>Quoth François.</i> +</p> + +<p> +On an April Monday evening, when a small moon passed shyly over the city and +the streets were filled with the sound of hurdy-gurdies and the spring cries of +dancing children, Mr. Wrenn pranced down to the basement dining-room early, for +Nelly Croubel would be down there talking to Mrs. Arty, and he gaily wanted to +make plans for a picnic to occur the coming Sunday. He had a shy unacknowledged +hope that he might kiss Nelly after such a picnic; he even had the notion that +he might some day—well, other fellows had been married; why not? +</p> + +<p> +Miss Mary Proudfoot was mending a rent in the current table-cloth with delicate +swift motions of her silvery-skinned hands. She informed him: “Mr. Duncan +will be back from his Southern trip in five days. We’ll have to have a +grand closing progressive Five Hundred tournament.” Mr. Wrenn was too +much absorbed in wondering whether Miss Proudfoot would make some of her +celebrated—and justly celebrated—minced-ham sandwiches for the +picnic to be much interested. He was not much more interested when she said, +“Mrs. Ferrard’s got a letter or something for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, as dinner began, Mrs. Ferrard rushed in dramatically and said, +“There’s a telegram for you, Mr. Wrenn!” +</p> + +<p> +Was it death? Whose death? The table panted, Mr. Wrenn with them…. That’s +what a telegram meant to them. +</p> + +<p> +Their eyes were like a circle of charging bayonets as he opened and read the +message—a ship’s wireless. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Meet me <i>Hesperida.</i>—I<small>STRA</small>. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just—a—a business message,” he managed to +say, and splashed his soup. This was not the place to take the feelings out of +his thumping heart and examine them. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner was begun. Picnics were conversationally considered in all their more +important phases—historical, dietetical, and social. Mr. Wrenn talked +much and a little wildly. After dinner he galloped out to buy a paper. The S.S. +<i>Hesperiida</i> was due at ten next morning. +</p> + +<p> +It was an evening of frightened confusion. He tottered along Lexington Avenue +on a furtive walk. He knew only that he was very fond of Nelly, yet pantingly +eager to see Istra. He damned himself—“damned” is +literal—every other minute for a cad, a double-faced traitor, and all the +other horrifying things a man is likely to declare himself to be for making the +discovery that two women may be different and yet equally likable. And every +other minute he reveled in an adventurous gladness that he was going to see +Istra—actually, incredibly going to see her, just the next day! He +returned to find Nelly sitting on the steps of Mrs. Arty’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hello.” +</p> + +<p> +Both good sound observations, and all they could say for a time, while Mr. +Wrenn examined the under side of the iron steps rail minutely. +</p> + +<p> +“Billy—was it something serious, the telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it was—Miss Nash, the artist I told you about, asked me to +meet her at the boat. I suppose she wants me to help her with her baggage and +the customs and all them things. She’s just coming from Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I see.” +</p> + +<p> +So lacking in jealousy was Nelly that Mr. Wrenn was disappointed, though he +didn’t know why. It always hurts to have one’s thunderous tragedies +turn out realistic dialogues. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you would like to meet her. She’s awful well educated, +but I dunno—maybe she’d strike you as kind of snobbish. But she +dresses I don’t think I ever seen anybody so elegant. In dressing, I +mean. Course”—hastily—“she’s got money, and so +she can afford to. But she’s—oh, awful nice, some ways. I hope you +like—I hope she won’t—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I sha’n’t mind if she’s a snob. Of course a lady +gets used to that, working in a department store,” she said, chillily; +then repented swiftly and begged: “Oh, I <i>didn’t</i> mean to be +snippy, Billy. Forgive me! I’m sure Miss Nash will be real nice. Does she +live here in New York?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—in California…. I don’t know how long she’s going +to stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—well—hum-m-m. I’m getting <i>so</i> sleepy. I +guess I’d better go up to bed. Good night.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Uneasy because he was away from the office, displeased because he had to leave +his beloved letters to the Southern trade, angry because he had had difficulty +in getting a pass to the wharf, and furious, finally, because he hadn’t +slept, Mr. Wrenn nursed all these cumulative emotions attentively and waited +for the coming of the <i>Hesperida</i>. He was wondering if he’d want to +see Istra at all. He couldn’t remember just how she looked. Would he like +her? +</p> + +<p> +The great steamer swung side-to and was coaxed alongside the wharf. Peering out +between rows of crowding shoulders, Mr. Wrenn coldly inspected the passengers +lining the decks. Istra was not in sight. Then he knew that he was wildly +agitated about her. Suppose something had happened to her! +</p> + +<p> +The smallish man who had been edging into the crowd so politely suddenly dashed +to the group forming at the gang-plank and pushed his way rudely into the front +rank. His elbow dug into the proper waistcoat of a proper plump old gentleman, +but he didn’t know it. He stood grasping the rope rail of the plank, +gazing goggle-eyed while the plank was lifted to the steamer’s deck and +the long line of smiling and waving passengers disembarked. Then he saw +her—tall, graceful, nonchalant, uninterested, in a smart check suit with +a lively hat of black straw, carrying a new Gladstone bag. +</p> + +<p> +He stared at her. “Gee!” he gasped. “I’m crazy about +her. I am, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +She saw him, and their smiles of welcome made them one. She came from the plank +and hastily kissed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Really here!” she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, well, well! I’m so glad to see you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Glad to see you, Mouse dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have good tr—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask me about it! There was a married man <i>sans</i> wife +who persecuted me all the way over. I’m glad <i>you</i> aren’t +going to fall in love with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—uh—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s hustle over and get through the customs as soon as we can. +Where’s N? Oh, how clever of it, it’s right by M. There’s one +of my trunks already. How are you, Mouse dear?” +</p> + +<p> +But she didn’t seem really to care so very much, and the old bewilderment +she always caused was over him. +</p> + +<p> +“It is good to get back after all, and—Mouse dear, I know you +won’t mind finding me a place to live the next few days, will you?” +She quite took it for granted. “We’ll find a place this morning, +<i>n’est-ce pas?</i> Not too expensive. I’ve got just about enough +to get back to California.” +</p> + +<p> +Man fashion, he saw with acute clearness the pile of work on his desk, and, man +fashion, responded, “No; be glad tuh.” +</p> + +<p> +“How about the place where you’re living? You spoke about its being +so clean and all.” +</p> + +<p> +The thought of Nelly and Istra together frightened him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I don’t know as you’d like it so very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’ll be all right for a few days, anyway. Is there a room +vacant.” +</p> + +<p> +He was sulky about it. He saw much trouble ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, I suppose there is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mouse dear!” Istra plumped down on a trunk in the confused billows +of incoming baggage, customs officials, and indignant passengers that surged +about them on the rough floor of the vast dock-house. She stared up at him with +real sorrow in her fine eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mouse! I thought you’d be glad to see me. I’ve never +rowed with you, have I? I’ve tried not to be temperamental with you. +That’s why I wired you, when there are others I’ve known for +years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I didn’t mean to seem grouchy; I didn’t! I just wondered +if you’d like the house.” +</p> + +<p> +He could have knelt in repentance before his goddess, what time she was but a +lonely girl in the clatter of New York. He went on: +</p> + +<p> +“And we’ve got kind of separated, and I didn’t know—But +I guess I’ll always—oh—kind of worship you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, Mouse. It’s—Here’s the customs +men.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Istra Nash knew perfectly that the customs persons were not ready to +examine her baggage as yet. But the discussion was ended, and they seemed to +understand each other. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, there’s a lot of rich Jew ladies coming back this +time!” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. They had diamonds three times a day,” she assented. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, this is a big place!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” So did they testify to fixity of friendship till they +reached the house and Istra was welcomed to “that Teddem’s” +room as a new guest. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Dinner began with the ceremony due Mrs. Arty. There was no lack of the sacred +old jokes. Tom Poppins did not fail to bellow “Bring on the +dish-water,” nor Miss Mary Proudfoot to cheep demurely “Don’t +y’ knaow” in a tone which would have been recognized as +fascinatingly English anywhere on the American stage. Then the talk stopped +dead as Istra Nash stood agaze in the doorway—pale and intolerant, her +red hair twisted high on her head, tall and slim and uncorseted in a gray +tight-fitting gown. Every head turned as on a pivot, first to Istra, then to +Mr. Wrenn. He blushed and bowed as if he had been called on for a speech, +stumblingly arose, and said: “Uh—uh—uh—you met Mrs. +Ferrard, didn’t you, Istra? She’ll introduce you to the +rest.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down, wondering why the deuce he’d stood up, and unhappily +realized that Nelly was examining Istra and himself with cool hostility. In a +flurry he glowered at Istra as she nonchalantly sat down opposite him, beside +Mrs. Arty, and incuriously unfolded her napkin. He thought that in her cheerful +face there was an expression of devilish amusement. +</p> + +<p> +He blushed. He furiously buttered his bread as Mrs. Arty remarked to the +assemblage: +</p> + +<p> +“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you all to meet Miss Istra Nash. Miss +Nash—you’ve met Mr. Wrenn; Miss Nelly Croubel, our baby; Tom +Poppins, the great Five-Hundred player; Mrs. Ebbitt, Mr. Ebbitt, Miss +Proudfoot.” +</p> + +<p> +Istra Nash lifted her bowed eyes with what seemed shyness, hesitated, said +“Thank you” in a clear voice with a precise pronunciation, and +returned to her soup, as though her pleasant communion with it had been +unpleasantly interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +The others began talking and eating very fast and rather noisily. Miss Mary +Proudfoot’s thin voice pierced the clamor: +</p> + +<p> +“I hear you have just come to New York, Miss Nash.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this your first visit to—” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Proudfoot rancorously took a long drink of water. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly attempted, bravely: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like New York, Miss Nash?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Nelly and Miss Proudfoot and Tom Poppins began discussing shoe-stores, all at +once and very rapidly, while hot and uncomfortable Mr. Wrenn tried to think of +something to say…. Good Lord, suppose Istra “queered” him at Mrs. +Arty’s!… Then he was angry at himself and all of them for not +appreciating her. How exquisite she looked, with her tired white face! +</p> + +<p> +As the soup-plates were being removed by Annie, the maid, with an elaborate +confusion and a general passing of plates down the line, Istra Nash peered at +the maid petulantly. Mrs. Arty frowned, then grew artificially pleasant and +said: +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Nash has just come back from Paris. She’s a regular European +traveler, just like Mr. Wrenn.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Samuel Ebbitt piped: “Mr. Ebbitt was to Europe. In 1882.” +</p> + +<p> +“No ’twa’n’t, Fannie; ’twas in 1881,” +complained Mr. Ebbitt. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Nash waited for the end of this interruption as though it were a noise +which merely had to be endured, like the Elevated. +</p> + +<p> +Twice she drew in her breath to speak, and the whole table laid its collective +knife and fork down to listen. All she said was: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, will you pardon me if I speak of it now, Mrs. Ferrard, but would you +mind letting me have my breakfast in my room to-morrow? About nine? Just +something simple—a canteloupe and some shirred eggs and chocolate?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; why, yes, certainly, “mumbled Mrs. Arty, while the table +held its breaths and underneath them gasped: +</p> + +<p> +“Chocolate!” +</p> + +<p> +“A canteloupe!” +</p> + +<p> +“Shirred eggs!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>In her room—at nine!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +All this was very terrible to Mr. Wrenn. He found himself in the position of a +man scheduled to address the Brewers’ Association and the W. C. T. U. at +the same hour. Valiantly he attempted: +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Nash oughta be a good person for our picnics. She’s a regular +shark for outdoor tramping.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, Mr. Wrenn and I tramped most all night in England one +time,” said Istra, innocently. +</p> + +<p> +The eyes of the table asked Mr. Wrenn what he meant by it. He tried to look at +Nelly, but something hurt inside him. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he mumbled. “Quite a long walk.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Mary Proudfoot tried again: +</p> + +<p> +“is it pleasant to study in Paris? Mrs. Arty said you were an +artist.” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Then they were all silent, and the rest of the dinner Mr. Wrenn alternately +discussed Olympia Johns with Istra and picnics with Nelly. There was an +undertone of pleading in his voice which made Nelly glance at him and even +become kind. With quiet insistence she dragged Istra into a discussion of rue +de la Paix fashions which nearly united the shattered table and won Mr. +Wrenn’s palpitating thankfulness. +</p> + +<p> +After dessert Istra slowly drew a plain gold cigarette-case from a brocade bag +of silvery gray. She took out a match and a thin Russian cigarette, which she +carefully lighted. She sat smoking in one of her best attitudes, pointed elbows +on the table, coolly contemplating a huge picture called “Hunting the +Stag” on the wall behind Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Arty snapped to the servant, “Annie, bring me <i>my</i> +cigarettes.” But Mrs. Arty always was penitent when she had been nasty, +and—though Istra did not at once seem to know that the landlady +<i>had</i> been nasty—Mrs. Arty invited her up to the parlor for +after-dinner so cordially that Istra could but grant “Perhaps I +will,” and she even went so far as to say, “I think you’re +all to be envied, having such a happy family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s so,” reflected Mrs. Arty. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” added Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +And Nelly: “That’s so.” +</p> + +<p> +The whole table nodded gravely, “Yes, that’s so.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure”—Istra smiled at Mrs. Arty—“that +it’s because a woman is running things. Now think what cat-and-dog lives +you’d lead if Mr. Wrenn or Mr.—Popple, was it?—were +ruling.” +</p> + +<p> +They applauded. They felt that she had been humorous. She was again and +publicly invited up to the parlor, and she came, though she said, rather +shortly, that she didn’t play Five Hundred, but only bumblepuppy bridge, +a variety of whist which Mr. Wrenn instantly resolved to learn. She reclined +(“reclined” is perfectly accurate) on the red-leather couch, among +the pillows, and smoked two cigarettes, relapsing into +“No?”’s for conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn said to himself, almost spitefully, as she snubbed Nelly, “Too +good for us, is she?” But he couldn’t keep away from her. The +realization that Istra was in the room made him forget most of his melds at +pinochle; and when Miss Proudfoot inquired his opinion as to whether the coming +picnic should be held on Staten island or the Palisades he said, vaguely, +“Yes, I guess that would be better.” +</p> + +<p> +For he was wanting to sit down beside Istra Nash, just be near her; he +<i>had</i> to be! So he ventured over and was instantly regarding all the rest +as outsiders whom his wise comrade and himself were studying. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Mouse dear, why do you like the people here? The peepul, I +mean. They don’t seem so very remarkable. Enlighten poor Istra.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they’re awful kind. I’ve always lived in a house where +the folks didn’t hardly know each other at all, except Mrs. +Zapp—she was the landlady—and I didn’t like her very much. +But here Tom Poppins and Mrs. Arty and—the rest—they really like +folks, and they make it just like a home…. Miss Croubel is a very nice girl. +She works for Wanamacy’s—she has quite a big job there. She is +assistant buyer in the—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped in horror. He had nearly said “in the lingery +department.” He changed it to “in the clothing department,” +and went on, doubtfully: “Mr. Duncan is a traveling-man. He’s away +on a trip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which one do you play with? So Nelly likes to—well, make +b’lieve—’magine?” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I watched her looking at you. I think she’s a terribly nice +pink-face. And just now you’re comparing her and me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She was immensely pleased with herself. “Tell me, what do these people +think about; at least, what do you talk about?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Say!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“S-s-s-h! Not so loud, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, I know how you mean. You feel something like what I did in England. +You can’t get next to what the folks are thinking, and it makes you sort +of lonely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I—” +</p> + +<p> +Just then Tom Poppins rolled jovially up to the couch. He had carried his many +and perspiring pounds over to Third Avenue because Miss Proudfoot reflected, +“I’ve got a regular sweet tooth to-night.” He stood before +Istra and Mr. Wrenn theatrically holding out a bag of chocolate drops in one +hand and peanut brittle in the other; and grandiloquently: +</p> + +<p> +“Which shall it be, your Highness? Nobody loves a fat man, so he has to +buy candy so’s they’ll let him stick around. Le’s see; you +take chocolates, Bill. Name your drink, Miss Nash.” She looked up at him, +gravely and politely—too gravely and politely. She didn’t seem to +consider him a nice person. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither, thank you,” sharply, as he still stood there. He moved +away, hurt, bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +Istra was going on, “I haven’t been here long enough to be lonely +yet, but in any case—” when Mr. Wrenn interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve hurt Tom’s feelings by not taking any candy; and, +gee, he’s awful kind!” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I?” mockingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you <i>have</i>. And there ain’t any too many kind people in +this world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of course you’ re right. I <i>am</i> sorry, really I +am.” +</p> + +<p> +She dived after Tom’s retreat and cheerfully addressed him: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do want some of those chocolates. Will you let me change my mind? +Please do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes <i>ma’am</i>, you sure can!” said broad Tom, all one +pleased chuckle, poking out the two bags. +</p> + +<p> +Istra stopped beside the Five-Hundred table to smile in a lordly way down at +Mrs. Arty and say, quite humanly: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so sorry I can’t play a decent game of cards. I’m +afraid I’m too stupid to learn. You are very lucky, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn on the couch was horribly agitated…. Wasn’t Istra coming back? +</p> + +<p> +She was. She detached herself from the hubbub of invitations to learn to play +Five Hundred and wandered back to the couch, murmuring: “Was bad Istra +good? Am I forgiven? Mouse dear, I didn’t mean to be rude to your +friends.” +</p> + +<p> +As the bubbles rise through water in a cooking-pot, as the surface writhes, and +then, after the long wait, suddenly the water is aboil, so was the emotion of +Mr. Wrenn now that Istra, the lordly, had actually done something he suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Istra—” That was all he could say, but from his eyes had +gone all reserve. +</p> + +<p> +Her glance back was as frank as his—only it had more of the mother in it; +it was like a kindly pat on the head; and she was the mother as she mused: +</p> + +<p> +“So you <i>have</i> missed me, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Missed you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you think of me after you came here? Oh, I know—I was +forgotten; poor Istra abdicates to the pretty pink-face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Istra, <i>don’t</i>. I—can’t we just go out for a +little walk so—so we can talk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we can talk here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, gee!—there’s so many people around…. Golly! when I came +back to America—gee!—I couldn’t hardly sleep +nights—” +</p> + +<p> +From across the room came the boisterous, somewhat coarse-timbred voice of Tom, +speaking to Nelly: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of course you think you’re the only girl that ever seen a +vodville show. <i>We</i> ain’t never seen a vodville show. Oh no!” +</p> + +<p> +Nelly and Miss Proudfoot dissolved in giggles at the wit. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn gazed at them, detached; these were not his people, and with startled +pride he glanced at Istra’s face, delicately carven by thought, as he +stumbled hotly on. +</p> + +<p> +“—just couldn’t sleep nights at all…. Then I got on the +job….” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see, you’re still with that same company?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. And I got awfully on the job +there, and so I managed to forget for a little while and—” +</p> + +<p> +“So you really do like me even after I was so beastly to you in +England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that wasn’t nothing…. But I was always thinking of you, even +when I was on the job—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s gratifying to have some one continue taking me seriously…. +Really, dear, I do appreciate it. But you mustn’t—you +mustn’t—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, gee! I just can’t get over it—you here by +me—ain’t it curious!… “Then he persisted with the tale of his +longing, which she had so carefully interrupted: “The people here are +<i>awful</i> kind and good, and you can bank on ’em. +But—oh—” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +From across the room, Tom’s pretended jeers, lighted up with Miss +Proudfoot’s giggles, as paper lanterns illumine Coney Island. From Tom: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you’re a hot dancer, all right. I suppose you can do the +Boston and all them swell dances. Wah-h-h-h-h!” +</p> + +<p> +“—but Istra, oh, gee! you’re like poetry—like all them +things a feller can’t get but he tries to when he reads Shakespeare and +all those poets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear boy, you mustn’t! We will be good friends. I do +appreciate having some one care whether I’m alive or not. But I thought +it was all understood that we weren’t to take playing together seriously; +that it was to be merely playing—nothing more.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, anyway, you will let me play with you here in New York as much as I +can? Oh, come on, <i>let’s</i> go for a +walk—let’s—let’s go to a show.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awf’ly sorry, but I promised—a man’s going +to call for me, and we’re going to a stupid studio party on Bryant Park. +Bore, isn’t it, the day of landing? And poor Istra dreadfully +landsick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then,” hopefully, “don’t go. +Let’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry, Mouse dear, but I’m afraid I can’t break +the date…. Fact, I must go up and primp now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you care a bit?” he said, sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, of course. But you wouldn’t have Istra disappoint a nice +Johnny after he’s bought him a cunnin’ new weskit, would you?… Good +night, dear.” She smiled—the mother smile—and was gone with a +lively good night to the room in general. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Nelly went up to bed early. She was tired, she said. He had no chance for a +word with her. He sat on the steps outside alone a long time. Sometimes he +yearned for a sight of Istra’s ivory face. Sometimes, with a fierce +compassion that longed to take the burden from her, he pictured Nelly working +all day in the rushing department store on which the fetid city summer would +soon descend. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +They did have their walk the next night, Istra and Mr. Wrenn, but Istra kept +the talk to laughing burlesques of their tramp in England. Somehow—he +couldn’t tell exactly why—he couldn’t seem to get in all the +remarks he had inside him about how much he had missed her. +</p> + +<p> +Wednesday—Thursday—Friday; he saw her only at one dinner, or on the +stairs, departing volubly with clever-looking men in evening clothes to taxis +waiting before the house. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly was very pleasant; just that—pleasant. She pleasantly sat as his +partner at Five Hundred, and pleasantly declined to go to the moving pictures +with him. She was getting more and more tired, staying till seven at the store, +preparing what she called “special stunts” for the summer white +sale. Friday evening he saw her soft fresh lips drooping sadly as she toiled up +the front steps before dinner. She went to bed at eight, at which time Istra +was going out to dinner with a thin, hatchet-faced sarcastic-looking man in a +Norfolk jacket and a fluffy black tie. Mr. Wrenn resented the Norfolk jacket. +Of course, the kingly men in evening dress would be expected to take Istra away +from him, but a Norfolk jacket—He did not call it that. Though he had +worn one in the fair village of Aengusmere, it was still to him a “coat +with a belt.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought of Nelly all evening. He heard her—there on the same floor +with him—talking to Miss Proudfoot, who stood at Nelly’s door, +three hours after she was supposed to be asleep. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Nelly was saying with evidently fictitious cheerfulness, +“no, it was just a little headache…. It’s much better. I think I +can sleep now. Thank you very much for coming.” +</p> + +<p> +Nelly hadn’t told Mr. Wrenn that she had a severe headache—she who +had once, a few weeks before, run to him with a cut in her soft small finger, +demanding that he bind it up…. He went slowly to bed. +</p> + +<p> +He had lain awake half an hour before his agony so overpowered him that he +flung out of bed. He crouched low by the bed, like a child, his legs curled +under him, the wooden sideboard pressing into his chest in one long line of hot +pain, while he prayed: +</p> + +<p> +“O God, O God, forgive me, forgive me, oh, forgive me! Here I been +forgetting Nelly (and I <i>love</i> her) and comparing her with Istra and not +appreciating her, and Nelly always so sweet to me and trusting me so—O +God, keep me away from wickedness!” +</p> + +<p> +He huddled there many minutes, praying, the scorching pressure of the bedside +growing more painful. All the while the camp-fire he had shared with Istra was +burning within his closed eyes, and Istra was visibly lording it in a London +flat filled with clever people, and he was passionately aware that the line of +her slim breast was like the lip of a shell; the line of her pallid cheek, +defined by her flame-colored hair, something utterly fine, something he could +not express. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he groaned, “she is like that poetry stuff in +Shakespeare that’s so hard to get…. I’ll be extra nice to Nelly at +the picnic Sunday…. Her trusting me so, and then me—O God, keep me away +from wickedness!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +As he was going out Saturday morning he found a note from Istra waiting in the +hall on the hat-rack: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Do you want to play with poor Istra tomorrow Sat. afternoon and perhaps +evening, Mouse? You have Saturday afternoon off, don’t you? Leave me a +note if you can call for me at 1.30. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +I. N. +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t have Saturday afternoon off, but he said he did in his note, +and at one-thirty he appeared at her door in a new spring suit (purchased on +Tuesday), a new spring hat, very fuzzy and gay (purchased Saturday noon), and +the walking-stick he had bought on Tottenham Court Road, but decently concealed +from the boarding-house. +</p> + +<p> +Istra took him to what she called a “futurist play.” She explained +it all to him several times, and she stood him tea and muffins, and recalled +Mrs. Cattermole’s establishment with full attention to Mrs. +Cattermole’s bulbous but earnest nose. They dined at the Brevoort, and +were back at nine-thirty; for, said Istra, she was “just a bit tired, +Mouse.” +</p> + +<p> +They stood at the door of Istra’s room. Istra said, “You may come +in—just for a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time he had even peeped into her room in New York. The old +shyness was on him, and he glanced back. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly was just coming up-stairs, staring at him where he stood inside the door, +her lips apart with amazement. +</p> + +<p> +Ladies distinctly did not entertain in their rooms at Mrs. Arty’s. +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to rush out, to explain, to invite her in, to—to— He +stuttered in his thought, and by now Nelly had hastened past, her face turned +from them. +</p> + +<p> +Uneasily he tilted on the front of a cane-seated rocking-chair, glaring at a +pile of books before one of Istra’s trunks. Istra sat on the bedside +nursing her knee. She burst out: +</p> + +<p> +“O Mouse dear, I’m so bored by everybody—every sort of +everybody…. Of course I don’t mean you; you’re a good pal…. +Oh—Paris is <i>too</i> complex—especially when you can’t +quite get the nasal vowels—and New York is too youthful and earnest; and +Dos Puentes, California, will be plain hell…. And all my little parties—I +start out on them happily, always, as naive as a kiddy going to a birthday +party, and then I get there and find I can’t even dance square dances, as +the kiddy does, and go home—Oh damn it, damn it, damn it! Am I shocking +you? Well, what do I care if I shock everybody!” +</p> + +<p> +Her slim pliant length was flung out along the bed, and she was crying. Her +beautiful hands clutched the corners of a pillow bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +He crept over to the bed, patting her shoulder, slowly and regularly, too +frightened of her mood even to want to kiss her. +</p> + +<p> +She looked up, laughing tearfully. “Please say, ‘There, there, +there; don’t cry.’ It always goes with pats for weepy girls, you +know…. O Mouse, you will be good to some woman some day.” +</p> + +<p> +Her long strong arms reached up and drew him down. It was his head that rested +on her shoulder. It seemed to both of them that it was he who was to be petted, +not she. He pressed his cheek against the comforting hollow of her curving +shoulder and rested there, abandoned to a forlorn and growing happiness, the +happiness of getting so far outside of his tight world of Wrennishness that he +could give comfort and take comfort with no prim worried thoughts of Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +Istra murmured: “Perhaps that’s what I need—some one to need +me. Only—” She stroked his hair. “Now you must go, +dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“You—It’s better now? I’m afraid I ain’t helped +you much. It’s kinda t’ other way round.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, indeed, it’s all right now! Just nerves. Nothing more. +Now, good night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please, won’t you come to the picnic to-morrow? +It’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Sorry, but can’t possibly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please think it over.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no, no, dear! You go and forget me and enjoy yourself and be +good to your pink-face—Nelly, isn’t it? She seems to be terribly +nice, and I know you two will have a good party. You must forget me. I’m +just a teacher of playing games who hasn’t been successful at any game +whatever. Not that it matters. I don’t care. I don’t, really. Now, +good night.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br/> +AND FOLLOWS A WANDERING FLAME THROUGH PERILOUS SEAS</h2> + +<p> +They had picnic dinner early up there on the Palisades: +</p> + +<p> +Nelly and Mr. Wrenn, Mrs. Arty and Tom, Miss Proudfoot and Mrs. Samuel Ebbitt, +the last of whom kept ejaculating: “Well! I ain’t run off like this +in ten years!” They squatted about a red-cotton table-cloth spread on a +rock, broadly discussing the sandwiches and cold chicken and lemonade and +stuffed olives, and laughing almost to a point of distress over Tom’s +accusation that Miss Proudfoot had secreted about her person a bottle of rye +whisky. +</p> + +<p> +Nelly was very pleasant to Mr. Wrenn, but she called him neither Billy nor +anything else, and mostly she talked to Miss Proudfoot, smiling at him, but +saying nothing when he managed to get out a jest about Mrs. Arty’s +chewing-gum. When he moved to her side with a wooden plate of cream-cheese +sandwiches (which Tom humorously termed “cold-cream wafers”) Mr. +Wrenn started to explain how he had come to enter Istra’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t you?” Nelly asked, curtly, and turned to Miss +Proudfoot. +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t seem to care much,” he reflected, relieved and +stabbed in his humble vanity and reattracted to Nelly, all at once. He was +anxious about her opinion of Istra and her opinion of himself, and slightly +defiant, as she continued to regard him as a respectable person whose name she +couldn’t exactly remember. +</p> + +<p> +Hadn’t he the right to love Istra if he wanted to? he desired to know of +himself. Besides, what had he <i>done?</i> Just gone out walking with his +English hotel acquaintance Istra! He hadn’t been in her room but just a +few minutes. Fine reason that was for Nelly to act like a blooming iceberg! +Besides, it wasn’t as if he were engaged to Nelly, or anything like that. +Besides, of course Istra would never care for him. There were several other +besideses with which he harrowed himself while trying to appear picnically +agreeable. He was getting very much confused, and was slightly abrupt as he +said to Nelly, “Let’s walk over to that high rock on the +edge.” +</p> + +<p> +A dusky afterglow filled the sky before them as they silently trudged to the +rock and from the top of the sheer cliff contemplated the smooth and +steely-gray Hudson below. Nelly squeaked her fear at the drop and clutched his +arm, but suddenly let go and drew back without his aid. +</p> + +<p> +He groaned within, “I haven’t the right to help her.” He took +her arm as she hesitatingly climbed from the rock down to the ground. +</p> + +<p> +She jerked it free, curtly saying, “No, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +She was repentant in a moment, and, cheerfully: +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Nash took me in her room yesterday and showed me her things. My, +she’s got such be-<i>yoo</i>-ti-ful jewels! La V’lieres and pearls +and a swell amethyst brooch. My! She told me all about how the girls used to +study in Paris, and how sorry she would be to go back to California and keep +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep house?” +</p> + +<p> +Nelly let him suffer for a moment before she relieved him with, “For her +father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh…. Did she say she was going back to California soon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not till the end of the summer, maybe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh…. Oh, Nelly—” +</p> + +<p> +For the first time that day he was perfectly sincere. He was trying to confide +in her. But the shame of having emotions was on him. He got no farther. +</p> + +<p> +To his amazement, Nelly mused, “She is very nice.” +</p> + +<p> +He tried hard to be gallant. “Yes, she is interesting, but of course she +ain’t anywheres near as nice as you are, Nelly, be—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t, Billy!” +</p> + +<p> +The quick agony in her voice almost set them both weeping. The shared sorrow of +separation drew them together for a moment. Then she started off, with short +swift steps, and he tagged after. He found little to say. He tried to comment +on the river. He remarked that the apartment-houses across in New York were +bright in the sunset; that, in fact, the upper windows looked “like there +was a fire in there.” Her sole comment was “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +When they rejoined the crowd he was surprised to hear her talking volubly to +Miss Proudfoot. He rejoiced that she was “game,” but he did not +rejoice long. For a frightened feeling that he had to hurry home and see Istra +at once was turning him weak and cold. He didn’t want to see her; she was +intruding; but he had to go—go at once; and the agony held him all the +way home, while he was mechanically playing the part of stern reformer and +agreeing with Tom Poppins that the horrors of the recent Triangle +shirt-waist-factory fire showed that “something oughta be +done—something sure oughta be.” +</p> + +<p> +He trembled on the ferry till Nelly, with a burst of motherly tenderness in her +young voice, suddenly asked: “Why, you’re shivering dreadfully! Did +you get a chill?” +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, he wanted the credit of being known as an invalid, and pitied and +nursed, but he reluctantly smiled and said, “Oh no, it ain’t +anything at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Istra called him again, and he fumed over the slowness of their landing. +</p> + +<p> +And, at home, Istra was out. +</p> + +<p> +He went resolutely down and found Nelly alone, sitting on a round pale-yellow +straw mat on the steps. +</p> + +<p> +He sat by her. He was very quiet; not at all the jovial young man of the picnic +properly following the boarding-house-district rule that males should be +jocular and show their appreciation of the ladies by “kidding +them.” And he spoke with a quiet graciousness that was almost courtly, +with a note of weariness and spiritual experience such as seldom comes into the +boarding-houses, to slay joy and bring wisdom and give words shyness. +</p> + +<p> +He had, as he sat down, intended to ask her to go with him to a moving-picture +show. But inspiration was on him. He merely sat and talked. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Wrenn returned from the office, two evenings later, he found this note +awaiting him: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> M<small>OUSE</small>,—Friend has asked me to join her +in studio & have beat it. Sorry not see you & say good-by. Come see me +sometime—phone before and see if I’m in—Spring +xxx—address xx South Washington Sq. In haste, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +I<small>STRA</small>. +</p> + +<p> +He spent the evening in not going to the studio. Several times he broke away +from a pinochle game to rush upstairs and see if the note was as chilly as he +remembered. It always was. +</p> + +<p> +Then for a week he awaited a more definite invitation from her, which did not +come. He was uneasily polite to Nelly these days, and tremulously appreciative +of her gentleness. He wanted to brood, but he did not take to his old habit of +long solitary walks. Every afternoon he planned one for the evening; every +evening found that he “wanted to be around with folks.” +</p> + +<p> +He had a sort of youthful defiant despair, so he jested much at the card-table, +by way of practising his new game of keeping people from knowing what he was +thinking. He took sophisticated pleasure in noting that Mrs. Arty no longer +condescended to him. He managed to imitate Tom’s writing on a card which +he left with a bunch of jonquils in Nelly’s room, and nearly persuaded +even Tom himself that Tom was the donor. Probably because he didn’t much +care what happened he was able to force Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle to raise his +salary to twenty-three dollars a week. Mr. Guilfogle went out of his way to +admit that the letters to the Southern trade had been “a first-rate +stunt, son.” +</p> + +<p> +John Henson, the head of the Souvenir Company’s manufacturing department, +invited Mr. Wrenn home to dinner, and the account of the cattle-boat was much +admired by Mrs. Henson and the three young Hensons. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later, in mid-June, there was an unusually cheerful dinner at the +boarding-house. Nelly turned to Mr. Wrenn—yes, he was quite sure about +it; she was speaking exclusively to him, with a lengthy and most merry account +of the manner in which the floor superintendent had “called down” +the unkindest of the aislesmen. +</p> + +<p> +He longed to give his whole self in his answer, to be in the absolute community +of thought that lovers know. But the image of Istra was behind his chair. +Istra—he had to see her—now, this evening. He rushed out to the +corner drug-store and reached her by telephone. +</p> + +<p> +Yes-s, admitted Istra, a little grudgingly, she was going to be at the studio +that evening, though she—well, there was going to be a little +party—some friends—but—yes, she’d be glad to have him +come. +</p> + +<p> +Grimly, Mr. Wrenn set out for Washington Square. +</p> + +<p> +Since this scientific treatise has so exhaustively examined Mr. Wrenn’s +reactions toward the esthetic, one need give but three of his impressions of +the studio and people he found on Washington Square—namely: +</p> + +<p> +(<i>a</i>) That the big room was bare, ill kept, and not comparable to the +red-plush splendor of Mrs. Arty’s, for all its pretension to superiority. +Why, a lot of the pictures weren’t framed! And you should have seen the +giltness and fruit-borderness of the frames at Mrs. Arty’s! +</p> + +<p> +(<i>b</i>) That the people were brothers-in-talk to the inmates of the flat on +Great James Street, London, only far less, and friendly. +</p> + +<p> +(<i>c</i>) That Mr. Wrenn was now a man of friends, and if the “blooming +Bohemians,” as he called them, didn’t like him they were permitted +to go to the dickens. +</p> + +<p> +Istra was always across the room from him somehow. He found himself glad. It +made their parting definite. +</p> + +<p> +He was going back to his own people, he was deciding. +</p> + +<p> +As he rose with elaborate boarding-house apologies to the room at large for +going, and a cheerful but not intimate “Good night” to Istra, she +followed him to the door and into the dark long hallway without. +</p> + +<p> +“Good night, Mouse dear. I’m glad you got a chance to talk to the +Silver Girl. But was Mr. Hargis rude to you? I heard him talking Single +Tax—or was it Matisse?—and he’s usually rude when he talks +about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He was all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what <i>is</i> worrying you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—nothing. Good ni—” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>are</i> going off angry. <i>Aren’t</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but—oh, there ain’t any use of our—of me +being— <i>Is</i> there?” +</p> + +<p> +“N-no—” +</p> + +<p> +“Matisse—the guy you just spoke about—and these artists here +tonight in bobtail dress-suits—I wouldn’t know when to wear one of +them things, and when a swallow-tail—if I had one, even—or when a +Prince Albert or—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not a Prince Albert, Mouse dear. Say, a frock-coat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure. That’s what I mean. It’s like that Matisse guy. I +don’t know about none of the things you’re interested in. While +you’ve been away from Mrs. Arty’s—Lord, I’ve missed you +so! But when I try to train with your bunch, or when you spring Matisse” +(he seemed peculiarly to resent the unfortunate French artist) “on me I +sort of get onto myself—and now it ain’t like it was in England; +I’ve got a bunch of my own I can chase around with. Anyway, I got onto +myself tonight. I s’pose it’s partly because I been thinking you +didn’t care much for <i>my</i> friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mouse dear, all this isn’t news to me. Surely you, +who’ve gipsied with me, aren’t going to be so obvious, so banal, as +to blame <i>me</i> because you’ve cared for me, are you, child?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no, no! I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted—oh, +gee! I dunno—well, I wanted to have things between us definite.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do understand. You’re quite right. And now we’re just +friends, aren’t we?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then good-by. And sometime when I’m back in New +York—I’m going to California in a few days—I think I’ll +be able to get back here—I certainly hope so—though of course +I’ll have to keep house for friend father for a while, and maybe +I’ll marry myself with a local magnate in desperation—but, as I was +saying, dear, when I get back here we’ll have a good dinner, <i>nicht +wahr?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and—good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +She stood at the top of the stairs looking down. He slowly clumped down the +wooden treads, boiling with the amazing discoveries that he had said good-by to +Istra, that he was not sorry, and that now he could offer to Nelly Croubel +everything. +</p> + +<p> +Istra suddenly called, “O Mouse, wait just a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +She darted like a swallow. She threw her arm about his shoulder and kissed his +cheek. Instantly she was running up-stairs again, and had disappeared into the +studio. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Mr. William Wrenn was walking rapidly up Riverside Drive, thinking about his +letters to the Southern merchants. +</p> + +<p> +While he was leaving the studio building he had perfectly seen himself as one +who was about to go through a tumultuous agony, after which he would be free of +all the desire for Istra and ready to serve Nelly sincerely and humbly. +</p> + +<p> +But he found that the agony was all over. Even to save his dignity as one who +was being dramatic, he couldn’t keep his thoughts on Istra. +</p> + +<p> +Every time he thought of Nelly his heart was warm and he chuckled softly. +Several times out of nothing came pictures of the supercilious persons whom he +had heard solving the problems of the world at the studio on Washington Square, +and he muttered: “Oh, hope they choke. Istra’s all right, though; +she learnt me an awful lot. But—gee! I’m glad she ain’t in +the same house; I suppose I’d ag’nize round if she was.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, at no particular street corner on Riverside Drive, just <i>a</i> +street, he fled over to Broadway and the Subway. He had to be under the same +roof with Nelly. If it were only possible to see her that night! But it was +midnight. However, he formulated a plan. The next morning he would leave the +office, find her at her department store, and make her go out to Manhattan +Beach with him for dinner that night. +</p> + +<p> +He was home. He went happily up the stairs. He would dream of Nelly, and— +</p> + +<p> +Nelly’s door opened, and she peered out, drawing her <i>peignoir</i> +about her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she said, softly, “is it you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. My, you’re up late.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you—Are you all right?” +</p> + +<p> +He dashed down the hall and stood shyly scratching at the straw of his newest +hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Why yes, Nelly, course. Poor—Oh, don’t tell me you have a +headache again?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—I was awful foolish, of course, but I saw you when you went out +this evening, and you looked so savage, and you didn’t look very +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“But now it’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then good night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—listen—please do! I went over to the place Miss Nash +is living at, because I was pretty sure that I ain’t hipped on +her—sort of hypnotized by her—any more. And I found I ain’t! +<i>I ain’t!</i> I don’t know what to say, I want to—I want +you to know that from going to try and see if I can’t get you to care for +me.” He was dreadfully earnest, and rather quiet, with the dignity of the +man who has found himself. “I’m scared,” he went on, +“about saying this, because maybe you’ll think I’ve got an +idea I’m kind of a little tin god, and all I’ve got to do is to say +which girl I’ll want and she’ll come a-running, but it isn’t +that; <i>it isn’t</i>. It’s just that I want you to know I’m +going to give <i>all</i> of me to you now if I can get you to want me. And I +<i>am</i> glad I knew Istra—she learnt me a lot about books and all, so I +have more to me, or maybe will have, for you. It’s +—Nelly—promise you’ll be—my +friend—promise—If you knew how I rushed back here tonight to see +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Billy—” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hand, and he grasped it as though it were the sacred symbol of +his dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow,” she smiled, with a hint of tears, “I’ll be +a reg’lar lady, I guess, and make you explain and explain like +everything, but now I’m just glad. Yes,” defiantly, “I +<i>will</i> admit it if I want to! I <i>am</i> glad!” +</p> + +<p> +Her door closed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br/> +TO A HAPPY SHORE</h2> + +<p> +Upon an evening of November, 1911, it chanced that of Mrs. Arty’s flock +only Nelly and Mr. Wrenn were at home. They had finished two hot games of +pinochle, and sat with their feet on a small amiable oil-stove. Mr. Wrenn laid +her hand against his cheek with infinite content. He was outlining the +situation at the office. +</p> + +<p> +The business had so increased that Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle, the manager, had +told Rabin, the head traveling-salesman, that he was going to appoint an +assistant manager. Should he, Mr. Wrenn queried, try to get the position? The +other candidates, Rabin and Henson and Glover, were all good friends of his, +and, furthermore, could he “run a bunch of guys if he was over +them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course you can, Billy. I remember when you came here you were +sort of shy. But now you’re ’most the star boarder! And won’t +those others be trying to get the job away from you? Of course!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Billy, some day you might be manager!” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, that would be great, wouldn’t it! But hones’, Nell, do +you think I might have a chance to land the assistant’s job?” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Nelly—gee! you make me—oh, learn to bank on +myself—” +</p> + +<p> +He kissed her for the second time in his life. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Guilfogle,” stated Mr. Wrenn, next day, “I want to talk +to you about that assistant managership.” +</p> + +<p> +The manager, in his new office and his new flowered waistcoat, had acted +interested when Our steady and reliable Mr. Wrenn came in. But now he tried to +appear dignified and impatient. +</p> + +<p> +“That—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been here longer than any of the other men, and I know every +line of the business now, even the manufacturing. You remember I held down +Henson’s job when his wife was sick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“And I guess Jake thinks I can boss all right, and Miss Leavenbetz, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now will you kindly ’low <i>me</i> to talk a little, Wrenn? I know +a <i>little</i> something about how things go in the office myself! I +don’t deny you’re a good man. Maybe some day you may get to be +assistant manager. But I’m going to give the first try at it to Glover. +He’s had so much more experience with meeting people +directly—personally. But you’re a good man—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve heard that before, but I’ll be gol-darned if +I’ll stick at one desk all my life just because I save you all the +trouble in that department, Guilfogle, and now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, now, now, now! Calm down; hold your horses, my boy. This +ain’t a melodrama, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know; I didn’t mean to get sore, but you know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m +going to make you head of the manufacturing department instead of getting in a +new man, and shift Henson to purchasing. I’ll put Jake on your old job, +and expect you to give him a lift when he needs it. And you’d better keep +up the most important of the jollying-letters, I guess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I like that all right. I appreciate it. But of course I expect +more pay—two men’s work—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see; what you getting now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-three.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s a good deal, you know. The overhead expenses have +been increasing a lot faster than our profits, and we’ve—” +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” +</p> + +<p> +“—got to see where new business is coming in to justify the liberal +way we’ve treated you men before we can afford to do much +salary-raising—though we’re just as glad to do it as you men to get +it; but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” +</p> + +<p> +“—if we go to getting extravagant we’ll go bankrupt, and then +we won’t any of us have jobs…. Still, I <i>am</i> willing to raise you to +twenty-five, though—” +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-five!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wrenn stood straight. The manager tried to stare him down. Panic was +attacking Mr. Wrenn, and he had to think of Nelly to keep up his defiance. At +last Mr. Guilfogle glared, then roared: “Well, confound it, Wrenn, +I’ll give you twenty-nine-fifty, and not a cent more for at least a year. +That’s final. <i>Understand?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” chirped Mr. Wrenn. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” he was exulting to himself, “never thought I’d +get anything like that. Twenty-nine-fifty! More ’n enough to marry on +now! I’m going to get <i>twenty-nine-fifty!</i>” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Married five months ago to-night, honey,” said Mr. Wrenn to Nelly, +his wife, in their Bronx flat, and thus set down October 17, 1913, as a great +date in history. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I <i>know</i> it, Billy. I wondered if you’d remember. You +just ought to see the dessert I’m making—but that’s a +s’prise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember! Should say I did! See what I’ve got for somebody!” +</p> + +<p> +He opened a parcel and displayed a pair of red-worsted bed-slippers, a creation +of one of the greatest red-worsted artists in the whole land. Yes, and he could +afford them, too. Was he not making thirty-two dollars a week—he who had +been poor! And his chances for the assistant managership “looked +good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’ll be so comfy when it gets cold. You’re a dear! +Oh, Billy, the janitress says the Jewish lady across the court in number +seventy is so lazy she wears her corsets to bed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Did the janitress get the coal put in, Nell?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but her husband is laid off again. I was talking to her quite a +while this afternoon…. Oh, dear, I do get so lonely for you, sweetheart, with +nothing to do. But I did read some <i>Kim</i> this afternoon. I liked +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s fine!” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s kind of hard. Maybe I’ll—Oh, I don’t +know. I guess I’ll have to read a lot.” +</p> + +<p> +He patted her back softly, and hoped: “Maybe some day we can get a little +house out of town, and then you can garden…. Sorry old Siddons is laid off +again…. Is the gas-stove working all right now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Um-huh, honey. I fixed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, let me make the coffee, Nell. You’ll have enough to do with +setting the table and watching the sausages.” +</p> + +<p> +“All rightee, hun. But, oh, Billy, I’m so, shamed. I was going to +get some potato salad, and I’ve just remembered I forgot.” She hung +her head, with a fingertip to her pretty lips, and pretended to look dreadfully +ashamed. “Would you mind so ver-ee much skipping down to +Bachmeyer’s for some? Ah-h, is it just fearful neglected when it comes +home all tired out?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeedy. But you got to kiss me first, else I won’t go at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +Nelly turned to him and, as he held her, her head bent far back. She lay +tremblingly inert against his arms, staring up at him, panting. With her head +on his shoulder—a soft burden of love that his shoulder rejoiced to +bear—they stood gazing out of the narrow kitchen window of their +sixth-story flat and noticed for the hundredth time that the trees in a vacant +lot across were quite as red and yellow as the millionaire trees in Central +Park along Fifth Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometime,” mused Mr. Wrenn, “we’ll live in Jersey, +where there’s trees and trees and trees—and maybe there’ll be +kiddies to play under them, and then you won’t be lonely, honey; +they’ll keep you some busy!” +</p> + +<p> +“You skip along now, and don’t be talking nonsense, or I’ll +not give you one single wee bit of dinner!” Then she blushed adorably, +with infinite hope. +</p> + +<p> +He hastened out of the kitchen, with the happy glance he never failed to give +the living-room—its red-papered walls with shiny imitation-oak woodwork; +the rows of steins on the plate-rack; the imitation-oak dining-table, with a +vase of newly dusted paper roses; the Morris chair, with Nelly’s sewing +on a tiny wicker table beside it; the large gilt-framed oleograph of +“Pike’s Peak by Moonlight.” +</p> + +<p> +He clattered down the slate treads of the stairs. He fairly vaulted out of +doors. He stopped, startled. +</p> + +<p> +Across the ragged vacant lots to the west a vast sunset processional marched +down the sky. It had not been visible from their flat, which looked across East +River to the tame grassy shore of a real-estate boomer’s suburb. +“Gee!” he mourned, “it’s the first time I’ve +noticed a sunset for a month! I used to see knights’ flags and Mandalay +and all sorts of stuff in sunsets!” +</p> + +<p> +Wistfully the exile gazed at his lost kingdom, till the October chill aroused +him. +</p> + +<p> +But he learned a new way to cook eggs from the proprietor of the delicatessen +store; and his plans for spending the evening playing pinochle with Nelly, and +reading the evening paper aloud, set him chuckling softly to himself as he +hurried home through the brisk autumn breeze with seven cents’ worth of +potato salad. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR MR. 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