diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/51913.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/51913.txt | 8124 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 8124 deletions
diff --git a/old/51913.txt b/old/51913.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5a6ee55..0000000 --- a/old/51913.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8124 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Carter, and Other People, by Don Marquis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Carter, and Other People - -Author: Don Marquis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51913] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARTER, AND OTHER PEOPLE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -CARTER, AND OTHER PEOPLE - -By Don Marquis - -D. Appleton and Co. - -1921 - - - - -FOREWORD - -|I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the editors of several -magazines for permission to reprint the following stories in book form. -"Carter" was originally published in _Harpers Monthly Magazine_ under -the title "The Mulatto." - -"Death and Old Man Murtrie" was printed in The New _Republic_; others -were first brought out in _Everybody's Magazine, Short Stories, Putnam's -Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post_. "The Penitent" was originally -printed in _The Pictorial Review_, with the title "The Healer and -the Penitent." The plot of this story is taken from two poems, one by -Browning and one by Owen Meredith. Happening to read these two poems, -one after the other, I was struck by the fact that Owen Meredith had -unwittingly written what was in effect a continuation of a situation -invented by Browning; the plot of the one poem, telescoped into the plot -of the other, made in effect a complete short story. I pasted the two -situations together, so to speak, inventing an ending of my own, and had -a short story which neither Browning nor Owen Meredith could claim as -his-and which I scarcely have the nerve to claim as mine. And yet this -story, taken piecemeal from the two poets, gave me more trouble than -anything else I ever tried to write; it was all there, apparently; but -to transpose the story into a modern American setting was a difficult -job. It is my only essay in conscious plagiarism-I hate to call it -plagiarism, but what else could one call it?--and I give you my word -that it is easier to invent than to plagiarize. - -The one-act play, "Words and Thoughts," was written ten years ago-in -1911-and has been offered to every theatrical manager in America, and -refused by them all. I still believe in it as a thing that could be -acted with effect, and I am determined to get it read, even if I -cannot get it produced. The fact that it has been going the rounds of -theatrical managers for ten years is no indication that it has ever been -read. - -Don Marquis - -New York - - - - -I.-Carter - -|Carter was not exactly a negro, but he was a "nigger." Seven drops of -his blood out of every eight were Caucasian. The eighth, being African, -classified him. The white part of him despised and pitied the black -part. The black part hated the white part. Consequently, wherever Carter -went he carried his own hell along inside of him. - -Carter began to learn that he was a nigger very early in life. Nigger -children are not left long in doubt anywhere, and especially in the -South. Carter first saw the light--and the shadows--of day in Atlanta. -The color line itself, about which one hears so much talk, seemed to run -along one end of the alley in which he was born. It was an alley with a -gutter and a great deal of mud in it. At the corner, where it gave into -a little narrow street not much better than an alley itself, the mud was -the thickest, deepest, and best adapted to sculptural purposes. But in -the little street lived a number of white families. They were most -of them mill hands, and a numerous spawn of skinny children, little -"crackers," with faces white and sad even from babyhood, disputed the -mud with the nigger children. Nigger babies of five, four, three, and -even two, understood quite well that this most desirable mud, even -though it was in the nigger alley, was claimed by the white babies as -_their_ mud. It was in every way a more attractive sort of mud than -any in the little street proper; and juvenile race riots were of almost -hourly occurrence--skirmishes in which the very dogs took part. For the -dogs grasped the situation as clearly as did the children; a "nigger" -dog, even though he may have started in life as a white man's dog, soon -gets a certain look about him. - -So there was no chance for Carter to escape the knowledge that he was -a nigger. But it was with a thrill that he perceived in his youthful -excursions from the home alley, that he was sometimes mistaken for a -white child. He was so white in color that one could not tell he was a -nigger at a casual glance. - -As he grew up, he made another discovery that elated and embittered him -still more. He found out who his father was--or rather, who his father -had been, since he never saw that gentleman. The white blood in Carter's -veins was no common ichor. Because white people seldom speak of these -things it does not follow that they are not known pretty generally among -the negroes. They are, in fact, discussed. - -Carter went to school; he made the further discovery that he had -brains--"white man's brains" is the way he put it to himself. Given the -opportunity, he told himself, he could go as far as the average white -man--perhaps further than the average. The white man's standard, nigger -though he was, was still the standard by which he must measure himself. -But the opportunity! Even as the youth prepared himself for it he -perceived, hopelessly, that it would be denied him. - -As he matured he began to feel a strange, secret pride in that -white family whose blood he shared. He familiarized himself with its -genealogy. There is many a courtier who cannot trace his ancestry as -far back as Carter could. One of his forebears had signed Magna Charta; -several had fought in the Revolutionary War. There had been a United -States Senator in the family, and a Confederate General. At times, -feeling the vigorous impulse of hereditary instinct and ambitions, -Carter looked upon himself as all white man, but never for long, nor to -any purpose. The consciousness of his negro blood pulled him down again. - -But, as he grew up, he ceased to herd with black negroes; he scorned -them. He crept about the world cursing it and himself--an unfortunate -and bitter creature that had no place; unfortunate and bitter, cursed -with an intellect, denied that mitigation that might have come with a -full share of the negro jovialty of disposition, forever unreconciled. - -There was one member of that white family from which he drew so much of -his blood whom Carter particularly admired. Willoughby Howard was about -Carter's own age, and he was Carter's half-brother. Howard did not -distinguish Carter from any other mulatto; probably did not know of his -existence. But as Howard reached manhood, and, through virtue of his -wealth and standing and parts, began to attain an excellent place in -the world, his rise was watched by Carter with a strange intensity of -emotion. Carter in some occult way identified himself with the career of -Willoughby Howard--sometimes he almost worshiped Willoughby Howard, -and then he hated him; he envied him and raged over him with the same -breath. - -But mostly, as the isolation of his own condition, ate into his soul, -he raged over himself; he pitied himself; he hated himself. Out of the -turmoil of his spirit arose the one despairing cry, Oh, to be white, -white, _white!_ - -Many a night he lay awake until daybreak, measuring the slow minutes -with the ceaseless iteration of that useless prayer: Only to be white! O -God, for _one little year of being white!_ - -Fruitless hours of prayers and curses! - -Carter went North. He went to New York. But the North, which affects to -promise so much to the negro, in a large, loose, general way, does not -perform in the same degree. There was only one thing which Carter would -have thanked any one for performing; it was the one thing that could -never be performed--he wanted to be made white. Sometimes, indeed, from -the depths of his despair, he cried out that he wanted to be altogether -black; but in his soul he did not really want that. - -Nevertheless, at several different periods he yielded to temptation -and "went over to the whites." In the South he could not have done -this without discovery, in spite of the color of his skin. But in the -Northern cities, with their enormous numbers of aliens, all more or less -strange to the American eye, Carter found no great difficulty in passing -as white. He "looked a little foreign" to the casual glance; that was -all. - -But if there was no great difficulty in it, there was no great -satisfaction in it, either. In fact, it only made him the more bitter. -Others might think him a white man, but he knew that he was a nigger. - -The incident which sent him back South, resolved to be a nigger, and to -live and die among the niggers, might not have affected another in his -condition just as it did Carter. But to him it showed conclusively that -his destiny was not a matter of environment so much as a question of -himself. - -He fell in love. The girl was a waitress in a cheap restaurant near the -barber shop where Carter worked. She was herself a product of the -East Side, struggling upward from the slums; partly Italian, with some -Oriental strain in her that had given the least perceptible obliqueness -to her eyes--one of those rare hybrid products which give the thinker -pause and make him wonder what the word "American" will signify a -century from now; a creature with very red lips and very black eyebrows; -she seemed to know more than she really did; she had a kind of naive -charm, a sort of allurement, without actual beauty; and her name had -been Anglicized into Mary. - -And she loved Carter. This being, doomed from the cradle to despair, had -his moment of romance. But even in his intoxication there was no hope; -his elation was embittered and perplexed. He was tempted not to tell the -girl that he was a nigger. But if he married her, and did not tell her, -perhaps the first child would tell her. It might look more of a nigger -than he did. - -But if he told her, would she marry a nigger? He decided he would tell -her. Perhaps his conscience had less to do with this decision than the -fatalism of his temperament. - -So he made his revelation one Sunday evening, as they walked along the -boardwalk from Coney Island to Brighton. To him, it was a tremendous -moment. For days he had been revolving in his mind the phrases he -would use; he had been rehearsing his plea; in his imagination he saw -something spectacular, something histrionic, in his confession. - -"Mary," he said, as they sat down on a bench on the beach, "there is -something I think I ought to tell you before we get married." - -The girl turned toward him her big, sleepy, dark eyes, which always -seemed to see and understand so much more than they really did, and -looked away again. - -"I ought to tell you," he said--and as he said it, staring out to sea, -he was so imposed upon by the importance of the moment to himself that -he almost felt as if the sea listened and the waves paused--"I ought to -tell you that I have negro blood in my veins." - -She was silent. There was a moment before he dared look at her; he could -not bear to read his doom in her eyes. But finally he did muster up -courage enough to turn his head. - -The girl was placidly chewing gum and gazing at an excursion vessel that -was making a landing at one of the piers. - -He thought she had not heard. "Mary," he repeated, "I have negro blood -in my veins." - -"Uh-huh," said she. "I gotcha the first time, Steve! Say, I wonder if we -couldn't take the boat back to town? Huh? Whatcha say?" - -He looked at her almost incredulous. She had understood, and yet she -had not shrunk away from him! He examined her with a new interest; his -personal drama, in which she, perforce, must share, seemed to have made -no impression upon her whatsoever. - -"Do you mean," he said, hesitatingly, "that it will--that it won't make -any difference to you? That you can marry me, that you _will_ marry me, -in spite of--of--in spite of what I am?" - -"Gee! but ain't you the solemn one!" said the girl, taking hold of her -gum and "stringing" it out from her lips. "Whatcha s'pose I care for a -little thing like that?" - -He had looked for a sort of dramatic "situation"; and, behold, there was -none! There was none simply because the girl had no vantage point from -which to look at his life and hers. He had negro blood in his veins--and -she simply did not care one way or the other! - -He felt no elation, no exultation; he believed that she _should_ have -cared; whether her love was great enough to pardon that in him or not, -she should have felt it as a thing that _needed_ pardon. - -As he stared at the girl, and she continued to chew her gum, he swiftly -and subtly revised his estimate of her; and in his new appraisement -there was more than a tinge of disgust. And for a moment he became -altogether a white man in his judgment of the thing that was happening; -he looked at the situation as a patrician of the South might have looked -at it; the seven eighths of his blood which was white spoke: - -"By God!" he said, suddenly leaping to his feet and flinging aside the -startled hand which the girl put out toward him, "I can't have anything -to do with a woman who'd marry a nigger!" - -So Carter went back to Atlanta. And, curiously enough, he stepped from -the train almost into the midst of a strange and terrible conflict of -which the struggle in his individual breast was, in a sense, the type -and the symbol. - -It was a Saturday night in September, an evening on which there began -a memorable and sanguinary massacre of negroes; an event which has been -variously explained and analyzed, but of which, perhaps, the underlying -causes will never be completely understood. - -There was riot in the streets, a whirlwind of passion which lashed the -town and lifted up the trivial souls of men and spun them round and -round, and passed and left the stains of blood behind. White men were -making innocent negroes suffer for the brutal crimes of guilty negroes. -It had been a hot summer; scarcely a day had passed during July and -August without bringing to the newspapers from somewhere in Georgia -a report of a negro assault upon some white woman. A blind, -undiscriminating anger against the whole negro race had been growing and -growing. And when, on that Saturday afternoon, the newspapers reported -four more crimes, in rapid succession, all in or near Atlanta, the -cumulative rage burst into a storm. - -There was no danger for Carter in the streets; more than a hasty glance -was necessary to spy out his negro taint. He stood in a doorway, in the -heart of the business district of the town, and watched the wild work -that went on in a large, irregular plaza, where five streets come -together and all the car lines in the place converge. From this roughly -triangular plaza leads Decatur Street, at one time notorious throughout -the South for its negro dives and gambling-dens. - -Now and then Carter could hear the crack of a pistol, close at hand -or far away; and again some fleeing negro would start from a place of -temporary concealment, at the approach of a mob that beat its way along -a street, and make a wild dash for safety, as a rabbit startled from the -sedge-grass scurries to the brush. There was not one mob, but several; -the different bands united, split up, and reunited, as the shifting -winds of madness blew. The plaza, with arc lights all about it, was -the brilliantly illuminated stage on which more than one scene of that -disgusting melodrama was played out; from some dim hell of gloom and -clamor to the north or east would rush a shouting group that whirled -and swayed beneath the lights, dancing like flecks of soot in their -brightness, to disappear in the gloom again, shouting, cursing, and -gesticulating, down one of the thoroughfares to the west or south. And -to Carter, in whose heart there waxed a fearful turmoil of emotions, -even as the two races clashed along the echoing streets, there was a -strange element of unreality about it all; or, rather, the night was -dreadful with that superior reality which makes so much more vivid than -waking life the intense experience of dreams. Carter thrilled; he shook; -he was torn with terror and pity and horror and hatred. - -No white man felt all that Carter felt that night; nor yet any negro. -For he was both, and he was neither; and he beheld that conflict which -was forever active in his own nature dramatized by fate and staged with -a thousand actors in the lighted proscenium at his feet. - -This thought struck Carter himself, and he turned toward another man who -had paused in the doorway, with no clear intention, but perhaps with the -vague impulse of addressing him, as a point of solid contact and relief -from the sense of hurrying nightmare that possessed both the streets and -his own spirit. - -Startled, he saw that the other man was Willoughby Howard. Carter -hesitated, and then advanced a step. But whatever he had to say was -interrupted by a crowd that swept past them from Decatur Street in -pursuit of a panting negro. The fleeing colored man was struck a dozen -times; he fell at the street corner near them, and the mob surged -on again into the darkness beyond, already in full chase of another -quarry--all but one man, who left the mob and ran back as if to assure -himself that the prostrate negro was really dead. - -This was a short man, a very short man, a dwarf with a big head too -heavy for him, and little bandy legs--legs so inadequate that he wabbled -like an overfed poodle when he ran. Carter had seen him twice before -that night, dodging in and out among the feet of the rioters like an -excited cur, stumbling, falling, trodden upon; a being with bloodshot -eyes and matted hair, hoarse voice and menacing fist, drunken and -staggering with blood lust; the very Gnome of Riot himself come up from -some foul cave and howling in the streets. "Kill them! Kill them!" -he would cry, and then shake with cackling laughter. But he was only -valiant when there was; no danger. As he approached the negro who lay -upon the ground, and bent over him, Willoughby Howard stepped down -from the doorway and aimed a blow at the creature with a cane. The blow -missed, but the dwarf ran shrieking down Decatur Street. - -Howard bent over the negro. The negro stirred; he was not dead. Howard -turned toward Carter and said: - -"He's alive! Help me get him out of the street." - -Together they lifted the wounded man, moving him toward the curbstone. -He groaned and twisted, and they laid him down. Howard poured whisky -into him from a pocket flask, and a little later he managed to struggle -to a sitting posture on the curb, looking up at them with dazed eyes and -a bloody face. - -Howard took his slow gaze from the negro and covered his face with his -hands. - -Carter watched him. - -Of all men in the world this was the one whom Carter most honored and -most loved--honored and loved, while he envied; he was the only man, -perhaps, that could have touched Carter through his crust of bitterness. -Carter listened with strained attention for what Howard would say, as if -with some premonition that the words would be the cue for the most vital -action of his life. - -"My God! My God!" said Willoughby Howard, "will this thing never stop?" -And then he straightened himself and turned toward the shadow into which -Carter had retired, and there was the glow and glory of a large idea on -his face; the thought of a line of men never lacking, when once aroused, -in the courage to do and die for a principle or a human need. "There is -one way," he cried, stretching out his hands impulsively to Carter, and -not knowing to whom or to what manner of man he spoke--"there is one way -to make them pause and think! If two of us white men of the better class -offer our lives for these poor devils--die in their defense!--the mob -will halt; the crowd will think; we can end it! Will you do it, with me? -Will you do it?" - -Two of us white men of the better class! Willoughby Howard had taken him -for a white man! - -It was like an accolade. A light blazed through the haunted caverns of -his soul; he swelled with a vast exultation. - -Willoughby Howard had taken him for a white man! Then, by God, he would -be one! Since he was nothing in this life, he could at least die--and in -his death he would be a white man! Nay, more:--he would die shoulder to -shoulder with one of that family whose blood he shared. He would show -that he, too, could shed that blood for an idea or a principle! For -humanity! At the thought he could feel it singing in his veins. Oh, to -be white, white, white! The dreams and the despairs of all his miserable -and hampered life passed before him in a whirl, and now the cry was -answered! - -"Yes," he said, lifting his head, and rising at that instant into a -larger thing than he had ever been, "I will stand by you. I will die -with you." And under his breath he added--"my brother." - -They had not long to wait. In the confused horror of that night things -happened quickly. Even as Carter spoke the wounded negro struggled to -his feet with a scarce articulate cry of alarm, for around the corner -swept a mob, and the dwarf with matted hair was in the lead. He had come -back with help to make sure of his job. - -With the negro cowering behind them, the white man and the mulatto -stepped forth to face the mob. Their attitude made their intention -obvious. - -"Don't be a damned fool, Willoughby Howard," said a voice from the -crowd, "or you may get hurt yourself." And with the words there was a -rush, and the three were in the midst of the clamoring madness, the mob -dragging the negro from his two defenders. - -"Be careful--don't hurt Willoughby Howard!" said the same voice again. -Willoughby turned, and, recognizing the speaker as an acquaintance, with -a sudden access of scorn and fury and disgust, struck him across the -mouth. The next moment his arms were pinioned, and he was lifted and -flung away from the negro he had been fighting to protect by half a -dozen men. - -"You fools! You fools!" he raged, struggling toward the center of -the crowd again, "you're killing a white man there. An innocent white -man------ Do you stop at nothing? You're killing a _white man_, I say!" - -"White man?" said the person whom he had struck, and who appeared to -bear him little resentment for the blow. "Who's a white man? Not Jerry -Carter here! He wasn't any white man. I've known him since he was a -kid--he was just one of those yaller niggers." - -And Carter heard it as he died. - - - - -II--Old Man Murtrie - -|Old Man Murtrie never got any fresh air at all, except on Sundays on -his way to and from church. He lived, slept, cooked and ate back of the -prescription case in his little dismal drug store in one of the most -depressing quarters of Brooklyn. The store was dimly lighted by gas and -it was always damp and suggested a tomb. Drifting feebly about in the -pale and cold and faintly greenish radiance reflected from bottles and -show cases, Old Man Murtrie with his bloodless face and dead white hair -and wisps of whisker was like a ghost that has not managed to get free -from the neighborhood of a sepulcher where its body lies disintegrating. - -People said that Old Man Murtrie was nearly a hundred years old, -but this was not true; he was only getting along towards ninety. The -neighborhood, however, seemed a little impatient with him for not dying. -Some persons suggested that perhaps he really had been dead for a long -time, and did not know it. If so, they thought, it might be kind to tell -him about it. - -But Old Man Murtrie was not dead, any more than he was alive. And Death -himself, who has his moments of impatience, began to get worried about -Old Man Murtrie. It was time, Death thought, that he was dead, since he -looked so dead; and Death had said so, both to God and to the Devil. - -"But I don't want to garner him, naturally," Death would say, "till -I know which one of you is to have him. He's got to go somewhere, you -know." - -God and Death and the Devil used to sit on the prescription counter in -a row, now and then, and watch Old Man Murtrie as he slept in his humble -little cot back there, and discuss him. - -God would look at Old Man Murtrie's pale little Adam's Apple sticking up -in the faint gaslight, and moving as he snored--moving feebly, for even -his snores were feeble--and say, with a certain distaste: - -"I don't want him. He can't get into Heaven." - -And the Devil would look at his large, weak, characterless nose;--a -nose so big that it might have suggested force on any one but Old Man -Murtrie--and think what a sham it was, and how effectually all its -contemptible effort to be a real nose was exposed in Old Man Murtrie's -sleep. And the Devil would say: - -"I don't want him. He can't get into Hell." - -And then Death would say, querulously: "But he can't go on living -forever. My reputation is suffering." - -"You should take him," the Devil would say to God. "He goes to church -on Sunday, and he is the most meek and pious and humble and prayerful -person in all Brooklyn, and perhaps in all the world." - -"But he takes drugs," God would say. "You should take him, because he is -a drug fiend." - -"He takes drugs," the Devil would admit, "but that doesn't make him a -_fiend_. You have to do something besides take drugs to be a fiend. You -will permit me to have my own notions, I am sure, on what constitutes a -fiend." - -"You ought to forgive him the drugs for the sake of his piety," the -Devil would say. "And taking drugs is his only vice. He doesn't drink, -or smoke tobacco, or use profane language, or gamble. And he doesn't run -after women." - -"You ought to forgive him the piety for the sake of the drugs," God -would tell the Devil. - -"I never saw such a pair as you two," Death would say querulously. -"Quibble, quibble, quibble!--while Old Man Murtrie goes on and on -living! He's lived so long that he is affecting death rates and -insurance tables, all by himself, and you know what that does to my -reputation." - -And Death would stoop over and run his finger caressingly across Old Man -Murtrie's throat, as the Old Man slept. Whereupon Old Man Murtrie would -roll over on his back and moan in his sleep and gurgle. - -"He has wanted to be a cheat all his life," God would say to the Devil. -"He has always had the impulse to give short weight and substitute -inferior drugs in his prescriptions and overcharge children who were -sent on errands to his store. If that isn't sin I don't know what sin -is. You should take him." - -"I admit he has had those impulses," the Devil would say to God. "But -he has never yielded to them. In my opinion having those impulses and -conquering them makes him a great deal more virtuous than if he'd never -had 'em. No one who is as virtuous as all that can get into Hell." - -"I never saw such a pair," Death would grumble. "Can't you agree with -each other about anything?" - -"He didn't abstain from his vices because of any courage," God would -say. "He abstained simply because he was afraid. It wasn't virtue in -him; it was cowardice." - -"The fear of the Lord," murmured the Devil, dreamily, "is the beginning -of all wisdom." - -"But not necessarily the end of it," God would remark. - -"Argue, argue, argue," Death would say, "and here's Old Man Murtrie -still alive! I'm criticized about the way I do my work, but no one has -any idea of the vacillation and inefficiency I have to contend with! I -never saw such a pair as you two to vacillate!" - -Sometimes Old Man Murtrie would wake up and turn over on his couch and -see God and Death and the Devil sitting in a row on the prescription -counter, looking at him. But he always persuaded himself that it was -a sort of dream, induced by the "medicine" he took; and he would take -another dose of his "medicine" and go back to sleep again. He never -spoke to them when he waked, but just lay on his cot and stared at them; -and if they spoke to him he would pretend to himself that they had not -spoken. For it was absurd to think that God and Death and the Devil -could really be sitting there, in the dim greenish gaslight, among all -the faintly radiant bottles, talking to each other and looking at him; -and so Old Man Murtrie would not believe it. - -When he first began taking his "medicine" Old Man Murtrie took it in the -form of a certain patent preparation which was full of opium. He wanted -the opium more and more after he started, but he pretended to himself -that he did not know there was much opium in that medicine. Then, when a -federal law banished that kind of medicine from the markets, he took to -making it for his own use. He would not take opium outright, for that -would be to acknowledge to himself that he was an opium eater; he -thought eating opium was a sin, and he thought of himself as sinless. -But to make the medicine with the exact formula that its manufacturers -had used, before they had been compelled to shut up shop, and use it, -did not seem to him to be the same thing at all as being an opium eater. -And yet, after the law was passed, abolishing the medicine, he would not -sell to any one else what he made for himself; his conscience would not -allow him to do so. Therefore, he must have known that he was eating -opium at the same time he tried to fool himself about it. - -God and the Devil used to discuss the ethics of this attitude towards -the "medicine," and Old Man Murtrie would sometimes pretend to be asleep -and would listen to them. - -"He knows it is opium all right," God would say. "He is just lying to -himself about it. He ought to go to Hell. No one that lies to himself -that way can get into Heaven." - -"He's pretending for the sake of society in general and for the sake of -religion," the Devil would say. "If he admitted to himself that it was -opium and if he let the world know that he took opium, it might bring -discredit on the church that he loves so well. He might become a -stumbling block to others who are seeking salvation, and who seek it -through the church. He is willing to sacrifice himself so as not to -hamper others in their religious life. For my part, I think it is highly -honorable of him, and highly virtuous. No person as moral as that in his -instincts can get into Hell." - -"Talk, talk, talk!" Death would say. "The trouble with you two is that -neither one of you wants Old Man Murtrie around where you will have to -look at him through all eternity, and each of you is trying to put it on -moral grounds." - -And Old Man Murtrie kept on living and praying and being pious and -wanting to be bad and not daring to and taking his medicine and being -generally as ineffectual in the world either for good or evil as a -butterfly in a hurricane. - -But things took a turn. There was a faded-looking blonde woman with -stringy hair by the name of Mable who assisted Old Man Murtrie in the -store, keeping his books and waiting on customers, and so forth. She was -unmarried, and one day she announced to him that she was going to have a -child. - -Old Man Murtrie had often looked at her with a recollection, a dim and -faint remembrance, of the lusts of his youth and of his middle age. -In his youth and middle age he had lusted after many women, but he had -never let any of them know it, because he was afraid, and he had called -his fears virtue, and had really believed that he was virtuous. - -"Whom do you suspect?" asked Old Man Murtrie, leering at Mable like a -wraith blown down the ages from the dead adulteries of ruined Babylon. - -"Who?" cried Mable, an unlessoned person, but with a cruel, instinctive -humor. "Who but you!" - -She had expected Old Man Murtrie to be outraged at her ridiculous joke, -and, because she was unhappy herself, had anticipated enjoying his -astounded protests. But it was she who was astounded. Old Man Murtrie's -face was blank and his eyes were big for a moment, and then he chuckled; -a queer little cackling chuckle. And when she went out he opened the -door for her and cocked his head and cackled again. - -It gave Mable an idea. She reflected that he took so much opium that he -might possibly be led to believe the incredible, and she might get some -money out of him. So the next evening she brought her mother and her -brother to the store and accused him. - -Old Man Murtrie chuckled and... _and admitted it!_ Whether he believed -that it could be true or not, Mable and her people were unable to -determine. But they made the tactical error of giving him his choice -between marriage and money, and he chose matrimony. - -And then Old Man Murtrie was suddenly seized with a mania for -confession. God and Death and the Devil used to listen to him nights, -and they wondered over him, and began to change their minds about him, a -little. He confessed to the officials of his church. He confessed to all -the people whom he knew. He insisted on making a confession, a public -confession, in the church itself and asking for the prayers of the -preacher and congregation for his sin, and telling them that he was -going to atone by matrimony, and asking for a blessing on the wedding. - -And one night, full of opium, while he-was babbling about it in his -sleep, God and Death and the Devil sat on the prescription counter again -and looked at him and listened to his ravings and speculated. - -"I'm going to have him," said the Devil. "Any one who displays such -conspicuous bad taste that he goes around confessing that he has ruined -a woman ought to go to Hell." - -"You don't want him for that reason," said God. "And you know you don't. -You want him because you admire the idea of adultery, and think that now -he is worthy of a place in Hell. You are rather entertained by Old Man -Murtrie, and want him around now." - -"Well," said the Devil, "suppose I admit that is true! Have you any -counter claim?" - -"Yes," said God. "I am going to take Old Man Murtrie into Heaven. He -knows he is not the father of the child that is going to be born, but he -has deliberately assumed the responsibility lest it be born fatherless, -and I think that is a noble act." - -"Rubbish!" said the Devil. "That isn't the reason you want him. You want -him because of the paternal instinct he displays. It flatters you!" - -"Well," said God, "why not? The paternal instinct is another name for -the great creative force of the universe. I have been known by many -names in many countries... they called me Osiris, the All-Father, in -Egypt, and they called me Jehovah in Palestine, and they called me -Zeus and Brahm... but always they recognized me as the Father. And this -instinct for fatherliness appeals to me. Old Man Murtrie shall come to -Heaven." - -"Such a pair as you two," said Death, gloomily, "I never did see! -Discuss and discuss, but never get anywhere! And all the time Old Man -Murtrie goes on living." - -And then Death added: - -"Why not settle this matter once and for all, right now? Why not wake -Old Man Murtrie up and let him decide?" - -"Decide?" asked the Devil. - -"Yes,--whether he wants to go to Hell or to Heaven." - -"I imagine," said God, "that if we do that there can be no question as -to which place he would rather go to." - -"Oh, I don't know," said the Devil. "Some people come to Hell quite -willingly. I've been to Heaven myself, you know, and I can quite -understand why. Are you afraid to have Old Man Murtrie make the choice?" - -"Wake him up, Death, wake him up," said God. "It's unusual to allow -people to know that they are making their own decision--though all of -them, in a sense, do make it--but wake him up, Death, and we'll see." - -So Death prodded Old Man Murtrie in the ribs, and they asked him. For a -long time he thought it was only opium, but when he finally understood -that it was really God and Death and the Devil who were there, and that -it was really they who had often been there before, he was very much -frightened. He was so frightened he couldn't choose. - -"I'll leave it to you, I'll leave it to you," said Old Man Murtrie. "Who -am I that I should set myself up to decide?" - -"Well," said God, getting a little angry, perhaps, "if you don't want to -go to Heaven, Murtrie, you don't have to. But you've been, praying to go -to Heaven, and all that sort of thing, for seventy or eighty years, and -I naturally thought you were in earnest. But I'm through with you... you -can go to Hell." - -"Oh! Oh! Oh!" moaned Old Man Murtrie. - -"No," said the Devil, "I've changed my mind, too. My distaste for -Murtrie has returned to me. I don't want him around. I won't have him in -Hell." - -"See here, now!" cried Death. "You two are starting it all over again. -I won't have it, so I won't! You aren't fair to Murtrie, and you aren't -fair to me! This matter has got to be settled, and settled to-night!" - -"Well, then," said God, "settle it. I've ceased to care one way or -another." - -"I will not," said Death, "I know my job, and I stick to my job. One of -you two has got to settle it." - -"Toss a coin," suggested the Devil, indifferently. - -Death looked around for one. - -"There's a qu-qu-quarter in m-m-my t-t-trousers' p-p-pocket," stammered -Old Man Murtrie, and then stuck his head under the bedclothes and -shivered as if he had the ague. - -Death picked up Murtrie's poor little weazened trousers from the floor -at the foot of the cot, where they lay sprawled untidily, and shook them -till the quarter dropped out. - -He picked it up. - -"Heads, he goes to Heaven. Tails, he goes to Hell," said Death, and -tossed the coin to the ceiling. Murtrie heard it hit the ceiling, and -started. He heard it hit the floor, and bounce, and jingle and spin and -roll and come to rest. And he thrust his head deeper under the covers -and lay there quaking. He did not dare look. - -"Look at it, Murtrie," said Death. - -"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Murtrie, shaking the cot. - -But Death reached over and caught him by the neck and turned his face so -that he could not help seeing. And Old Man Murtrie looked and saw that -the coin had fallen with the side up that sent him to---- - -But, really, why should I tell you? Go and worry about your own soul, -and let Old Man Murtrie's alone. - - - - -III.--Never Say Die - -|There seemed nothing left but suicide. - -But how? In what manner? By what method? Mr. Gooley lay on his bed and -thought--or tried to think. The pain in his head, which had been there -ever since the day after he had last eaten, prevented easy and coherent -thought. - -It had been three days ago that the pain left his stomach and went into -his head. Hunger had become a cerebral thing, he told himself. His body -had felt hunger so long that it refused to feel it any longer; it had -shifted the burden to his brain. - -"It has passed the buck to my mind, my stomach has," murmured Mr. Gooley -feebly. And the mind, less by the process of coherent and connected -thought than by a sudden impulsive pounce, had grasped the idea of -suicide. - -"Not with a knife," considered Mr. Gooley. He had no knife. He had no -money to buy a knife. He had no strength to go down the three flights -of stairs in the cheap Brooklyn lodging house where he lay, and borrow a -knife from the landlady who came and went vaguely in the nether regions, -dim and damp and dismal. - -"Not with a knife," repeated Mr. Gooley. And a large cockroach, which -had been crawling along the footpiece of the old-fashioned wooden bed, -stopped crawling at the words as if it understood, and turned about and -looked at him. - -Mr. Gooley wondered painfully, for it was a pain even to wonder about -anything, why this cockroach should remind him of somebody who was -somehow connected with a knife, and not unpleasantly connected with a -knife. The cockroach stood up on the hindmost pair of his six legs, and -seemed to put his head on one side and motion with his front legs at Mr. -Gooley. - -"I get you," said Mr. Gooley, conscious that his mind was wandering from -the point, and willing to let it wander. "I know who you are! You were -Old Man Archibald Hammil, the hardware merchant back in Mapletown, where -I was a kid, before you dried up and turned into a cockroach." And Mr. -Gooley wept a few weak tears. For old Archibald Hammil, the village -hardware merchant, had sold him the first knife he had ever owned. -His father had taken him into Hammil's store to buy it on his seventh -birthday, for a present, and it had had a buckhorn handle and two -blades. Again he saw Old Man Hammil in his dingy brown clothes, looking -at him, with his head on one side, as this cockroach was doing. Again -he felt his father pat him on the head, and heard him say always to -remember to whittle _away_ from himself, never _toward_ himself. And he -saw himself, shy and flushed and eager, a freckle-faced boy as good and -as bad as most boys, looking up at his father and wriggling and wanting -to thank him, and not knowing how. That was nearly forty years ago--and -here he was, a failure and starving and------ - -_Why_ had he wanted a knife? Yes, he remembered now! To kill himself -with. - -"It's none of your damned business, Old Man Hammil," he said to the -cockroach, which was crawling back and forth on the footboard, and -pausing every now and then to look at him with disapproval. - -Old Man Hammil had had ropes in his store, too, and guns and pistols, -he remembered. He hadn't thought of Old Man Hammi's store in many years; -but now he saw it, and the village street outside it, and the place -where the stores left off on the street and the residences began, and -berry bushes, and orchards, and clover in the grass--the random bloom, -the little creek that bounded the town, and beyond the creek the open -country with its waving fields of oats and rye and com. His head hurt -him worse. He would go right back into Old Man Hammil's store and get a -rope or a gun and end that pain. - -But _that_ was foolish, too. There wasn't any store. There was only Old -Man Hammil here, shrunk to the size of a cockroach, in his rusty brown -suit, looking at him from the footboard of the bed and telling him in -pantomime not to kill himself. - -"I will too!" cried Mr. Gooley to Old Man Hammil. And he repeated, "It's -none of _your_ damned business!" - -But how? Not with a knife. He had none. Not with a gun. He had none. Not -with a rope. He had none. He thought of his suspenders. But they would -never hold him. - -"Too weak, even for me," muttered Mr. Gooley. "I have shrunk so I -don't weigh much more than Old Man Hammil there, but even at that those -suspenders would never do the business." - -How did people kill themselves? He must squeeze his head till the pain -let up a little, so he could think. Poison! That was it--yes, poison! -And then he cackled out a small, dry, throaty laugh, his Adam's apple -fluttering in his weazened throat under his sandy beard. Poison! He -_hadn't_ any poison. He hadn't any money with which to buy poison. - -And then began a long, broken and miserable debate within himself. If he -had money enough with which to buy poison, would he go and buy poison? -Or go and buy a bowl of soup? It was some moments before Mr. Gooley -decided. - -"I'd be game," he said. "I'd buy the soup. I'd give myself that one more -chance. I must remember while I'm killing myself, that I'm not killing -myself because I _want_ to. I'm just doing it because I've _got_ to. I'm -not romantic. I'm just all in. It's the end; that's all." - -Old Man Hammil, on the footboard of the bed, permitted himself a series -of gestures which Mr. Gooley construed as applause of this resolution. -They angered Mr. Gooley, those gestures. - -"You shut up!" he told the cockroach, although that insect had not -spoken, but only made signs. "This is none of your damned business, Old -Man Hammil!" - -Old Man Hammil, he remembered, had always been a meddlesome old -party--one of the village gossips, in fact. And that set him to thinking -of Mapletown again. - -The mill pond near the schoolhouse would soon be freezing over, and -the boys would be skating on it--it was getting into December. And they -would be going into Old Man Hammil's store for skates and straps and -heel plates and files. And he remembered his first pair of skates, and -how his father had taught him the proper way to keep them sharp with a -file. He and the old dad had always been pretty good pals, and---- - -Good God! Why _should_ he be coming back to that? And to Old Man -Hammil's store? It was that confounded cockroach there, reminding him of -Old Man Hammil, that had done it. He wanted to die decently and quietly, -and as quickly as might be, without thinking of all these things. -He didn't want to lie there and die of starvation, he wanted to kill -himself and be done with it without further misery--and it was a part -of the ridiculous futility of his life, his baffled and broken and -insignificant life, that he couldn't even kill himself competently--that -he lay there suffering and ineffectual and full of self-pity, a prey to -memories and harassing visions of the past, all mingled with youth and -innocence and love, without the means of a quick escape. It was that -damned cockroach, looking like Old Man Hammil, the village hardware -merchant, that had brought back the village and his youth to him, and -all those intolerable recollections. - -He took his dirty pillow and feebly menaced the cockroach. Feeble as the -gesture was, the insect took alarm. It disappeared from the footboard -of the bed. A minute later, however, he saw it climbing the wall. It -reached the ceiling, and crawled to the center of the room. Mr. Goo-ley -watched it. He felt as if he, too, could crawl along the ceiling. He had -the crazy notion of trying. After all, he told himself light-headedly, -Old Cockroach Hammil up there on the ceiling had been friendly--the only -friendly thing, human or otherwise, that had made overtures to him in -many, many months. And he had scared Cockroach Hammil away! He shed some -more maudlin tears. - -What was the thing doing now? He watched as the insect climbed on to -the gas pipe that came down from the ceiling. It descended the rod and -perched itself on the gas jet. From this point of vantage it began once -more to regard Mr. Gooley with a singular intentness. - -Ah! Gas! That was it! What a fool he had been not to think of it sooner! -That was the way people killed themselves! Gas! - -Mr. Gooley got himself weakly out of bed. He would get the thing over as -quickly as possible now. It would be damnably unpleasant before he lost -consciousness, no doubt, and painful. But likely not more unpleasant and -painful than his present state. And he simply could not bear any more of -those recollections, any more visions. - -He turned his back on the cockroach, which was watching him from the -gas jet, and went methodically to work. The window rattled; between the -upper and lower sashes there was a crevice a quarter of an inch wide. He -plugged it with paper. There was a break in the wall of his closet; the -plaster had fallen away, and a chink allowed the cockroaches from his -room easy access to the closet of the adjoining room. He plugged that -also, and was about to turn his attention to the keyhole, when there -came a knock on his door. - -Mr. Gooley's first thought was: "What can any one want with a dead man?" -For he looked upon himself as already dead. There came a second knock, -more peremptory than the first, and he said mechanically, "Come in!" It -would have to be postponed a few minutes, that was all. - -The door opened, and in walked his landlady. She was a tall and bulky -and worried-looking woman, who wore a faded blond wig that was always -askew, and Mr. Gooley was afraid of her. Her wig was more askew than -usual when she entered, and he gathered from this that she was angry -about something--why the devil must she intrude her trivial mundane -anger upon himself, a doomed man? It was not seemly. - -"Mr. Gooley," she began severely, without preamble, "I have always -looked on you as a gentleman." - -"Yes?" he murmured dully. - -"But you ain't," she continued. "You ain't no better than a cheat." - -He shrugged his shoulders patiently. He supposed that she was right -about it. He owed her three weeks' room rent, and he was going to die -and beat her out of it. But he couldn't help it. - -"It ain't the room rent," she went on, as if vaguely cognizant of the -general trend of his thoughts. "It ain't the room rent alone. You either -pay me that or you don't pay me that, and if you don't, out you go. But -while you are here, you must conduct yourself as a gentleman should!" - -"Well," murmured Mr. Gooley, "haven't I?" - -And the cockroach, perched on the gas jet above the landlady's head, and -apparently listening to this conversation, moved several of his legs, as -if in surprise. - -"You have not!" said the landlady, straightening her wig. - -"What have I done, Mrs. Hinkley?" asked Mr. Gooley humbly. And Old -Cockroach Hammil from his perch also made signs of inquiry. - -"What have you done! What have you done!" cried Mrs. Hinkley. "As if the -man didn't know what he had done I You've been stealin' my gas, that's -what you have been doin'--stealin', I say, and there's no other word for -it!" - -Mr. Gooley started guiltily. He had not been stealing her gas, but it -came over him with a shock for the first time that that was what he -had, in effect, been planning to do. The cockroach, as if it also felt -convicted of sin, gave the gas jet a glance of horror and moved up the -rod to the ceiling, where it continued to listen. - -"Stealin'!" repeated Mrs. Hinkley. "That's what it is, nothin' else -but stealin'. You don't ever stop to think when you use one of them gas -plates to cook in your room, Mr. Gooley--which it is expressly forbid -and agreed on that no cooking shall be done in these rooms when they're -rented to you--that it's my gas you're using, and that I have to pay for -it, and that it's just as much stealin' as if you was to put your hand -into my pocket-book and take my money!" - -"Cooking? Gas plate?" muttered Mr. Gooley. "Don't say you ain't got -one!" cried Mrs. Hinkley. "You all got 'em! Every last one of you! Don't -you try to come none of your sweet innocence dodges over me. I know -you, and the whole tribe of you! I ain't kept lodgers for thirty years -without knowing the kind of people they be! 'Gas plate! Gas plate!' says -you, as innocent as if you didn't know what a gas plate was! You got it -hid here somewheres, and I ain't going to stir from this room until I -get my hands on it and squash it under my feet! Come across with it, Mr. -Gooley, come across with it!" - -"But I _haven't_ one," said Mr. Gooley, very ill and very weary. "You -can look, if you want to." - -And he lay back upon the bed. The cockroach slyly withdrew himself from -the ceiling, came down the wall, and crawled to the foot of the bed -again. If Mrs. Hinkley noticed him, she said nothing; perhaps it was not -a part of her professional policy to draw attention to cockroaches on -the premises. She stood and regarded Mr. Gooley for some moments, while -he turned his head away from her in apathy. Her first anger seemed to -have spent itself. But finally, with a new resolution, she said: "And -look I will! You got one, or else that blondined party in the next room -has lied." - -She went into the closet and he heard her opening his trunk. She pulled -it into the bedroom and examined the interior. It didn't take long. She -dived under the bed and drew out his battered suitcase, so dilapidated -that he had not been able to get a quarter for it at the pawnshop, but -no more dilapidated than his trunk. - -She seemed struck, for the first time since her entrance, with the utter -bareness of the room. Outside of the bed, one chair, the bureau, and -Mr. Cooley's broken shoes at the foot of the bed, there was absolutely -nothing in it. - -She sat down in the chair beside the bed. "Mr. Gooley," she said, "you -_ain't_ got any gas plate." - -"No," he said. - -"Mr. Gooley," she said, "you got _nothing at all._ - -"No," he said, "nothing." - -"You had a passel of books and an overcoat five or six weeks ago," she -said, "when you come here. It was seein' them books, and knowing what -you was four or five years ago, when you lived here once before, that -made me sure you was a gentleman." - -Mr. Gooley made no reply. The cockroach on the foot of the bed also -seemed to be listening to see if Mrs. Hinkley had anything more to say, -and suspending judgment. - -"Mr. Gooley," said the landlady, "I beg your pardon. You was lied on by -one that has a gas plate herself, and when I taxed her with it, and took -it away from her, and got rid of her, she had the impudence to say she -thought it was _allowed_, and that everybody done it, and named you as -one that did." - -Mrs. Hinkley paused, but neither Mr. Gooley nor the cockroach had -anything to contribute to the conversation. - -"Gas," continued Mrs. Hinkley, "is gas. And gas costs money. I hadn't -orter jumped on you the way I did, Mr. Gooley, but gas plates has got -to be what you might call corns on my brain, Mr. Gooley. They're my -sensitive spot, Mr. Gooley. If I was to tell you the half of what I have -had to suffer from gas plates during the last thirty years, Mr. Gooley, -you wouldn't believe it! There's them that will cheat you one way and -there's them that will cheat you another, but the best of them will -cheat you with gas plates, Mr. Gooley. With the exception of yourself, -Mr. Gooley, I ain't had a lodger in thirty years that wouldn't rob me -on the gas. Some don't think it's stealin', Mr. Gooley, when they steal -gas. And some of 'em don't care if it is. But there ain't none of 'em -ever thinks what a _landlady_ goes through with, year in and year out." - -She paused for a moment, and then, overcome with self-pity, she began to -sniffle. - -"And my rent's been raised on me again, Mr. Gooley! And I'm a month -behind! And if I ain't come across with the two months, the old month -and the new, by day after to-morrow, out I goes; and it means the -poorhouse as fur as I can see, because I don't know anything else but -keeping lodgers, and I got no place to go!" - -She gathered her apron up and wiped her eyes and nose with it. The -cockroach on the footboard wiped his front set of feet across his face -sympathetically. - -"I got it all ready but fifteen dollars," continued Mrs. Hinkley, "and -then in comes the gas bill this morning with _arrears_ onto it. It is -them _arrears_, Mr. Gooley, that always knocks me out! If it wasn't for -them arrears, I could get along. And now I got to pay out part of the -rent money onto the gas bill, with them arrears on it, or the gas will -be shut off this afternoon." - -The pain in Mr. Gooley's head was getting worse. He wished she would go. -He hated hearing her troubles. But she continued: - -"It's the way them arrears come onto the bill, Mr. Gooley, that has got -me sore. About a week before you come here again to live, Mr. Gooley, -there was a fellow stole fifteen dollars worth of my gas all at once. He -went and killed himself, Mr. Gooley, and he used my gas to do it with. -It leaked out of two jets for forty-eight hours up on the top floor, -before the door was busted in and the body was found, and it came -to fifteen dollars, and all on account of that man's cussedness, Mr. -Gooley, I will likely get turned out into the street, and me sixty years -old and no place to turn." - -Mr. Gooley sat up in bed feebly and looked at her. She _was_ in real -trouble--in about as much trouble as he was. The cockroach walked -meditatively up and down the footboard, as if thinking it over very -seriously. - -Mrs. Hinkley finally rose. - -"Mr. Gooley," she said, regarding him sharply, "you look kind o' done -up!" - -"Uh-huh," said Mr. Gooley. - -She lingered in the room for a few seconds more, irresolutely, and then -departed. - -Mr. Gooley thought. Gas was barred to him now. He couldn't bring himself -to do it with gas. There was still a chance that the old woman might -get hold of the gas money and the rent money, too, and go on for a few -years, but if he selfishly stole twelve or fifteen dollars' worth of gas -from her this afternoon it might be just the thing that would plunge her -into immediate destitution. At any rate, it was, as she had said, like -stealing money from her pocketbook. He thought of what her life as a -rooming-house keeper must have been, and pitied her. He had known many -rooming houses. The down-and-outers know how to gauge the reality and -poignancy of the troubles of the down-and-out. No, he simply could not -do it with gas. - -He must think of some other method. He was on the fourth floor. He might -throw himself out of the window onto the brick walk at the back of the -building, and die. He shuddered as he thought of it. To jump from a -twentieth story, or from the top of the Woolworth Tower, to a certain -death is one thing. To contemplate a fall of three or four stories that -may maim you without killing you, is another. - -Nevertheless, he would do it. He pulled the paper out of the crevice -between the window sashes, opened the window and looked down. He saw the -back stoop and there was a dirty mop beside it; there was an ash can, -and there were two garbage cans there. And there was a starved cat that -sat and looked up at him. He had a tremor and drew back and covered his -face with his hands as he thought of that cat--that knowing cat, that -loathsome, that obscene cat. - -He sat down on the edge of the bed to collect his strength and summon -his resolution. The cockroach had crawled to the head of the bed and -seemed to wish to partake of his thoughts. - -"Damn you, Old Archibald Hammil!" he cried. And he scooped the cockroach -into his hand with a sudden sweep and flung it out of the window. The -insect fell without perceptible discomfort, and at once began to climb -up the outside wall again, making for the window. - -The door opened and Mrs. Hinkley entered, her face cleft with a grin, -and a tray in her hands. - -"Mr. Gooley," she said, setting it on the wash-stand, "I'll bet you -ain't had nothing to eat today!" - -On the tray was a bowl of soup, a half loaf of bread with a long keen -bread knife, a pat of butter, a boiled egg and a cup of coffee. - -"No, nor yesterday, either," said Mr. Gooley, and he looked at the soup -and at the long keen bread knife. - -"Here's something else I want to show you, Mr. Gooley," said the -landlady, dodging out of the door and back in again instantly. She bore -in her hands this time a surprising length of flexible gas tubing, and a -small nickel-plated pearl-handled revolver. - -"You see that there gas tubing?" she said. - -"That is what that blondined party in the next room had on to her gas -plate--the nerve of her! Strung from the gas jet clear across the room -to the window sill. And when I throwed her out, Mr. Gooley, she wouldn't -pay her rent, and I took this here revolver to part pay it. What kind of -a woman is it, Mr. Gooley, that has a revolver in her room, and a loaded -one, too?" - -Just then the doorbell rang in the dim lower regions, and she left the -room to answer it. - -And Mr. Gooley sat and looked at the knife, with which he might so -easily stab himself, and at the gas cord, with which he might so easily -hang himself, and at the loaded revolver, with which he might so easily -shoot himself. - -He looked also at the bowl of soup. - -He had the strength to reflect--a meal is a meal. But _after_ that meal, -what? Penniless, broken in health, friendless, a failure--why prolong it -for another twenty-four hours? A meal would prolong it, but that was -all a meal _would_ do--and after that would come the suffering and the -despair and the end to be faced all over again. - -Was he man enough to take the pistol and do it now? - -Or did true manhood lie the other way? Was he man enough to drink the -soup, and dare to live and hope? - -Just then the cockroach, which had climbed into the window and upon the -washstand, made for the bowl of soup. - -"Here!" cried Mr. Gooley, grabbing the bowl in both hands, "Old Man -Hammil! Get away from that soup!" - -And the bowl being in his hands, he drank. - -"What do you mean by Old Man Hammil?" - -It was Mrs. Hinkley who spoke. She stood again in the doorway, with a -letter in her hands and a look of wonder on her face. - -Mr. Gooley set down the soup bowl. By an effort of the will he had -only drunk half the liquid. He had heard somewhere that those who are -suffering from starvation had better go slow at first when they get hold -of food again. And he already felt better, warmed and resurrected, from -the first gulp. - -"What," demanded the landlady, "do you mean by yelling out about Old Man -Hammil?" - -"Why," said Mr. Gooley, feeling foolish, and looking it, "I was talking -to that cockroach there. He looks sort of like some one I knew when I -was a kid, by the name of Hammil--Archibald Hammil." - -"_Where_ was you a kid?" asked Mrs. Hinkley. - -"In a place called Mapletown--Mapletown, Illinois," said Mr. Gooley. -"There's where I knew Old Man Hammil." - -"Well," said the landlady, "when you go back there you won't see him. -He's dead. He died a week ago. This letter tells it. I was his niece. -And the old man went and left me his hardware store. I never expected -it. But all his kids is dead--it seems he outlived 'em all, and he was -nearly ninety when he passed away." - -"Well," said Mr. Gooley, "I don't remember you." - -"You wouldn't," said the landlady. "You must have been in short pants -when I ran away from home and married the hardware drummer. But I'll bet -you the old-timers in that burg still remembers it against me!" - -"The kids will be coming into that store about now to get their skates -sharpened," said Mr. Gooley, looking at the boiled egg. - -"Uh-huh!" said Mrs. Hinkley. "Don't you want to go back home and help -sharpen 'em? I'm goin' back and run that there store, and I'll need a -clerk, I suppose." - -"Uh-huh," said Mr. Gooley, breaking the eggshell. - -The cockroach, busy with a crumb on the floor, waved his three starboard -legs genially at Mr. Gooley and Mrs. Hinkley--as if, in fact, he were -winking with his feet. - - - - -IV.--McDermott - -|McDermott had gone over with a cargo of mules. The animals were -disembarked at a Channel port, received by officers of that grand -organization which guesses right so frequently, the Quartermaster Corps, -and started in a southerly direction, in carload lots, toward the Toul -sector of the Western Front. McDermott went with one of the carloads -in an unofficial capacity. He had no business in the war zone. But the -Quartermaster Corps, or that part of it in charge of his particular car, -was in no mood to be harsh toward any one who seemed to understand the -wants and humors of mules and who was willing to associate with them. -And so, with his blue overalls and his red beard, McDermott went along. - -"I'll have a look at the war," said McDermott, "and if I like it, I'll -jine it." - -"And if you don't like it," said the teamster to whom he confided his -intention, "I reckon you'll stop it?" - -"I dunno," replied McDermott, "as I would be justified in stoppin' a -good war. The McDermotts has niver been great hands f'r stoppin' wars. -The McDermotts is always more like to be startin' wars." - -McDermott got a look at the war sooner than any one, including the high -command of the Entente Allies, would have thought likely--or, rather, -the war got a look at McDermott. The carload of mules, separated from -its right and proper train, got too far eastward at just the time -the Germans got too far westward. It was in April, 1918, that, having -entered Hazebrouck from the north, McDermott and his mules left it -again, bound eastward. They passed through a turmoil of guns and -lorries, Scotchmen and ambulances, Englishmen, tanks and ammunition -wagons, Irishmen, colonials and field kitchens, all moving slowly -eastward, and came to a halt at a little village where they should not -have been at all, halfway between the northern rim of the forest of -Nieppe and Bailleul. - -The mules did not stay there long. - -"I'll stretch me legs a bit," said McDermott, climbing off the car -and strolling toward a Grande Place surrounded by sixteenth-century -architecture. And just then something passed over the Renaissance roofs -with the scream of one of Dante's devils, struck McDermott's car of -mules with a great noise and a burst of flame, and straightway created a -situation in which there was neither car nor mules. - -For a minute it seemed to McDermott that possibly there was no -McDermott, either. When McDermott regained consciousness of McDermott, -he was sitting on the ground, and he sat there and felt of himself for -many seconds before he spoke or rose. Great guns he had been hearing for -hours, and a rattle and roll of small-arms fire had been getting nearer -all that day; but it seemed to McDermott that there was something quite -vicious and personal about the big shell that had separated him forever -from his mules. Not that he had loved the mules, but he loved McDermott. - -"Mules," said he, still sitting on the ground, but trying to get his -philosophy of life on to its legs again, "is here wan minute an' gawn -the nixt. Mules is fickle an' untrustworthy animals. Here was thim -mules, wigglin' their long ears and arsk-in' f'r Gawd's sake c'u'd they -have a dhrink of wather, an' promisin' a lifelong friendship--but where -is thim mules now?" - -He scratched his red head as he spoke, feeling-of an old scar under the -thick thatch of hair. The wound had been made some years previously -with a bung starter, and whenever McDermott was agitated he caressed it -tenderly. - -He got up, turned about and regarded the extraordinary Grande Place. -There had once been several pretty little shops about it, he could see, -with pleasant courtyards, where the April sun was trying to bring green -things into life again, but now some of these were in newly made and -smoking ruins. The shell that had stricken McDermott's mules from the -roster of existence had not been the only one to fall into the village -recently. - -But it was neither old ruins nor new ruins that interested McDermott -chiefly. It was the humanity that flowed through the Grande Place in a -feeble trickle westward, and the humanity that stayed there. - -Women and old men went by with household treasures slung in bundles or -pushed before them in carts and perambulators, and they were wearing -their best clothes, as if they were going to some village fete, instead -of into desolation and homelessness; the children whom they carried, or -who straggled after them, were also in their holiday best. Here was an -ancient peasant with a coop of skinny chickens on a barrow; there was a -girl in a silk gown carrying something in a bed quilt; yonder was a boy -of twelve on a bicycle, and two things were tied to the handlebars--a -loaf of bread and a soldier's bayonet. Perhaps it had been his father's -bayonet. Quietly they went westward; their lips were dumb and their -faces showed their souls were dumb, too. A long time they had heard the -battle growling to the eastward; and now the war was upon them. It was -upon them, indeed; for as McDermott gazed, another shell struck full -upon a bell-shaped tower that stood at the north side of the Grande -Place and it leaped up in flames and fell in dust and ruin, all gone but -one irregular point of masonry that still stuck out like a snaggle tooth -from a trampled skull. - -These were the ones that were going, and almost the last of the -dreary pageant disappeared as McDermott watched. But those who stayed -astonished him even more by their strange actions and uncouth postures. - -"Don't tell me," mumbled McDermott, rubbing his scar, "that all thim -sojers is aslape!" - -But asleep they were. To the east and to the north the world was one rip -and rat-a-tat of rifle and machine-gun fire--how near, McDermott could -not guess--and over the village whined and droned the shells, of -great or lesser caliber; here was one gate to a hell of noise, and the -buildings stirred and the budding vines in the courtyards moved and -the dust itself was agitated with the breath and blast of far and near -concussions; but yet the big open Place itself was held in the grip of a -grotesque and incredible slumber. - -Sprawled in the gutters, collapsed across the doorsills, leaning against -the walls, slept that portion of the British army; slept strangely, -without snoring. In the middle of the Grande Place there was a young -lieutenant bending forward across the wreck of a motor car; he had tried -to pluck forth a basket from the tonneau and sleep had touched him with -his fingers on the handle. And from the eastern fringes of the village -there entered the square, as actors enter upon a stage, a group of -a dozen men, with their arms linked together, swaying and dazed and -stumbling. At first McDermott thought that wounded were being helped -from the field. But these men were not wounded; they were walking in -their sleep, and the group fell apart, as McDermott looked at them, and -sank severally to the cobblestones. Scotchmen, Canadians, English, torn -and battered remnants of many different commands, they had striven with -their guns and bodies for more than a week to dam the vast, rising wave -of the German attack--day melting into night and night burning into day -again, till there was no such thing as time to them any longer; there -were but two things in the world, battle and weariness, weariness and -battle. - -McDermott moved across the square unchallenged. He had eaten and slept -but little for two days himself, and he made instinctively for the open -door of an empty inn, to search for food. In the doorway he stumbled -across a lad who roused and spoke to him. - -"Jack," said the boy, looking at him with red eyes out of an old, worn -face, "have you got the makin's?" - -He was in a ragged and muddied Canadian uniform, but McDermott guessed -that he was an American. - -"I have that," said McDermott, producing papers and tobacco. But the boy -had lapsed into slumber again. McDermott rolled the cigarette for him, -placed it between his lips, waked him and lighted it for him. - -The boy took a puff or two, and then said dreamily: "And what the hell -are you doin' here with them blue overalls on?" - -"I come to look at the war," said McDermott. - -The soldier glanced around the Grande Place, and a gleam of deviltry -flashed through his utter exhaustion. "So you come to see the war, huh? -Well, don't you wake it now. It's restin'. But if you'll take a chair -and set down, I'll have it--called--for--you--in--in--in 'n 'our--or -so------" - -His voice tailed off into sleep once more; he mangled the cigarette, the -tobacco mingling with the scraggly beard about his drawn mouth; his head -fell forward upon his chest. McDermott stepped past him into the Hotel -Faucon, as the inn had called itself. He found no food, but he found -liquor there. - -"Frinch booze," said McDermott, getting the cork out of a bottle of -brandy and sniffing it; "but booze is booze!" - -And more booze is more booze, especially upon an empty stomach. It was -after the fourth drink that McDermott pulled his chair up to one of the -open windows of the inn and sat down, with the brandy beside him. - -"I'm neglictin' that war I come all this way to see," said McDermott. - -The Grande Place, still shaken by the tremendous and unceasing -pulsations of battle, far and near, was beginning to wake up. A fresh, -or, at least, a fresher, battalion was arriving over the spur line of -railroad along which McDermott's mules had been so mistakenly shunted, -and was moving eastward through the town to the firing line. The men -whom McDermott had seen asleep were rising at the word of command; -taking their weapons, falling in, and staggering back to the -interminable battle once more. - -"I dunno," mused McDermott, as the tired men straggled past, "whether I -want to be afther j'inin' that war or not. It makes all thim lads that -slapey! I dunno phwat the devil it is, the Frinch booze bein' so close -to me, inside, or that war so close to me, outside, but I'm gittin' -slapey m'silf." - -It was, likely, the brandy. There had not been a great deal of French -brandy in McDermott's previous experience, and he did not stint himself. -It was somewhere between the ninth and the fifteenth swallows of it that -McDermott remarked to himself, rubbing the scar on his head: - -"I w'u'd jine that war now, if I c'u'd be sure which way it had wint!" - -And then he slid gently out of his chair and went to sleep on the floor -just inside the open window of the Hotel Faucon. - -The war crept closer and took another look at McDermott. As the warm -golden afternoon waned, the British troops, fighting like fiends for -every inch of ground, exacting a ghastly toll of lives from the Germans, -were forced back into the eastern outskirts of the town. There, with -rifle and machine gun, from walls, trees, courtyards, roofs and ruins, -they held the advancing Germans for an hour. But they were pushed back -again, doggedly establishing themselves in the houses of the Grande -Place. Neither British nor Germans were dropping shells into that -village now, each side fearful of damaging its own men. - -A British subaltern with a machine gun and two private soldiers entered -the inn and were setting the gun up at McDermott's window when a -German bullet struck the officer and he fell dead across the slumbering -McDermott. Nevertheless, the gun was manned and fought for half an hour -above McDermott, who stirred now and then, but did not waken. Just at -dusk an Irish battalion struck the Germans on the right flank of their -assaulting force, a half mile to the north of the village, rolled them -back temporarily, and cleared the village of them. This counter attack -took the firing line a good thousand yards eastward once more. - -McDermott roused, crawled from beneath the body of the British officer, -and viewed it with surprise. "That war has been here ag'in an' me -aslape," said McDermott. "I might jine that war if I c'u'd ketch up wid -it--but 'tis here, 'tis there, 'tis gawn ag'in! An' how c'u'd I jine it -wid no weapons, not even a good thick club to m' hands?" - -He foraged and found a piece of sausage that he had overlooked in his -former search, ate it greedily and then stood in the doorway, listening -to the sound of the firing. It was getting dark and northward toward -Messines and Wytschaete and southward for more miles than he could guess -the lightning of big guns flickered along the sky. - -"Anny way I w'u'd go," mused McDermott, "I w'u'd run into that war if I -was thryin' to dodge ut. And anny wray I w'u'd go, I w'u'd miss that war -if I was thryin' to come up wid ut. An' till I make up me mind which wan -I want to do, here will I sthay." - -He opened another bottle of brandy, and drank and cogitated. Whether it -was the cogitation or the drinks or the effect of the racket of war, his -head began to ache dully. When McDermott's scar ached, it was his custom -to take another drink. After a while there came a stage at which, if it -still ached, he at least ceased to feel it aching any more. - -"The hotel here," he remarked, "is filled wid hospitality and midical -tratement, and where bet-ther c'u'd I be?" - -And presently, once more, a deep sleep overtook him. A deeper, more -profound sleep, indeed, than his former one. And this time the war came -still nearer to McDermott. - -The British were driven back again and again occupied the town, the -Germans in close pursuit. From house to house and from wall to wall -the struggle went on, with grenade, rifle and bayonet. A German, with -a Scotchman's steel in his chest, fell screaming, back through the open -window, and his blood as he died soaked McDermott's feet. But McDermott -slept. Full night came, thick and cloudy, and both sides sent up -floating flares. The square was strewn with the bodies of the dead and -the bodies of the maimed in increasing numbers; the wounded groaned and -whimpered in the shadows of the trampled Place, crawling, if they still -could crawl, to whatever bit of broken wall seemed to offer momentary -shelter and praying for the stretcher bearers to be speedy. But still -McDermott slept. - -At ten o'clock that night two Englishmen once more brought a machine gun -into the Hotel Faucon; they worked the weapon for twenty minutes from -the window within ten feet of which McDermott now lay with his brandy -bottle beside him. Once McDermott stirred; he sat up sleepily on the -floor and murmured: "An' where is that war now? Begad, an' I don't -belave there is anny war!" - -And he rolled over and went to sleep again. The men with the machine gun -did not notice him; they were too busy. A moment later one of them sank -with a bullet through his heart. His comrade lasted a little longer, and -then he, too, went down, a wound in his lungs. It took him some weary -minutes to choke and bleed to death, there in that dark place, upon the -floor, among the dead men and McDermott's brandy bottles and the heap -of ammunition he had brought with him. Hist struggle did not wake -McDermott. - -By midnight the British had been driven back until they held the houses -at the west end of the town and the end of the spur railroad that came -eastward from Hazebrouck. The Germans were in the eastern part of the -village, and between was a "no man's land," of which the Grande Place -was a part. What was left of the Hotel Faucon, with the sleeping -McDermott in it, was toward the middle of the south side of the square. -In the streets to the north and south of the Place patrols still clashed -with grenade and bayonet and rifle, but the Germans attempted no further -advance in any force after midnight. No doubt they were bringing up more -men; no doubt, with the first morning light, they would move forward a -regiment or two, possibly even a division, against the British who -still clung stubbornly to the western side of the town. All the way from -Wytschaete south to Givenchy the battle-line was broken up into many -little bitter struggles of this sort, the British at every point facing -great odds. - -When dawn came, there came with it a mist. And three men of a German -patrol, creeping from house to house and ruin to ruin along the south -side of that part of "no man's land" which was the Grande Place, entered -the open door of the Hotel Faucon. - -One of them stepped upon McDermott's stomach, where he lay sleeping and -dreaming of the war he had come to look at. - -McDermott, when he had been drinking, was often cross. And especially -was he cross if, when sleeping off his liquor, some one purposely or -inadvertently interfered with his rightful and legitimate rest. When -this coarse and heavy-footed intruder set his boot, albeit unwittingly, -upon McDermott's stomach, McDermott sat up with a bellow of rage, -instinctively and instantaneously grabbed the leg attached to the boot, -rose as burning rocks rise from a volcano, with the leg in his hands, -upset the man attached to the leg, and jumped with two large feet -accurately upon the back of that person's neck. Whereupon the Boche went -to Valhalla. McDermott, though nearer fifty than forty years old, was a -barroom fighter of wonderful speed and technique, and this instinctive -and spontaneous maneuver was all one motion, just as it is all one -motion when a cat in a cellar leaps over a sack of potatoes, lands upon -a rat, and sinks her teeth into a vital spot. The second German and -the third German hung back an instant toward the door, and then came -on toward the moving shadow in the midst of shadows. For their own good -they should have come on without hanging back that second; but perhaps -their training, otherwise so efficient, did not include barroom tactics. -Their hesitation gave McDermott just the time he needed, for when he -faced them he had the first German's gun in his hands. - -"No war," said McDermott, "can come into me slapin' chamber and stand on -me stomach like that, and expict me to take it peaceful!" - -With the words he fired the first German's rifle into the second -German. The third German, to the rear of the second one, fired his gun -simultaneously, but perhaps he was a hit flurried, for he also fired -directly into the second German, and there was nothing the second German -could do but die; which he did at once. McDermott leaped at the third -German with his rifle clubbed just as the man pressed the trigger again. -The bullet struck McDermott's rifle, splintered the butt of it and -knocked it from his hands; but a second later McDermott's hands were on -the barrel of the German's gun and the two of them were struggling for -it. - -There is one defect in the German military system, observers say: the -drill masters do not teach their men independent thinking; perhaps the -drill-masters do not have the most promising material to work upon. -At any rate, it occurred to McDermott to kick the third German in the -stomach while the third German was still thinking of nothing else than -trying to depress the gun to shoot or bayonet McDermott. Thought and -kick were as well coordinated as if they had proceeded from one of -McDermott's late mules. - -The Boche went to the floor of the Hotel Faucon with a groan. "Gott!" he -said. - -"A stomach f'r a stomach," said Mc-Dermott, standing over him with the -rifle. "Git up!" - -The German painfully arose. - -"Ye are me prisoner," said McDermott, "an' the furst wan I iver took. -Hould up y'r hands! Hould thim up, I say! Not over y'r stomach, man, but -over y'r head!" - -The Boche complied hurriedly. - -"I see ye understhand United States," said McDermott. "I was afraid ye -might not, an' I w'u'd have to shoot ye." - -"_Kamerad!_" exclaimed the man. - -"Ye are no comrade av mine," said McDermott, peering at the man's face -through the eery halflight of early morning, "an' comrade av mine ye -niver was! I know ye well! Ye are Goostave Schmidt b' name, an' wanst ye -tinded bar in a dive down b' the Brooklyn wather front!" - -The man stared at McDermott in silence for a long minute, and then -recollection slowly came to him. - -"MagDermodd!" he said. "Batrick MagDermodd!" - -"The same," said McDermott. - -"_Gott sei dank!_" said the German. "I haf fallen into der hands of -a friend." And with the beginning of a smile he started to lower his -hands. - -"Put thim up!" cried McDermott. "Don't desave y'silf! Ye are no fri'nd -av mine!" - -The smile faded, and something like a look of panic took its place on -the German's face. - -"Th' last time I saw ye, ye was in bad company, f'r ye was alone," said -McDermott. "An' I come over here lookin' f'r ye, an' I find ye in bad -company ag'in!" - -"Looking?" said the German with quite sincere perplexity. "You gome here -_looking_ for me?" - -The wonder on the man's face at this unpremeditated jest of his having -crossed the Atlantic especially to look for Gustave Schmidt titillated -McDermott's whole being. But he did not laugh, and he let the German -wonder. "And phwy sh'u'd I not?" he said. - -The German thought intensely for a while. "Why _should_ you gome all der -vay agross der Adlandic looking for _me?_" he said finally. - -"Ye have a short mimory," said McDermott. "Ye do not recollict the time -ye hit me on the head wid a bung starter whin I was too soused to defind -m'silf? The scar is there yet, bad luck to ye!" - -"But dot was nudding," said the German. "Dot bung-starder business was -all a bart of der day's vork." - -"But ye cript up behint me," said McDermott; "an' me soused!" - -"But dot was der bractical vay to do it," said the German. "Dot was -nuddings at all, dot bung-starder business. I haf forgodden it long -ago!" - -"The McDermotts remimber thim compliments longer," said McDermott. "An' -b' rights I sh'u'd give ye wan good clout wid this gun and be done wid -ye. But I'm thinkin' I may be usin' ye otherwise." - -"You gome all der vay agross der Adlandic yoost because I hit you on der -head mit a bung starder?" persisted the German, still wondering. "Dot, -MagDermodd, I cannot belief--_Nein!_" - -"And ye tore up y'r citizenship papers and come all the way across -the Atlantic just to jine this gang av murtherin' child-killers," said -McDermott. "That I c'n belave! Yis!" - -"But I haf not dorn up my American cidizen papers--_Nein!_" exclaimed -the German, earnestly. "Dose I haf kept. I gome across to fight for mein -Faderland--dot vas orders. _Ja!_ But mein American cidizenship papers I -haf kept, and ven der war is ofer I shall go back to Brooklyn and once -more an American citizen be, undill der next war. _Ja!_ You haf not -understood, but dot is der vay of it. _Ja!_" - -"Goostave," said McDermott, "ye have too many countries workin' f'r ye. -But y'r takin' ordhers from m'silf now--do ye get that? C'n ye play that -musical insthrumint there by the window?" - -"_Ja!_" said Gustave. "Dot gun I can vork. Dot is der Lewis machine gun. -Id is not so good a gun as our machine gun, for our machine gun haf been -a colossal sugcess, but id is a goot gun." - -"Ye been fightin' f'r the Kaiser f'r three or four years, Goostave," -said McDermott, menacing him with his rifle, "but this mornin' I'll be -afther seein' that ye do a bit av work f'r thim citizenship papers, an', -later, ye can go to hell, if ye like, an' naturalize y'rsilf in still a -third country. Ye will shoot Germans wid that gun till I get the hang -av the mechanism m'silf. And thin I will shoot Germans wid that gun. But -furst, ye will give me that fancy tin soup-bowl ye're wearin'." - -Gustave handed over his helmet. McDermott put it on his red head. - -"I've been thinkin'," said McDermott, "will I jine this war, or will I -not jine it. An' the only way ye c'n tell do ye like a thing or do ye -not is to thry it wance. Wid y'r assistance, Goostave, I'll thry it this -mornin', if anny more av it comes my way." - -More of it was coming his way. The Germans, tired of trifling with the -small British force which held the village, had brought up the better -part of a division during the night and were marshaling the troops for -their favorite feat of arms, an overwhelming frontal attack _en masse_. -The British had likewise received reinforcements, drawing from the north -and from the south every man the hard-pressed lines could spare. But -they were not many, perhaps some three thousand men in all, to resist -the massed assault, with the railroad for its objective, which would -surely come with dawn. If troops were needed in the village they were -no less needed on the lines that flanked it. The little town, which -had been the scene of so much desperate skirmishing the day before and -during the first half of the night, was now about to become the ground -of something like a battle. - -"There's a French division on the way," said the British colonel in -command in the village to one of his captains. "If we can only hold them -for an hour----" - -He did not finish the sentence. As he spoke the German bombardment, -precedent to the infantry attack, began to comb the western fringes -of the town and the railroad line behind, searching for the -hurriedly-digged and shallow trenches, the improvised dugouts, the -shell holes, the cellars and the embankments where the British lay. The -British guns to the rear of the village made answer, and the uproar tore -the mists of dawn to tatters. A shell fell short, into the middle of the -Grande Place, and McDermott saw the broken motor car against which the -sleeping lieutenant had leaned the day before vanish into nothingness; -and then a house directly opposite the Hotel Faucon jumped into flame -and was no more. Looking out across the back of the stooping Gustave at -the window, McDermott muttered, "I dunno as I w'u'd want to jine that -war." And then he bellowed in Gustave Schmidt's ear: "Cut loose! Cut -loose wid y'rgun! Cut loose!" - -"I vill not!" shrieked Gustave. "Mein Gott! Dat is mein own regiment!" - -"Ye lie!" shouted McDermott. "Ye will!" He thrust a bit of bayonet into -the fleshiest part of the German's back. - -"I vill! I vill!" cried Gustave. - -"Ye will that," said McDermott, "an' the less damned nonsinse I hear -from ye about y'r own rigimint the betther f'r ye! Ye're undher me -own ordhers till I c'n make up me mind about this war." The mists were -rising. In the clearing daylight at the eastern end of the square, as if -other clouds were moving forward with a solid front, appeared the first -gray wave of the German infantry. Close packed, shoulder to shoulder, -three deep, they came, almost filling the space from side to side of the -Grande Place, moving across that open stretch against the British fire -with a certain heavy-footed and heavy-brained contempt of everything -before them. Ten steps, and the British machine guns and rifles caught -them. The first wave, or half of it, went down in a long writhing -windrow, across the east end of the square, and in the instant that he -saw it squirm and toss before the trampling second wave swept over it -and through it, the twisting gray-clad figures on the stones reminded -McDermott of the heaps of heaving worms he used to see at the bottom of -his bait-can when he went fishing as a boy. - -"Hold that nozzle lower, Goostave!" he yelled to his captive. "Spray -thim! Spray thim! Ye're shootin' over their heads, ye lumberin' -Dutchman, ye!" - -"_Gott!_" cried Gustave, as another jab of the bayonet urged him to his -uncongenial task. - -And then McDermott made one of the few errors of his military career. -Whether it was the French brandy he had drunk to excess the night -before, or whether it was the old bung-starter wound on his head, which -always throbbed and jumped when he became excited, his judgment deserted -him for an instant. For one instant he forgot that there must be no -instants free from the immediate occupation of guiding and directing -Gustave. - -"Let me see if I can't work that gun m'self," he cried. - -As he relaxed his vigilance, pushing the German to one side, the Boche -suddenly struck him upon the jaw. McDermott reeled and dropped his -rifle; before he could recover himself, the German had it. The weapon -swung upward in the air and--just then a shell burst outside the open -window of the Hotel Faucon. - -Both men were flung from their feet by the concussion. For a moment -everything was blank to McDermott. And then, stretching out his hand to -rise, his fingers encountered something smooth and hard upon the floor. -Automatically his grasp closed over it and he rose. At the same instant -the German struggled to his feet, one hand behind his back, and the -other extended, as if in entreaty. - -"_Kamerad_," he whined, and even as he whined he lurched nearer and -flung at McDermott a jagged, broken bottle. McDermott ducked, and -the dagger-like glass splintered on his helmet. And then McDermott -struck--once. Once was enough. The Boche sank to the floor without a -groan, lifeless. McDermott looked at him, and then, for the first time, -looked at what he held in his own hand, the weighty thing which he had -wielded so instinctively and with such ferocity. It was the bung starter -of the Hotel Faucon. - -"Goostave niver knowed what hit him," said McDermott. And if there had -been any one to hear, in all that din, a note of regret that Gustave -never knew might have been remarked in his voice. - -McDermott turned his attention to the machine gun, which, with its -tripod, had been knocked to the floor. He squatted, with his head below -the level of the window sill, and looked it over. - -"'Tis not broken," he decided, after some moments of examination. "Did -Goostave do it so? Or did he do it so?" He removed his helmet and rubbed -the scar under his red hair reflectively. "If I was to make up me mind -to jine that war," mused McDermott, "this same w'u'd be a handy thing to -take wid me. It w'u'd that! Now, did that Goostave that used to be here -pull this pretty little thingumajig so? Or did he pull it so? Ihaveut! -He pulled it so! And thim ca'tridges, now--do they feed in so? Or do -they feed in so? 'T w'u'd be a handy thing, now, f'r a man that had anny -intintions av jinin' the war to know about all thim things!" - -And, patiently, McDermott studied the mechanism, while the red sunlight -turned to yellow in the Grande Place outside, and the budding green -vines withered along the broken walls, and the stones ran blood, and the -Hotel Faucon began to fall to pieces about his ears. McDermott did not -hurry; he felt that there was no need to hurry; he had not yet made up -his mind whether he intended to participate in this war. By the time he -had learned how to work that machine gun, and had used it on the Germans -for a while, he thought, he might be vouchsafed some light on that -particular subject. It was one of McDermott's fixed beliefs that he -was an extremely cautious sort of man, though many of his acquaintances -thought of him differently, and he told himself that he must not get too -far into this war until he was sure that it was going to be congenial. -So far, it promised well. - -And also, McDermott, as he puzzled over the machine gun, was not quite -the normal McDermott. He was, rather, a supernormal McDermott. He had -been awakened rudely from an alcoholic slumber and he had been rather -busy ever since; so many things had taken place in his immediate -neighborhood, and were still taking place, that he was not quite sure -of their reality. As he sat on the floor and studied the weapon, he was -actually, from moment to moment, more than half convinced that he was -dreaming--he might awaken and find that that war had eluded him again. -Perhaps he is scarcely to be chided for being in what is sometimes known -as a state of mind. - -And while McDermott was looking at the machine gun, the British -commander prayed, as a greater British commander before him had prayed -one time, for assistance, only this one did not pray for night or -Blucher as Wellington had done. Night was many hours beyond all -hope and would probably bring its own hell when it came, and as for -Prussians, there were too many Prussians now. His men would hold on; -they had been holding on for epic days and unbelievable nights, and they -would still hold while there was breath in their bodies, and when their -bodies were breathless they would hold one minute more. But--God! For -Foch's _poilus!_ There is a moment which is the ultimate moment; the -spirit can drag the body until--until spirit and body are wrenched into -two things. No longer. His men could die in their tracks; they were -dying where they stood and crouched and lay, by dozens and by scores and -by heroic hundreds--but when they were dead, who would bar the way to -Hazebrouck, and beyond Hazebrouck, to the channel ports? - -That way was all but open now, if the enemy but realized it. Any moment -they might discover it. A half-mile to the south of the village the line -was so thinly held that one strong, quick thrust must make a gap. Let -the enemy but fling a third of the troops he was pounding to pieces in -the bloody streets of the town, in the torn fields that flanked it, and -in the shambles of the Grande Place that was the center of this action, -at that weak spot, and all was over. But with a fury mechanical, -insensate, the Germans still came on in direct frontal attacks. - -The British had slain and slain and slain, firing into the gray masses -until the water boiled in the jackets of the machine guns. Five attacks -had broken down in the Grande Place itself--and now a sixth was forming. -Should he still hold fast, the colonel asked himself, or should he -retire, saving what machine guns he might, and flinging a desperate -detachment southward in the attempt to make a stronger right flank? But -to do that might be the very move that would awaken the Germans to their -opportunity there. So long as they pounded, pounded at his center, he -would take a toll of them, at least--but the moment was coming-- - -"I have ut!" cried McDermott, and mounted his gun at the window. - -"It is time to retire," said the British colonel, and was about to give -the order. - -"Right in their bloody backs," said McDermott to himself. - -And so it was. For the sixth advance of the German masses had carried -them well into the Grande Place. McDermott, crouched at his window, cut -loose with his gun at pointblank range as the first wave, five men deep, -passed by him, splashing along the thick ranks from behind as one might -sweep a garden hose down a row of vegetables. Taken thus in the rear, -ambushed, with no knowledge of the strength of the attacking force -behind them, the German shock troops swayed and staggered, faced about -and fell and broke. For right into the milling herd of them, and -into the second advancing wave, the British poured their bullets. The -colonel, who had been about to order a retreat, ordered a charge, -and before the stampeded remnant of the first two waves could recover -themselves the British were on them with grenades and bayonets, flinging -them back into the third wave, just advancing to their support, in a -bleeding huddle of defeat. - -McDermott saw the beginning of that charge, and with his bung starter in -his hand he rushed from the door to join it. But he did not see the -end of it, nor did he see the _poilus_, as they came slouching into the -village five minutes later to give the repulse weight and confirmation, -redolent of onions and strange stews, but with their bayonets--those -bayonets that are part of the men who wield them, living things, -instinct with the beautiful, straight, keen soul of France herself. - -McDermott did not see them, for some more of the Hotel Faucon had fallen -on him, crushing one of his ankles and giving him a clout on the head. - -"Whoever it was turned loose that machine gun from the inn window, did -the trick," said the colonel, later. "It's hardly too much to say that -he blocked the way to Hazebrouck--for the time, at least, if one man can -be said to have done such a thing--what's that?" - -"That" was McDermott, who was being carried forth, unconscious, to an -ambulance. It was his blue overalls that had occasioned the colonel's -surprise. He was neither French nor British nor German; palpably he was -a civilian, and a civilian who had no business there. And in his hand he -clasped a bung starter. His fingers were closed over it so tightly that -in the base hospital later they found difficulty in taking it away from -him. - -Owing, no doubt, to the blow on his head, McDermott was unable to recall -clearly anything that had taken place from the moment he had first -fallen asleep under the influence of French brandy until he awakened in -the hospital nearly four weeks later. During this period there had been -several intervals of more open-eyed dreaming, succeeded by lapses into -profound stupor; but even in these open-eyed intervals, McDermott -had not been himself. It was during one of these intervals that a -representative of the French Government bestowed the Croix de Guerre -upon McDermott, for it had been learned that he was the man behind the -machine gun that had turned the tide of combat. - -McDermott, his eyes open, but his mind in too much of a daze even to -wonder what the ceremony was about, sat in a wheel chair, and in company -with half a dozen other men selected for decoration, listened to a brief -oration in very good French, which he could not have understood had he -been normal. In answer he muttered in a low tone, rubbing his broken and -bandaged head: "I think maybe I will jine that war, afther all!" - -The French officer assumed that McDermott had spoken some sort of -compliment to France and kissed McDermott on both cheeks, in front -of the hospital staff, several American reporters, and as much of the -French army as qould be spared to do honor to the occasion. The _Croix -de Guerre_ made no impression upon McDermott, but the kiss briefly -arrested his wandering consciousness, and he cried out, starting up in -his chair and menacing the officer: "Where is me bung starter?" Then he -fainted. - -A good many thousands of people in France and England and America -learned from the newspapers the story of the nondescript in the blue -overalls, who had behaved so gallantly at the crucial moment of a -crucial fight. But McDermott never did. He seldom read newspapers. No -one had been able to learn his name, so the reporters had given him a -name. They called him "Dennis." And it was "Dennis" who got the fame and -glory. McDermott would not have identified himself with Dennis had he -seen the newspapers. When he awakened from his long, broken stupor, with -its intervals of dazed halfconsciousness, the first thing he did was to -steal away from that hospital; he left without having heard of Dennis or -of the decoration of Dennis. - -There was one thing that he had experienced that did live hazily and -confusedly in his memory, however, although he could not fix it in its -relationship to any other thing. And that was the fact that he had met -Gustave Schmidt. Three or four months after he slipped away from the -hospital--a period of unchronicled wanderings, during which he had tried -unsuccessfully to enlist several times--he limped into a saloon on the -Brooklyn water front and asked Tim O'Toole, the proprietor, for his -usual. He had just got back to Brooklyn, and he carried his earthly -possessions in a bundle wrapped in brown paper. - -"I hear Yordy Crowley isn't givin' his racket this year," said -McDermott, laying his bundle on the bar and pouring out his drink. - -"He is not," said Tim. "He is in France helpin' out thim English." - -"Yordy will make a good sojer," said McDermott. "He is a good man of his -fists." - -"The Irish is all good sojers," said Mr. O'Toole, sententiously. "There -was that man Dinnis, now, that was in all av the papers." - -"I did not hear av him," said McDermott. "An' phwat did he do?" - -"He licked th' entire German army wan morn-in'," said O'Toole, "an' -saved England, an' the Quane of France kissed him for it. 'Twas in all -the papers. Or, maybe," said Mr. O'Toole, "it was the King av Belg'um -kissed him for ut. Anny-way wan of thim foreign powers kissed him wid -the whole world lookin' on." - -"An' phwat did this Dinnis do thin?" asked McDermott. - -"He attimpted to assault the person that kissed him," said O'Toole. -"Maybe 'twas the King av Italy. 'Twas in all the papers at th' time. -Some wan told me ye were in France y'rsilf, Paddy." - -"I was that," said McDermott. "I wint wid mules." - -"Did ye see annything av the war?" - -"I did not," said McDermott. "Divil a bit of ut, barrin' a lot o' -racket an' a big roarin' divil av a stame-boiler thing that come bustin' -through th' air an' took away the mules that was me passport. But I come -near seein' some av ut, wan time." - -"An' how was it that ye come near it, an' missed it?" inquired Tim. - -"I wint to slape," said McDermott. "The war was slapin', an' I laid -m'silf down b' the side av ut an' took a nap, too. Later, I woke up in -the hospital, some wan havin' stipped on me whilst I was slapin', or -somethin'. They was afther keep-in' me in th' hospital indefinite, an' -I slipped away wan mornin', dodgin' the orderlies an' nurses, or I might -have been there yet eatin' jelly an' gettin' me face washed f'r me. An' -afther I got back here I thried to jine that war, but th' Amurrican Army -w'u'd not have me." - -"And phwy not?" - -"Because av me fut." - -"And how did ye hurt y'r fut?" - -"Divil a bit do I know how," said McDermott. "I'm tellin' ye 'twas done -whilst I was aslape. I remimber gettin' soused in wan av thim Frinch -barrooms, an' I w'u'd think it was a mule stipped on me fut whin I was -slapin' off me souse, excipt that thim mules was gone before I got me -souse." - -"An' ye saw naught av the war?" Tim was distinctly disappointed. - -"But little of ut, but little of ut," said McDermott. "But, Timmy,--wan -thing I did whilst I was in France." - -"An' phwat was that?" - -"I avened up an ould grudge," said McDermott. He put away a second -drink, rolling it over his tongue with satisfaction. "Do ye mind that -Goostave Schmidt that used to kape bar acrost the strate? Ye do! Do ye -mind th' time he hit me wid th' bung starter? Ye do!" - -"Phwat thin?" - -"Well, thin," said McDermott, "I met up wid him ag'in in wan av thim -Frinch barrooms. I do not remimber phwat he said to me nor phwat I said -to him, for I was soused, Timmy. But wan word led to another, an' I give -him as good as he sint, an' 'twas wid a bung starter, too. I brung it -back wid me as a sooveneer av me travels in France." - -And, undoing his brown paper bundle, McDermott fished forth from among -his change of socks and shirts and underwear the bung starter of the -Hotel Faucon and laid it upon the bar for his friend's inspection. -Something else in the bundle caught O'Toole's eye. - -"An' phwat is that thing ye have there?" asked Tim. - -"Divil a bit do I know phwat," said McDermott, picking the article up -and tossing it carelessly upon the bar. "'Twas layin' by me cot in -the hospital, along wid m' bung starter an' me clothes whin I come to -m'silf, an' whin I made me sneak from that place I brung it along." - -It was the _Croix de Guerre_. - - - - -V.--Looney the Mutt - -|Looney had but one object in life, one thought, one conscious motive -of existence--to find Slim again. After he found Slim, things would be -different, things would be better, somehow. Just how, Looney did not -know. - -Looney did not know much, anyhow. Likely he would never have known much, -in the most favorable circumstances. And the circumstances under which -he had passed his life were scarcely conducive to mental growth. He -could remember, vaguely, that he had not always been called Looney -Hogan. There had been a time when he was called Kid Hogan. Something had -happened inside his head one day, and then there had come a period of -which he remembered nothing at all; after that, when he could remember -again, he was not Kid any more, but Looney. Perhaps some one had hit him -on the head. People were always hitting him, before he knew Slim. And -now that Slim was gone, people were always hitting him again. When he -was with Slim, Slim had not let people hit him--often. So he must find -Slim again; Slim, who was the only God he had ever known. - -In the course of time he became known, in his own queer world, from -Baltimore to Seattle, from Los Angeles to Boston, as Slim's Lost -Mutt, or as Looney the Mutt. Looney did not resent being called a -dog, particularly, but he never called himself "The Mutt"; he stuck to -"Looney"; Slim had called him Looney, and Looney must, therefore, be -right. - -The humors of Looney's world are not, uniformly, kindly humors. Giving -Looney the Mutt a "bum steer" as to Slim's whereabouts was considered a -legitimate jest. - -"Youse ain't seen Slim Matchett anywheres?" he would ask of hobo or -wobbly, working stiff or yeggman, his faded pale-blue eyes peering from -his weather-worn face with the same anxious intensity, the same eager -hope, as if he had not asked the question ten thousand times before. - -And the other wanderer, if he were one that knew of Looney the Mutt and -Looney's quest would answer, like as not: - -"Slimmy de Match? Uh-huh! I seen Slim last mont' in Chi. He's lookin' -fer youse, Looney." One day the Burlington Crip, who lacked a hand, and -who looked so mean that it was of common report that he had got sore at -himself and bitten it off, varied the reply a bit by saying: - -"I seen Slim las' week, an' he says: 'Where t' hell's dat kid o' mine? -Youse ain't seen nuttin' o' dat kid o' mine, has you, Crip? Dat kid o' -mine give me de slip, Crip. He lammistered, and I ain't seen him since. -If youse gets yer lamps on dat kid o' mine, Crip, give him a wallop on -his mush fer me, an' tell him to come an' find me an' I'm gonna give him -another one.'" - -Looney stared and wondered and grieved. It hurt him especially that Slim -should think that he, Looney, had run away from Slim; he agonized anew -that he could not tell Slim at once that such was not the truth. And he -wondered and grieved at the change that must have taken place in Slim, -who now promised him "a wallop on the mush." For Slim had never struck -him. It was Slim who had always kept other people from striking him. -It was Slim who had, upon occasion, struck other people to protect -him--once, in a hangout among the lakeside sand dunes south of Chicago, -Slim had knifed a man who had, by way of jovial byplay to enliven a dull -afternoon, flung Looney into the fire. - -It never occurred to Looney to doubt, entirely, these bearers of -misinformation. He was hunting Slim, and of course, he thought, Slim -was hunting Looney. His nature was all credulity. Such mind as the boy -possessed--he was somewhere in his twenties, but had the physique of -a boy--was saturated with belief in Slim, with faith in Slim, and he -thought that all the world must admire Slim. He did not see why any one -should tell lies that might increase Slim's difficulties, or his own. - -There was a big red star he used to look at nights, when he slept in the -open, and because it seemed to him bigger and better and more splendid -than any of the other stars he took to calling it Slim's star. It was a -cocky, confident-looking star; it looked as if it would know how to take -care of itself, and Slim had been like that. It looked good-natured, -too, and Slim had been that way. When Looney had rustled the scoffin's -for Slim, Slim had always let him have some of the best chow--or almost -always. And he used to talk to that star about Slim when he was alone. -It seemed sympathetic. And although he believed the hoboes were telling -him the truth when they said that they had seen Slim, it was apparent -even to his intelligence that they had no real sympathy with his quest. - -Once he did find a certain sympathy, if no great understanding. He -worked a week, one Spring, for a farmer in Indiana. The farmer wished -to keep him, for that Summer at least, for Looney was docile, willing -enough, and had a natural, unconscious tact with the work-horses. Looney -was never afraid of animals, and they were never afraid of him. Dogs -took to him, and the instant liking of dogs had often stood him in good -stead in his profession. - -"Why won't you stay?" asked the farmer. - -"Slim's lookin' fer me, somewheres," said Looney. And he told the farmer -about Slim. The farmer, having perceived Looney's mental twilight, and -feeling kindly toward the creature, advanced an argument that he thought -might hold him. - -"Slim is just as likely to find you if you stay in one place, as if you -go travelin' all over the country," he said. - -"Huh-uh," said Looney. "He ain't, Mister. It's this way, Mister: every -time I stop long any-, wheres, Slim, he passes me by." - -And then he continued, after a pause: "Slim, he was always good to me, -Mister. I kinda want to be the one that finds Slim, instead of just -stayin' still an' waitin' to be found." - -They were standing in the dusk by the barn, and the early stars were -out. Looney told him about Slim's star. - -"I want to be the guy that does the findin'," went on Looney presently, -"because I was the guy that done the losin'. One night they was five or -six of us layin' under a lot of railroad ties we had propped up against -a fence to keep the weather off, an' we figgered on hoppin' a train fer -Chi that night. Well, the train comes along, but I'm asleep. See? The -rest of t' gang gits into an empty in de dark, an' I don't wake up. I -s'pose Slim he t'inks I'm wit' t' gang, but I don't wake up under them -ties till mornin'. I went to Chi soon's I could, but I ain't never -glommed him since, Mister. I didn't find him dere. An' dat's t' way I -lost Slim, Mister." - -"Maybe," suggested the farmer, "he is dead." - -"Nit," said Looney. "He ain't dead. If Slim was croaked or anything, I'd -be wised up to it. Look at that there star. Dat is Slim's star, like I -told youse. If Slim had been bumped off, or anything, Mister, that star -wouldn't be shinin' that way, Mister." - -And he went back to his own world--his world--which was a succession of -freight and cattle cars, ruinous sheds and shelters in dubious suburbs -near to railroad sidings, police stations, workhouses, jails, city -missions, transient hangouts in bedraggled clumps of wood, improvised -shacks, shared with others of his kind in vacant lots in sooty -industrial towns, chance bivouacs amidst lumber piles and under dripping -water tanks, lucky infrequent lodgings in slum hotels that used to -charge fifteen cents for a bed and now charge a quarter, golden moments -in vile barrooms and blind tigers, occasional orgies in quarries or -gravel pits or abandoned tin-roofed tool houses, uneasy, loiterings -and interrupted slumbers in urban parks and the squares or outskirts of -villages. Sometimes he worked, as he had with the Indiana farmer, with -the wheat harvesters of the Northwest, or the snow shovelers of the -metropoli, or the fruit gatherers of California; but more often he -loafed, and rustled grub and small coin from the charitably disposed. - -It all seemed the natural way of life to Looney. He could not remember -anything else. He viewed the people of the world who did not live so, -and whom he saw to be the majority, as strange, unaccountable beings -whom he could never hope to understand; he vaguely perceived that they -were stronger than he and his ever-hiking clan, and he knew that they -might do unpleasant things to him with their laws and their courts -and their strength, but he bore them no rancor, unlike many of his -associates. - -He had no theories about work or idleness; he accepted either as it -came; he had little conscious thought about anything, except finding -Slim again. And one thing worried him: Slim, who was supposed to be -looking for Looney, even as Looney was looking for Slim, left no mark. -He was forever looking for it, searching for the traces of Slim's -knife--a name, a date, a destination, a message bidding Looney to follow -or to wait--on freight sheds and water tanks, and known and charted -telegraph poles and the tool houses of construction gangs. But Slim, -always just ahead of him, as he thought, continually returning and -passing him, ever receding in the distance, left no mark, no wanderer's -pateran, behind. Looney left his own marks everywhere, but, strangely -enough, it seemed that Slim never saw them. Looney remembered that one -time when he and Slim were together Slim had wished to meet and confer -with the Burlington Crip, and had left word to that effect, penciled and -carved and sown by the speech of the mouth, from the Barbary Coast to -the Erie Basin. And the Burlington Crip, with his snaggle teeth and his -stump where a hand had been, had joined them on the Brooklyn waterfront -within two months. It had been simple, and Looney wondered why Slim -omitted this easy method of communication. Perhaps Slim was using it and -Looney was not finding the marks. He knew himself for stupid, and set -his failure down to that, never to neglect on Slim's part. For Slim was -Slim, and Slim could do no wrong. - -His habit of searching for some scratched or written word of Slim's -became known to his whole section of the underworld, and furnished -material for an elaboration of the standing jest at his expense. When -ennui descended upon some chance gathering in one of the transient -hangouts--caravanserai as familiar to the loose-foot, casual guests, -from coast to coast, as was ever the Blackstone in Chicago or the -Biltmore in New York to those who read this simple history--it was -customary for some wag to say: - -"Looney, I seen a mark that looked like Slim's mark on a shed down in -Alexandria, Virginny, right by where the Long Bridge starts over to -Washington." - -And it might be that Looney would start at once, without a word, for -Alexandria. Therein lay the cream of this subtle witticism, for its -perpetrators--in Looney's swift departures. - -Or it might be that Looney would sit and ponder, his washed-out eyes -interrogating the speaker in a puzzled fashion, but never doubting. And -then the jester would say, perhaps: "Why don't you get a move onto you, -Looney? You're gonna miss Slim again." - -And Looney would answer, perchance: "Slim, he ain't there now. The' was -one of them wobblies' bump-off men sayin' he seen Slim in Tacoma two -weeks ago, an' Slim was headin' this way. I'm gonna wait fer him a while -longer." - -But he never waited long. He could never make himself. As he had told -the Indiana farmer, he was afraid to wait long. It was the Burlington -Crip who had made him afraid to do that. The Crip had told him one time: -"Looney, Slim went through here last night, while youse was asleep over -on that lumber pile. I forgets youse is lookin' fer him or I'd a tipped -him off youse was here." - -Slim had been within a hundred yards of him, and he had been asleep and -had never known! What would Slim think, if he knew that? So thereafter -he was continually tortured by the fancy that Slim might be passing -him in the night; or that Slim, while he himself was riding the rods -underneath a railway car, might be on the blind baggage of that very -train, and would hop off first and be missed again. From day to day he -became more muddled and perplexed trying to decide whether it would be -better to choose this route or that, whether it would be better to stop -here a week, or go yonder with all possible speed. And from month to -month he developed more and more the questing, peering, wavering manner -of the lost dog that seeks its master. - -Looney was always welcome In the hang-outs of the wandering underworld. -Not only was he a source of diversion, a convenient butt, but few could -rustle grub so successfully. His meager frame and his wistfulness, his -evident feebleness of intellect, drew alms from the solvent population, -and Looney faithfully brought his takings to the hangouts and was -dispatched again for more. Servant and butt he was to such lords as the -Burlington Crip and the English Basher. But he did not mind so long as -he was not physically maltreated--as he often was. The occasional -crimes of his associates, the occasional connection of some of them with -industrial warfare here and there, Looney sometimes participated in; but -he never understood. If he were told to do so and so, for the most part -he did it. If he were asked to do too much, or was beaten up for his -stupidity, and he was always stupid, he quietly slunk away at his first -opportunity. - -The English Basher was a red-faced savage with fists as hard and rough -as tarred rope; and he conceived the idea that Looney should be his kid, -and wait upon him, even as he had been Slim's kid. Looney, afraid of the -man, for a time seemed to acquiesce. But the Basher had reckoned without -Looney's faculty for blundering. - -He dispatched Looney one day, ostensibly to bum a handout, but in -reality to get the lay of a certain house in a suburb near Cincinnati, -which the Basher meditated cracking the next convenient night. Looney -returned with the food but without the information. He had been willing -enough, for he admired yeggmen and all their ways and works, and was -withheld by no moral considerations from anything he was asked to do; -but he had bungled. He had been in the kitchen, he had eaten his own -scoffin's there, he had talked with the cook for twenty minutes, he had -even brought up from the cellar a scuttle of coal for the kitchen range -to save the cook's back, but he actually knew less about that house, its -plan, its fastenings, its doors and basement windows than the Basher had -been able to gather with a single stroke of the eye as he loitered down -the street. - -"Cripes! Whadje chin about with the kitchen mechanic all dat time, you?" -demanded the Basher. - -"She was stringin' me along," said Looney humbly, "an' I spilled to her -about me an' Slim." - -"Slim! ------ -------- yer, I've a mind t' croak yer!" cried the Basher. - -And he nearly did it, knocking the boy down repeatedly, till finally -Looney lay still upon the ground. - -"'S'elp me," said the Basher, "I've a mind to give yer m' boots! You -get up an' beat it! An' if I ever gets my lamps onto you again I _will_ -croak you, by Gawd, an' no mistake!" - -Looney staggered to his feet and hobbled to a safe distance. And then, -spitting out a broken tooth, he dared to mutter: "If Slimmy was here, -he'd see de color o' youse insides, Slimmy would. Slimmy, he knifed a -yegg oncet wot done less'n dat t'me!" - -It was only a week or two after he left the Basher that Looney's faith -in Slim's star was tested again. Half a dozen of the brotherhood were -gathered about a fire in a gravel pit in northern Illinois, swapping -yarns and experiences and making merry. It was a tremendous fire, and -lighted up the hollow as if it were the entrance to Gehenna, flinging -the grotesque shadows of the men against the overhanging embankments, -and causing the inhabitants of a village a mile or so away to wonder -what farmer's haystack was aflame. The tramps were wasting five times -the wood they needed, after their fashion. They had eaten to repletion, -and they were wasting the left-over food from their evening gorge; they -had booze; they were smoking; they felt, for the hour, at peace with the -world. - -"Wot ever _did_ become of dat Slim?" asked the Burlington Crip, who -happened to be of the party, looking speculatively at Looney. Even the -sinister Crip, for the nonce, was not toting with him his usual mordant -grouch. - -Looney was tending the fire, while he listened to tales of the spacious -days of the great Johnny Yegg himself, and other Titans of the road who -have now assumed the state of legendary heroes; and he was, as usual, -saying nothing. - -"Slim? Slimmy t' Match wot Looney here's been tailin' after fer so -long?" said the San Diego Kid. "Slim, he was bumped off in Paterson -t'ree or four years ago." - -"He wasn't neither," spoke up Looney. "Tex, here, seen him in Chi last -mont'." - -And, indeed, Tex had told Looney so. But now, thus directly appealed -to, Tex answered nothing. And for the first time Looney began to get -the vague suspicion that these, his friends, might have trifled with him -before. Certainly they were serious now. He looked around the sprawled -circle and sensed that their manner was somehow different from the -attitude with which they had usually discussed his quest for Slim. - -"Bumped off?" said Tex. "How?" - -"A wobbly done it," said the San Diego Kid. "Slim, he was scabbin'. -Strike-breakin'. And they was some wobblies there helpin' on the strike. -See? An' this wobbly bumps Slim off." - -"He didn't neither," said Looney again. - -"T' hell he didn't? He said he did," said the San Diego Kid pacifically. -"Is a guy gonna say he's bumped off a guy unless he's bumped him off?" - -Looney, somewhat shaken, withdrew from the group to seek comfort from -the constellations; and particularly from that big, red star, the -apparent king of stars, which he had come to think of as Slim's star, -and vaguely, as Slim's mascot. It was brighter and redder than ever -that night, Looney thought, and sitting on a discarded railroad tie and -staring at the planet, Looney gradually recovered his faith. - -"He ain't neither been bumped off, Slim ain't," he muttered, "an' I'm -gonna find him yet." - -And Slim had not been bumped off, however sincere the San Diego Kid may -have been in his belief. - -It was some months later that Looney did find him in a little city in -Pennsylvania--or found some one that looked like him. - -Looney had dropped from a freight train early in the morning, had -rustled himself some grub, had eaten two good meals and had part of a -day's sleep, and now, just as dark was coming on, and the street lamps -were being lighted, was loafing aimlessly on the platform of the railway -depot. He purposed to take a train south that night, when it became so -dark that he could crawl into an empty in the yards without too much -danger of being seen and he was merely putting in the time until full -night came on. - -While he was standing idly so, an automobile drew up beside the station -platform and an elegantly dressed and slender man of about thirty got -out. He assisted from the car a woman and a small child, and they made -toward the door of the waiting room. - -"Slim!" cried Looney, rushing forward. - -For this was Slim--it must be Slim--it was Slimmy the Match in every -feature--and yet, the car!--the clothes--the woman--the baby--the -prosperity----- _Was_ it Slim? - -"Slim!" cried Looney again, his heart leaping in his meager body. "It's -me, Slim! It's Looney! I've got youse again, Slim! Gawd! I've found -yuh!" - -The woman hastily snatched the child up into her arms, with a suppressed -scream, and recoiled. - -The man made no sound, but he, too, drew back a step, not seeming to see -Looney's outstretched hand. - -But he did see it--he saw more than that. He saw, as if they were -flashed before him at lightning speed upon a cinema screen, a dozen -scenes of a wild and reckless and indigent youth that he had thought was -dead forever; he saw these roughneck years suddenly leap alive and -stalk toward him again, toward him and his; he saw his later years of -industry, his hard-won success, his position so strenuously battled for, -his respectability that was become so dear to him, all his house of -life so laboriously builded, crumbling before the touch of this torn and -grotesque outcast that confronted and claimed him, this wavering, -dusty lunatic whom he dimly remembered. If his wife knew--if her people -knew--if the business men of this town were to know---- - -He shuddered and turned sick, and then with a sudden recovery he took -his child from its mother and guided her before him into the waiting -room. - -Looney watched them enter, in silence. He stood dazed for a moment, -and then he slowly turned and walked down the railroad track beyond the -limits of the town. There, upon a spot of turf beside the right of -way, he threw himself upon his face and sobbed and moaned, as a -broken-hearted child sobs, as a dog moans upon its master's grave. - -But after a while he looked up. Slim's star was looking down at him, red -and confident and heartening as ever. He gazed at it a long time, and -then an idea took form in his ruined brain and he said aloud: - -"Now, dat wasn't _really_ Slim! I been lookin' fer Slim so long I t'ink -I see Slim where he ain't! Dat was jus' some guy wot looks like Slimmy. -Slimmy, he wouldn't never of gone back on an old pal like dat!" - -The rumble of an approaching train caught his ears. He got to his feet -and prepared to board it. - -"Slim, he's waitin' fer me somewheres," he told the star. "I may be -kinda looney about some t'ings, but I knows Slim, an' dey ain't no -yellow streak nowheres in Slim!" - -And with unshaken loyalty Looney the Mutt boarded the train and set off -upon his endless quest anew. - - - - -VI--Kale - -|See that old fellow there?" asked Ed the waiter. "Well, his fad is -money." - -The old fellow indicated--he must have been nearly eighty--sat eating -corned beef and cabbage in a little booth in a certain delightful, -greasy old chophouse in downtown New York. It was nearly time to close -the chophouse for that day for it was almost eleven o'clock at night; it -was nearly time to close the chophouse forever, for it was the middle of -June, 1919. In a couple of weeks the wartime prohibition act would be in -force, and Ed and I had been discussing what effect it would have upon -our respective lives. - -There was no one else in the place at the time except the cashier and -the old man whose fad was money, and so Ed had condescended toward me, -as a faithful customer, and was sitting down to have a drink with me. - -"His fad is money?" I questioned, glancing at the old gentleman, who -seemed to be nothing extraordinary as regards face or manner or attire. -He had a long, bony New Englandish head and a short, white, well-trimmed -beard; he was finishing his nowise delicate food with gusto. "I should -say," I added, "that his fad was corned beef and cabbage." - -"That's one of his fads," admitted Ed the waiter, "and I don't know but -that it's as strong in him as his money fad. At any rate, I've never -seen him without one or the other was near him, and both in large -quantities." - -We had been conversing in a mumble, so that our voices should not carry -to the old gentleman. And now Ed dropped his voice still lower and -whispered: - -"That's Old Man Singleton." - -I looked at him with a renewed interest. Every one knew who Old Man -Singleton was, and many persons liked to guess how much he was worth. -Ostensibly he had retired, leaving to his two sons the management of the -Singleton banking business, with its many ramifications; but actually -he kept his interest in the concern and was reputed to be coaching his -grandsons in the ways of the world, and especially that part of the -world known as "The Street." - -Starting out as a New England villager who hated poverty because his -family had always known it, he had come to New York as a lad of twenty, -with red knitted mittens on his osseous hands, and he had at once -removed the mittens and put the hands to work gathering money; it was -rumored that the hands had never turned loose any of the garnered coin; -it was even said by some persons that he still had the same pair of -mittens. - -The details of his rise I cannot give; he had achieved his ambition -to be one of the very rich men of America because the ambition was so -strong within him. - -"Of course his fad is money," I muttered to Ed the waiter. "Everybody -knows that Old Man Singleton's fad is money." - -Ed was about to reply, when Mr. Singleton looked up and motioned for his -check. Ed brought it, and gave the old gentleman his hat and his stick -and his change. - -"I hope everything was all right," Mr. Singleton said Ed, palpably -bidding for recognition and a tip. - -"Eh? said Singleton, looking blankly at Ed You know me, hey? I don't -recall you. Yes, everything was all right, thank you." He gave the -waiter a dime and passed out, after another blank, fumbling look at Ed, -and a shake of his head. There was something feeble and wandering in the -old fellow's manner; his memory was going; it was obvious that before -long the rest of him would follow his memory. He shouldn't be allowed to -go around this way alone at night," murmured Ed, watching the door -through which he had made his exit. "But I suppose he's as bull-headed -as ever about doing what he pleases, even if his legs are shaky." - -"He didn't know you," I hinted, for I wished to learn all that Ed knew -about Old Man Singleton. - -Ed is a person who has been in the world nearly fifty years; he has had -some very unusual acquaintances and experiences. It is never safe to -predict just what Ed will know and what he will not know. One afternoon, -after I had known Ed for about a year, I was attempting to argue some -scientific point with a friend who was lunching with me, and Ed, who was -waiting on us and listening, remarked: "I beg your pardon, sir, but it -wasn't in _The Descent of Man_ that Darwin said that; it was in _The -Origin of Species_." - -And yet, if you deduce from that remark that Ed knows a great deal about -modern science, you will be mistaken; as likely as not he could quote -pages of Marcus Aurelius to you, and at the same time he might pronounce -"Euripides" as if the last two syllables were one, riming with "hides"; -his reading, like his life, has been elective. - -"He doesn't recall you," I repeated. - -"And that's ingratitude," said Ed, "if he only knew it. I saved the old -man's life once." - -And Ed limped over to the table and resumed his seat opposite me. He -has a bullet under one kneecap, and at times it makes him very lame. He -would never tell me how it came there; to this day I do not know. - -"From what did you save his life?" I asked. "From a man," said Ed -moodily. "From a man who had a notion to bean him one night. And to this -day I ask myself: 'Did I do right, or did I do wrong?'" - -"Tell me about it," I insisted, - -"Drink up," said Ed, manipulating the Scotch bottle and the siphon of -seltzer. "This is one of the last highballs you'll ever have, unless -you sneak around and take it on the sly. I don't know that I should have -another one myself; it settles in this damned knee of mine if I get a -little too much." - -"Tell me when, where and how you knew Old Man Singleton," I demanded -again. - -"This knee of mine," went on Ed, disregarding me, "is a hell of a -handicap. We were talking about prohibition--what's prohibition going to -do to me? Hey? It puts me out of a job in a barroom like this the first -thing. And what else can I do? With this game leg, you can see me going -on the stage as a Russian dancer, can't you? Or digging trenches to lay -gas pipes in, or carrying a Hod? Huh? And I can't even get a job in a -swell restaurant uptown; they don't want any gamelegged waiters sticking -around, falling over the chairs. This was about the only kind of a joint -and the only kind of a job I was fit for, this chop-house thing down -here, and it's going to close in two weeks. What then? Be somebody's -housemaid? I can't see it. I don't wish anybody any bad luck, but I -hope the guy that put over this prohibition thing gets stiff in all his -joints and lives forever." - -I sympathized and waited, and finally he began. "Old Man Singleton's -fad," said Ed, "as I re marked before, is money. And as you remarked, -another of his fads is corned beef and cabbage--especially cabbage. He -will eat corned beef with his cabbage, and like it; or he will eat pork -with his cabbage, and like it; or he will eat cabbage without either; it -is the cabbage he likes--or kale. In fact, you could reduce his two fads -to one, and say what he likes is kale--kale in the slang sense of money, -and kale that is cabbage. And all his life he has been stuffing himself -with kale. - -"His fad is kale that he can see and feel and handle and show and carry -about with him. Not merely money in the bank and stocks and bonds and -property and real estate, but actual cash. He likes to carry it with -him, and he does carry it with him. I guess he likes the feel of it in -his billfolder, and the thought that he has got it on him--on him, the -poor boy that came out of New England with the red knitted mittens on -that everybody has heard so much about. I can understand the way -he feels about it; with a folder full of thousand-dollar and -ten-thousand-dollar bills he feels safe, somehow; feels like he'll never -have to go back to that little New England town and saw cordwood and -shovel snow again. - -"He's got it on him now, that folder, and I'll bet you on it. That's -what I meant when I said it wasn't safe for him to be trotting about -this way after night. For if I know it, it stands to reason others know -it, too. - -"What you want to know is, how I know it. Well, I was not always what I -am now. Once I was quite a bird and wore dress suits and went to the -Metropolitan Opera and listened to Caruso as he jumped his voice from -peak to peak. Yes, sir, I know every darned acoustic in that place! They -weren't my dress suits that I wore, but they fit me. Once I moved in the -circles of the idle rich, though they didn't know it, and helped 'em -spend the unearned increment they wrung from the toil of the downtrodden -laboring man. - -"Once, to come down to brass tacks, I was a butler's companion. It is -an office you won't find listed in the social directory, but it existed, -for me at least. The butler in the case was a good friend of mine by the -name of Larry Hodgkins, and being part Irish, he was an ideal English -butler. Larry and his mother were in the employ of the Hergsheimers, a -wealthy Jewish family--you know who they are if you read the financial -pages or the Sunday supplements. Mrs. Hodgkins was the housekeeper and -Larry was the butler, and when the Hergsheimers were traveling Larry and -his mother stayed in the New York house as caretakers and kept things -shipshape. And let me give you a tip, by the way: if you ever take a -notion to quit the writing game and go into domestic service, plant -yourself with a rich Hebrew family. They want things done right, -but they are the most liberal people on earth, especially to Gentile -servants. - -"This Hergsheimer was Jacob Hergsheimer, and he was in right socially in -New York, as well as financially; he had put himself across into the -big time socially because, if you ask me, he belonged there; all the -Hergsheimers didn't get across, but this one did. His New York house is -uptown, between the sixties and the eighties, east of the Park, and -he wants it kept so he can drop into it with his family and a flock of -servants at any hour of the day or night, from any part of the earth, -without a minute's notice, and give a dinner party at once, if he feels -like it, and he frequently feels like it. - -"It was Mrs. Hodgkins's and Larry's job to keep the fire from going -out in the boilers, so to speak, and a head of steam on, so that the -domestic ship could sail in any direction on receipt of orders by wire, -wireless or telephone. They were permanent there, but Jake Hergsheimer -and his family, as far as I could make out, never got more than an -average of about three months' use a year out of that mansion. - -"This time I am speaking of was nearly ten years ago. I was a waiter in -an uptown restaurant, and both my legs were good then; Larry and I -were old pals. The Jake Hergsheimers were sailing around the world in a -yacht, and would be at it for about a year, as far as Larry knew, and -he asked me up to live with him. I accepted; and believe me, the eight -months I put in as Jake Hergsheimer's guest were _some_ eight months. -Not that Jake knew about it; but if he had known it, he wouldn't have -cared. This Jake was a real human being. - -"And his clothes fit me; just as if I had been measured for them. He had -what you might call an automatic tailor, Jake did. Every six weeks, rain -or shine, that tailor delivered a new suit of clothes to the Hergsheimer -house, and he sent in his bill once a year, so Larry the butler told me. -Some people go away and forget to stop the milk; and when Jake sailed -for the other side of the world he forgot to tell anybody to stop the -tailor. Larry didn't feel as if it were any part of his duty to stop -him; for Larry liked that tailor. He made Larry's clothes, too. - -"And I didn't see where it was up to me to protest. As I said, Jake's -garments might have been made for me. In fact, a great many of them -_were_ made for me. There were at least fifteen suits of clothes that -had never been worn in that house, made to my measure and Jake's, when -I became butler's companion in the establishment, and they kept right -on coming. Also, there was a standing order for orchestra seats at the -Metropolitan. Jake had a box every second Thursday, or something like -that, but when he really wanted to hear the music and see the show he -usually sat in the orchestra. Not only did his business suits fit me, -but his dress clothes fit me, too. - -"I used to go often, with a lady's maid that had the same access to -clothing as I did. She was part of a caretaking staff also. Being a -writing person, you have, of course, only viewed New York's society and -near-society from the outside, and no doubt you have been intimidated by -the haughty manners of the servants. Well, when you get close to swells -and really know them personally, you will find they are human, too. - -"A butler on duty is a swelled-up proposition, because he has to be that -way. But take him as you find him among his peers, and he quits acting -like the Duke of Westminster Abbey, and is real sociable. This Larry -person, for instance, could distend himself like a poisoned pup and -make a timid millionaire feel like the sleeves of his undershirt must be -showing below his cuffs; but in our little select circle Larry was the -life of the party. - -"Being, as I said before, an outsider, you likely don't realize how -many of those big swell millionaires' cribs uptown are in the hands of -caretakers like Larry and his mother and me the best part of the year. -Well, they are; and there's a social life goes on in them that don't -ever get into the papers. The parties we had that year in Jake's house -would have done Jake himself good, if Jake could have got an invitation -to them. But Jake was absent, though his cellar and his grocers were -at our service; and he never questioned a bill, Larry said. There were -twelve or fifteen hand-picked servants in our little social circle that -year, and before I left there I could begin to understand how these -debutantes feel at the end of the season--sort of tired and bored and -willing to relax and go in for work and rest and athletics for a change. - -"I had only been butler's companion for a few weeks when Old Man -Singleton dropped in one evening--yes, sir, Old Lemuel Singleton -himself. He came to see the butler's mother, Mrs. Hodgkins. He had known -her a good many years before, when he was wearing those red mittens and -sawing wood up in that New England town and she was somebody's Irish -cook. And he had run across her again, after he became a millionaire, -down here in New York City. He was tickled to see her, and he didn't -care a darn if she was Jake Hergsheimer's housekeeper. She could cook -cabbage and kale better than any one else in the world, and he used to -come and sit with her, and talk about that little old town up there, and -indulge in his favorite dissipation. - -"Old Man Singleton has had what you call the social entree in New York -for a good many years; for so long that some of his children, and -all his grandchildren, were born with it. But he never took it very -seriously himself. He has been an in-and-outer, you might say. If he saw -Mrs. Hodgkins around Jake's house, he would call her Mary and ask her -how folks were up home in front of Jake and his wife and a whole bunch -of guests, just as soon as not. - -"And his sons and his daughters and his grandchildren never could get -him out of those ways; he always was bull-headed about doing what he -pleased, so Mrs. Hodgkins told me, and he always will be. And the old -lady liked to see him and chin with him and cook for him; and believe -me, she was some cook when she set herself to it. Not merely kale, but -everything. She didn't cook for the Hergsheimers--they had a chef for -that--but they missed it by not having her. Victuals was old Mary's -middle name, and she could rustle up some of the best grub you ever -threw your lip over. - -"At first, Old Man Singleton and Mrs. Hodgkins didn't mix much with -us younger folks when we pulled a party. It wasn't that we were too -aristocratic for them, for off duty, as I said before, butlers and other -swells can be as easy and jolly as common people. But they seemed too -antiquated, if you get me; they were living too much in the past. - -"And then, one night, I discovered what Old Man Singleton's fad -was--kale. Money. Big money. Big money on his person. It was this way: -Larry and I wanted to go downtown and have a little fun, but neither -of us had any cash in hand. Larry had a check for one hundred and fifty -dollars which Jake Hergsheimer had sent him, but all the tradesmen we -knew were closed at that hour, and there wasn't any way to cash it, -unless Old Man Singleton could. - -"'Mr. Singleton,' says Larry to the old man, who was sitting down to a -mess of pork and kale with Mrs. Hodgkins, 'maybe you can cash this for -me.' And he handed him the check. - -"The old man stopped eating and put his glasses on and pulled a -billfolder out of his pocket, with a kind of pleased smile on his face. - -"'Let me see,' he says, taking out the bills, and running them over with -his fingers; 'let me see.' - -"I nearly dropped dead. There wasn't a bill in there of lower -denomination than one thousand dollars; and most of them were -ten-thousand-dol-lar bills. - -"'No, Larry,' says the old man, 'I'm afraid I can't, afraid I -can't--haven't got the change.' - -"And while we stood there and looked, he smoothed and patted those -bills, and folded and refolded them, and then put them back into his -pocket, and patted the pocket. - -"'Mary,' he says to the old woman with a grin, 'that's quite a lot of -money for little Lem Singleton to be carrying around in his pocket, -isn't it?' "'It is that, Lemuel,' said the old lady, 'and I should think -you'd be afraid of leaving it out of the bank.' - -"'Well, Mary,' says the old man, 'I kind o' like to have it around me -all the time--uh--huh! a little bit where I can put my hands on it, all -the time. I used to carry gold; but I gave that up; it's too heavy, for -what it's worth. But I like it, Mary; I used to look at that gold and -say to myself, "Well, there's one thing you got, Lem Singleton, they -never thought you'd get when you left home! And they aren't going to -take it away from you, either!" It was a long time before I could make -paper seem as real to me as gold. But it does now.' - -"And what does the old bird do but take it out of his pocket again and -crinkle it through his fingers and smooth it out again and pet it and do -everything but kiss it. Larry and I stood looking at him with our eyes -sticking out, and he looked at us and laughed. It came to me all of a -sudden that he liked to come where we servants were because he could -pull that kind of thing in front of us, but that he was sort of lost -among the swell-society bunch because he didn't dare pull it there and -didn't feel so rich among them. - -"'My God, Larry,' I said, when we were outside the house, 'did you -notice how much kale the old man had there?' - -"'Uh-huh,' said Larry. 'Mother always cooks a lot for him.' - -"'Wake up, Stupid,' I said. 'I don't mean cabbage. I mean money. There -must have been nearly two hundred thousand dollars in that roll!' - -"'He always has around one hundred thousand dollars on him, at least,' -says Larry. 'And I've seen him flash as high as a quarter of a million.' - -"'Well,' I says, 'something ought to be done about it.' - -"'What do you mean, Ed?' says he. - -"'Oh, nothing,' I said. - -"We walked over to get the L train downtown, saying nothing, and then -finally Larry remarked: "'Electricity is a great thing, Ed.' - -"'I never said it wasn't,' says I. - -"'It's a great thing,' says Larry, 'but when you sit on it, sit on -it right. For instance, I'd a darned sight rather sit in one of these -electric trains than in that electric chair up at Sing Sing.' - -"'Who said anything about an electric chair?' I asked him. - -"'Nobody said anything,' says Larry, 'but you're thinking so darned loud -I can get you.' - -"'Piffle, peanuts and petrification,' I said. 'Take care of your own -thoughts, and I'll skim the fat off of mine myself.' - -"Well, as I said, after that we got better acquainted, the old man and -I. I paid more attention to him. He interested me more. I've always -been interested in science of all kinds, and the year I spent in Jake -Hergsheimer's house I cut the leaves of a lot of books in his library -and gave them the once over. I was always interested in psychology, even -before the word got to be a headliner in the Sunday supplements, and I -took a good deal of pleasure that winter trying to get inside of Old -Man Singleton's mind. I must say, I never got very far in, at that. My -general conclusion at the end is what it was at the beginning--his fad -is kale. - -"And he loved to show it, you could see that. Not that he pulled it -every time he happened to be at one of our parties. Often he would drop -in that winter from some swell social event at one of the big houses -uptown, where he had been a guest, and eat some of old Mary's chow, and -never intimate by word or look that he had all that kale on him. And -then again he'd come among us, diked out in the soup and fish, and flash -the roll, for no other reason that I know except he enjoyed seeing us -get the blind staggers, which we always did. And then he'd fuss with it -and pet it and go into a dream over it, and wake up again and grin and -talk about life with old Mary. And they agreed about life; you never -heard two more moral persons exchange views. It was sometimes as good as -a Sunday-school to listen to them for half an hour. - -"One night, when they had been gassing for a while, they sort of got my -goat, and I said to him: - -"'Mr. Singleton, does it ever strike you as a little peculiar that you -should have so much money and so many other people, such as myself, none -at all?' - -"'No, Ed,' he says. 'No, it doesn't. That's the Lord's way, Ed! Money is -given as a sacred trust by the Lord to them that are best fitted to have -and to hold.' - -"'Meaning,' I asked him, 'that if you were ever to let loose of any of -it, it might work harm in the world?' - -"He chewed over that for quite a while, as if he saw something personal -in it, and he gave me a ten-dollar bill for a Christmas present. He -isn't as stingy as some people say he is; he just looks so stingy that -if he was the most liberal man on earth he would get the reputation of -being stingy. - -"The lady's maid that I used to go to the opera with quit me a little -while after Christmas. She and I were walking around the promenade -between the acts one night at the Metropolitan and Larry was with -us, when a fellow stopped Larry and spoke to him. I could see the guy -looking at the girl and me as he and Larry talked. Later, Larry told me -that it was one of Jake Hergsheimer's friends, and he had been a little -bit surprised to see Larry at the opera all diked out, and he had wanted -to know who the girl was. - -"Well, anyhow, she never went to the opera with me after that; but a few -weeks later I saw her at a cabaret with Jake's friend. It was a grief to -me; but I got into some real trouble, or let it get into me, about -the same time, and that helped take the sting off. I had once been -married--but there's no use going into all that. Anyhow, when the -marriage kind o' wore off, my own folks took my wife's side of the case -and she went to live with them. My old dad was sick, and they needed -money, and my wife wrote to me that she was willing to let bygones be -bygones and accept some money from me, and that my parents felt the same -way, and there was a kid, too, that my folks were bringing up. - -"Well, I was desperate for some way to get hold of some cash and send -to them. In the end, I took one of Jake Hergsheimer's silver vases and -hocked it and sent the money, and got it out of hock two or three months -later; but in the meantime there was a spell when I was so hard pressed -it looked to me like I would actually have to do something dishonest to -get that money. - -"One night, before Jake Hergsheimer came to my rescue and lent me that -silver vase, if you want to call it that, I was sitting alone in the -house thinking what a failure in life I was, and how rotten it was to -have a wife and kid and parents all set against me, and drinking some of -Jake's good booze, and getting more and more low in my mind, when there -came a ring at the front doorbell. The butler was out, and old Mary was -asleep way up in the top of the house, at the back, and wouldn't hear. - -"'I'll bet,' I said to myself, 'that's Old Man Singleton nosing around -for his cabbage.' And I made up my mind I wouldn't let him in--he could -ring till he froze to death on the front steps, and I wouldn't. It was -a blustery, snowy January night, with new snow over the old ice -underneath, and I says to myself, 'It's a wonder the old coot don't slip -down and bust some of those big New England bones of his. And I wouldn't -care much if he did.' - -"But he kept on ringing, and finally I thought I'd better go and let him -in. I didn't have any ulterior notions when I went up the stairs from -the servants' dining room and made for the front door. But the minute I -clapped eyes on him I thought of all that kale in his pocket. - -"I opened the front door, but outside of that was an iron grille. It had -a number of fastenings, but the final one was a short, heavy iron bar -that lay in two sockets, one on each side of the opening. - -"I lifted the bar and swung the grille open. - -"'Ha! Hum!' said he, and sneezed. 'It's you, Ed, is it?' - -"And, snuffing and sneezing, he passed in front of me. - -"And as he passed by me that bar said something to my hand. And the hand -raised up. It wasn't any of my doings, it was all the hand and the bar. -It raised up, that bar did, right behind the old man's head. He stopped -just outside the front door and flapped his big bony feet on a rug -that was there, to get the snow off his shoes, and while he flapped and -sneezed that bar was right over the old man's brain-box. - -"'Well,' I said to myself, 'here is your chance to be an honest man and -a prosperous man, reunited with your wife and your kid and your folks -at home, and not have to borrow anything from Jake Hergsheimer's -collection--just one little tap on the old man's head, and down he goes, -and he's got anywhere from one hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty -thousand dollars in his clothes.' - -"'Yes,' said myself to me, 'one little tap, and maybe you kill him. What -then? The electric chair, huh?' - -"'Hell!' I said to myself. 'Take a chance! The old man has so much money -that what he has in his pocket means nothing to him one way or another. -Larry's gone till morning, and the old woman won't wake for a long time. -It means a little bit of a headache for Old Lemuel here, and it means -your chance to lead an honest life hereafter and be a useful citizen and -take care of those you have been neglecting.' - -"'Yes,' said myself to me, 'it's more moral to do it, and make your life -over, but you never have been one for morality in the past. Besides, -you'd kill him.' - -"And I might have killed him, boss. I wasn't sure of it then, but I've -been sure of it since then. I was that strung up that I would have hit -too hard. - -"And yet, I might _not_ have done so! I might have hit him just enough -to put him out and make my get-away, and I might have led an honest life -since then. - -"But at the moment I couldn't do it. I saw, all of a sudden, something -funny. I saw the old man stamping his feet and getting the snow off, and -I thought of him as a dead man, and I says to myself: 'How damned funny -for a dead man to stamp the snow off his feet!' And I laughed. - -"'Heh? Heh? What did you say, Ed?' says the old man, and turns around. - -"I dropped the iron bar to my side, and that dead man came up out of the -grave. - -"'Nothing, Mr. Singleton,' I said. 'I was just going to say, go on in, -and I'll get a brush and clean the snow off of you.' - -"I said I saved his life from a man one time. Well, I was the man I -saved his life from. - -"He went on in, and I barred the grille and locked the door, and we went -on down to the dining room. I was shaking, and still I wasn't easy in my -mind. I told him there wasn't anybody home but me, and he said he'd take -a drop of Jake's brandy. And while I was opening a bottle of it for him, -what does he do but pull out that billfolder. - -"'For God's sake, Mr. Singleton,' I said, turning weak and sitting down -in a chair all of a sudden, 'put that money up.' - -"He sat there and sipped his brandy and talked, but I didn't hear what -he was saying. I just looked at him, and kept saying to myself, should I -have done it? Or should I have let him go by? - -"Boss, that was nearly ten years ago, and I've been asking myself that -question from time to time ever since. Should I have done it? Was it -moral to refuse that chance to make my life over again? You know me, -kid. You know some of me, at least. You know I don't hold much by -morals. If I was to tell you how I got that bullet under my kneecap, -you'd know me better than _you_ do. If I had hit him just right and made -my get-away, I would have led a different life. - -"And I wouldn't now be 'waiting for my death sentence. For that's -practically what this prohibition thing means to me. I can't work at -anything but this. And this is through with. And I'm through with. I'm a -bum from now on. There's no use kidding myself; I'm a bum. - -"And yet, often, I'm glad I didn't do it." - -Ed brooded in silence for a while. - -And then I said, "It's strange he didn't know you." - -"It's been ten years," said Ed, "and you saw that the old man's got -to the doddering stage. He likely wouldn't know his own children if he -didn't see them every day or two." - -"I suppose," I said, "that the old man feels he is ending his days in a -very satisfactory manner--the national prohibition thing triumphant, and -all that." - -"How do you mean?" asked Ed. - -"Don't you know?" I said. "Why, Old Man Singleton, it is said, helped -to finance the fight, and used his money and his influence on other big -money all over the country in getting next to doubtful politicians and -putting the thing through the state legislatures. I don't mean there -was anything crooked about it anywhere, but he was one of the bunch that -represented organized power, and put the stunt across while the liquor -interests were still saying national prohibition could never come." - -"The hell he did!" said Ed. "I didn't know he was mixed up with it. I -never saw him take a drink, now that I remember, except the brandy on -the night I saved his life." - -"Old Man Singleton," I said, "is credited with having had more to do -with it than any other one person, by those who are on the inside." - -"The old coot!" said Ed. And then added wryly: "I hope he gets as stiff -in his knee joint as I am and lives forever! He's made a bum of me!" - -It was three or four weeks after my talk with Ed that I read in the -papers of a peculiar accident of which Old Man Singleton had been the -victim. A head of cabbage, he said, had fallen out of a tree and hit him -on his own head one evening as he was walking alone in Central Park. He -had been dazed by the blow for a moment; and when he regained his feet -a considerable sum of money which he had been carrying was gone. He was -sure that he had been struck by a head of cabbage, for a head of cabbage -lay on the pathway near him when he was helped to his feet. He did not -pretend to be able to say how a head of cabbage could have gotten into -one of the park trees. - -The police discredited his story, pointing out that likely the old -man, who was near-sighted, had blundered against a tree in the dusk and -struck his head. The head of cabbage, they told the reporters, could -have had nothing to do with it; it could not have come into contact with -his head at all, unless, indeed, some one had put it into a sack and -swung it on him like a bludgeon; and this, the police said, was too -absurd to be considered. For why should a crook use a head of cabbage, -when the same results might have been attained with the more usual -blackjack, stick or fist? - -Old Man Singleton was not badly hurt; and as regarded the loss of the -money, he never said, nor did his family ever say, just how large the -sum was. Mr. Singleton had the vague impression that after the cabbage -fell out of the tree and hit him he had been helped to his feet by a man -who limped and who said to him: "Kale is given to them that can best use -it, to have and to hold." - -He did not accuse this person, who disappeared before he was thoroughly -himself again, of having found the money which had evidently dropped -from his pocket when the cabbage fell from the tree and hit him, but -he was suspicious, and he thought the police were taking the matter too -lightly; he criticized the police in an interview given to the papers. -The police pointed out the irrelevance of the alleged words of the -alleged person who limped, and intimated that Mr. Singleton was -irrational and should be kept at home evenings; as far as they were -concerned, the incident was closed. - -But I got another slant at it, as Ed might have said. Last winter I was -talking at my club with a friend just back from Cuba, where the rum is -red and joy is unconfined. - -"I met a friend of yours," he said, "by the name of Ed down there, who -is running a barroom and seems to be quite a sport in his way. Sent his -regards to you. Must have made it pay--seems to have all kinds of money. -Named his barroom 'The Second Thought.' Asked him why. He said nobody -knew but himself, and he was keeping it a secret--though you might -guess. Wants you to come down. Sent you a message. Let's see: what was -it? Oh, yes! Cryptic! Very cryptic! Wrote it down--here it is: '_Kale! -Kale! The gang's all here_.' Make anything out of it? I can't." - -I could, though I didn't tell him what. But I shall not visit Ed in -Cuba; I consider him an immoral person. - - - - -VII--Bubbles - - -I - -|Tommy Hawkins was not so sober that you could tell it on him. Certainly -his friend Jack Dobson, calling on him one dreary winter evening--an -evening of that winter before John Barleycorn cried maudlin tears into -his glass and kissed America good-by--would never have guessed it from -Tommy's occupation. Presenting himself at Tommy's door and finding it -unlocked, Jack had gone on in. A languid splashing guided him to the -bathroom. In the tub sat Tommy with the water up to his shoulders, -blowing soap bubbles. - -"You darned old fool!" said Jack. "Aren't you ever going to grow up, -Tommy?" - -"Nope," said Tommy placidly. "What for?" Sitting on a chair close by -the bathtub was a shallow silver dish with a cake of soap and some -reddish-colored suds in it. Tommy had bought the dish to give some one -for a wedding present, and then had forgotten to send it. - -"What makes the suds red?" asked Jack. - -"I poured a lot of that nose-and-throat spray stuff into it," explained -Tommy. "It makes them prettier. Look!" - -As a pipe he was using a piece of hollow brass curtain rod six or eight -inches long and of about the diameter of a fat lead pencil. He soused -this thing in the reddish suds and manufactured a bubble with elaborate -care. With a graceful gesture of his wet arm he gently waved the rod -until the bubble detached itself. It floated in the air for a moment, -and the thin, reddish integument caught the light from the electric -globe and gave forth a brief answering flash as of fire. Then the bubble -suddenly and whimsically dashed itself against the wall and was no more, -leaving a faint, damp, reddish trace upon the white plaster. - -"Air current caught it," elucidated Tommy with the air of a circus -proprietor showing off pet elephants. In his most facetious moments -Tommy was wont to hide his childish soul beneath an exterior of serious -dignity. "This old dump is full of air currents. They come in round -the windows, come in round the doors, come right in through the -walls. Damned annoying, too, for a scientist making experiments with -bubbles--starts a bubble and never knows which way it's going to jump. -I'm gonna complain to the management of this hotel." - -"You're going to come out of that bathtub and get into your duds," said -Jack. "That water's getting cool now, and between cold water and air -currents you'll have pneumonia the first thing you know--you poor silly -fish, you." - -"Speaking of fish," said Tommy elliptically, "there's a bottle of -cocktails on the mantel in the room there. Forgot it for a moment. Don't -want to be inhospitable, but don't drink all of it." - -"It's all gone," said Dobson a moment later. - -"So?" said Tommy in surprise. "That's the way with cocktails. Here -one minute and gone the next--like bubbles. Bubbles! Life's like that, -Jack!" He made another bubble with great solemnity, watched it float and -dart and burst. "Pouf!" he said. "Bubbles! Bubbles! Life's like that!" - -"You're an original philosopher, you are," said Jack, seizing him by the -shoulders. "You're about as original as a valentine. Douse yourself -with cold water and rub yourself down and dress. Come out of it, kid, or -you'll be sick." - -"If I get sick," said Tommy, obeying, nevertheless, "I won't have to go -to work to-morrow." - -"Why aren't you working to-day?" asked his friend, working on him with a -coarse towel. - -"Day off," said Tommy. - -"Day off!" rejoined Dobson. "Since when has the _Morning Despatch_ -been giving two days off a week to its reporters? You had your day off -Tuesday, and this is Thursday." - -"Is it?" said Tommy. "I always get Tuesday and Thursday mixed. Both -begin with a T. Hey, Jack, how's that? Both begin with a T! End with a -tea party! Good line, hey, Jack? Tuesday and Thursday both begin with -a T and end with a tea party. I'm gonna write a play round that, Jack. -Broadway success! Letters a foot high! Royalties for both of us! I won't -forget you, Jack! You suggested the idea for the plot, Jack. Drag you -out in front of the curtain with me when I make my speech. 'Author! -Author!' yells the crowd. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' says I, 'here is the -obscure and humble person who set in motion the train of thought that -led to my writing this masterpiece. Such as he is, I introduce him to -you.'" - -"Shut up!" said Jack, and continued to lacerate Tommy's hide with the -rough towel. "Hold still! Now go and get into your clothes." And as -Tommy began to dress he regarded that person darkly. "You're a brilliant -wag, you are! It's a shame the way the copy readers down on the -_Despatch_ keep your best things out of print, you splattering -supermudhen of journalism, you! You'll wake up some morning without any -more job than a kaiser." And as Tommy threaded himself into the mystic -maze of his garments Mr. Dobson continued to look at him and mutter -disgustedly, "Bubbles!" - -Not that he was afraid that Tommy would actually lose his job. If it had -been possible for Tommy to lose his job that must have happened years -before. But Tommy wrote a certain joyous type of story better than any -other person in New York, and his facetiousness got him out of as many -scrapes as it got him into. He was thirty years old. At ninety he would -still be experimenting with the visible world in a spirit of random -eagerness, joshing everything in it, including himself. He looked -exactly like the young gentleman pictured in a widely disseminated -collar advertisement. He enjoyed looking that way, and occasionally he -enjoyed talking as if he were exactly that kind of person. He loved to -turn his ironic levity against the character he seemed to be, much as -the mad wags who grace the column of F. P. A. delight in getting their -sayings across accompanied by a gentle satirical fillip at all mad -waggery. - -"Speaking of bubbles," he suddenly chuckled as he carefully adjusted his -tie in the collar that looked exactly like the one in the advertisement, -"there's an old party in the next room that takes 'em more seriously -than you do, Jack." - -The old downtown hotel in which Tommy lived had once been a known and -noted hostelry, and persons from Plumville, Pennsylvania, Griffin, -Georgia, and Galva, Illinois, still stopped there when in New York, -because their fathers and mothers had stopped there on their wedding -journeys perhaps. It was not such a very long way from the Eden Musee, -when there was an Eden Musee. Tommy's room had once formed part of a -suite. The bathroom which adjoined it had belonged jointly to another -room in the suite. But now these two rooms were always let separately. -Still, however, the bathroom was a joint affair. When Tommy wished to -bathe he must first insure privacy by hooking on the inside the door -that led into the bathroom from the chamber beyond. - -"Old party in the next room?" questioned Jack. - -"Uh-huh," said Tommy, who had benefited by his cold sluicing and his -rubdown. "I gave him a few bubbles for his very own--through the keyhole -into his room, you know. Poked that brass rod through and blew the -bubble in his room. Detached it with a little jerk and let it float. -Seemed more sociable, you know, to let him in on the fun. Never be -stingy with your pleasures, Jack. Shows a mean spirit--a mean soul. Why -not cheer the old party up with soap bubbles? Cost little, bubbles -do. More than likely he's a stranger in New York. Unfriendly city, he -thinks. Big city. Nobody thinks of him. Nobody cares for him. Away from -home. Winter day. Melancholy. Well, I say, give him a bubble now and -then. Shows some one is thinking of him. Shows the world isn't so -thoughtless and gloomy after all. Neighborly sort of thing to do, Jack. -Makes him think of his youth--home--mother's knee--all that kind of -thing, Jack. Cheers him up. Sat in the tub there and got to thinking -of him. Almost cried, Jack, when I thought how lonely the old man must -be--got one of these old man's voices. Whiskers. Whiskers deduced from -the voice. So I climbed out of the tub every ten or fifteen minutes all -afternoon and gave the old man a bubble. Rain outside--fog, sleet. Dark -indoors. Old man sits and thinks nobody loves him. Along comes a bubble. -Old man gets happy. Laughs. Remembers his infancy. Skies clear. You -think I'm a selfish person, Jack? I'm not. I'm a Samaritan. Where will -we eat?" - -"You are a darned fool," said Jack. "You say he took them seriously? -What do you mean? Did he like 'em?" - -"Couldn't quite make out," said Tommy. "But they moved him. Gasped every -now and then. Think he prayed. Emotion, Jack. Probably made him think -of boyhood's happy days down on the farm. Heard him talking to himself. -Think he cried. Went to bed anyhow with his clothes on and pulled the -covers over his head. Looked through the keyhole and saw that. Gray -whiskers sticking up, and that's all. Deduced the whiskers from the -voice, Jack. Let's give the old party a couple more bubbles and then go -eat. It's been an hour since he's had one. Thinks I'm forgetting him, no -doubt." - -So they gave the old man a couple of bubbles, poking the brass rod -through the keyhole of the door. - -The result was startling and unexpected. First there came a gasp from -the other room, a sort of whistling release of the breath, and an -instant later a high, whining, nasal voice. - -"Oh, God! God! Again! You meant it, then, God! You meant it!" - -The two young men started back and looked at each other in wonderment. -There was such a quivering agony, such an utter groveling terror in this -voice from the room beyond that they were daunted. - -"What's eating him?" asked Dobson, instinctively dropping his tones to a -whisper. - -"I don't know," said Tommy, temporarily subdued. "Sounds like that last -one shell-shocked him when it exploded, doesn't it?" - -But Tommy was subdued only for a moment. - -As they went out into the corridor he giggled and remarked, "Told you he -took 'em seriously, Jack." - - - -II - -"Seriously" was a word scarcely strong enough for the way in which the -old party in the room beyond had taken it, though he had not, in fact, -seen the bubble. He had only seen a puff of smoke coming apparently from -nowhere, originating in the air itself, as it seemed to him, manifesting -itself, materializing itself out of nothing, and floating in front of -the one eye which was peeping fearfully out of the huddled bedclothing -which he had drawn over himself. He had lain quaking on the bed, waiting -for this puff of smoke for an hour or more, hoping against hope that it -would not come, praying and muttering, knotting his bony hands in the -whiskers that Tommy had seen sticking up from the coverings, twisting -convulsively. - -Tommy had whimsically filled the bubble, as he blew it, with smoke -from his cigarette. He had in like manner, throughout the afternoon and -early-evening, filled all the bubbles that he had given the old man -with cigarette or pipe smoke. The old party had not been bowled over -by anything in Tommy's tobacco. He had not noticed that the smoke was -tobacco smoke, for he had been smoking a pipe himself the greater part -of the day, and had not aired out the room. It was neither bubbles nor -tobacco that had flicked a raw spot on his soul. It was smoke. - - - -III - -Bubbles! They seemed to be in Tommy's brain. Perhaps it was the -association of ideas that made him think of champagne. At any rate he -declared that he must have some, and vetoed his friend's suggestion that -they dine--as they frequently did--at one of the little Italian table -d'hote places in Greenwich Village. - -"You're a bubble and I'm a bubble and the world is a bubble," Tommy -was saying a little later as he watched the gas stirring in his golden -drink. - -They had gone to the genial old Brevoort, which was--but why tell -persons who missed the Brevoort in its mellower days what they missed, -and why cause anguished yearnings in the bosoms of those who knew it -well? - -"Tommy," said his friend, "don't, if you love me, hand out any more of -your jejune poeticism or musical-comedy philosophy. I'll agree with you -that the world is a bubble for the sake of argument, if you'll change -the record. I want to eat, and nothing interferes with my pleasure in -a meal so much as this line of pseudocerebration that you seem to have -adopted lately." - -"Bubbles seem trivial things, Jack," went on Tommy, altogether -unperturbed. "But I have a theory that there aren't any trivial things. -I like to think of the world balancing itself on a trivial thing. Look -at the Kaiser, for instance. A madman. Well, let's say there's been a -blood clot in his brain for years--a little trivial thing the size of a -pin point, Jack. It hooks up with the wrong brain cell; it gets into -the wrong channel, and--pouf! The world goes to war. A thousand million -people are affected by it--by that one little clot of blood no bigger -than a pin point that gets into the wrong channel. An atom! A planet -balanced on an atom! A star pivoting on a molecule!" - -"Have some soup," said his friend. - -"Bubbles! Bubbles and butterflies!" continued Tommy. "Some day, Jack, -I'm going to write a play in which a butterfly's wing brushes over an -empire." - -"No, you're not," said Jack. "You're just going to talk about it and -think you're writing it and peddle the idea round to everybody you know, -and then finally some wise guy is going to grab it off and really write -it. You've been going to write a play ever since I knew you." - -"Yes, I am; I'm really going to write that play." - -"Well, Tommy," said Jack, looking round the chattering dining room, -"this is a hell of a place to do it in!" - -"Meaning, of course," said Tommy serenely, "that it takes more than a -butterfly to write a play about a butterfly." - -"You get me," said his friend. And then after a pause he went on with -sincerity in his manner: "You know I think you could write the play, -Tommy. But unless you get to work on some of your ideas pretty soon, and -buckle down to them in earnest, other people will continue to write your -plays--and you will continue to josh them and yourself, and your friends -will continue to think that you could write better plays if you would -only do it. People aren't going to take you seriously, Tommy, till you -begin to take yourself a little seriously. Why, you poor, futile, silly, -misguided, dear old mutt, you! You don't even have sense enough--you -don't have the moral continuity, if you follow me--to stay sore at a man -that does you dirt! Now, do you?" - -"Oh, I don't know about that," said Tommy a little more seriously. - -"Well now, do you?" persisted his friend. "I don't say it's good -Christian doctrine not to forgive people. It isn't. But I've seen people -put things across on you, Tommy, and seen you laugh it off and let 'em -be friends with you again inside of six weeks. I couldn't do it, and -nine-tenths of the fellows we know couldn't do it; and in the way you -do it it shouldn't be done. You should at least remember, even if you do -forgive; remember well enough not to get bit by the same dog again. With -you, old kid, it's all a part of your being a butterfly and a bubble. -It's no particular virtue in you. I wouldn't talk to you like a Dutch -uncle if I didn't think you had it in you to make good. But you've got -to be prodded." - -"There's one fellow that did me dirt," said Tommy musingly, "that I've -never taken to my bosom again." - -"What did you do to him?" asked his friend. "Beat him to death with -a butterfly's wing, Tommy, or blow him out of existence with a soap -bubble?" - -"I've never done anything to him," said Tommy soberly. "And I don't -think I ever would do anything to him. I just remember, that's all. If -he ever gets his come-uppance, as they say in the rural districts, it -won't be through any act of mine. Let life take revenge for me. I never -will." - -"I suppose you're right," said Dobson. "But who was this guy? And what -did he do to you?" - - - -IV - -"He was--and is--my uncle," said Tommy, "and he did about everything -to me. Listen! You think I do nothing but flitter, flutter, frivol and -flivver! And you may be right, and maybe I never will do anything else. -Maybe I never will be anything but a kid. - -"I was young when I was born. No, that's not one of my silly lines, -Jack. I mean it seriously. I was young when I was born. I was born with -a jolly disposition. But this uncle of mine took it out of me. I'll say -he did! The reason I'm such a kid now, Jack, is because I had to grow up -when I was about five years old, and I stayed grown up until I was -seventeen or eighteen. I never had a chance to be a boy. If I showed any -desire to be it was knocked out of me on the spot. And if I live two -hundred years, and stay nineteen years old all that time, Jack, I won't -any more than make up for the childhood I missed--that was stolen from -me. Frivol? I could frivol a thousand years and not dull my appetite. I -want froth, Jack: froth and bubbles! - -"This old uncle of mine--he wasn't so old in years when I first knew -him, but in his soul he was as old as the overseers who whipped the -slaves that built Cheops' pyramid, and as sandy and as flinty--hated me -as soon as he saw me. He hated me before he saw me. He would have hated -me if he had never seen me, because I was young and happy and careless. - -"I was that, when I went to live with him--young and happy and careless. -I was five years old. He was my father's brother, Uncle Ezra was, and he -beat my father out of money in his dirty, underhanded way. Oh, nothing -illegal! At least, I suppose not. Uncle Ezra was too cautious to do -anything that might be found out on him. There was nothing that my -mother could prove, at any rate, and my father had been careless and had -trusted him. When my father died my mother was ill. He gave us a home, -Uncle Ezra did. She had to live somewhere; she had to have a roof over -her head and attention of some sort. She had no near relations, and I -had to be looked after. - -"So she and I went into his house to live. It was to be temporary. We -were to move as soon as she got better. But she did not live long. I -don't remember her definitely as she was before we went to live with -Uncle Ezra. I can only see her as she lay on a bed in a dark room before -she died. It was a large wooden bed, with wooden slats and a straw -mattress. I can see myself sitting on a chair by the head of the bed and -talking to her. My feet did not reach to the floor by any means; they -only reached to the chair rungs. I can't remember what she said or what -I said. All I remember of her is that she had very bright eyes and that -her arms were thin. I remember her arms, but not her face, except the -eyes. I suppose she used to reach her arms out to me. I think she -must have been jolly at one time, too. There is a vague feeling, a -remembrance, that before we went to Uncle Ezra's she was jolly, and -that she and I laughed and played together in some place where there was -red-clover bloom. - -"One day when I was siting on the chair, the door opened and Uncle Ezra -came in. There was some man with him that was, I suppose, a doctor. -I can recall Uncle Ezra's false grin and the way he put his hand on my -head--to impress the doctor, I suppose--and the way I pulled away from -him. For I felt that he disliked me, and I feared and hated him. - -"Yes, Uncle Ezra gave us a home. I don't know how much you know about -the rural districts, Jack. But when an Uncle Ezra in a country town -gives some one a home he acquires merit. This was a little town in -Pennsylvania that Pm talking about, and Uncle Ezra was a prominent -citizen--deacon in the church and all that sort of thing. Truly rural -drama stuff, Jack, but I can't help that--it's true. Uncle Ezra had a -reputation for being stingy and mean. Giving us a home was a good card -for him to play. My mother had a little money, and he stole that, too, -when she died. - -"I suppose he stole it legally. I don't know. It wasn't much. No one had -any particular interest in looking out for me, and nobody would want to -start anything in opposition to Uncle Ezra in that town if it could be -helped anyhow. He didn't have the whole village and the whole of the -farming country round about sewed up, all by himself, but he was one -of the little group that did. There's a gang like that in every country -town, I imagine. He was one of four or five big ducks in that little -puddle--lent money, took mortgages and all that kind of thing you read -about. I don't know how much he is worth now, counting what he has -been stealing all his life. But it can't be a staggering sum. He's too -cowardly to plunge or take a long chance. He steals and saves and grinds -in a little way. He is too mean and small and blind and limited in his -intelligence to be a big, really successful crook, such as you will find -in New York City. - -"When my mother died, of course, I stayed with Uncle Ezra. I suppose -everybody said how good it was of him to keep me, and that it showed a -soft and kindly spot in his nature after all, and that he couldn't be so -hard as he had the name of being. But I don't see what else could have -been done with me, unless he had taken me out and dropped me in the mill -pond like a blind cat. Sometimes I used to wish he had done that. - -"It isn't hard to put a five-year-old kid in the wrong, so as to make it -appear--even to the child himself--that he is bad and disobedient. Uncle -Ezra began that way with me. I'm not going into details. This isn't a -howl; it's merely an explanation. But he persecuted me in every way. He -put me to work before I should have known what work was--work too hard -for me. He deviled me and he beat me, he clothed me like a beggar and he -fed me like a dog, he robbed me of childhood and of boyhood. I won't go -over the whole thing. - -"I never had decent shoes, or a hat that wasn't a rag, and I never went -to kid parties or anything, or even owned so much as an air rifle of my -own. The only pair of skates I ever had, Jack, I made for myself out of -two old files, with the help of the village blacksmith--and I got licked -for that. Uncle Ezra said I had stolen the files and the straps. They -belonged to him. - -"But there's one thing I remember with more of anger than any other. He -used to make me kneel down and pray every night before I went to bed, -in his presence; and sometimes he would pray with me. He was a deacon in -the church. There are plenty of them on the square--likely most of them -are. But this one was the kind you used to see in the old-fashioned -melodramas. Truly rural stuff, Jack. He used to be quite a shark at -prayer himself, Uncle Ezra did. I can remember how he looked when he -prayed, with his eyes shut and his Adam's apple bobbing up and down and -the sound whining through his nose. - -"The only person that was ever human to me was a woman I called Aunt -Lizzie. I don't know really what relation she wras to me; a distant -cousin of Uncle Ezra's, I think. She was half blind and she was deaf, -and he bullied her and made her do all the housework. She was bent -nearly double with drudgery. He had given her a home, too. She didn't -dare be very good to me. He might find it out, and then we both would -catch it. She baked me some apple dumplings once on one of my birthdays. -I was nine years old. And he said she had stolen the apples and flour -from him; that he had not ordered her to make any apple dumplings, -and it was theft; and he made me pray for her, and made her pray for -herself, and he prayed for both of us in family prayers every day for a -week. - -"I was nearly eighteen when I ran away. I might have done it sooner, but -I was small for my age, and I was cowed. I didn't dare to call my soul -my own, and I had a reputation for being queer, too. For I used to grin -and laugh at things no one else thought were funny--when Uncle Ezra -wasn't round. I suppose people in that town thought it was odd that I -could laugh at all. No one could understand how I had a laugh left in -me. But when I was alone I used to laugh. I used to laugh at myself -sometimes because I was so little and so queer. When I was seventeen I -wasn't much bigger than a thirteen-year-old kid should be. I packed a -lot of growing into the years between seventeen and twenty-one. - -"When I ran away Aunt Lizzie gave me eighty-seven cents, all in nickels -and pennies, and there were two or three of those old-fashioned two-cent -pieces in it, too, that she had had for God knows how long. It was -all she had. I don't suppose he ever paid her anything at all, and the -wonder was she had that much. I told her that when I got out into the -world and made good I would come and get her, but she shivered all over -with fright at the idea of daring to leave. I have sent her things from -time to time in the last ten years--money, and dresses I have bought -for her, and little things I thought she would like. But I don't know -whether he let her have them or not I never got any letter from her at -all. I don't even know whether she can write, to tell the truth, and she -wouldn't dare get one of the neighbors to write for her. But if I ever -make any real money, Jack, I am going to go and get her, whether she -dares to come away or not. - -"Well, when I left, the thing I wanted to do was go to school. Uncle -Ezra hadn't given me time to go to school much. But I tramped to a -town where there was a little fresh-water college that had its own prep -school attached, and I did the whole seven years of prep school and -college in five years. You see, I had a lot of bounce in me. The minute -I got away from Uncle Ezra the whole world brightened up for me. The -clouds rolled by and life looked like one grand long joke, and I turned -into a kid. I romped through that prep school and that college, and made -my own living while I was doing it, and laughed all the time and loved -the world and everything in it, and it came as easy to me as water comes -to a duck. I came on down here to New York and was lucky enough to get a -chance as a reporter, and I've been romping ever since. - -"I don't want to do anything but romp. Of course, I want to write some -good stuff some day, but I want to keep romping while I write it, and I -want it to be stuff that has a romp in it, too. You say I romp so much -I'm never serious. Well, I do have some serious moments, too. I have -a dream that keeps coming to me. I dream that I'm back in that little -town, and that I'm Uncle Ezra's slave again, and that I can't get away. - -"Sometimes the dream takes the form of Uncle Ezra coming here to New -York to get me, and I know that I've got to go back with him to that -place, and I wake up sweating and crying like an eight-year-old kid. If -he ever really came it would put a crimp into me, Jack. - -"You say I'm a butterfly. And I say, yes, Jack, thank God I am! I used -to be a grubworm, and now I'm a butterfly, praise heaven! - -"Well, that's the guy I hold the grudge against, and that's why I'm fool -enough to rush into every pleasure I can find. I don't know that I'll -ever change. And as for the man, I don't ever want to see him. I don't -know that I'd ever do anything to him if I did--beat him to death with -a butterfly's wing, or blow him up with a soap bubble, as you suggested. -Let him alone. He'll punish himself. He is punished by being what he is. -I wouldn't put a breath into the scale one way or the other--not even a -puff of cigarette smoke." - -He blew a breath of cigarette smoke luxuriously out of his nose as he -finished, and then he remarked, "Let's go somewhere and dance." - -"Nazimova is doing Ibsen uptown," suggested Jack, "and I have a couple -of tickets. Let's go and see Ibsen lb a little." - -"Nope," said Tommy. "Ibsen's got too much sense. I want something silly. -Me for a cabaret, or some kind of a hop garden." - - - -V - -But sometimes in this ironical world it happens that we have already -beaten a man to death with a butterfly's wing, slain him with a bubble, -sent him whirling into the hereafter on a puff of smoke, even as we are -saying that such a thing is foreign to our thoughts. - -The old party in the room next to Tommy's at the hotel had arrived the -day before, with an umbrella, a straw suitcase and a worried eye on -either side his long, white, chalkish, pitted nose. He seemed chilly -in spite of his large plum-colored overcoat, of a cut that has survived -only in the rural districts. He wore a salient, assertive beard, that -had once been sandy and was now almost white, but it was the only -assertive thing about him. His manner was far from aggressive. - -An hour after he had been shown to his room he appeared at the desk -again and inquired timidly of the clerk, "There's a fire near here?" - -"Little blaze in the next block. Doesn't amount to anything," said the -clerk. - -"I heard the--the engines," said the guest apologetically. - -"Doesn't amount to anything," said the clerk again. And then, "Nervous -about fire?" - -The old party seemed startled. - -"Who? Me? Why should I be nervous about fire? No! No! No!" He beat a -sudden retreat. "I was just asking--just asking," he threw back over his -shoulder. - -"Old duck's scared of fire and ashamed to own it," mused the clerk, -watching him out of the lobby. - -The old party went back to his room, and there one of the first -things he saw was a copy of the Bible lying on the bureau. There is an -organization which professes for its object the placing of a Bible in -every hotel room in the land. The old party had his own Bible with him. -As if reminded of it by the one on the bureau, he took it out of -his suitcase and sat down and began to turn the leaves like a person -familiar with the book--and like a person in need of comfort, as indeed -he was. - -There was a text in Matthew that he sought--where was it? Somewhere in -the first part of Matthew's gospel--ah, here it is: The twelfth chapter -and the thirty-first verse: - -"All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men...." - -There is a terrible reservation in the same verse. He kept his eyes from -it, and read the first part over and over, forming the syllables with -his lips, but not speaking aloud. - -"All manner of sin--all manner of sin-------" - -And then, as if no longer able to avoid it, he yielded his consciousness -to the latter clause of the verse: - -"But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto -men." - -What was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? Could what he had done be -construed as that? Probably if one lied to God in his prayers, that was -blasphemy against the Holy Ghost--one form of it. And had he been lying -to God these last two weeks when he had said over and over again in his -prayers that it was all a mistake? It hadn't been all a mistake, but the -worst part of it had been a mistake. - -He went out for his dinner that evening, but he was in again before ten -o'clock. He could not have slept well. At two o'clock in the morning he -appeared in front of the desk. - -He had heard fire engines again. - -"See here," said the night clerk, appraising him, as the day clerk had -done, as a rube who had been seldom to the city and was nervous about -fire, "you don't need to be worried. If anything should happen near here -we'd get all the guests out in a jiffy." - -The old party returned to his room. He was up early the next morning and -down to breakfast before the dining room was open. - -He did not look as if he had had much rest. The morning hours he devoted -to reading his Bible in his room. Perhaps he found comfort in it. At -noon he seemed a bit more cheerful. He asked the clerk the way to the -Eden Musee, and was surprised to learn that that place of amusement had -been closed for a year or two. The clerk recommended a moving-picture -house round the corner. But it had begun to rain and snow and sleet -all together; the sky was dark and the wind was rising; the old party -elected not to go out after all. - -He went back to his room once more, and his black fear and melancholy -descended upon him again, and the old debate began to weave through his -brain anew. For two weeks he had been fleeing from the debate and from -himself. He had come to New York to get away from it, but it was no -good. Just when he had made up his mind that God had forgiven him, and -was experiencing a momentary respite, some new doubt would assail him -and the agony would begin again. - -The old debate--he had burned the store, with the living quarters over -it, to get the insurance money, after having removed a part of the -insured goods, but he did not regard that as an overwhelming sin. It -wasn't right, of course, in one way. And yet in another way it was -merely sharp business practice, so he told himself. For a year before -that, when one of his buildings had burned through accident, he had been -forced to accept from the same insurance company less than was actually -due him as a matter of equity. Therefore, to make money out of that -company by a shrewd trick was in a way merely to get back his own again. -It wasn't the sort of thing that a deacon in the church would care to -have found out on him, of course. It was wrong in a sense. But it was -the wrong that it had led to that worried him. - -It was the old woman's death that worried him. He hadn't meant to burn -her to death, God knows! He hadn't known she was in the building. - -He had sent her on a week's visit to another town, to see a surprised -cousin of his own, and it had been distinctly understood that she was -not to return until Saturday. But some time on Friday evening she must -have crept back home and gone to bed in her room. He had not known she -was there. - -"I didn't know! I didn't know!" - -There were times when he gibbered the words to himself by the hour. - -It was at midnight that he had set fire to the place. The old woman was -deaf. Even when the flames began to crackle she could not have heard -them. She had had no more chance than a rat in a trap. The old fool! It -was her own fault! Why had she not obeyed him? Why had she come creeping -back, like a deaf old half-blind tabby cat, to die in the flames? It -was her own fault! When he thought of the way she had returned to kill -herself there were moments when he cursed and hated her. - -But had she killed herself? Back and forth swung the inner argument. At -times he saw clearly enough that this incident joined on without a break -to the texture of his whole miserable life; when he recognized that, -though it might be an accident in a strictly literal sense that the old -woman was dead, yet it was the sort of accident for which his previous -existence had been a preparation. Even while he fiercely denied -his guilt, or talked of it in a seizure of whining prayer that was -essentially a lying denial, he knew that guilt there was. - -Would he be forgiven? There were comforting passages in the Bible. He -switched on the rather insufficient electric light, which was all the -old hotel provided, for the day was too dark to read without that help, -and turned the pages of the New Testament through and through again. - -At three o'clock in the afternoon he was sitting on the edge of his bed, -with the book open in front of him and his head bowed, almost dozing. -His pipe, with which he had filled the room with the fumes of tobacco, -had fallen to the floor. Perhaps it was weariness, but for a brief -period his sharper sense of fear had been somewhat stilled again. Maybe -it was going to be like this--a gradual easing off of the strain in -answer to his prayers. He had asked God for an answer as to whether -he should be forgiven, and God was answering in this way, so he told -himself. God was going to let him get some sleep, and maybe when he woke -everything would be all right again--bearable at least. - -So he mused, half asleep. - -And then all at once he sprang wide awake again, and his terror wakened -with him. For suddenly in front of his half-shut eyes, coming from -nowhere in particular, there passed a puff of smoke! - -What could it mean? He had asked God for an answer. He had been lulled -for a moment almost into something like peace, and--now--this puff of -smoke! Was it a sign? Was it God's answer? - -He sat up on the edge of the bed, rigid, in a cold, still agony of -superstitious fright. He dared not move or turn his head. He was afraid -that he would see--something--if he looked behind him. He was afraid -that he would in another moment hear something--a voice! - -He closed his eyes. He prayed. He prayed aloud. His eyes once closed, -he scarcely dared open them again. After seme minutes he began to tell -himself that perhaps he had been mistaken; perhaps he had not seen smoke -at all. Perhaps even if he had seen smoke it was due to some explicable -cause, and not meant for him. - -He greatly dared. He opened his eyes. And drifting lazily above the -white pillow at the head of the bed was another puff of smoke. - -He rocked back and forth upon the bed, with his arms up as if to shield -his head from a physical blow, and then he passed in a moment from the -quakings of fear to a kind of still certainty of doom. God was angry at -him. God was telling him so. God would send the devil for him. There -was no further doubt. He would go to hell--to hell! To burn forever! -Forever--even as the old woman had burned for a quarter of an hour. He -began to search through the pages of the Bible again, not for words of -comfort this time, but in a morbid ecstasy of despair, for phrases about -hell, for verses that mentioned fire and flames. - -He did not need the concordance. He knew his Bible well, and his fear -helped him. Consciousness and subconsciousness joined to guide his -fingers and eyes in the quest. - -"Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming," he -read in Isaiah, and he took it to himself. - -"Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and -ye shall be melted in the midst thereof," he read in Ezekiel. - -He had a literal imagination, and he had a literal belief, and at every -repetition of the word "fire" the flesh cringed and crawled on his -bones. God! To burn! How it must hurt! - -"And the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God," met his eyes in -the first book of Kings. - -And it all meant him. Now and then over his shoulder would float another -little puff of smoke; and once, lifting his head suddenly from poring -over the book, he thought he saw something that moved and glinted like a -traveling spark, and was gone. - -He began to feel himself in hell already. This was the foretaste, that -was all. Would he begin to burn even before he died? Did this smoke -presage something of that kind? Would flames physically seize upon him, -and would he burn, even as the old woman had burned? - -Suddenly in his hysteria there came a revulsion--a revolt. Having -reached the nethermost depths of despair, he began to move upward a -little. His soul stirred and took a step and tried to climb. He began to -pray once more. After all, the Good Book did promise mercy! He began to -dare to pray again. And he prayed in a whisper that now and then broke -into a whine--a strange prayer, characteristic of the man. - -"Oh, God," he cried, "you promise forgiveness in that book there, and -I'm gonna hold you to it! I'm gonna hold you to it! It's down there in -black and white, your own words, God, and I'm gonna hold you to it! It's -a contract, God, and you ain't the kind of a man, God, to go back on a -contract that's down in black and white!" - -Thus he prayed, with a naive, unconscious blasphemy. And after long -minutes of this sort of thing his soul dared take another step. A -faint, far glimmering of hope came to him where he groveled. For he was -groveling on the bed now, with the covers pulled up to his head and his -hand upon the open Bible. He found the courage to peer from beneath the -covers at intervals as he prayed and muttered, and minutes passed with -no more smoke. Had the smoke ceased? The sound of his own murmuring -voice began to reassure him. The smoke had certainly ceased! It had been -twenty minutes since he had seen it--half an hour! - -What could it mean? That God was hearkening to his prayer? - -An hour went by, and still there was no more sign of smoke. He prayed -feverishly, he gabbled, as if by the rapidity of his utterance and the -repeated strokes of his words he were beating back and holding at bay -the smoke that was God's warning and the symbol of his displeasure. And -the smoke had ceased to come! He was to be forgiven! He was winning! His -prayers were winning for him! At least God was listening! - -Yes, that must be it. God was listening now. The smoke had come as a -warning; and he had, upon receiving this warning, repented. God had not -meant, after all, that he was doomed irrevocably. God had meant that, -to be forgiven, his repentance must be genuine, must be thorough--and -it was thorough now. Now it was genuine! And the smoke had ceased! The -smoke had been a sign, and he had heeded the sign, and now if he kept up -his prayers and lived a good life in the future he was to be forgiven. -He would not have to burn in hell after all. - -The minutes passed, and he prayed steadily, and every minute that went -by and brought no further sign of the smoke built up in him a little -more hope, another grain of confidence. - -An hour and a quarter, and he almost dared be sure that he was -forgiven--but he was not quite sure. If he could only be quite sure! He -wallowed on the bed, and his hand turned idly the pages of the Bible, -lying outside on the coverlet. - -More than an hour had gone by. Could he accept it as an indication that -God had indeed heard him? He shifted himself upon the bed, and stared -up at the ceiling through a chink in the covers as if through and beyond -the ceiling he were interrogating heaven. - -And lying so, there came a damp touch upon his hand, soft and chill and -silent, as if it were delicately and ironically brushed by the kiss of -Death. A sudden agony numbed his hand and arm. With the compulsion of -hysteria, not to be resisted, his head lifted and he sat up and looked. -Over the Bible and his hand that lay upon the open page there floated -again a puff of smoke, and faintly staining his Angers and the paper -itself was something moist and red. It stained his Angers and it marked -with red for his straining sight this passage of Isaiah: - -"The earth also shall disclose her blood." - -It was then he cried out, "Oh, God! God! Again! You meant it, then, God! -You meant it." - -It was nearly midnight when Tommy and his friend Dobson returned to the -hotel. "Your paper's been trying to get you for an hour, Mr. Hawkins," -said the night clerk when they came in. "Story right in the next room to -yours. Old party in there hanged himself." - -"So?" said Tommy. "Ungrateful old guy, he is! I put in the afternoon -trying to cheer him up a little." - -"Did you know him?" asked the clerk. - -"Nope," said Tommy, moving toward the elevator. - -But a few moments later, confronted with the grotesque spectacle in the -room upstairs, he said, "Yes--I--I know him. Jack! Jack! Get me out of -here, Jack! It's Uncle Ezra, Jack! He's--he's come for me!" - -As has been remarked before, sometimes even a bubble may be a mordant -weapon. - - - - -VIII.--The Chances of the Street - - -|Merriwether Buck had lost all his money. Also his sisters', and his -cousins', and his aunts'. - -"At two o'clock sharp I will shoot myself," said Merriwether Buck. - -He caressed a ten-shot automatic pistol in the right-hand pocket of his -coat as he loitered up Broadway. He was light-headed. He had had nothing -to eat for forty-eight hours. - -"How I hate you!" said Merriwether Buck, comprehensively to the city in -general. "If nine pistol shots would blot you out, I'd do it!" - -Very melodramatic language, this, for a well-brought-up young man; and -thus indicating that he was light-headed, indeed. And as for the city, -it continued to roar and rattle and honk and rumble and squeak and bawl -and shuffle and thunder and grate in the same old way--supreme in its -confidence that nine pistol shots could not, by any possibility, blot -it out. That is one of the most disconcerting things about a city; you -become enraged at it, and the city doesn't even know it. Unless you -happen to be Nero it is very difficult to blot them out satisfactorily. - -It was one o'clock. Merriwether Buck crossed the street at Herald Square -and went over and stood in front of the big newspaper office. A portly -young fellow with leaden eyes came out of the building and stood -meditatively on the curb with his hands in the pockets of clothing that -clamored shrilly of expense. - -"Excuse me," said Merriwether Buck, approaching him, "but are you, by -any chance, a reporter?" - -"Uh," grunted the young man, frigidly affirmative. - -"I can put you in the way of a good story," said Merriwether Buck, -obeying an impulse: We may live anonymously but most of us like to feel -that it will make a little stir when we die. - -"Huh," remarked the reporter. - -"At two o'clock," persisted Merriwether Buck, "I am going to shoot -myself." - -The reporter looked bored; his specialty was politics. - -"Are you anybody in particular?" he asked, discouragingly. - -"No," confessed Merriwether Buck. It didn't seem to be worth while to -mention that he was one of the Bucks of Bucktown, Merriwether County, -Georgia. - -"I thought," said the reporter, with an air of rebuke, "that you said it -was a _good_ story." - -"I am, at least, a human being," said Merriwether Buck, on the -defensive. - -"They're cheap, hereabout," returned the other, in the manner of a -person who has estimated a good many assorted lots. - -"You are callous," said Merriwether Buck. "Callous to the soul! What are -you, but--but--Why, you are New York incarnate! That is what you are! -And I think I will shoot you first!" - -"I don't want to be a spoil sport," said the reporter, "but I'm afraid I -can't allow it. I have a rather important assignment." - -Merriwether played with the little automatic pistol in his pocket. It -was not any regard for the consequences that deterred him from shooting -the portly young man. But in his somewhat dizzy brain a fancy was taking -shape; a whim worked in him. He drew his hand empty from the pocket, and -that reporter came up out of the grave. - -"I am hungry," said Merriwether Buck, in obedience to the whim. - -"Now that you remind me of it," said the other, his lack-luster -eyes lighting up a little, "so am I!" And he crossed the street and -disappeared through the swinging doors of a cafe. - -Callous, leaden-eyed young man! epitome of this hard town! So cried the -spirit of Merriwether Buck; and then he spoke aloud, formulating his -idea: - -"New York, you are on trial. You are in the balances. I give you an -hour. If I'm asked to lunch by two o'clock, all right. If not, I will -kill myself, first carefully shooting down the most prosperous citizens, -and as many of 'em as I can reach. New York, it's up to you!" - -The idea of playing it out that way tickled him to the heart; he had -always loved games of chance. One man or woman out of all the prosperous -thousands in the streets might save another prosperous half-dozen; -might save as many as he could otherwise reach with nine shots from his -pistol, for he would reserve the tenth for himself. Otherwise, there -should be a sacrifice; he would offer up a blood atonement for the pagan -city's selfishness. Giddy and feverish, and drunk with the sense of his -power to slay, he beheld himself as a kind of grotesque priest--and he -threw back his head and laughed at the maniac conceit. - -A woman who was passing turned at the sound, and their eyes met. She -smiled. Merriwether Buck was good to look at. So was she. She was of -that type of which men are certain at once, without quite knowing why; -while women are often puzzled, saying to themselves: "After all, it may -be only her rings." - -"Pardon me," said Merriwether Buck, overtaking her, "but you and I are -to lunch together, aren't we?" - -"I like your nerve!" said she. And she laughed. It was evident that she -did like it. "Where?" she asked briefly, falling into step beside him. - -"Wherever you like," said Merriwether. "I leave that to you, as I'm -depending on you to pay the check." - -She began a doubtful laugh, and then, seeing that it wasn't a joke, -repeated: - -"I like your nerve!" And it was now evident that she didn't like it. - -"See here," he said, speaking rapidly, "my clothes look all right yet, -but I'm broke. I'm hungry. I haven't had anything to eat since day -before yesterday. I'm not kidding you; it's true. You looked like a good -fellow to me, and I took a chance. Hunger" (as he spoke it he seemed to -remember having heard the remark before), "hunger makes one a judge of -faces; I gambled on yours." - -She wasn't complimented; she regarded him with a manner in which scorn -and incredulity were blended; Merriwether Buck perceived that, for some -reason or other, she was insulted. - -"Don't," she said, "don't pull any of that sentimental stuff on me. I -thought you was a gentleman!" - -And she turned away from him. He took a step in pursuit and started to -renew his plea; for he was determined to play his game square and give -the directing deities of the city a fair chance to soften whatsoever -random heart they would. - -"Beat it!" she shrilled, "beat it, you cheap grafter, or I'll call a -cop!" - -And Merriwether beat it; nor' by nor'west he beat it, as the street -beats it; as the tides beat. The clock on the Times building marked 1.20 -as he paused by the subway station there. In forty minutes--just the -time it takes to hook your wife's dress or put a girdle round the -world--Merri-wether Buck would be beating it toward eternity, shooing -before him a flock of astonished ghosts of his own making. Twenty -minutes had gone by and whatever gods they be that rule New York had -made no sign; perhaps said gods were out at lunch or gone to Coney -Island. Twice twenty minutes more, and---- - -But no. It is all over now. It must be. There emerges from the subway -station one who is unmistakably a preacher. The creases of his face -attest a smiling habit; no doubt long years of doing good have given it -that stamp; the puffs of white hair above the temples add distinction to -benignity. - -"I beg your pardon," said Merriwether Buck, "but are you a minister?" - -"Eh?" said the reverend gentleman, adjusting a pair of gold-rimmed -eyeglasses. "Yes," he said pleasantly, "I am," and he removed the -glasses and put them back on once again, as he spoke. Somehow, the way -he did it was a benediction. - -"I am hungry," said Merriwether. - -"Dear me!" said the reverend gentleman. "I shouldn't have thought it." - -"Will you ask me to lunch?" - -"Eh?" It was an embarrassing question; but the gentleman was all -good nature. His air indicated that he did not intend to let his -own embarrassment embarrass Merriwether too much. "My dear man, you -know--really----" He placed a shapely hand upon Merriwether's shoulder, -rallyingly, almost affectionately, and completed the sentence with a -laugh. - -"It's charity I'm asking for," said Merriwether. - -"Oh!" For some reason he seemed vastly relieved. "Have you been--but, -dear me, are you sure you aren't joking?" - -"Yes; sure." - -"And have you--ahem!--have you sought aid from any institution; any -charitable organization, you know?" - -"But no," said Merriwether, who had instinctively eliminated charitable -organizations, free lunches and police stations from the terms of his -wager, "I thought----" - -"My, my, my," hummed the reverend gentleman, interrupting him. He -produced his card case and took a card therefrom. "I am going," he said, -writing on the card with a pencil, "to give you my card to the secretary -of the Combined Charities. Excellent system they have there. You'll be -investigated, you know," he said brightly, as if that were an especial -boon he was conferring, "your record looked into--character and -antecedents and all that sort of thing!" - -"And fed?" asked Merriwether. - -"Oh, indeed!" And he handed over the card as if he were giving -Merriwether the keys to the city--but not too gross and material a city -either; Merriwether felt almost as if he were being baptized. - -"But," said Merriwether Buck, "I wanted _you_ to feed me!" - -"Oh, my dear man!" smiled the minister, "I _am_ doing it, you know. I'm -a subscriber--do _all_ my charitable work this way. Saves time. Well, -good-by." And he nodded cheerily. - -"But," said Merriwether Buck, "aren't you interested in me personally? -Don't you want to hear my story?" - -"Story? Story?" hummed the other. "Indeed, but they'll learn your story -there! They have the most excellent system there; card system; cases -and case numbers, you know--Stories, bless you! Hundreds and hundreds of -stories! Big file cases! You'll be number so-and-so. Really," he said, -with a beaming enthusiasm, "they have a _wonderful_ system. Well, -good-by!" There was a touch of finality in his pleasant tone, but -Merriwether caught him by the sleeve. - -"See here," he said, "haven't you even got any _curiosity_ about -me? Don't you even want to know why I'm hungry? Can't you find time -_yourself_ to listen to the tale?" - -"Time," said the reverend gentleman, "_time_ is just what I feel the -lack of--feel it sadly, at moments like these, sadly." He sighed, but it -was an optimistic, good-humored sort of sigh. "But I tell you what you -do." He drew forth another card and scribbled on it. "If you want to -tell me your story so very badly--(dear me, what remarkable situations -the clerical life lets one in for!)--so _very_ badly, take this card -to my study about 3.30. You'll find my stenographer there and you can -dictate it to her; she'll type it out. Yes, indeed, she'll type it out! -Well, _good_-by!" - -And with a bright backward nod he was off. - -It was 1.25. There were thirty-five minutes more of life. Merriwether -Buck gave the reverend gentleman's cards to a seedy individual who -begged from him, with the injunction to go and get himself charitably -Bertilloned like a gentleman and stop whining, and turned eastward on -Forty-second Street. If you have but thirty-five minutes of life, why -not spend them on Fifth Avenue, where sightly things abound?--indeed -if you happen to be a homicidal maniac of some hours standing, like -Merriwether Buck, Fifth Avenue should be good hunting ground; the very -place to mark the fat and greasy citizens of your sacrifice. - -Time, the only patrician, will not step lively for the pert subway -guards of human need, nor yet slacken pace for any bawling traffic cop -of man's desire; he comes of an old family too proud to rush, too proud -to wait; a fine old fellow with a sense of his own value. Time walked -with Merriwether Buck as he loitered up Fifth Avenue, for the old -gentleman loves to assist personally at these little comedies, -sometimes; with Death a hang-dog third. Not even a fly-cop took note of -the trio, although several, if they robbed a jewelry store or anything -like that, would tell the reporters later that they had noticed -something suspicious at the time. And the patron deities of New York -City might have been over in Hoboken playing pinochle for all the heed -_they_ took. - -Which brings us to Sixty-fifth Street and 1.58 o'clock and the presence -of the great man, all at once. - -When Merriwether Buck first saw him, Meriwether Buck gasped. He couldn't -believe it. And, indeed, it was a thing that might not happen again this -year or next year or in five years--J. Dupont Evans, minus bulwark or -attendant, even minus his habitual grouch, walking leisurely toward him -like any approachable and common mortal. Merriwether Buck might well be -incredulous. But it was he; the presentment of that remarkable face has -been printed a hundred thousand times; it is as well known to the world -at large as Uncle Pete Watson's cork leg is on the streets of Prairie -Centre, Ill.; it is unmistakable. - -To have J. Dupont Evans at the point of a pistol might almost intoxicate -some sane and well-fed men, and Merriwether Buck was neither. J. Dupont -Evans--the wealth of Croesus would be just one cracked white chip in the -game he plays. But at this moment his power and his importance had been -extraordinarily multiplied by circumstances. The chances of the street -had tumbled down a half dozen banks--(well did Merriwether Buck know -that, since it had ruined him)--and financial panic was in the air; -an epochal and staggering disaster threatened; and at this juncture a -president in no wise humble had publicly confessed his own impotence and -put it up to J. Dupont Evans to avert, to save, to reassure. - -Merriwether Buck had not dreamed of this; in the crook of his trigger -finger lay, not merely the life of a man, but the immediate destiny of a -nation. - -He grasped the pistol in his pocket, and aimed it through the cloth. - -"Do you know what time it is?" he asked J. Dupont Evans, politely -enough. - -It was only a second before the man answered. But in that second -Merriwether Buck, crazily exalted, and avid of the sensation he was -about to create, had a swift vision. He saw bank after bank come -crashing down; great railroad systems ruined; factories closed and -markets stagnant; mines shut and crops ungathered in the fields; ships -idle at the wharves; pandemonium and ruin everywhere. - -"Huh?" said J. Dupont Evans, gruffly, removing an unlighted cigar from -his mouth. He looked at Merriwether Buck suspiciously, and made as if to -move on. But he thought better of it the next instant, evidently, for -he pulled out a plain silver watch and said grudgingly: "Two minutes -of two." And then, in a tone less unpleasant, he asked: "Have you got a -match, young man?" - -Merriwether fumbled in his vest pocket. In a minute and a half he would -perfunctorily ask this man for lunch, and then he would kill him. But he -would give him a match first--for Merriwether Buck was a well-brought-up -young man. As he fumbled he picked out the exact spot on the other's -waistcoat where he would plant the bullet. But the idea of a man on the -edge of the grave lighting a cigar tickled him so that he laughed aloud -as he held out the matches. - -"What can I do with these?" snorted J. Dupont Evans. "They are the sort -that light only on their own box." From his glance one might have gained -the impression that he thought Merriwether Buck a fool. - -"Great principle that," said Merriwether Buck, cackling with hysteria. -It was so funny that a dead man should want to smoke a cigar! He would -let him play he was alive for fifty seconds longer. - -"Principle?" said Evans. "Principle? What Principle?" - -"Well," said Merriwether, with the random argumentativeness of insanity, -"it _is_ a great principle. Apply that principle to some high explosive, -for instance, and you have no more battleship flare-backs--no premature -mine blasts----" - -"Say," the other suddenly interrupted, "are you an inventor?" - -"Yes," lied Merriwether Buck, glibly, although he had never given five -seconds' thought to the subject of high explosives in his life. "That's -how I know. I've invented an explosive more powerful than dynamite. But -it won't explode by contact with fire, like powder. Won't explode with a -jar, like dynamite. Won't freeze, like dynamite. Only one way to explode -it--you've got to bring it into contact with a certain other chemical -the same as scratching one of these matches on its own box." - -"The deuce, young man!" said the other. "There's a fortune in it! Is it -on the market at all?" - -"No," said Merriwether Buck, raising his pistol hand slightly and -thrusting it a bit forward, under the mask of his coat pocket, "no money -to start it going." - -"Hum," mused the other. "I tell you what you do, young man. You come -along to lunch with me and we'll talk the thing over--money and all." - -And the directing deities of New York struck twice on all the city -clocks, and striking, winked. - - - - -IX.--The Professor's Awakening - -|How I ever come to hit such a swell-looking house for a handout I never -knew. Not that there was anything so gaudy about it, neither, as far as -putting up a bluff at being a millionaire's mansion went, which I found -out afterwards it was, or pretty near that at any rate. But it was just -about the biggest house in that Illinois town, and it's mostly that kind -o' place with them naked iron heathens in the front yard and a brick -stable behind that it ain't no use to go up against unless you're -looking for a lemon. If you need real food and need it sudden and ain't -prospecting around town for no other kind of an opening you better make -for the nearest public works like a canal being dug, or a railroad gang. -Hit the little tin dinner buckets, men that does the unskilled labor -on jobs like that, except Swedes and Dagos, knowing what it is to be -up against it themselves now and then and not inclined to ask no fool -questions. - -Well, I went around to the back door, and Biddy Malone she lets me in. I -found out that was her name afterwards, but as soon as I seen her face -I guessed if her name wasn't Bridget it was Nora. It's all in the -first look they give you after they open the door. If that look's right -they're coming across and you'll get some kind of a surprise for your -digestive ornaments and you don't need to make no fool breaks about -sawing wood neither. I makes my little talk and Biddy she says come in; -and into the kitchen I went. - -"It's Minnesota you're working towards," says Biddy, pouring me out a -cup of coffee. - -She was thinking of the wheat harvest where there's thousands makes for -every fall. But not for me, I never did like to work for none of them -Scandiluvian Swedes and Norwegians that gets into the field before -daylight and stays at it so long the hired men got to milk the cows by -moonlight. They got no sense of proportion, them Gusses and Oles ain't. - -"I been across the river into I'way," I says, "working at my trade, and -I'm going back to Chicago to work at it some more." - -"And what may your trade be?" says Biddy, sizing me up careful. I seen I -made a hit somehow or she wouldn't of asked me in the first place was -I going to the wheat harvest, but would of just supposed I was a hobo, -which I ain't. I got a lot of trades when I want to use one, and as a -regular thing I rather work at one of them for a while, too, but can't -stand it very long on account of not feeling right to stay in one place -too long, especially in the summer. When I seen I made a hit with Biddy -I thinks I'll hand her a good one she never heard tell of before. - -"I'm an agnostic by trade," I says. I spotted that one in a Carnegie -library one time and that was the first chance I ever had to spring it. - -"I see," says Biddy. And she opened her eyes and mouth to once. I seen -she didn't see, but I didn't help her none. She would of rather killed -herself than let on she didn't see. Most of the Irish is like that -whether they is kitchen mechanics or what. After a while she says, -pouring me out some more coffee and handing me a little glass jar full -of watermelon rinds boiled in with molasses and things, she says: - -"And ain't that the dangerous thing to work at, though!" - -"It is," I says, and says nothing further. - -She sets down and folds her arms like she was thinking about it, -watching my hands all the time as if she was looking for scars where -something slipped when I done that agnostic work. Finally she says with -a sigh: - -"Sure, and it's dangerous! Me brother Patrick was kilt at it in the old -country. He was the most vinturesome lad of thim all!" - -She was putting up a stiff front, and for a minute I don't know whether -she's stringing me or I'm stringing her. The Irish is like that. So -being through eating I says: - -"Did it fly up and hit him?" - -She looks at me scornful and tosses her chin up and says: - -"No. He fell off of it. And I'm thinking you don't know what one of them -is, after!" - -"What is it, then?" says I. - -"Then you _don't_ know," says she; and the next thing I knew I'd been -eased out the back door and she was grinning at me through the crack of -it with superiousness all over her face. - -So I was walking slow around towards the front thinking to myself how -the Irish was a great people; and shall I go to Chicago and maybe get a -job sailing on the lakes till navigation closes, or shall I go back to -Omaha and work in the railroad yards again, which I don't like much, or -shall I go on down to Saint Looey just to see what's doing. And then I -thinks: "Billy, you was a fool to let that circus walk off and leave -you asleep with nothing over you but a barb wire fence this morning, and -what are you going to do now? First thing you know you'll be a regular -hobo, which some folks can't distinguish you ain't now." And then I -thinks I'll go down to the river and take a swim and lazy around in the -grass a while and think things over and maybe something will happen. -Anyways, you can always join the army. And just when I was thinking that -I got by one of them naked stone heathens that was squirting water out -of a sea shell and a guy comes down the front steps on the jump and nabs -me by the coat collar. I seen he was a doctor or else a piano tuner by -the satchel he dropped when he grabbed me. - -"Did you come out of this house?" he says. - -"I did," I says, wondering what next. - -"Back in you goes," he says, marching me towards the front steps. -"They've got smallpox in there." - -I liked to a-jumped loose when he said that, but he twisted my coat -collar and dug his thumbs into my neck and I seen they wasn't no use -pulling back. If a guy that's knocking around mixes up with one of the -solid citizens the magistrate's going to give him the worst of it on -principle. I ain't no hobo and never was, and never traveled much with -none of them professional bums, but there has been times I had hard work -making some people believe it. I seen I couldn't jerk away and I seen I -couldn't fight and so I went along. He rung the door bell, and I says: - -"Smallpox ain't no inducement to me, doc." - -"No?" says he. And the door opened, and in we went. The girl that opened -it, she drew back when she seen me. - -"Tell Professor Booth that Dr. Wilkins wants to see him," says the doc, -not letting loose of me. - -And we stood there saying nothing till the per-fessor come in, which he -did slow and absent-minded. When he seen me he stopped and took off a -pair of thick glasses that was split in two like a mended show case, so -he could see me better, and he says: - -"What is that you have there, Dr. Wilkins?" - -"A guest for you," says Dr. Wilkins, grinning all over himself. "I -caught him leaving the house, and you being under quarantine and me -being secretary to the board of health, I'll have to ask you to keep him -here until we can get Miss Margery on her feet again," he says. Or they -was words to that effect, as the lawyers asks you. - -"Dear me," says Perfessor Booth, kind o' helplesslike. - -And he put his glasses on and took them off again, and come up close and -looked at me like I was one of them amphimissourian specimens in a free -museum. "Dear me," he says, looking worrieder and worrieder all the -time. And then he went to the foot of the stairs and pipes out in a -voice that was so flat-chested and bleached-out it would a-looked just -like him if you could a-saw it--"Estelle," he says, "O Estelle!" - -I thinks the perfessor is one of them folks that can maybe do a lot -of high-class thinking, but has got to have some one tell 'em what the -answer is. But I doped him out wrong as I seen later on. - -Estelle, she come down stairs looking like she was the perfessor's big -brother. I found out later she was his old maid sister. She wasn't no -spring chicken, Estelle wasn't, and they was a continuous grin on her -face. I figgered it must of froze there years and years ago. They was -a kid about ten or eleven years old come along down with her, that had -hair down to its shoulders and didn't look like it knowed whether it was -a girl or a boy. Miss Estelle, she looks me over in a way that makes me -shiver, while the doctor and the per-fessor jaws about whose fault it is -the smallpox sign ain't been hung out. And when she was done listening -she says to the perfessor: "You had better go back to your laboratory." -And the perfessor he went along out, and the doctor with him. - -"What are you going to do with him, Aunt Estelle?" the kid asks her. - -"What would _you_ suggest, William Dear?" asks his aunt. I ain't feeling -very comfortable, and I was getting all ready just to natcherally bolt -out the front door now the doctor was gone. Then I thinks it mightn't be -no bad place to stay in fur a couple o' days, even risking the smallpox. -Fur I had ricolected I couldn't ketch it nohow, having been vaccinated -a few months before in Terry Hutt by compulsory medical advice, me being -temporary engaged in repair work on the city pavements through a mistake -in the police court. - -William Dear looks at me when his aunt put it up to him just as solemn -as if it was the day of judgment and his job was separating the fatted -calves from the goats and the prodigals, and he says: - -"Don't you think, Aunt Estelle, we better cut his hair and bathe him and -get him some clothes the first thing?" - -"William is my friend," thinks I, and I seen right off he was one of -them serious kids that you can't tell what is going on inside their -heads. - -So she calls James, which was the butler, and James he buttled me into a -bathroom the like of which I never see before; and he buttled me into a -suit of somebody's clothes and into a room at the top of the house next -to his'n, and then he come back and buttled a razor and a comb and brush -at me; him being the most mournful-looking fat man I ever seen, and he -informs me that me not being respectable I will eat alone in the kitchen -after the servants is done. People has made them errors about me before. -And I looks around the room and I thinks to myself that this is all -right so far as it has went. But is these four walls, disregarding -the rest of the house, to be my home, and them only? Not, thinks I, if -little Billy knows it. It was not me that invited myself to become the -guest of this family; and if I got to be a guest I be damned if I don't -be one according to Hoyle's rules of etiquette or I'll quit the job. -Will I stay in this one room? Not me. Suppose the perfessor takes it -next? And then William Dear? And suppose when William Dear gets through -with it he gives it to Aunt Estelle? Am I to waste the golden hours -when, maybe, my country needs me, just for accommodation? But I thinks -it's all right for a day or two and then I'll leave my regrets and go on -down to Saint Looey or somewheres. And then James he buttles back into -the room like a funeral procession and says the perfessor says he wants -to see me in the laboratory. - -That was a big room and the darndest looking room I ever see, and it -smelt strong enough to chase a Hungarian pig sticker out of a Chicago -slaughter house. It smelt like a drug store had died of old age and got -buried in a glue factory. I never seen so much scientific effusions and -the things to hold 'em in mixed up in one place before. They must of -been several brands of science being mixed up there all to once. They -was dinky little stoves, they was glass jars of all shapes and sizes -labeled with Dago names standing around on shelves like in one of them -Dutch delicatessen stores; they was straight glass tubes and they was -glass tubes that had the spinal contortions; they was bones and they -was whole skeletons, and they was things that looked like whisky stills; -they was a bookcase full of bugs and butterflies against one wall; they -was chunks of things that might have been human for all I know floating -around in vats like pickled pork in a barrel; they was beer schooners -with twisted spouts to them; they was microscopes and telescopes and -twenty-seven shapes and sizes of knives; they was crates of stuff that -was unpacked and crates that wasn't; and they was tables with things -just piled and spilled over 'em, every which way, and the looks of -everything was dirty on account of the perfessor not allowing any one in -there but himself and Miss Estelle and William. And whether you knowed -anything about them different brands of science or not you could see the -perfessor was one of them nuts that's always starting to do things and -then leaving them go and starting something else. It looked as if the -operating room of an emergency hospital and a blacksmith shop and a -people's free museum and a side show full of freaks, snakes and oneeyed -calves had all gone out and got drunk together, all four of them, and -wandered into a cremation plant to sleep off that souse; and when they -woke up they couldn't tell which was which nor nothing else except -they had a bad taste in their mouth and was sentenced to stay there -unseparated and unhappy and unsociable in each other's company for -evermore. And every time you turned around you stepped on something new, -and if you saw a rat or a lizard or a spider you better let him alone -for how was you going to tell he was dead or alive till he crawled up -you? - -The perfessor, he was setting over by a window, and he pushed out -another chair for me and he says sit down. - -"You are a gentleman of leisure?" he says, with a grin; or words to that -effect. - -"I work at that sometimes," I told him, "although it ain't rightly my -trade." - -"Biddy Malone says you're an agnostic," he says, looking at me close. -It won't do, I thinks, to spring none of them agnostic gags on him, so I -says nothing. - -"I'm one myself," he says. - -"Regular," I asks him, "or just occasional?" He kind o' grins again, and -I thinks: "Billy, you're making a hit somehow." - -Then he says, like he was apologizing to someone about something: "Being -interested in sociology and the lower classes in general, I sent for you -to get some first-hand observations on your train of mind," he says. Or -it was words like them. "I'm a sociologist," he says. - -I seen I made a hit before and I thinks I'll push my luck, so I swells -up and says: - -"I'm a kind of sociologist myself." - -"Hum," he says, thoughtful-like. "Indeed? And your itinerant mode of -subsistence is persecuted in pursuit of your desire to study knowledge -of the human specimen and to observe wisdom as to the ways they live -in the underworld," he says. Or it was words to that effect. I wish I'd -a-had him wrote them words down. Then I'd a-had 'em just right now. I -seen a bunch of good words help a man out of a hole before this. Words -has always been more or less my admiration; you can never tell what one -of them long gazaboos is going to do till you spring it on somebody. So -I says: - -"That's me, perfessor. I likes to float around and see what's doing." - -Then he tells me that sociology was how the criminal classes and the -lower classes in general was regarded by the scientific classes, only -it's a difficult brand of science to get next to, he says, on account -of the lower classes like me being mostly broke out with environment he -says, unbeknownst even to theirselves. He's not what you would call a -practicing sociologist all the time, being afraid, I suppose, he would -catch it if he got too close to it; he's just one of the boys that -writes about it, so as both the lower classes and the scientific classes -won't make no bad breaks, he says. - -But what he wants of me just now ain't got nothing to do with that, he -says. He's been making experiments with all kinds of canned victuals, -that is put up with acid that eats holes in your stomach, he says, and -so long as I'm going to be a guest he's going to mix some of them acids -in my chuck and weigh me after each meal. He says I'll start slow and -easy and there won't be nothing dangerous about it. He's been practicing -on William Dear and Miss Estelle, which I suppose it was the acids got -into her smile, but he's going to give them a rest, them being naturally -delicate. I ain't got no kick, I thinks, and I'm going to leave this -place in a day or two anyhow. Besides, I always was intrusted in -scientific things and games of chance of all kinds. - -But I didn't leave in a few days, and the first thing I knew I'd been -there a week. I had pretty much the run of the house, and I eat my meals -with Biddy Malone, the only uncomfortable feature of being a guest being -that Miss Estelle, soon as she found out I was an agnostic (whatever -brand of science that is, which I never found out to this day, just -having come across the word accidental), she begun to take charge of my -religion and intellectuals and things like that. She used to try to cure -the perfessor, too, but she had to give it up for a bad job, Biddy says. - -Biddy, she says Mrs. Booth's been over to her mother's while this -smallpox has been going on; which I hadn't knowed they was a Mrs. Booth -before. And Biddy, she says if she was Mrs. Booth she'd stay there, too. -They's been a lot of talk, anyhow, Biddy says, about Mrs. Booth and some -musician fellow around town. But Biddy she likes Mrs. Booth, and even if -it was so who could blame her? - -Things ain't right around that house since Miss Estelle's been there, -which the perfessor's science, though worrying to the nerves, ain't cut -much ice till about four years ago when Miss Estelle come. - -But Mrs. Booth she's getting where she can't stand it much longer, Biddy -says. I didn't blame her none for feeling sore about things. - -You can't expect a woman that's pretty and knows it, and ain't more'n -thirty-two or three years old, and don't look it, to be interested in -mummies and pickled snakes and the preservation of the criminal classes -and chemical profusions, not _all_ the time. And maybe when she'd ask -the perfessor if he wasn't going to take her to the opera he'd ask her -did she know them Germans had invented a newfangled disease or that it -was a mistake about them Austrians hiding their heads in the sand when -they are scared, which any fool that's ever seen 'em working around a -coal mine ought to of knowed. It wouldn't a-been so bad if the perfessor -had just picked out one brand of science and stuck to it. She could -a-got used to any one kind and knowed what to expect. But maybe this -week the perfessor's bug would be ornithography, and he'd be chasing -sparrows all over the front lawn; and next week it would be geneology -and he'd be trying to grow bananas on a potato vine. Then, he'd get -worried about the nigger problem in the south, and settle it all -up scientific and explain how ethnology done the whole damn thing, -lynchings and all, and it never could be straightened out till it was -done scientific. Every new gag that come out the perfessor took up with -it, Biddy says; one time he'd be fussing around with gastronomy through -a telescope and the next he'd be putting astrology into William's -breakfast food. - -They was a row on all the time about the kids, which they hadn't been -till Miss Estelle come. Mrs. Booth she said they could kill their own -selves if they wanted to, but she had more right than anybody to say -what went into William's digestive ornaments, and she didn't want him -brought up scientific nohow, but just human. He was always making notes -on William, which was how William come to take so little interest in -life after a while. But Miss Estelle, she egged him on. She seen he -didn't have no sense about his money, which had been left to him when -he was a sure enough perfessor in a college before he quit and went nuts -and everything begun to go wrong between him and Mrs. Booth, so Miss -Estelle she took to running his money herself; but she seen likewise -that when it come to writing articles about William's insides and -intellectuals the perfessor he was a genius. Well, maybe he was; but -Biddy wouldn't let him try none of them laboratory gags on her though -she just as soon be hypnotized and telepathed as not just to humor him. -Miss Estelle, she eat what the perfessor give her, and after a while -she says she'll take charge of the children's education herself, their -mother being a frivolous young thing, and it was too bad, she says, a -genius like him couldn't a-mar-ried a noble woman who would a-understood -his great work for humanity and sympathized with it. So while the -perfessor filled William and Miss Margery up on new discovered food and -weighed 'em and probed 'em and sterilized 'em and did everything else -but put 'em in glass bottles, Miss Estelle she laid out courses of -reading matter for them and tended to their religion and intellectuals -and things like that. I reckon they never was two kids more completely -educated, inside and out. It hadn't worked much on Miss Margery yet, her -being younger than William. But William took it hard and serious, being -more like his father's family, and it made bumps all over his head. I -reckon by the time William was ten years old he knew more than a whole -high school, and every time that boy cut his finger he just naturally -bled science. But somehow he wasn't very chipper, and whenever the -perfessor would notice that he and Miss Estelle would change treatment. -But Biddy liked William just the same, they hadn't spoiled his -disposition none; and she said he seen a lot of things his aunt never -would a-seen, William did. One day when I first was a guest I says to -his aunt, I says: - -"Miss Booth, William looks kind o' pale to me like he was getting too -much bringin' up to the square inch." - -She acted like she didn't care for no outsiders butting in, but I -seen she'd noticed it, too, and she liked William, too, in a kind of -scientific sort of a way, and she says in a minute: - -"What do you suggest?" - -"Why," says I, "what a kid like that needs is to roll around and play in -the dirt now and then, and yell and holler." - -She went away like she was kind o' mad about it; but about an hour later -the perfessor sent word for me to come down to the labaratory, and Miss -Estelle was there. - -"We have decided that there is something in what you say," says the -perfessor. "Even the crudest and most untrained intellectuals has now -and then a bright hunch from which us men of special knowledge may take -a suggestion," he says, or words to that effect. And they was a whole -lot more, and they was more scientific than that. I didn't know I'd done -nothing important like that, but when he told me all about it in science -talk I seen I made a ten strike, though I should of thought anyone could -of saw all William needed was just to be allowed to be a little more -human. - -But what do you think--I never was so jarred in my life as I was the -next day. I seen Miss Estelle spreading an oilcloth on the floor, and -then the butler come in and poured a lot of nice, clean, sterilized dirt -on to it. And then she sent for William. - -"William Dear," she says, "we have decided that what you need is more -recreation mixed in along with your intellectuals. You ought to romp and -play in the dirt, close to the soil and nature, as is right for a youth -of your age. For an hour each day right after you study your biology and -before you take up your Euclid you will romp and play in this dirt like -a child of nature, and frolic. You may now begin to frolic, William, and -James will gather up the dirt again for to-morrow's frolic." Or it was -words to that effect. - -But William didn't frolic none. He seen things they didn't. He just -looked at that dirt, and he come the nearest to smiling I ever seen -William come; and then he come the nearest to getting mad I ever seen -William come. And then he says very serious: - -"Aunt Estelle," he says, "I shall _not_ frolic. I have come to that -place in my discretions where my intellectuals got to work some for -theirselves. It is them intellectuals which you have trained that -refuses to be made ridiculous one hour each day between the biology -lesson and the Euclid lesson with sand." Those was not William's exact -words, which he always had down as slick as his pa, but they was what he -meant. William was a serious kid, but he seen things his aunt never had -no idea of. And he never did frolic, neither, and all that nice clean -dirt had to be throwed out by the stable amongst the unscientific dirt -again. - -That was before Biddy Malone told me about why it was that the perfessor -and his wife didn't get along well, and as I was saying I didn't -blame her none, Miss Estelle having finally beat her out about her own -children, too; and she feeling she didn't scarcely own 'em no more, and -they hardly daring to kiss their own mamma with Miss Estelle in the room -because of germs, so Biddy says. Biddy, she says the perfessor is all -right, he's just a fool and don't mean no harm by his scientific gags, -but Miss Estelle she's a she-devil and takes that way to make herself -the boss of that house. If she wasn't there Mrs. Booth would have been -boss and never let the perfessor know it and things wouldn't a-been so -bad. Which shows that so long as every house got to have a boss it ain't -so much difference if it's a him or her so long as it ain't a relation. - -The perfessor always eats his dinner in one of them coats with the -open-face vest to it, and one night I thinks I will, too. When you is in -Rome you does like the Dagos does, I thinks. - -So I sends for James along before dinner time and I says: "Where is my -dinky clothes to eat dinner in?" I says. - -James he says I'm to continue to eat dinner by myself. Which is all -right, I tells him, but I'll do it in style or I'll quit the job. So he -goes and asks Miss Estelle, and she comes in with that lemon grin on, -but looking, too, like I done something to please her. - -"Is it true," she says, "that already the effects of a refined -environment has overcome defections in early training and a misfortune -in ancestral hereditary?" she says. Or they was words to that effect. - -"It is true," I says. And the perfessor's being too small she made James -give me his'n. But when I seen all that shirt front it made me feel -kind of uncomfortable, too. So I takes them off again and puts on my old -striped sweater and puts on the vest and coat over that, and the effect -of them red stripes running crossways is something gorgeous with one of -them open-face vests over it. - -So after I eat I don't want to go to bed and I gets a box of the -perfessor's cigars and goes into the library and thinks I'll see if he's -got anything fit to read. I dig around for a while among them shelves, -and most everything is one brand of science or other, but finally I got -hold of a little book that was real interesting. That was the damndest -book! It was all in rhyme, with the explanations of the rhyme printed in -real talk down the sides so as you could tell where you was at and what -it was about. It's about an Ancient Mariner. The nut that wrote it he's -never been sailing none, I bet; but he can make you feel like you been -going against the hop in one of them Chink joints. Of course, there -ain't nothing real literary about it like one of them Marie Corelli -stories I read once and it ain't got the excitement of a good Bill Hart -movie or a Nick Carter story, but I got real interested in it. The I-man -of that story he was a Jonah to the whole ship. He seen an albatross -circling around, and he up with his air gun and give him his'n. It -wasn't for nothing to eat, but just to be a-shooting. And from that on -everybody gets as sick of living as a bunch of Chicago factory hands -when another savings bank busts, and they all falls down and curses him. -And the snakes wiggles all over the top of the water like I seen 'em one -time when they cleaned out a reservoir where one of them prairie towns -gets its drinking water from. And the Ancient Mariner he tries to die -and can't make it; and their ghosts is whizzing all around that ship and -they go by him in the moonlight like a puff of steam goes by you on a -frosty morning out of an engine-room manhole. And there's a moral to -that story, too. I bet the fellow that doped that out had been on an -awful bat. I like to of talked with that nut. They was a fellow named -Looney Hogan use to have them phoney hunches, and he use to tell me what -he saw after he had 'em. Looney was awful good company and I use to like -to hear him tell what he seen and what he thinks he seen, but he walked -off of a grain barge up to Duluth when he was asleep one night and he -never did wake up. - -Sitting there thinking of the awful remarkable things that is, and the -ones that isn't, and the ones that maybe is and maybe isn't, and the -nuts that is phoney about some things and not about others, and how two -guys can look at the same thing and when you ask them about it both has -seen different things, I must a-went to sleep. And I must a-slept a long -time there, and pretty soon in my sleep I heard two voices and then I -wakes up sudden and still hears them, low and quicklike, in the room -that opens right off from the library with a pair of them sliding doors -like is on to a boxcar. One was a woman's voice, and not Miss Estelle's, -and she says like she was choked up: - -"But I _must_ see them before we go, Henry." - -And the other was a man's voice, and it wasn't no one around our house. - -"But, my God!" he says, "suppose you catch it yourself, Jane!" - -I set up straight then, and I would of give a good deal to see through -that door, because Jane was the perfessor's wife's first name. - -"You mean suppose _you_ get it," she says. I like to of seen the look -she must of give him to fit in with the way she says that _you_. He -didn't say nothing, the man didn't; and then her voice softens down -some, and she says, low and slow: "Henry, wouldn't you love me if I -_did_ get it? Suppose it marked and pitted me all up?" - -"Oh, of course," he says, "of course I would. Nothing can change the way -I feel. _You_ know that." He said it quick enough, all right, just the -way they do in a show, but it sounded _too much_ like it does on the -stage to of suited me if _I'd_ been her. I seen folks overdo them little -talks before this. - -I listens some more, and then I see how it is. This is that musician -feller Biddy Malone's been talking about. Jane's going to run off with -him all right, but she's got to kiss the kids first. Women is like that. -They may hate the kids' pa all right, but they's dad-burned few of 'em -don't like the kids. I thinks to myself: "It must be late. I bet they -was already started, or ready to start, and she made him bring her here -first so's she could sneak in and see the kids. She just simply couldn't -get by. But she's taking a fool risk, too. Fur how's she going to see -Margery with that nurse coming and going and hanging around all night? -And even if she tries just to see William Dear it's a ten to one shot -he'll wake up and she'll be ketched at it." - -And then I thinks, suppose she _is_ ketched at it? What of it? Ain't a -woman got a right to come into her own house with her own door key, -even if they is a quarantine on to it, and see her kids? And if she is -ketched seeing them, how would anyone know she was going to run off? And -ain't she got a right to have a friend of hern and her husband's bring -her over from her mother's house, even if it is a little late? - -Then I seen she wasn't taking no great risks neither, and I thinks mebby -I better go and tell that perfessor what is going on, fur he has treated -me purty white. And then I thinks: "I'll be gosh-derned if I meddle. -So fur as I can see that there perfessor ain't getting fur from what's -coming to him, nohow. And as fur _her_, you got to let some people find -out what they want fur theirselves. Anyhow, where do _I_ come in at?" - -But I want to get a look at her and Henry, anyhow. So I eases off my -shoes, careful-like, and I eases acrost the floor to them sliding doors, -and I puts my eye down to the little crack. The talk is going backward -and forward between them two, him wanting her to come away quick, and -her undecided whether to risk seeing the kids. And all the time she's -kind o' hoping mebby she will be ketched if she tries to see the kids, -and she's begging off fur more time ginerally. - -Well, sir, I didn't blame that musician feller none when I seen her. She -was a peach. - -And I couldn't blame her so much, either, when I thought of Miss Estelle -and all them scientifics of the perfessor's strung out fur years and -years world without end. - -Yet, when I seen the man, I sort o' wished she wouldn't. I seen right -off that Henry wouldn't do. It takes a man with a lot of gumption to -keep a woman feeling good and not sorry fur doing it when he's married -to her. But it takes a man with twicet as much to make her feel right -when they ain't married. This feller wears one of them little, brown, -pointed beards fur to hide where his chin ain't. And his eyes is too -much like a woman's. Which is the kind that gets the biggest piece of -pie at the lunch counter and fergits to thank the girl as cuts it big. -She was setting in front of a table, twisting her fingers together, and -he was walking up and down. I seen he was mad and trying not to show it, -and I seen he was scared of the smallpox and trying not to show that, -too. And just about that time something happened that kind o' jolted me. - -They was one of them big chairs in the room where they was that has got -a high back and spins around on itself. It was right acrost from me, on -the other side of the room, and it was facing the front window, which -was a bow window. And that there chair begins to turn, slow and easy. -First I thought she wasn't turning. Then I seen she was. But Jane and -Henry didn't. They was all took up with each other in the middle of the -room, with their back to it. - -Henry is a-begging of Jane, and she turns a little more, that chair -does. Will she squeak, I wonders? - -"Don't you be a fool, Jane," says the Henry feller. - -Around she comes three hull inches, that there chair, and nary a squeak. - -"A fool?" asks Jane, and laughs. "And I'm not a fool to think of going -with you at all, then?" - -That chair, she moved six inches more and I seen the calf of a leg and -part of a crumpled-up coat tail. - -"But I _am_ going with you, Henry," says Jane. And she gets up just like -she is going to put her arms around him. - -But Jane don't. Fur that chair swings clear around and there sets the -perfessor. He's all hunched up and caved in and he's rubbing his eyes -like he's just woke up recent, and he's got a grin on to his face that -makes him look like his sister Estelle looks all the time. - -"Excuse me," says the perfessor. - -They both swings around and faces him. I can hear my heart bumping. Jane -never says a word. The man with the brown beard never says a word. But -if they felt like me they both felt like laying right down there and -having a fit. They looks at him and he just sets there and grins at -them. - -But after a while Jane, she says: - -"Well, now you _know!_ What are you going to do about it?" - -Henry, he starts to say something, too. But---- - -"Don't start anything," says the perfessor to him. "_You_ aren't going -to do anything." Or they was words to that effect. - -"Professor Booth," he says, seeing he has got to say something or else -Jane will think the worse of him, "I am----" - -"Shut up," says the perfessor, real quiet. "I'll tend to you in a minute -or two. _You_ don't count for much. This thing is mostly between me and -my wife." - -When he talks so decided I thinks mebby that perfessor has got something -into him beside science after all. Jane, she looks kind o' surprised -herself. But she says nothing, except: - -"What are you going to do, Frederick?" And she laughs one of them mean -kind of laughs, and looks at Henry like she wanted him to spunk up a -little more, and says: "What _can_ you do, Frederick?" - -Frederick, he says, not excited a bit: - -"There's quite a number of things I _could_ do that would look bad when -they got into the newspapers. But it's none of them, unless one of you -forces it on to me." Then he says: - -"You _did_ want to see the children, Jane?" - -She nodded. - -"Jane," he says, "can't you see I'm the better man?" - -The perfessor, he was woke up after all them years of scientifics, and -he didn't want to see her go. "Look at him," he says, pointing to the -feller with the brown beard, "he's scared stiff right now." - -Which I would of been scared myself if I'd a-been ketched that-a-way -like Henry was, and the perfessor's voice sounding like you was chopping -ice every time he spoke. I seen the perfessor didn't want to have no -blood on the carpet without he had to have it, but I seen he was making -up his mind about something, too. Jane, she says: - -"_You_ a better man? _You?_ You think you've been a model husband just -because you've never beaten me, don't you?" - -"No," says the perfessor, "I've been a blamed fool all right. I've been -a worse fool, maybe, than if I _had_ beaten you." Then he turns to Henry -and he says: - -"Duels are out of fashion, aren't they? And a plain killing looks bad in -the papers, doesn't it? Well, you just wait for me." With which he gets -up and trots out, and I heard him running down stairs to his labertory. - -Henry, he'd ruther go now. He don't want to wait. But with Jane -a-looking at him he's shamed not to wait. It's his place to make some -kind of a strong action now to show Jane he is a great man. But he don't -do it. And Jane is too much of a thoroughbred to show him she expects -it. And me, I'm getting the fidgets and wondering to myself, "What is -that there perfessor up to now? Whatever it is, it ain't like no one -else. He is looney, that perfessor is. And she is kind o' looney, too. I -wonder if they is anyone that ain't looney sometimes? I been around the -country a good 'eal, too, and seen and hearn of some awful remarkable -things, and I never seen no one that wasn't more or less looney when -the _search us the femm_ comes into the case. Which is a Dago word I got -out'n a newspaper and it means: Who was the dead gent's lady friend?' -And we all set and sweat and got the fidgets waiting fur that perfessor -to come back. - -"Which he done with that Sister Estelle grin on to his face and a pill -box in his hand. They was two pills in the box. He says, placid and -chilly: "Yes, sir, duels are out of fashion. This is the age of science. -All the same, the one that gets her has got to fight for her. If she -isn't worth fighting for, she isn't worth having. Here are two pills. I -made 'em myself. One has enough poison in it to kill a regiment when it -gets to working well--which it does fifteen minutes after it is taken. -The other one has got nothing harmful in it. If you get the poison one, -I keep her. If I get it, you can have her. Only I hope you will wait -long enough after I'm dead so there won't be any scandal around town." - -Henry, he never said a word. He opened his mouth, but nothing come of -it. When he done that I thought I hearn his tongue scrape agin his cheek -on the inside like a piece of sandpaper. He was scared, Henry was. - -"But _you_ know which is which," Jane sings out. "The thing's not fair!" - -"That is the reason my dear Jane is going to shuffle these pills around -each other herself," says the perfessor, "and then pick out one for him -and one for me. _You_ don't know which is which, Jane. And as he is the -favorite, he is going to get the first chance. If he gets the one I want -him to get, he will have just fifteen minutes to live after taking it. -In that fifteen minutes he will please to walk so far from my house that -he won't die near it and make a scandal. I won't have a scandal without -I have to. Everything is going to be nice and quiet and respectable. The -effect of the poison is similar to heart failure. No one can tell the -difference on the corpse. There's going to be no blood anywhere. I will -be found dead in my house in the morning with heart failure, or else he -will be picked up dead in the street, far enough away so as to make no -talk." Or they was words to that effect. - -He is rubbing it in considerable, I thinks, that perfessor is. I wonder -if I better jump in and stop the hull thing. Then I thinks: "No, it's -between them three." Beside, I want to see which one is going to get -that there loaded pill. I always been intrusted in games of chance of -all kinds, and when I seen the perfessor was such a sport, I'm sorry I -been misjudging him all this time. - -Jane, she looks at the box, and she breathes hard and quick. - -"I won't touch 'em," she says. "I refuse to be a party to any murder of -that kind." - -"Huh? You do?" says the perfessor. "But the time when you might have -refused has gone by. You have made yourself a party to it already. -You're really the _main_ party to it. - -"But do as you like," he goes on. "I'm giving him more chance than I -ought to with those pills. I might shoot him, and I would, and then face -the music, if it wasn't for mixing the children up in the scandal, Jane. -If you want to see him get a fair chance, Jane, you've got to hand out -these pills, one to him and then one to me. _You_ must kill one or the -other of us, or else _I'll_ kill _him_ the other way. And _you_ had -better pick one out for him, because _I_ know which is which. Or else -let him pick one out for himself," he says. - -Henry, he wasn't saying nothing. I thought he had fainted. But he -hadn't. I seen him licking his lips. I bet Henry's mouth was all dry -inside. - -Jane, she took the box and she went round in front of Henry and she -looked at him hard. She looked at him like she was thinking: "Fur God's -sake, spunk up some, and take one if it _does_ kill you!" Then she says -out loud: "Henry, if you die I will die, too!" - -And Henry, he took one. His hand shook, but he took it out'n the box. If -she had of looked like that at me mebby I would of took one myself. Fur -Jane, she was a peach, she was. But I don't know whether I would of or -not. When she makes that brag about dying, I looked at the perfessor. -What she said never fazed him. And I thinks agin: "Mebby I better jump -in now and stop this thing." And then I thinks agin: "No, it is between -them three and Providence." Beside, I'm anxious to see who is going -to get that pill with the science in it. I gets to feeling just like -Providence hisself was in that there room picking out them pills with -his own hands. And I was anxious to see what Providence's ideas of right -and wrong was like. So fur as I could see they was all three in the -wrong, but if I had of been in there running them pills in Providence's -place I would of let them all off kind o' easy. - -Henry, he ain't eat his pill yet. He is just looking at it and shaking. - -The perfessor reaches for his watch, and don't find none. Then he -reaches over and takes Henry's watch, and opens it, and lays it on the -table. "A quarter past one," he says. "Mr. Murray, are you going to make -me shoot you after all? I didn't want any blood nor any scandal," he -says. "It's up to you," he says, "whether you want to take that pill and -get your even chance, or whether you want to get shot. The shooting way -is sure, but looks bad in the papers. The pill way don't implicate any -one," he says. "Which?" And he pulls a gun. - -Henry he looks at the gun. - -Then he looks at the pill. - -Then he swallows the pill. - -The perfessor puts his'n into his mouth. But he don't swallow it. He -looks at the watch, and he looks at Henry. "Sixteen minutes past one," -he says. "_Mr. Murray will be dead at exactly fourteen minutes to two_. -I got the harmless one. I can tell by the taste of the chemicals." - -And he put the pieces out into his hand to show that he chewed his'n -up, not being willing to wait fifteen minutes for a verdict from his -digestive ornaments. Then he put 'em back into his mouth and chewed 'em -and swallowed 'em down like it was coughdrops. - -Henry has got sweat breaking out all over his face, and he tries to make -fur the door, but he falls down on to a sofa. - -"This is murder," he says, weaklike. And he tries to get up agin, but -this time he falls to the floor in a dead faint. - -"It's a dern short fifteen minutes," I thinks to myself. "That perfessor -must of put more science into Henry's pill than he thought he did fur it -to of knocked him out this quick. It ain't skeercly three minutes." - -When Henry falls the woman staggers and tries to throw herself on top -of him. The corners of her mouth was all drawed down, and her eyes was -turned up. But she don't yell none. She can't. She tries, but she just -gurgles in her throat. The perfessor won't let her fall acrost Henry. He -ketches her. "Sit up, Jane," he says, with that Estelle look on to his -face, "and let us have a talk." - -She looks at him with no more sense in her face than a piece of putty -has got. But she can't look away from him. - -And I'm kind o' paralyzed, too. If that feller laying on the floor -had only jest kicked oncet, or grunted, or done something, I could of -loosened up and yelled, and I would of. I just _needed_ to fetch a yell. -But Henry ain't more'n dropped down there till I'm feeling just like -he'd _always_ been there, and I'd _always_ been staring into that room, -and the last word anyone spoke was said hundreds and hundreds of years -ago. - -"You're a murderer," says Jane in a whisper, looking at the perfessor in -that stare-eyed way. "You're a _murderer,_" she says, saying it like she -was trying to make herself feel sure he really was one. - -"Murder!" says the perfessor. "Did you think I was going to run any -chances for a pup like him? He's scared, that's all. He's just fainted -through fright. He's a coward. Those pills were both just bread and -sugar. He'll be all right in a minute or two. I've just been showing -you that the fellow hasn't got nerve enough nor brains enough for a fine -woman like you, Jane," he says. - -Then Jane begins to sob and laugh, both to oncet, kind o' wildlike, her -voice clucking like a hen does, and she says: - -"It's worse then, it's worse! It's worse for me than if it were a -murder! Some farces can be more tragic than any tragedy ever was," she -says. Or they was words to that effect. - -And if Henry had of been really dead she couldn't of took it no harder -than she begun to take it now when she saw he was alive, but just wasn't -no good. But I seen she was taking on fur herself now more'n fur Henry. -Women is made unlike most other animals in many ways. When they is -foolish about a man they can stand to have that man killed a good 'eal -better than to have him showed up ridiculous right in front of them. -They will still be crazy about the man that's killed, but they don't -never forgive the lobster. I seen that work out before this. You can be -most any thing else and get away with it, but if you're a lobster it's -all off even if you can't help being a lobster. And when the perfessor -kicks Henry in the ribs and he comes to and sneaks out, Jane she never -even looks at him. - -"Jane," says the perfessor, when she quiets down some, "you got a lot to -forgive me. But do you s'pose I learned enough sense so we can make a go -of it if we start over again?" - -But Jane never said nothing. - -"Jane," he says, "Estelle is going back to New England to stay there for -good." - -She begins to take a little interest then. "Did Estelle tell you so?" -she says. - -"No," says the perfessor, "Estelle don't know it yet. But she is. I'm -going to tell her in the mornin'." - -But she still hates him. She's making herself. She wouldn't of been a -female woman if she'd of been coaxed that easy. Pretty soon she says, -"I'm going upstairs and go to bed. I'm tired." And she went out looking -like the perfessor was a perfect stranger. - -After she left the perfessor set there quite a while and he was looking -tired out, too; and there wasn't no mistake about me. I was asleep all -through my legs, and I kept a wondering to myself, suppose them pills -had one of them been loaded sure enough, which one would of got it? And -when the perfessor leaves I says to myself, I reckon I better light a -rag. So I goes to the front window and opens it easy; but I thinks -about Henry's watch on the table, every one else having forgot it, and I -thinks I better hunt him up and give it to him. - -And then I thinks why should I give him pain, for that watch will always -remind him of an unpleasant time he once had. - -And if it hadn't been for me sitting in that window looking at that -watch I wouldn't a-been writing this, for I wouldn't of been in jail -now. - -I tried to explain my intentions was all right, but the police says -it ain't natural to be seen coming out of a front window at two in the -morning in a striped sweater and a dinky dinner suit with a gold watch -in your hand; if you are hunting the owner you are doing it peculiar. - -One of them reporters he says to me to write the truth about how I got -into jail; nobody else never done it and stuck to facts. But this is -the truth so help me; it was all on account of that watch, which my -intentions with regard to was perfectly honorable, and all that goes -before leads up to that watch. There wasn't no larceny about it; it was -just another mistake on the part of the police. If I'd of been stealing -wouldn't I stole the silverware a week before that? - -The more I travel around the more dumb people I see that can't -understand how an honest and upright citizen can get into circumstantial -evidence and still be a honest and upright citizen. - - - - -X.--The Penitent - - -|You, who are not married," said the penitent, "cannot know--can never -realize----" - -He hesitated, his glance wandering over the evidences of luxury, the -hints of Oriental artistry, the esthetic effectiveness of Dr. Eustace -Beaulieu's studio. - -"Proceed," said Dr. Beaulieu, suavely. "What I may know is not the -important thing. You do not address yourself to me, but through me -to that principle of Harmony in the Cosmos which is Spirit--Ultimate -Spirit--which we call God. All that I can do is assist you to get into -Accord with the Infinite again, help you to vibrate in unison with the -Cosmic All." - -"You are right; I do not look to you," said the penitent, "for ease of -mind or spirit." And a fleeting half-smile showed in his eyes, as if -some ulterior thought gave a certain gusto to the manner in which he -stressed the pronoun _you_. But the rest of his scarred and twisted -face was expressionless, beneath the thick mask of a heavy gray-streaked -beard that grew almost to his eyes. - - * Author's Note: "The Penitent" was suggested by two poems, - "A Forgiveness," by Browning, and "The Portrait," by Owen - Meredith. - -Dr. Eustace Beaulieu was the leader--nay, the founder--of one of the -many, many cults that have sprung up in New York City and elsewhere in -America during the past three or four decades. An extraordinary number -of idle, well-to-do women gathered at his studio two or three times a -week, and listened to his expositions of ethics _de luxe_, served with -just the proper dash of Oriental mysticism and European pseudoscience. -He was forty, he was handsome, with magnetic brown eyes and the long -sensitive fingers of a musician; he was eloquent, he was persuasive, he -was prosperous. - -When he talked of the Zend-Avesta, when he spoke of the Vedantic -writings, when he touched upon the Shinto worship of the Nipponese, when -he descanted upon the likeness of the Christian teachings to the tenets -of Buddhism, when he revealed the secrets of the Yogi philosophy, when -he hinted his knowledge of the priestly craft of older Egypt and of -later Eleusis, his feminine followers thrilled in their seats as a -garden of flowers that is breathed upon by a Summer wind--they vibrated -to his words and his manner and his restrained fervor with a faint -rustling of silken garments and a delicate fragrance of perfume. - -Men were not, as a rule, so enthusiastic concerning Dr. Eustace Beaulieu -and his cult; there were few of them at his lectures, there were few of -them enrolled in the classes where he inducted his followers into the -more subtle phases of ethics, where he led them to the higher planes -of occultism, for a monetary consideration; few of them submitted -themselves to him for the psychic healing that was one of his major -claims to fame. And this scarred and bearded stranger, who limped, was -one of the very few men who had ever intimated a desire to bare his soul -to Dr. Beaulieu, to tell his story and receive spiritual ministration, -in the manner of the confessional. These confessionals, after the public -lectures, had been recently introduced by Dr. Beaulieu, and they were -giving him, he felt, a firmer grip upon his flock--his disciples, he did -not hesitate to call them. - -"I repeat," said the penitent--if he was a repentant man, indeed--"no -bachelor can know what love really is. He cannot conceive of what the -daily habit of association with a woman who seems made for him, and for -him alone, may mean to a man. My love for my wife was almost worship. -She was my wife indeed, I told myself, and she it was for whom I worked. - -"For I did work, worked well and unselfishly. Every man must have -some work. Some do it from necessity, but I did it because I loved -the work--and the woman--and thus I gained a double reward. I was a -politician, and something more. I think I may say that I was a patriot, -too. The inheritor of wealth and position, I undertook to clear the city -in which I lived, and which my forefathers had helped to build, of -the ring of grafters who were making the name of the town a byword -throughout the nation. The details of that long and hard strife are not -pertinent. I fought with something more than boldness and determination; -I fought with a joy in every struggle, because I fought for something -more than the world knew. The world could not see that my inspiration -was in my home; that in the hours of battle my blood sang joyously with -the thought of--her! Was it any wonder that I worked well? - -"One day, as I sat in my office downtown, the thought of her drew me so -strongly that I determined to surprise her by coming home unexpectedly -early. It was summer, and we were living in our country home, an -old-fashioned stone residence a couple of miles from the outskirts of -the city. The house was situated at the edge of a park that was, indeed, -almost virgin forest, for the whole estate had been in my family for -nearly a hundred years. - -"I determined to surprise my wife, and at the same time to take the rare -relaxation of a suburban walk. I was soon outside the city limits, and -through the zone where vacant lots broaden into fields; and then I left -the road, cutting across the fields and finally plunging into the woods -on my own place. Thus it was that I approached the house from the rear -and came suddenly out of the timber into my own orchard. I seldom walked -from town, and it was a good long hour before my usual time of arrival, -although in that sheltered and woody place the dusk was already -gathering in. - -"As I entered the orchard a man made a hurried exit from a vine-wreathed -pergola where my wife often sat to read, cast one look at me, cleared -the orchard fence, and made off through the woods, disappearing at once -among the boles of the trees. - -"He had not turned his full face toward me at any time, but had shielded -it with an upflung arm; from the moment he broke cover until his -disappearance there had passed less time than it takes to tell it, and I -was scarcely to be blamed if I was left guessing as to his identity, for -the moment. For the moment, I say. - -"There had been so much fright in his manner that I stood and looked -after him. The thought came to me that perhaps here was a man who had -had an affair with one of my servants. I turned toward the pergola and -met--my wife! - -"She was a beautiful woman, always more beautiful in her moments of -excitement. She confronted me now with a manner which I could not help -but admire. I trusted her so that she might readily have passed off a -much more anomalous situation with an easy explanation. But in her face -I read a deliberate wish to make me feel the truth. - -"I looked at her long, and she returned the gaze unflinchingly. And -I recognized her look for what it was. She had cast off the chains of -deceit. Her glance was a sword of hatred, and the first open thrust of -the blade was an intense pleasure to her. We both knew all without a -word. - -"I might have killed her then. But I did not. I turned and walked toward -the house; she followed me, and I opened the door; she preceded me -inside. She paused again, as if gathering all her forces for a struggle; -but I passed her in silence, and went upstairs to my own room. - -"And then began a strange period in my life. Shortly after this episode -came a partial triumph of the reform element in my city; the grafters -were ousted, and I found myself with more than a local reputation, and -thrust into an office. My life was now even more of a public matter than -before. We entertained largely. We were always in the public eye. Before -our guests and in public we were always all that should be. But when -the occasion was past, we would drop the mask, turn from each other with -dumb faces, and go each our severed ways. - -"For a year this sort of life kept up. I still worked; but now I worked -to forget. When I allowed myself to think of her at all, it was always -as of some one who was dead. Or so I told myself, over and over again, -until I believed it. - -"One day there was a close election. I was the successful candidate. I -was to go to Congress. All evening and far into the night my wife and -I played our parts well. But when the last congratulation had been -received, and the last speech made, and the last friend had gone, and -we were alone with each other once more, she turned to me with a look -something like the one she had met me with on that summer evening a year -before. - -"'I want to speak with you,' she said. - -"'Yes?' - -"They were the first words we had exchanged in that year, when not -compelled by the necessities. - -"'What do you wish to speak about?' I asked her. - -"'You know,' she said, briefly. And I did know. There was little use -trying to deny it. - -"'Why have you asked me no questions?' she said. - -"I would have made another attempt to pass the situation over without -going into it, but I saw that that would be impossible. She had reached -the place where she must speak. I read all this in her face. And looking -at her closely with the first candid glance I had given her in that -year, I saw that she had changed greatly, but she was still beautiful. - -"'I did not choose to open the subject with you,' I said; 'I thought -that you would explain when you could stand it no longer. Evidently that -time has come. You were to me like a dead person. If the dead have any -messages for me, they must bring them to me unsolicited. It was not my -place to hunt among the tombs.' - -"'No,' she said, 'let us be honest, since it is the last talk we may -ever have together. Let us be frank with each other, and with ourselves. -I was not like a dead person to you. The dead are dead, and I am not. -You asked me no questions because you disdained me so. You despised -me so--and it was sweet to you to make me feel the full weight of your -scorn through this silence. It was better than killing me. Is that not -the real reason?' - -"'Yes,' I admitted, 'that is it. That is the truth.' "'Listen,' she -said, 'it would surprise you--would it not--to learn that I still love -you--that I have loved you all along--that you are the only man I have -ever really loved--that I love you now? All that is incredible to you, -is it not?' - -"'Yes,' I said, 'it is. You must pardon me, but--it is incredible to -me.' - -"'Well, it is true,' she said, and paused a moment. 'And I can tell you -why it is true, and why--why--the--the other was true, too. You--you -do not understand women,' she said. 'Sometimes I think if you were a -smaller man, in some ways, you would understand them better. Sometimes -I think that you are too--too big, somehow--ever to make a woman happy. -Not too self-centered; you are not consciously selfish; you never mean -to be. But you give, give, give the riches of your nature to people--to -the world at large--instead of to those who should share them. - -"'Oh, I know--the fault is all mine! Another kind of woman--the right -kind for you--the kind you thought I was--would not have asked for all -that was a necessity for me; would have been big enough to have done -without it; would have lost herself in your love for all humanity. That -is the kind of woman you thought I was. And I tried to be. But I wasn't. -I wasn't that big. - -"'I did sympathize with your work; I could understand it; I loved to -hear you tell about it. But I loved it because it was you that told -me about it. You didn't see that! You thought I was a goddess. It was -enough for your nature to worship me; to set me upon a pedestal and to -call me your inspiration; oh, you treated me well--you were faithful -to me--you were generous! But you neglected me in a way that men do not -understand; that some men will never understand. While you were giving -your days and your nights, and every fiber of your brain and body, to -what you called the cause of the people, you more and more forgot you -had a wife. Again and again and again I tried to win you back to -what you were when I married you--to the time when your cause was not -all--but you wouldn't see; I couldn't make you feel. - -"'Then I thought I would show you that other men were not such fools as -to overlook what was wasted on you. But you never noticed; you trusted -me too much; you were too much engrossed. And then I began to hate you. -I loved you more than I ever did before, and at the same time I hated -you. Can you understand that? Do you see how women can hate and love at -the same time? Well, they can. - -"'At last--for I was a fool--I took a lover!" - -"'What was his name?' I broke in. - -"'His name?' she cried; 'that does not matter! What matter if there was -one of them, or two of them. That is nothing!--the name is nothing--they -were nothing--nothing but tools; the symbols of my rage, of my hatred -for you; whether I loved or hated you, you were all--always.' - -"'They were merely convenient clubs with which to murder my honor in the -dark--is that it?' I said. - -"'Yes,' she said, 'that is it, if you choose to put it so.' And she -spoke with a humility foreign to her nature. - -"'And what now?' I asked. - -"'Now,' she said, 'now that I have spoken; now that I have told you -everything; now that I have told you that I have gone on loving you more -and more and more--now--I am going to die.' - -"'You have not asked me to forgive you,' I said. - -"'No,' she replied. 'For what is forgiveness? I do not know exactly what -that word means. It is supposed to wipe out something that has happened, -is it not?--to make things the same as they were before! But it does not -do that. That which has happened, has happened; and you and I know it.' - -"'You had better live,' I said; 'I no longer consider you worthless. I -feel that you are worthy of my anger now.' - -"Her face cleared almost into something like joy. - -"'I have told the truth, and I raise myself from the depths of your -scorn to the place where you can feel a hot rage against me?' she asked. - -"'Yes,' I said. And the light on her face was like that of which some -women are capable when they are told that they are beloved. - -"'And if I die?' she asked. - -"'Who knows but that you might climb by it?' I said. 'Who knows but what -your death might turn my anger to love again?' And with that I turned -and left her there. - -"That night I sat all night in my study, and in the morning they brought -me the news that she was dead. She must have used some poison. What, I -do not know; and the physicians called it heart-failure. But what is the -matter, Doctor?" - -"Nothing, nothing!" said Dr. Beaulieu. And he motioned for the narrator -to proceed. But there were beads of perspiration upon the healer's -forehead, and a pallor overspread his face. - -"I had condemned her to death," the penitent went on, "and she had been -her own executioner. She had loved me; she had sinned against me; -but she had always loved me; she had hated the flesh that sinned, and -scorned it as much as I; her life was intolerable and she had been her -own executioner. - -"The revulsion of feeling came. I loved her again; now that I had lost -her. All that day I shut myself up, seeing no one; refusing to look -at the dozens of telegrams that came pouring in from friends and -acquaintances, thinking--thinking--thinking---- - -"Night came again; and with it the word that the best friend I had was -in the house; a friend of my college days, who had stood shoulder to -shoulder with me in many a fight, then and since. He had come to be -under the same roof with me in the hour of my bitterest bereavement, -was the word he sent--how bitter now, he did not know. But -he did not intrude upon the privacy of my grief. And I sat -thinking--thinking--thinking-- - -"Suddenly the idea came to me that I would go upstairs to the chamber -where she was, and look at her once more. Quietly I stole up the stairs, -and through the hushed, dim house, on into the gloomy room, lighted only -by the candles at the head and foot of the curtained couch on which she -lay. - -"In the room beyond, the watchers sat. I stole softly across the floor -so as not to attract their attention; there was no one in the room -with the body. I approached the couch, and with my hand put by the -curtain---- - -"Then I dropped it suddenly. I remembered a locket which she had -formerly worn that had always had my picture in it, in the early days -of our married life; a locket that had never left her neck, waking or -sleeping. And I wondered---- - -"I wondered something about women which no one has ever been able to -tell me; not even a woman. I wondered if any light o' love had ever been -able to make her feel anything like _real_ love, after all! I wondered -if she had ever hugged the thought of her sin to her bosom, even as -she had at first hugged the thought of our real love--hers and mine. I -wondered if she had ever carried about with her a sentimental reminder -of her lover, of any lover, as she had once done of her husband--and how -long ago! I wondered how important a thing it had seemed to her, after -all! She had reconciled herself to herself, with her death, and made -me love her again. And I wondered to how great an extent she had -ever fooled a lover into thinking she loved him! There are depths and -contradictions and cross-currents in the souls of women that even women -do not know, far less men--I wondered whose picture was in that locket! - -"I thrust my hand through the curtains of the bed again, and then jumped -back. - -"I had felt something warm there. - -"Did she live, after all? - -"At the same instant I heard a movement on the other side of the bed. I -went around. - -"My best friend was removing his hand from the curtains on the other -side, and in his hand was the locket. It was his hand that I had felt. - -"We stared at each other. I spoke first, and in a whisper, so that the -others in the next room, who had come to watch, should not hear. - -"'I came for that,' I said. - -"'The locket? So did I," he said. And then added quite simply, 'My -picture is in it.' - -"'You lie!' I whispered, shaken by a wind of fury. And yet I knew that -perhaps he did not lie, that what he said might well be true. Perhaps -that was the cause of my fury. - -"His face was lined with a grief and weariness terrible to behold. To -look at him you would have thought that there was nothing else in the -world for him except grief. It was a great grief that made him careless -of everything else. - -"'It is my picture,' he said. 'She loved me.' - -"'I say that you lie,' I repeated. 'She may have played with you--but -she never loved any one but me--in her heart she never did!' - -"'You!' And because he whispered, hissing out the words, they seemed to -gain in intensity of scorn. 'You! She hated you! You who neglected her, -you with your damned eternal politics, you who could never understand -her--love? You who could never give her the things a woman needs and -must have--the warmth--the color--the romance--the poetry of life! -You!--with your cold-blooded humanitarianism! I tell you, she loved -_me!_ Why should I hesitate to avow it to you? It is the sweetest -thing on earth to me, that she loved me! She turned from you to me -because----' - -"'Don't go into all that,' I said. 'I heard all about that last -night--from her! Open the locket, and let us see whose face is there!' - -"He opened it, and dropped the locket. He reeled against the wall, with -his hands over his face, as if he had been struck a physical blow. - -"I picked the toy up and looked at it. - -"The face in the locket was neither his face nor mine. It was the face -of--of the man who ran from the pergola and vaulted over the orchard -wall into the woods that summer night a year earlier; the man whom I had -not, for the moment, recognized. - -"We stood there, this man who had been my best friend and I, with the -locket between us, and I debated whether to strike him down----" - -The narrator paused. And then he said, fixing Dr. Beaulieu with an -intent gaze: - -"Should I have struck him down? You, who are a teacher of ethics, -who set yourself up to be, after a fashion, a preacher, a priest, a -spiritual director, tell me, would I have been justified if I had killed -him?" - -Dr. Beaulieu seemed to shrink, seemed to contract and grow smaller, -physically, under the other man's look. He opened his mouth as if to -articulate, but for a second or two no word came. And then, regaining -something of his usual poise, he said, although his voice was a bit -husky: - -"No! It is for the Creator of life to take life, and no other. Hatred -and strife are disharmony, and bring their own punishment by throwing -the soul out of unity with the spirit of love which rules the universe." - -It sounded stereotyped and emotionless, even in Dr. Beaulieu's own ears, -as he said it; there was a mocking gleam in the eyes of the other man -that spoke of a far more vital and genuine emotion. Dr. Beaulieu licked -his lips and there came a knot in his forehead; beads of perspiration -stood out upon his brow. - -"You were right," said Dr. Beaulieu, "in not striking him down. You were -right in sparing him." - -The bearded man laughed. "I did not say that I spared him," he said. - -Dr. Beaulieu looked a question; a question that, perhaps, he dared -not utter; or at least that he did not care to utter. He had dropped -completely his role of spiritual counselor; he regarded his visitor with -an emotion that might have been horror and might have been terror, -or might have been a mixture of the two. The visitor replied to the -unspoken interrogation in the healer's manner. - -"I did not strike him down. Neither did I spare him. I waited and I--I -used him. I know how to wait; I am of the nature that can wait. It was -years before fate drew all things together for my purpose, and gave him -into my hands--fate, assisted by myself. - -"I waited, and I used him. The details are not pertinent for it is not -his story that I am telling. I piloted him to the brink of destruction, -and then--then, I saved him." - -"You saved him?" Dr. Beaulieu was puzzled; but his fear, if fear it was, -had not abated. There was a frank menace, now, in his visitor's air. And -the healer seemed to be struggling, as he listened to the tale, to force -some reluctant brain-cell to unlock and give its stored memories to his -conscious mind. - -"I saved him. I saved him to be my creature. I broke him, and I saved -him. I made him my slave, my dog, my--my anything I choose to have him. -I have work for him to do." - -Again the man paused, looking about the rich profusion of Dr. Beaulieu's -studio. There was a table in the room which contained a number of curios -from Eastern lands. The visitor suddenly rose from his chair and picked -from among them a thin, keen-bladed dagger. It was a beautiful weapon, -of some Oriental make; beautiful in its lines; beautiful with the sullen -fire of many jewels blazing in its hilt--an evil levin that got into the -mind and led the thoughts astray even as the dainty deadliness of -the whole tool seduced the hand to grasp and strike. As his visitor, -strangely breaking the flow of his narrative, examined and handled the -thing, Dr. Beaulieu shuddered. - -"The man is as much my tool," said the visitor slowly, "as this dagger -would be your tool, Dr. Beaulieu, if you chose to thrust it into my -breast--or into your own." - -He laid the dagger down on the table, and resumed his seat. Dr. Beaulieu -said nothing, but he found it difficult to withdraw his eyes from his -visitor's steady stare. Slumped and sagged within his chair, he said -nothing. Presently the visitor went on. - -"I had a fancy, Dr. Beaulieu; I had a fancy! It suited me to make my -revenge a less obvious thing than striking down the old friend who had -betrayed my love and confidence, a less obvious thing than striking down -the other man--the man whose face was in the locket." - -As he spoke he took from his pocket a locket. He opened it, and gazed -upon the face. The healer half rose from his chair, and then sank back, -with a hoarse, inarticulate murmur. His face had turned livid, and he -trembled in every limb. It was evident that the missing scene which he -had sought before had suddenly been flashed upon the cinema screen of -his recollection. He remembered, now---- - -"It was my fancy, Dr. Beaulieu, to make one of them take revenge upon -the other, that I might thus be revenged upon them both." - -He suddenly rose, and forced the locket into the healer's nerveless -grasp. - -"That face--look at it!" he cried, towering over the collapsed figure -before him. - -Compelled by a will stronger than his own, Dr. Beaulieu looked. It -was the counterfeit presentment of himself within. It fell from his -trembling fingers and rolled upon the floor. The cultist buried his face -in his hands. - -The other man stepped back and regarded him sardonically for a moment or -two. - -"I should not wonder," he said, "if the man who used to be my best -friend would pay you a visit before long--perhaps in an hour, perhaps in -a week, perhaps in a month." - -He picked up the dagger again, and toyed with it. - -"This thing," he said, impersonally, trying the point upon his finger, -"is sharp. It would give a quick death, a sure death, an almost painless -death, if one used it against another man--or against one's self." - -And without another word he turned and left the room. - -Dr. Beaulieu sat and listened to his retreating footsteps. And, long -after they had ceased to sound, Dr. Beaulieu still sat and listened. -Perhaps he was listening for some one to come, now that the bearded -man had left. He sat and listened, and presently he reached over to the -table and picked up the dagger that the visitor had laid down with its -handle toward him. He pressed its point against his finger, as the other -man had done. It was sharp. It would give, as the fellow had said, "a -quick death, a sure death, an almost painless death." - -And as he whispered these words he was still -listening--listening--waiting for some one to come---- - - - - -XI.--The Locked Box - - - -I - -|It was a small, oblong affair, not more than three inches wide or deep, -by twice that much in length, made of some dark, hard wood; brass bound -and with brass lock and brass hinges; altogether such a box as a woman -might choose to keep about her room for any one of a half dozen possible -uses. - -Clarke did not remember that he had ever seen it prior to his -unexpectedly early return from a western trip of a month's duration. -He thought he would give his wife a pleasant surprise, so he did not -telephone the news of his arrival to the house, but went home and -entered her room unannounced. As he came in his wife hastily slipped -something into the box, locked it, and put it into one of the drawers -of her desk. Then she came to meet him, and he would not have thought -of the matter at all had it not been for just the slightest trace of -confusion in her manner. - -She was glad to see him. She always was after his absences, but it -seemed to him that she was exceptionally so this time. She had never -been a demonstrative woman; but it seemed to Clarke that she came nearer -that description on the occasion of this home-coming than ever before. -They had a deal to say to each other, and it was not until after dinner -that the picture of his wife hurriedly disposing of the box crossed -Clarke's consciousness again. Even then he mentioned it casually because -they were talked out of more important topics rather than because of any -very sharp curiosity. He asked her what it was; what was in it. - -"Oh, nothing!--nothing of any importance--nothing at all," she said; -and moved over to the piano and began one of his favorite airs. And he -forgot the box again in an instant. She had always been able to make -Clarke forget things, when she wanted to. But the next day it suddenly -came to him, out of that nowhere-in-particular from which thoughts come -to mortals, that she had been almost as much confused at his sudden -question as she had at his previous sudden entrance. - -Clarke was not a suspicious person; not even a very curious one, as a -rule. But it was so evident to him that there was something in that -box which his wife did not wish him to see that he could not help but -wonder. Always frank with her, and always accustomed to an equal -candor on her part, it occurred to him that he would ask her again, in -something more than a casual way, and that she would certainly tell him, -at the same time clearing up her former hesitation. But no!--why should -he ask her? That would be to make something out of nothing; this was a -trifle, and not worth thinking about. But he continued thinking about -it, nevertheless.... - -Ah, he had it! What a chump he had been, not to guess it sooner! His -birthday was only ten days off, and his wife had been planning to -surprise him with a remembrance of some sort. Of course! That accounted -for the whole thing. - -With this idea in his head, he said nothing more about the box, but -waited. And when dinner was over and they sat before the fire together, -on the evening of the anniversary, he still forbore to mention it, -expecting every moment that the next she would present him with the -token. But as the evening wore away, with no sign on her part, he -finally broke an interval of silence with the remark: - -"Well, dear, don't keep me guessing any longer! Bring it to me!" - -"Guessing? Bring you--what?" And he could see that she was genuinely -puzzled. - -"Why, my birthday present." - -"Why, my dear boy! And did you expect one? And I had forgotten! -Positively forgotten--it _is_ your birthday, isn't it, Dickie! If I had -only known you _wanted_ one--------" And she came up and kissed him, -with something like contrition, although his birthday had never been one -of the sentimental anniversaries which she felt bound to observe with -gifts. - -"Don't feel bad about it--I don't care, you know--really," he said. -"Only, I thought you had something of the sort in that brass-bound -box--that was the only reason I mentioned it." - -"Brass-bound box--why, no, I--I forgot it. I'm ashamed of myself, but I -forgot the date entirely!" - -But she volunteered no explanation of what the box contained, although -the opportunity was so good a one. - -And Clarke wondered more than ever. - -What could it be? The letters of some former sweetheart? Well, all girls -had sweethearts before they married, he supposed; at least all men did. -He had had several himself. There was nothing in that. And he would not -make an ass of himself by saying any more about it. - -Only... he could not remember any old sweethearts that he wouldn't have -told Agnes all about, if she had asked him. He had no secrets from her. -But she had a secret from him... innocent enough, of course. But still, -a secret. There was none of those old sweethearts of his whose letters -he cared to keep after five years of marriage. And there was no... But, -steady! Where were his reflections leading him? Into something very like -suspicion? Positively, yes; to the verge of it. Until Agnes got ready to -tell him all about it, he would forget that damned box! - -And if she never got ready, why, that was all right, too. She was his -wife, and he loved her... and that settled it. - -Perhaps that should have settled it, but it did not. Certain -healthy-looking, fleshy specimens of humanity are said to succumb the -quickest to pneumonia, and it may be that the most ingenuous natures -suffer the most intensely with suspicion, when once thoroughly -inoculated. - - - -II - -|Clarke fought against it, cursing his own baseness. But the very effort -necessary to the fight showed him the persistence of the thing itself. -He loved his wife, and trusted her, he told himself over and over again, -and in all their relations hitherto there had never been the slightest -deviation from mutual confidence and understanding. What did he suspect? -He could not have told himself. He went over their life together in his -mind. In the five years of their married life, he could not have helped -but notice that men were attracted to her. Of course they were. That was -natural. She was a charming woman. He quite approved of it; it reflected -credit upon him, in a way. He was not a Bluebeard of a husband, to lock -a wife up and deny her the society proper to her years. And her -very catholicity of taste, the perfect frankness of her enjoyment of -masculine attention, had but served to make his confidence all the more -complete. True, he had never thought she loved him as much as he loved -her... but now that he came to think of it, was there not a warmer -quality to her affection since his return from this last trip west? Was -there not a kind of thoughtfulness, was there not a watchful increase in -attentiveness, that he had always missed before? Was she not making love -to him every day now; just as he had always made love to her before? -Were not the parts which they had played for the five years of their -married life suddenly reversed? They were! Indeed they were! And what -did that mean? What did that portend? Did the brass-bound box have aught -to do with that? What was the explanation of this change? - -The subtle imp of suspicion turned this matter of the exchanged roles -into capital. Clarke, still ashamed of himself for doing it, began -covertly to watch his wife; to set traps of various kinds for her. He -said nothing more about the box, but within six months after the first -day upon which he had seen it, it became the constant companion of his -thoughts. - -_What_ did he suspect? Not even now could he have said. He suspected -nothing definite; vaguely, he suspected anything and everything. If -his wife noticed his changed manner towards her, she made no sign. -If anything, her efforts to please him, her attentiveness, her -thoughtfulness in small things, increased. - - - -III - -|There came a day when he could stand this self-torture no longer, -he thought. He came home from his office--Clarke was a partner in a -prosperous real-estate concern--at an hour when he thought his wife not -yet returned from an afternoon of call making, determined to end the -matter once for all. - -He went to her room, found the key to her desk, and opened the drawer. -He found the box, but It was locked, and he began rummaging through the -drawers, and among the papers and letters therein, for the key. - -Perhaps she carried it with her. Very well, then, he would break it -open! With the thing in his hand he began to look around for something -with which to force the fastenings, and was about deciding that he would -take it down to the basement, and use the hatchet, when he heard a step. -He turned, just as his wife entered the room. - -Her glance traveled from the box in his hand to the ransacked desk, and -rested there inquiringly for a moment. Strangely enough, in view of the -fact that he felt himself an injured husband and well within his rights, -it was Clarke who became confused, apologetic, and evasive under her -gaze. He essayed a clumsy lie: - -"Agnes," he began, indicating the desk, "I--I got a bill to-day from -Meigs and Horner, for those furs, you know--I was sure that the -account had been settled--that you had paid them, and had shown me the -receipt--that you had paid them from your allowance, you know--and I -thought I would come home and look up the receipt." - -It was very lame; and very lamely done, at that, as he felt even while -he was doing it. But it gave him an opportunity of setting the box down -on the desk almost in a casual manner, as if he had picked it up quite -casually, while he began to tumble the papers again with his hands. - -"The receipt is here," she said; and got it for him. - -The box lay between them, but they did not look at it, nor at each -other, and they both trembled with agitation. - -Each knew that the thoughts of the other were on nothing except that -little locked receptacle of wood and brass, yet neither one referred -to it; and for a full half minute they stood with averted faces, and -fumbling hands, and played out the deception. - -Finally she looked full at him, and drew a long breath, as if the -story were coming now; and there was in her manner a quality of -softness--almost of sentimentality, Clarke felt. She was getting ready -to try and melt him into a kind of sympathy for her frailty, was she! -Well, that would not work with him! And with the receipted bill waving -in his hand, he made it the text of a lecture on extravagance, into -which he plunged with vehemence. - -Why did he not let her speak? He would not admit the real reason to -himself, just then. But in his heart he was afraid to have her go on. -Afraid, either way it turned. If she were innocent of any wrong, he -would have made an ass of himself--and much worse than an ass. If she -were guilty, she might melt him into a weak forgiveness in spite of -her guilt! No, she must not speak... not now! If she were innocent, how -could he confess his suspicions to her and acknowledge his baseness? And -besides... women were so damned clever... whatever was in that box, she -might fool him about it, somehow! - -And then, "Good God!" he thought, "I have got to the place where I hug -my suspicion to me as a dearer thing than my love, have I? Have I got so -low as that?" - -While these thoughts raced and rioted through his mind, his lips -were feverishly pouring out torrents in denunciation of feminine -extravagance. Even as he spoke he felt the black injustice of his -speech, for he had always encouraged his wife, rather than otherwise, in -the expenditure of money; his income was a good one; and the very furs -which formed the text of his harangue he had helped her select and even -urged upon her. - -It was their first quarrel, if that can be called a quarrel which has -only one side to it. For she listened in silence, with white lips -and hurt eyes, and a face that was soon set into a semblance of hard -indifference. He stormed out of the room, ashamed of himself, and -feeling that he had disgraced the name of civilization. - - - -IV - -|Ashamed of himself, indeed; but before the angel of contrition could -take full possession of his nature, the devil of suspicion, the imp of -the box, regained its place. - -For why had she not answered him? She knew he cared nothing about the -trivial bill, the matter of the furs, he told himself. Why had she not -insisted on a hearing, and told him about the box? She knew as well as -he that that was what he had broken into her desk to get! - -Justice whispered that she had been about to speak, and that he had -denied her the chance. But the imp of the box said that an honest woman -would have _demanded_ the chance--would have persisted until she got it! -And thus, his very shame, and anger at himself, were cunningly turned -and twisted by the genius of the brass-bound box into a confirmation of -his suspicions. - -V - -|Suspicions? Nay, convictions! Beliefs. Certainties! - -They were certainties, now! Certainties to Clarke's mind, at least. For -in a month after this episode he had become a silent monomaniac on the -subject of the brass-bound box. He felt shame no longer. She was guilty. -Of just what, he did not know. But guilty. Guilty as Hell itself, he -told himself, rhetorically, in one of the dumb rages which now became so -frequent with him. - -_Guilty--guilty--guilty_--the clock on the mantelpiece ticked off many -dragging hours of intolerable minutes to that tune, while Clarke lay -awake and listened. _Guilty--guilty--guilty_--repeat any word often -enough, and it will hypnotize you. _Guilty--guilty--guilty_--so he and -the clock would talk to each other, back and forth, the whole night -through. If any suggestions of his former, more normal habits of thought -came to him now it was they that were laughed out of court; it was they -that were flung away and scorned as traitors. - -She was guilty. But he would be crafty! He would be cunning. He would -make no mistake. He would allow her no subterfuge. He would give her no -chance to snare him back into a condition of half belief. There should -be no juggling explanations. They were clever as the devil, women were! -But this one should have no chance to fool him again. She had fooled him -too long already. - -And she kept trying to fool him. Shortly after his outburst over the -furs, she began again a series of timid advances which would have struck -him as pathetic had he not known that her whole nature was corroded and -corrupted with deceit, with abominable deceit. She was trying to make -him believe that she did not know why he was angry and estranged, was -she? He would show her! He hated her now, with that restless, burning -intensity of hatred known only to him who has injured another. A hatred -that consumed his own vitality, and made him sick in soul and body. The -little sleep he got was passed in uneasy dreams of his revenge; and his -waking hours were devoted to plots and plans of the form which it should -take. Oh, but she had been cunning to fool him for so long; but she -should see! She should see! When the time for action came, she should -see! - - - -VI - -|Something, one tense and feverish midnight, when he lay in his bed -snarling and brooding and chuckling--a kind of snapping sense in some -remote interior chamber of his brain, followed by a nervous shock that -made him sit upright--warned him that the time for action was at hand. -What is it that makes sinners, at provincial revival meetings, suddenly -aware that the hours of dalliance are past and the great instant that -shall send them to "the mourners' bench" is at hand? Somehow, they seem -to know! And, somehow, Clarke felt an occult touch and knew that his -time for action had arrived. - -He did not care what came afterwards. Any jury in the world, so he told -himself, ought to acquit him of his deed, when they once knew his story; -when they once looked at the damning evidence of her guilt which she -had hidden away for so long in the brass-bound box. But if they did not -acquit him, that was all right, too. His work in the world would have -been done; he would have punished a guilty woman. He would have shown -that all men are not fools. - -But he did not spend a great deal of thought on how other people would -regard what he was about to do. As he crept down the hall with the knife -in his hand, his chief sensation was a premonitory itch, a salty tang -of pleasure in the doing of the deed itself. When hatred comes in where -love has gone out, there may be a kind of voluptuary delight in the act -of murder. - -Very carefully he opened the door of her room. And then he smiled to -himself, and entered noisily; for what was the need of being careful -about waking up a woman who was already dead? He did not care whether he -killed her in her sleep or not;--indeed, if she wakened and begged for -her life, he thought it might add a certain zest to the business. He -should enjoy hearing her plead. He would not mind prolonging things. - -But things were not prolonged. His hand and the muscles of his forearm -had tensed so often with the thought, with the idea, that the first blow -went home. She never waked. - - - -VII - -|He got the box, and opened it. - -Inside was a long envelope, and written on that were the words: - -"To be opened by my husband only after my death." - -That time had come! - -Within the envelope was a letter. It was dated on the day of his return -from his western trip, a few months before. He read: - -"Dick, I love you! - -"Does it seem strange to you that I should write it down? - -"Listen, Dickie dear--I _had_ to write it! I couldn't tell you when I -was alive--but I just had to tell you, too. And now that I am dead, what -I say will come to you with all of its sweetness increased; and all -of its bitterness left out! It will, now that I am dead--or if you die -first, you will never see this. This is from beyond the grave to you, -Dickie dear, to make all your life good to you afterwards! - -"Now, listen, dear, and don't be hard on me. - -"When I married you, Dickie, I _didn't_ love you! You were wild about -me. But I only _liked_ you very much. It wasn't really love. It wasn't -what you _deserved_. But I was only a girl, and you were the first man, -and I didn't know things; I didn't know what I _should have_ felt. - -"Later, when I realized how very much you cared, I was ashamed of -myself. I grew to see that I had done wrong in marrying you. Wrong to -both of us. For no woman should marry a man she doesn't love. And I was -ashamed, and worried about it. You were so good to me! So sweet--and you -never suspected that I didn't care like I should. And because you were -so good and sweet to me, I felt _worse_. And I made up my mind you -should _never_ know! That I would be everything to you any woman could -be. I tried to be a good wife. Wasn't I, Dickie, even then? - -"But I prayed and prayed and prayed. 'O God,' I used to say, 'let me -love him like he loves me!' It was five years, Dickie, and I _liked_ you -more, and _admired_ you more, and saw more in you that was worth while, -every week; but still, no miracle happened. - -"And then one morning _a miracle did happen!_ - -"It was when you were on that trip West. I had gone to bed thinking how -kind and dear you were. I missed you, Dickie dear, and _needed_ you. And -when I woke up, there was a change over the world. I felt so different, -somehow. It had come! Wasn't it wonderful, Dickie?--it had come! And I -sang all that day for joy. I could hardly wait for you to come home so -that I could tell you. I loved you, loved you, loved you, Dickie, _as -you deserved!_ My prayers had been answered, somehow--or maybe it was -what any woman would do just living near you and being with you. - -"And then I saw _I couldn't tell you, after all!_ - -"For if I told you I loved you now, that would be to tell you that for -five years _I hadn't loved you_, Dickie! - -"And how would _that_ make you feel? Wouldn't that have been like a -knife, Dickie? - -"Oh, I wanted you to know! _How_ I wanted you to know! But, you see, I -couldn't tell you, could I, dear, without telling the other, too? I just -_had_ to save you from that! And I just had to make you feel it, somehow -or other. And I _will_ make you feel it, Dickie! - -"But I can't tell you. Who knows what ideas you might get into your head -about those five years, if I told you now? Men are so queer, and they -can be so stupid sometimes! And I can't bear to think of losing one -smallest bit of your love... not now! It would _kill_ me! - -"But I want you to know, sometime. And so I'm writing you--it's my first -love letter--the first real one, Dickie. If _you_ die first, I'll tell -you in Heaven. And if _I_ die first, you'll understand! - -"Agnes." - - - - -XII.--Behind the Curtain - -|It was as dark as the belly of the fish that swallowed Jonah. A -drizzling rain blanketed the earth in chill discomfort. As I splashed -and struggled along the country road, now in the beaten path, and now -among the wet weeds by its side, I had never more heartily yearned -for the dullness and comforts of respectability. Here was I with more -talents in my quiver, it pleased me to think, than nine out of ten of -the burghers I had left sleeping snug and smug in the town a few miles -behind; with as much real love of humanity as the next man, too; and yet -shivering and cursing my way into another situation that might well mean -my death. And all for what? For fame or riches? No, for little more than -a mere existence, albeit free from responsibility. Indeed, I was all but -ready to become an honest man then and there, to turn back and give -up the night's adventure, had but my imagination furnished me with the -picture of some occupation whereby I might gain the same leisure and -independence as by what your precisians call thieving. - -With the thought I stumbled off the road again, and into a narrow gully -that splashed me to the knees with muddy water. Out of that, I walked -plump into a hedge, and when I sought to turn from it at right angles, I -found myself still following its line. This circumstance showed me that -I was come unaware upon the sharp turn of the road which marked the -whereabouts of the house that was my object. Following the hedge, I -found the entrance to the graveled driveway within a hundred yards of -my last misstep, and entered the grounds. I groped about me for a space, -not daring to show a light, until presently a blacker bulk, lifting -itself out of the night's comprehensive blackness, indicated the -house itself, to my left and a bit in front of me. I left the moist -gravel--for there is nothing to be gained on an expedition of this -sort by advertising the size and shape of your boots to a morbidly -inquisitive public--and reached the shelter of the veranda by walking -across the lawn. - -There, being out of eyeshot from the upper windows, I risked a gleam -from my pocket lantern, one of those little electric affairs that are -occasionally useful to others than night watchmen. Two long French -windows gave on the veranda; and, as I knew, both of them opened from -the reception hall. A bit of a way with the women is not amiss in my -profession; and the little grayeyed Irish maid, who had told me three -weeks before of old man Rolfe's stinginess and brutality towards the -young wife whom he had cooped up here for the past four years, had also -given me, bit by bit, other information more valuable than she could -guess. So, thanks to the maid, I was aware that the safe where the Rolfe -jewels were kept--and often a substantial bit of money as well--was -situated in the library; which was just beyond the hall and connected -with it by a flight of four or five steps. This safe was my objective -point. - -The wooden window shutters were but the work of a moment; and the window -fastenings themselves of only a few minutes more. (I flatter myself that -I have a very coaxing way with window fasteners.) The safe itself would -give me the devil's own trouble, I knew. It was really a job for two -men, and I ached all over to be at it, to be safely through with it, and -away, a good hour before sunrise. - -The window opened noiselessly enough, and I stepped within and set my -little satchel full of necessary tools upon the floor. But the damp -weather had swelled the woodwork, and as I closed the window again, -though I pushed it ever so gently, it gave forth a noise something -between a grunt and a squeak. - -And as pat as the report of a pistol to the pressure of the trigger came -the answer--a sound of a quickly-caught breath from the warm dimness of -the room. I made no motion; though the blood drummed desperately through -my brain and my scalp tingled with apprehension and excitement. - -For ten, for twenty, for thirty seconds I stood so; and then the silence -was broken by the unmistakable rustle of a woman's skirts. The sound -came softly towards me through the darkness. It was my turn to let loose -my held breath with a gasp, and in another moment I should have been -through the window and running for it; when a woman's whisper halted me. - -"Is that you, Charles? And why did you not rap upon the shutter?" - -So some one called Charles was expected? Then, ticked off my thoughts -almost automatically, the lady somewhere near me in the dark might have -her own reasons for not caring to alarm the house just then! The thought -steadied me to action. - -"Shh," I whispered, feeling behind me for the window, and gradually -opening it again. "S-h-h! No, it is not Charles"--and I put one foot -backward across the sill. "It is not Charles, but Charles has sent me to -say----" - -Click!--went something by the window, and the room was flooded with -sudden brilliance from a dozen electric globes. And again, click!--and -I looked with blinking eyes at the muzzle of a cocked pistol held by the -most beautiful, the most be-jeweled, the most determined-looking young -woman it has ever been my lot to meet. - -"Who are you?" she asked in a voice that was at once hoarse and sweet. -"Who are you? And what do you want? And where is Charles?" - -As I stood there dripping moisture upon the oiled floor, with my hands -in the air--they had gone up quite involuntarily--I must have been the -very picture of idiocy and discomfiture. I wondered if Charles, whoever -the devil Charles might be, was always welcomed with a cocked pistol. -Probably not; but, I wondered, how did she happen to have a pistol with -her? I wondered why neck, breast, hair, arms, and hands should be ablaze -with the diamonds that accentuated her lithe and vivid loveliness. I -wondered why, now that she saw I was not Charles, she did not alarm the -house. I wondered everything; but nothing to the point. And as I stood -wondering she repeated: - -"Who are you? And what do you want?" - -"Madame," I stammered, my jarred brain fastening upon the sentence she -had interrupted, "Charles sent me to--to say to you----" - -"Charles who?" she asked. And as tense as was her face, a gleam of -merriment shot through her eyes. "Charles who?" she repeated. - -Charles was not one of the points upon which the Irish maid had given me -information. - -The lady with the pistol considered for a moment. "You are not very -clever, are you?" she said. - -"If you will pardon me," I said, "I think I had better be going. I seem -to have mistaken the house." - -"You at least seem to have mistaken the proper manner in which to enter -it," she returned. - -"Why, as to the mode of entrance," I said, "I might plead that the -mistake appears to have been less in that than in the person who -employed it." - -I could not resist the retort. A dull red crept slowly up her neck and -face; a pallid, olive-tinted face, beautiful in itself, beautiful for -its oval contour and broad brow, and frame of black hair; beautiful in -itself, and yet dominated and outdone by the lustrous, restless beauty -of the dark eyes wherewith she held me more surely captive than by -virtue of the pistol. - -"You will come in," she said, "and sit there." She indicated a seat -beside a central table. "But first you will kindly let me have whatever -weapons you may possess." She took my revolver, examined it, and put her -own in the breast of her gown. "Now you may put your hands down," she -said, "your arms must ache by now. Sit down." - -I sat. She stood and looked at me for a moment. - -"I am wondering what you are going to do with me," I ventured. - -In all of her quick actions, and in the tones of her voice, there was -evident a most unnatural sort of strain. She may well have been excited; -that was only to be expected in the circumstances. But the repressed -excitement in this woman's manner was not that of a woman who is forcing -herself to keep her courage up; not that of a woman who would like to -scream; but a steadier nervous energy which seemed to burn in her like a -fire, to escape from her finger tips, and almost to crackle in her -hair; an intensity that was vibrant. I marveled. Most women would have -screamed at the advent of a man in the dead of night; screamed and -fainted. Or the ones who would not, and who were armed as she, would -ordinarily have been inclined to shoot, and at once; or immediately to -have given the alarm. She had done none of these things. She had merely -taken me captive. She had set me down in a chair at the center of the -room. She had not roused the house. And now she stood looking at me with -a trace of abstraction in her manner; looking at me, for the moment, -less as if I were a human being than as if I were a factor in some -mathematical problem which it was the immediate task of that active, -high-keyed brain of hers to solve. And there was a measure of irony in -her glance, as if she alone tasted and enjoyed some ulterior jest. - -"I am wondering," I repeated, "what you are going to do with me." - -She sat down at the opposite side of the table before she replied. - -"I believe," she said slowly, "that I have nearly made up my mind what -to do with you." - -"Well?" I asked. - -But she said nothing, and continued to say nothing. I looked at her and -her diamonds--the diamonds I had come after!--and wondered again why she -was wearing them; wondered why she had tricked herself out as for -some grand entertainment. And as the ignominious result of my night's -expedition pressed more sharply against my pride I could have strangled -her through sheer disappointment and mortification. The pistol she held -was the answer to that impulse. But what was the answer to her hesitancy -in alarming the house? Why did she not give me up and be done with me? - -At the farther end of the room was a long red curtain, which covered the -entrance to a sitting-room or parlor, as I guessed; and by the side -of the curtain hung an old-fashioned bell cord, also of red, which -I supposed to communicate with the servants' quarters. It were easy -enough, now that she had taken the whip hand of me so cleverly, to pull -that rope, to set the bell jangling, to rouse the house. Why did she not -do so? - -Was she a mad woman? There was that in her inexplicable conduct, and in -her highly-wrought, yet governed, mood, as she sat in brooding silence -across the table from me, to make the theory plausible. Brooding she -was, and studying me, I thought; yet watchful, too. For at any least -motion of mine her hand tightened slightly upon the pistol. We sat -thus while the slow seconds lengthened into intolerable minutes; and I -steamed with sweat, and fidgeted. Nor was I set more at my ease by her -long searching glances. In fact, my overthrow had been so instant and -so complete that my scattered wits had never drawn themselves together -again; I continued as one in a haze; as a person half under the power -of the hypnotist; as a mouse must feel after the first blow of the cat's -paw. And yet one idea began to loom clearly out of that haze and possess -me--the idea that she desired the alarm to be given as little as I did -myself. - -But there was no light in that. It was easy to understand why she -did not wish the house aroused while she still believed me to be -Charles--whoever Charles might be. But now?--it was too much for me. -I could not find a justification in reason for my belief; and yet the -conviction grew. - -She broke the silence with a question that might have been put with full -knowledge of my thought. - -"You are still wondering why I do not give you up?" she said. - -I nodded. She leaned towards me across the table, and if ever the demons -of mockery danced through a woman's eyes it was then; and her lips -parted in a kind of silent laughter. - -She touched the diamonds about her throat. - -"It was these you came after?" - -I nodded again. Evidently speech was of no avail with this lady. She -asked questions at her will, and reserved the right of answering none. - -"Tell me," she said, "Why are you a thief? Why do you steal?" - -"'Convey, the wise it call,'" I quoted. "Accident, or fate, or destiny, -I suppose," I went on, wondering more than ever at the question, but -with a fluttering hope. Perhaps the lady (in spite of Charles--such -things have been!) was an amateur sociologist, a crank reformer, or -something of that sort. There had been no mockery in her tone when -she asked the question; instead, I thought, a kind of pity. "Fate, -or destiny," I went on, "or what you please, 'There is a destiny that -shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,'" I quoted again, in my -best actor manner. - -"Why," she said, "you are a man with some air of better things about -you. You quote Shakespeare as if he were an old friend. And yet, you are -a thief! Tell me," she continued, "tell me--I dare say there were many -struggles against that destiny?" There was a note almost of eagerness -in her voice, as if she were a leniently-inclined judge who would fain -search out and put in the mouth of a condemned man some plausible plea -for the exercise of clemency. "Come--were there not?--I dare say there -were--circumstances of uncommon bitterness that forced you to become -what I see you? And even now you hate the thing you are?" - -"Why, as to that," I said, possessed of the sudden whim to be honest -with myself for once, "I am afraid that I can complain of no bitterer -usage at the hands of the world than can the majority of those who reap -where they have not sowed. When I think of it all, I am used to putting -it to myself that my life is devoted to a kind of private warfare -against the unjust conditions of a hypocritical social order." - -"Warfare!" she flouted, hard and brilliant as one of her own diamonds -again. "And you could justify it, too, could you not?" - -And then she asked me: "Have you ever killed a man?" - -"Why, no," said I, "but I have tried to." - -"He lived?--and you were sorry that he lived?" - -"No," I said, quite out of my depths in all this moral quibbling, "I was -glad he lived." - -"And yet you hated him?" - -"I would have taken his life in a rage," I said. "He had wronged me as -greatly as one man can wrong another." - -"And yet you were glad he lived? My dear thief----" - -"Higgins is the name," said I. "You may call me Higgins." - -"My dear Higgins," she went on, "you are inconsistent. You attempt to -slay a man in what I should judge to have been a not ignoble passion. -It may have been an anger that did you credit. And yet you are not -bold enough to face the thought of killing him. You are glib with -justifications of your thievery; and perhaps that is also because you -are too much of a coward to look steadily at it. You creep along a mean -and despicable path in life, contentedly, it seems to me, with a dead -soul. You are what you are because there is nothing positive in you for -either good or evil. You are negative; you were better dead. Yes, better -dead!" - -Why should I have felt as if she were seeking self-justification in -advance for some death she planned for me? Certainly, my life, or death, -was not hers to give or take; she might give me up, and probably would. -But just as certainly she had made me feel, as she passed her judgment -upon me, that she was likely to turn executioner as well as judge. My -doubts as to her sanity returned. - -"Still," I said, for the sake of saying something, "if I killed a man, I -should not like to think about it, even if he deserved death." - -"Even if he deserved death?" she repeated, and sprang up, as if the -phrase had touched her. "You make yourself the judge, you do, of when -a man 'deserves' to lose his wealth. Come, what is your idea of when he -deserves to die?" - -Up and down the room she swept; yet still watchful. And the emotion -which she had so long suppressed burst out into a poisonous lovely bloom -that suffused her being with an awful beauty. - -"When does he deserve to die?" she repeated. "Listen to me. I knew -a woman once--no matter where--no matter when--who was sold--sold! I -say--by the sordid devil she called her father, to the veriest beast -that ever trod this earth. Her beauty--for she had beauty--her wit--for -wit she had--became this husband's chattels before she turned her -twentieth year. She would never have loved him, but she would have been -faithful to him--she was faithful to him, in fact, in spite of all his -drunkenness and bestiality--and abuse! It was not neglect alone that she -had to complain of--she had never looked for understanding or sympathy. -But she had not looked for abuse. Abuse, I say, and worse than abuse. -Before she had been married a year she knew what it was, not only to -feel the weight of a heavy hand and to hide the bruises from her maid, -but to see other women brought into her very house. Pah!--hate? She -hated him? Hate is not the word. She became a live coal. But she never -cried out; she found strength to smile at him even when he beat her; she -was proud enough for that. It pleased him, in his hellish humor, and -because she was made to shine, to cage her in a country house, and there -to taunt her that although she was sold to him she got little of what -money may buy. And still she smiled at him, and still her hatred grew -through all the weeks and months until it filled her whole being. And -then--love came. For God has ordained that love may enter even Hell. -Love, I say; and she loved this lover of hers with a passion that was -measured only by the degree in which she hated her husband. And she -would have left with him; but on the very night they would have flown -together her lord and master-----" - -She said the words with an indescribable spluttering sneer, sidewise -from her mouth. It is so a lioness may snarl and spit before she leaps. - -"Her--lord and master--found it out, and waited up to catch them; and -coming upon her alone, taunted her. Taunted her, and struck her----" - -"Look!" she cried, and tore the diamonds from her breast, and rent the -laces, and wrenched the fastenings apart. A new red weal that seemed to -throb and pulse with her respiration stood out from the whiteness of her -bosom. - -"Tell me," she whispered hoarsely, "would it have been murder if she had -killed that man? Which were the more courageous thing--to kill him, or -to step back into her living hell? If she had killed him, would she have -regretted it?" - -I know not what I might have answered; but at that instant three raps -sounded distinctly upon the window-shutter. I leaped to my feet. Then -Charles had come! - -An instant she stood as if stricken to a statue in mid-rage. - -And then she cried out, and there was a furious triumph in her voice--a -kind of joy that matched itself to, and blended with, the fierce and -reckless beauty of her shaken jewels, possessed her. - -"Charles," she cried, "come in! Come in!" - -Slowly the window opened and a man entered. He drew back in amaze at the -sight of me, and turned to her with an air that was all one question. - -"I thought you would never come," she said. - -He was a big blond man, and as he turned from the one to the other of -us, with his helpless, inquiring face, and eyes that blinked from the -outer darkness, he looked oddly like a sleepy schoolboy who has been -awakened from an afternoon nap by the teacher's ruler. - -"Katherine," he finally stammered, "what is this? Who is this man?" He -passed his hand across his forehead as one may do who doubts whether or -not he dreams; and walked towards the table. - -"Charles," she said, "I have shot the old man." I have seen a beef -stricken on the head with a mallet look at its executioner with big eyes -for an instant before the quivering in its limbs set in and it sank to -the ground. So this Charles looked with wide, stupid eyes, and shivered, -and dropped the great bulk of him into a chair. His head sank upon his -hand. But finally he looked up, and spoke in a confused voice, as if -through a mist. "Good God, Katherine, what do you mean?" - -"I mean," she said, framing the words slowly, as one speaks a lesson to -a child, "I mean that I have killed the old man." - -And moving swiftly across the room she flung back the heavy red curtain -at the end of it; and I saw the answer to my many questionings. - -The body lay upon its back, with one arm bent, the hand across the -chest, and the fingers spread wide. The face was that of a man of sixty -or thereabouts, but, indeed, so deeply lined and wrinkled and pouched -with evil living that the age even in life must have been hard to -determine. Blood was coagulating about a bullet wound in the temple, -and there were powder burns on the forehead. The shot had been fired at -close range, evidently from the weapon with which I had been confronted -on my entrance; and the sound had been so muffled in the curtain that it -was little wonder that the servants in the rooms above, and across the -house, had not heard it. He had a monstrous nose, that man upon the -floor, and it must have been a red nose in life; but now it was of a -bluish-white color, like the skin of an old and scrawny fowl. That, and -the thin, drawn-up legs, and the big flabby paunch of the thing, robbed -the sight, for me, of all the solemnity which (we are taught) exudes -from the presence of death. It made me sick; and yet I cackled with -sheer hysteria, too; or rather my strained nerves jarred and laughed, if -not myself. It was too damned grotesque. - -Herself, she did not look at it. She looked at the man called Charles; -and he, with a shudder, lifted his slow gaze from the thing behind the -curtain to her face. - -She was the first to speak, and the terrible joy with which she had bade -Charles to enter still dominated her accents. - -"Don't you understand, Charles? This man," and she indicated me with the -pistol, "this man takes the blame of this. He is a thief. He came just -after--just afterwards. And I held him for your coming. Don't you see? -Don't you see? His presence clears us of this deed!" - -"_Us?_" queried Charles. - -"Not _us?_" she asked. - -"My God, Katherine," he burst forth, "why did you do this thing? And -you would heap murder on murder! Why, why, why did you do it? Why splash -this blood upon our love? A useless thing to do! We might have--we might -have------" - -He broke down and sobbed. And then: "God knows the old man never did me -any harm," he said. "And she'd accuse the thief, too!" he cried a moment -later, with a kind of wondering horror. - -"Listen, Charles," she said, and moved towards him; and yet with a -sidelong glance she still took heed of me. "Listen, and understand -me. We must act quickly--but after it happened it was necessary that I -should see you before we could act. This man came to rob; here is his -pistol, and in that satchel by the window are his tools, no doubt. He -may tell what wild tale he will; but who will believe him? You go as you -came; I give him up--and we--we wait awhile, and then the rest of life -is ours." - -I suppose that it is given to few men to hear their death plotted in -their presence. But I had come to the pass by this time where it struck -me as an impersonal thing. I listened; but somehow the full sense of -what she said, as affecting me, did not then impinge upon my brain with -waking force. I stood as if in a trance; I stood and looked on at those -two contending personalities, that were concerned just now with the -question of my life or death, as if I were a spectator in a theater--as -if it were someone else of whom they spoke. - -"Go," she cried to Charles again, "and I will give him up." - -"Katherine," he said, "and you would do this thing?" - -"Why?" she retorted, "what is this man's life beside mine? His soul is -dead! I tell you, Charles, that I have come through Hell alive to gain -one ray of happiness! But go!--and leave the rest to me." - -And she grasped the bell cord and pulled it. Pulled it again and again. -The sound wandered crazily through what remote corridors I know not. - -She made a step towards him. He leaped to his feet with an oath, with -loathing in his eyes, shrank back from her, and held out a hand as if to -ward off some unclean thing. - -Bewilderment lined her face. She groped to understand. And then, as the -full significance of his gesture came home to her, she winced and swayed -as if from a blow; and the pistol dropped from her loosened grasp to the -floor. - -"You--you abandon me?" she said slowly. "You desert me, then? Love, -Love, think how I have loved you that I did this thing! And is what I -have suffered--what I have done--still to purchase--nothing?" - -She pleaded for my death; but I hope that I shall never again see on any -human face the look of despair that was on hers. I pitied her! - -Heavy feet on the stairway woke me from my trance. Unregarded of them -both I grasped my pistol from the floor and sprang for the window. A -door opened somewhere above, and a voice asked: - -"You rang, Ma'am?" - -From without the window I looked back into the room. She stood with -outstretched hands--hands that reached upward from the pit of torment, -my fancy told me--and pleaded for a little love. "In all this world is -there no little ray of love for me?"--it was so my imagination rather -than my hearing translated the slight movement of her lips. And while -she and the man called Charles stood thus at gaze with one another, the -servant spoke again from the stairway. - -"You rang?" he asked. - -She slowly straightened. She steadied herself. And with her eyes still -fixed upon those of Charles she cried: - -"Yes, yes, I rang, Jones! Your master is--dead. Your master's murdered! -And there, there," and she stabbed an accusing finger at her erstwhile -lover, "there is the man who murdered him!" - -And then I turned from the window and ran from that house; and as I ran -I saw the Dawn, like a wild, fair woman, walk up the eastern sky with -blood-stained feet. - - - - -XIII.--Words and Thoughts - -[A Play in One Act] - -Characters: - -Cousin Fanny Hemlock - -John Speaker - -Mary Speaker - -John Thinker - -Mary Thinker - -Maid - -Period, the present. Place, any American city. - -The Scene _represents two drawing rooms, exact duplicates, furnished -alike to the smallest detail. Either room might be the reflection of the -other in a mirror. Each occupies half of the stage. The division line -between them is indicated, towards the hack of the stage, by two pianos, -which sit hack to back at the center of the hack drop. This division -is carried by the pianos a quarter or a third of the way towards the -footlights. The division is further suggested, towards the front of the -stage, hy a couple of settees or couches, which also sit back to back._ - -John Speaker and Mary Speaker _remain all the time in the room at the -right of the stage. They are not aware of_ John Thinker _and_ Mary -Thinker, _who are, throughout the play, in the room at the left. The_ -Thinkers, _however, are aware of the_ Speakers. - -_In make-up, looks, dress, etc., the two_Johns _are precisely alike. -The same is true of_ Mary Speaker and Mary Thinker. _The_ Johns _are -conventional-looking, prosperous Americans of from 38 to 40 years of -age. The two_ Marys _are a few years younger._ - -Cousin Fanny Hemlock _is a dried-up, querulous old woman of seventy._ - -_The Curtain, on rising, discovers the two_ Johns _and the two_ Marys. -_It is between 7 and 8 in the evening; they are all in evening dress, -and are preparing to go out, putting on their gloves, etc., etc._ - -John Speaker [_Picking up over coat._] - -Are you ready, Mary dear? - -Mary Speaker [_Holding out a gloved hand._] - -Quite, John dear. Button this for me, won't you, love? - -John Speaker [_Busy with glove._] - -It's been nearly a year, hasn't it, since we've been out together of -an evening? I'm afraid Cousin Fanny is terribly trying on you at times, -Mary. - -Mary Speaker - -You know, John, I don't consider her a trial. I _love_ Cousin Fanny. - -John Thinker - -[_Busy with Mary Thinker's glove._] - -The old cat's letting us off to-night, for a wonder, Mary. She's a -horrible affliction! - -Mary Thinker [_Passionately._] - -Affliction is no word. She makes my life a living hell! I hate her! - -John Speaker - -[_Helping Mary Speaker on with coat, which action is simultaneously -imitated hy John and Mary Thinker._] - -Well, we must bear with her gently, Mary. I am afraid poor Cousin Fanny -will not be with us many more years. - -John Thinker [_To Mary Thinker._] - -One comfort is she'll die before long! - -Mary Speaker [_To John Speaker._] - -Oh, John, you don't think Cousin Fanny's going to die, do you? - -Mary Thinker [_To John Thinker._] - -Don't fool yourself about her dying soon, John. There's no such luck! - -[_Enter Maid through door in right back to John and Mary Speaker, -who look up. John and Mary Thinker also notice entrance of Maid and -listen._] - -Maid - -[_To Mary Speaker._] - -Miss Hemlock sent me to inquire whether you were going out to-night. - -Mary Thinker [_To John Thinker, quickly._] - -The old cat's up to something! - -Mary Speaker [_To Maid_.] - -Yes. We were just starting. Does Miss Hemlock want anything? I will go -to her if she wishes to speak with me. - -Maid - -She said, in case you were going out, that I was to tell you _not_ to do -so. - -Mary Speaker - -_Not_ to do so? - -Maid - -Yes, ma'am; that's what she said. She said in case you were getting -ready to go out, you were to change your plans and stop at home. - -John Speaker [_To Maid._] - -Not to do so? But, surely, there must be some mistake! - -[_Maid shakes her head slowly, deliberately, looking fixedly at John -Speaker; and while she is doing so John Thinker says to Mary Thinker_:] - -John Thinker - -Some malicious idea is working in her head tonight! - -Maid - -[_To John Speaker._] - -No, sir, no mistake. She said very plainly and distinctly that you were -not to go out tonight. - -[_Maid bows and exits._] - -John Speaker - -Cousin Fanny is not so well to-night, I'm afraid, dear, or she would -certainly have put her request in some other way. - -Mary Speaker - -If I didn't love Cousin Fanny, John, I would be tempted to believe that -she deliberately tries at times to annoy us. - -John Speaker - -Cousin Fanny is old, and we must remember that she is very fond of us. -We will have to bear with her. - -[_John Speaker takes his top coat and his wife's coat> and lays them on -a chair, while John Thinker, who has been frowning and brooding, flings -himself into chair and says to Mary Thinker_:] - -John Thinker - -For cold-blooded, devilish nerve in a man's own house, Cousin Fanny -certainly takes the cake, Mary! - -Mary Thinker - -She gets more spiteful every day. She knows her power, and the more -childish she gets the more delight she takes in playing tyrant. - -John Thinker - -Cheer up, it isn't forever! If she doesn't change her will before she -dies, it means fifteen thousand dollars a year. That's worth a little -trouble! - -Mary Thinker - -You're away at your office all day. I'm here at home with her. It is I -who catch all the trouble! - -John Thinker - -Well, after all, she's more nearly related to you, Mary, than she is to -me. - -Mary Thinker - -She's my mother's third cousin, if you call _that_ near! - -John Thinker - -Well, then, she's my father's fifth cousin, if you call _that_ near! - -Mary Speaker - -What were you thinking of, John, dear? - -John Speaker - -Nothing... nothing, Mary... except that - -Cousin Fanny is a poor, lonely old soul, after all. - -Mary Speaker - -Poor, lonely old woman, indeed--it's odd, isn't it, that she is related -to both you and me, John? - -John Speaker - -She's closer to you than to me, Mary. - -Mary Speaker - -You couldn't call a fourth or fifth cousin very near, John. - -John Speaker - -It almost seems as if you were trying to deny the blood tie, Mary! - -Mary Speaker - -No, John, dear, blood is thicker than water. - -John Speaker Thicker than water! - -John Thinker - -Relations are the most unpleasant persons on earth. I hate cousins. - -Mary Thinker - -Especially cousins who are also cousins-in-law! John Speaker - -But even if she were only _my_ relation, Mary, and not related to _you_ -at all, I know enough of your sweet nature to know that she would always -be welcome in our home in spite of her little idiosyncrasies. - -[_Enter Cousin Fanny, to John and Mary Speaker, through door right hack. -She coughs as she steps forward, leaning on a cane, and puts her hand to -her chest, stop-ping. Then as she comes forward, she stumbles. John and -Mary Speaker leap forward, put their arms behind her, and, supporting -and leading her, conduct her tenderly down stage to chair at center of -room they are in. John and Mary Thinker, near together at table in their -room, lean forward eagerly and watch this entrance, and when the old -woman stumbles, John Thinker says to Mary Thinker, nudging her:_] - -John Thinker - -You see? - -Mary Thinker - -See what? - -John Thinker - -She totters! - -Mary Thinker - -She stumbled. - -John Thinker - -She's getting weaker. - -[_Mary Speaker tenderly kisses Cousin Fanny, as Mary Thinker says_:] - -Mary Thinker - -Weaker! She'll live to be a hundred and ten! - -John Thinker - -Not she! - -Mary Thinker - -The mean kind always do! - -John Speaker - -[_Tenderly, to Cousin Fanny, arranging cushion behind her._] - -Can't I get you a wrap, Cousin Fanny? - -Mary Speaker - -Don't you feel a draught, Cousin Fanny? - -Mary Thinker - -[_Bitterly, frowning at other group_.] - -No draught will ever harm her! - -Cousin Fanny - -[_To John Speaker, sneeringly; petulantly._] You're mighty anxious -about a _wrap_, John! But you were thinking of going out and leaving me -practically alone in the house. - -John Speaker [_Deprecatingly._ ] - -But, Cousin Fanny---- - -Cousin Fanny [_Interrupting_.] - -Don't deny it! Don't take the trouble to deny it! Don't lie about it! -You can't lie to me! Don't I see your evening clothes? And Mary, too! -Both of you were going out--_both_ of you! - -Mary Speaker - -Cousin Fanny, we gave it up when we learned that you wanted us to stop -at home with you. Didn't we, John? - -Cousin Fanny - -[_Querulously, childishly, shrilly._] - -Don't deny it, Mary, don't deny it! Don't excuse yourself! I can see you -were going out! I can see your evening clothes! - -Mary Speaker - -We'll go and change to something else, won't we, John? - -[_She is going, as she speaks, but Cousin Fanny cries out_:] - -Cousin Fanny - -Stop! - -[_Mary Speaker stops, and Cousin Fanny continues_:] - -Don't take them off. I don't want you to take them off. What do you want -to take them off for? Are they too good for _me_ to see? Are they too -grand for me to look at? Ain't I as good as any one you'd find if you -went out? Heh? - -Mary Speaker - -Cousin Fanny, I didn't mean that. I meant---- - -Cousin Fanny [_Interrupting._] - -I know what you meant! Don't tell me what you meant, Mary. You meant to -slip out and leave me here alone, both of you. It's lucky I caught you -in time. It's lucky I have money! It's lucky I don't have to put up with -the treatment most old folks get. I'd starve, if I were poor! I'd die of -hunger and neglect! - -[_She begins to cry, and Mary Speaker says_:] - -Mary Speaker No, no, no, Cousin Fanny! - -[_Mary Speaker soothes her, in pantomime, and pets her, trying to take -her hands away from her face, Cousin Fanny resisting, like a spoiled and -spiteful child. John Speaker, behind Cousin Fanny and his wife, walks -up and down, with his eyes on them, running his hand nervously and -excitedly through his hair. While this pantomime goes on, John and Mary -Thinker are watching and saying _:] - -John Thinker - -This is to be one of Cousin Fanny's pleasant evenings! - -Mary Thinker - -This happens a dozen times a day. - -John Thinker She's not really crying. - -Mary Thinker - -Pretence! She works it up to be unpleasant. - -John Thinker The old she-devil! - -John Speaker - -[_Taking Cousin Fanny's hand._] - -You know, Cousin Fanny, that we try to do our duty by you. - -Cousin Fanny [_Flinging his hand off._] - -You try to do your duty by my money! I know! - -I see! You talk of love and duty, but it's my money you want! But I may -fool you--I may fool you yet. It's not too late to change my will. It's -not too late to leave it all to charity! - -[_She speaks these lines with a cunning leer, and John Thinker, nudging -Mary Thinker and pointing to her, says:_] - -John Thinker The old cat is capable of it, too! - -John Speaker [_To Cousin Fanny_.] - -If you should leave your money to charity, Cousin Fanny, you would find -it made no difference with us. You know blood is thicker than water, -Cousin Fanny! - -Cousin Fanny [_Shrewdly, maliciously_.] - -So is sticky flypaper! - -John Speaker - -Come, come, you don't doubt the genuineness of our affection, do you, -Cousin Fanny? You've known me from my boyhood, Cousin Fanny, and you've -lived with us for ten years. You ought to know us by this time! You -ought to know us in ten years! - -Mary Thinker Ten years of torture! - -John Thinker It can't last much longer! - -John Speaker - -[_Who has taken her hand again, and has been patting it as a -continuation of his last speech, and looking at her fondly_.] - -You trust us, don't you, Cousin Fanny? You really are sure of our -affection, aren't you? - -Cousin Fanny - -[_To John Speaker. She shows that she really is willing to be convinced; -she searches their faces wistfully; she is pathetically eager._ ] - -John, John, you really _do_ care for me, don't you? [_She takes a hand -of each._] - -It isn't _all_ on account of my money, is it? If you knew I hadn't a -cent, you'd still be good to me, wouldn't you? - -John Speaker and Mary Speaker [_Together._] - -Yes, yes, Cousin Fanny! - -Cousin Fanny - -If I lost it all; if I told you I'd lost it all, you'd be just the same, -wouldn't you? - -[_John Speaker and Mary Speaker exchange glances over her head, and John -Speaker drops her hand, while John Thinker grabs Mary Thinker excitedly -by the arm and says quickly_:] - -John Thinker - -My God, you don't suppose she's really _lost_ it, do you? - -Mary Thinker - -No! This is just one of her cunning spells now. She can be as crafty as -a witch. - -Cousin Fanny - -If I hadn't a cent you'd still care for me, wouldn't you, Mary? - -Mary Speaker - -Why, Cousin Fanny, you know I would! - -Cousin Fanny - -But I'm hard on you at times. I'm unjust. I don't mean to be spiteful, -but I _am_ spiteful. When we get old we get suspicious of people. We get -suspicious of everybody. And suspicion makes us spiteful and unjust. I -know I'm not easy to live with, Mary. - -Mary Speaker [_Kissing Cousin Fanny._] - -You get such strange notions, Cousin Fanny! - -John Thinker - -And such true ones, Cousin Fanny! - -Cousin Fanny - -Tell me the truth, Mary. You find me a trial, Mary. You and John find me -a trial! - -Mary Speaker and John Speaker [_Together._ ] - -Never, Cousin Fanny! - -Mary Thinker and John Thinker [_Together._ ] - -Always, Cousin Fanny! - -Cousin Fanny And that is the truth? - -John Speaker, John Thinker, Mary Speaker and Mary Thinker [_All -together._ ] - -And that is the truth, Cousin Fanny! - -Cousin Fanny - -You don't know how suspicious one gets! - -Mary Speaker [_Petting her_.] - -But suspicion never stays long in your good heart, Cousin Fanny. There's -no room for it there, I know. But don't you think you'd better go to bed -now? Let me call the maid. - -Cousin Fanny - -[_Rousing up in chair; suspicion and meanness all awake again_.] - -To bed? Why to bed? Why do you want to pack me off to bed? I know! I -know why! You want me to go to bed so you two can talk about me. So you -can talk me over! So you can speculate on how long I will live. I know -you! I know what you talk about when I'm not around! I know what you've -been waiting and hoping for the last ten years! - -[_Begins to cry._] - -Well, you won't have long to wait now. The time's almost come! I feel -it's almost here. You'll get the money soon enough! - -Mary Speaker [_Soothing her_.] - -There, there, Cousin Fanny, don't go on like this! - -You know it isn't true--you know you'll live ten years yet! - -[_John Speaker runs his hands through his hair and looks silently at -Mary Speaker, and John Thinker, with the same gesture, says to Mary -Thinker_:] - -John Thinker - -If I thought she'd live ten years yet----! - -[_Pauses._] - -Mary Thinker - -Well, if you thought she'd live ten years yet----? - -John Thinker [_With a gesture of de pair._ ] - -My God--ten years like the last ten years! Ten years! Talk about earning -money! If it hasn't been earned ten times over! - -Mary Thinker - -[_Fiercely._] - -You see it mornings and evenings. I have it all day long, and every -day. I've had it for ten years. I go nowhere, I see no one. I have no -pleasures. I have no friends; I've lost my friends. I'm losing my youth. -I'm losing my looks. I'm losing my very soul. I'm shedding my life's -blood drop by drop to keep that querulous fool alive--just merely alive! -I'm tired of it! I'm sick of it! I'm desperate! I'm dying from her, I -tell you! - -Mary Speaker - -[_Still soothing Cousin Fanny, but speaking with one hand nervously -clutching her own head as she does so_.] - -Come, come, Cousin Fanny--you'd better go to bed now! - -Cousin Fanny - -I won't go to bed yet! I want my medicine. It's time for my medicine -now. I won't go to bed till I've had my sleeping tablets. - -John Speaker - -Where are they, Cousin Fanny? - -Cousin Fanny - -On top of the bookcase there. The small phial. [_John Speaker goes to -the bookcase and begins to rummage for phial, while John Thinker says, -meditatively_:] - -John Thinker - -I suppose if one ever gave her the wrong medicine by mistake it would be -called by some ugly name! - -Mary Thinker - -People like her never get the wrong medicine given to them, and never -take it by mistake themselves. - -John Speaker [_Finding bottle; examining it_.] - -See here, Cousin Fanny, didn't you have one of these about an hour ago? -Didn't I see you take one of them right after dinner? - -Cousin Fanny [_Peevishly._] - -I don't know. I don't remember. I want one now, anyhow. My nerves are on -the jump. You have got all my nerves on the jump. I'll take one, and nap -here in the chair. - -John Speaker [_To Mary Speaker_.] - -She took one about an hour ago. I don't think it's quite right to let -her have another so soon. They have a powerful depressing effect on the -heart. - -Mary Speaker Let me see which ones they are. - -[_John Speaker holds the bottle out towards Mary Speaker, in front of -Cousin Fanny. Cousin Fanny snatches it with a sudden motion, and laughs -childishly. John Speaker and Mary Speaker look at each other inquiringly -over her head._] - -John Speaker - -She really shouldn't have another one now, I'm afraid, dear. It might be -pretty serious. [_To Cousin Fanny_.] - -You _did_ take one right after dinner, didn't you, Cousin Fanny? - -Cousin Fanny - -[_Hugging bottle to her very excitedly_.] - -No! No! I tell you I didn't! I _will_ take one! You don't want me to get -to sleep! You don't want me to get any rest! You want me to die! - -John Thinker I _know_ that she _did_ have one. - -Mary Speaker [_To John Speaker_.] - -What can you do, dear? - -John Speaker - -[_Taking hold of Cousin Fanny's hands, and trying to take phial -gently_.] - -See here, Cousin Fanny, you must be reasonable... you mustn't be -stubborn about this. You can't have another tablet now. It's dangerous. -It might even kill you! - -John Thinker - -It _would_ kill her as certainly as she sits there. John Speaker - -Come, come, Cousin Fanny... it might be dangerous. - -Mary Speaker - -John, don't struggle with her! Don't you know if you struggle with her -it is likely to prove fatal? The doctor says the _least_ strain will -prove fatal. - -Cousin Fanny [_Whimpering and struggling._] - -Let me have it! Let me alone! Let go of my hands! You want to kill me! -You want me to die so you can get my money! - -John Speaker [_Releasing her._] - -No! No! No! Cousin Fanny... Come, be reasonable! - -[_He reaches for her hands again, and she grabs his hand and bites it. -He draws back and says_:] - -Damn! - -[_Nurses his hand._] - -Mary Speaker - -Did she bite you? - -John Speaker - -Yes. - -[_Nurses his hand, and Mary Speaker examines it, while Cousin Fanny -pulls cork from phial with teeth, and John Thinker says_:] - -John Thinker - -The old viper has teeth yet! - -Mary Thinker - -She is a cat... she is a she-devil... she is a witch... she has a bad -heart.... - -John Speaker - -[_To Mary Speaker, pointing to Cousin Fanny, who is shaking tablet out -of bottle; she drops one and gropes for it, and shakes another more -carefully, with air of childish triumph._] - -Mary, what _can_ I do? She _will_ have it! And if I struggle with her -it will kill her! She is too weak to struggle! It will kill her to -struggle! And if I let her take the tablet it may do her harm! - -Mary Speaker - -Perhaps the tablet won't do her any harm, John. - -John Thinker - -It will kill her as surely as she sits there. I know it will and _you_ -know it will. - -John Speaker - -Maybe it won't hurt her, Mary... but we can never tell.... I'm afraid... -I'm afraid it really _might_ harm her.... - -Cousin Fanny [_Putting tablet into her mouth_.] - -There! I'm going to sleep, now.... I'm going to sleep in spite of you. -You hate me--both of you hate me--but you can't prevent me going to -sleep! - -Mary Speaker - -She's taken it, John. Do you suppose she really _did_ have one before? - -John Speaker [To Cousin Fanny.] - -Cousin Fanny, you _didn't_ have one before, did you? - -Cousin Fanny - -[_She has closed her eyes; she opens them and rocks back and forth, -laughing foolishly_.] - -Yes! - -John Speaker - -[_Taking out handkerchief; mopping fore-head_.] - -I don't believe she did. She says she did, but she doesn't know. - -Cousin Fanny [_Rocking and laughing sillily._] - -Yes, I did! You know I did! - -John Speaker - -She doesn't know.... She doesn't know whether she did or not.... She -hasn't really been right in her mind for a long time. I don't think she -had one before. - -[_As he speaks Cousin Fanny ceases rocking and leans hack in her chair, -closing her eyes. From this time on the two Johns and the two Marys -stare at her intently, never taking their eyes off of her while they -speak._] - -John Thinker - -She _did_ have one before. - -Mary Thinker - -I _know_ she did. - -John Thinker - -Will she die? Will I see her die? I should hate to see her die! - -John Speaker - -She _would_ have that tablet... she WOULD have it. If I had taken it -away from her by force it would have killed her; the struggle would have -killed her. - -John Thinker - -Will I see her die? Will she die? - -John Speaker - -I let her have it to save her life... it was to save her life that I -quit struggling with her. - -John Thinker - -If she dies... but _will_ she die? - -Mary Thinker - -She will die! - -Cousin Fanny - -[_Rousing from her lethargy slightly; open-ing her eyes._] - -John... Mary.... You really love me, don't you? Don't you? You really... -really... - -[_Sinks back, with head slightly on one side and eyes closed again; does -not move after this._] - -Mary Speaker - -[_They all speak with lowered voices now._] She is asleep. She really -needed the tablet. It was a mercy she got it. She was nervous and -overwrought, and it has put her to sleep. - -John Speaker - -Yes, it was a mercy she got it. She was nervous and overwrought, and it -has put her to sleep. - -... And you know, Mary, she _would_ have t... if I had _struggled_ with -her, she would have _died!_ A struggle would have killed her. - -John Thinker - -And now she will die because there was no struggle. - -Mary Thinker - -She will die. - -John Speaker - -Is she breathing quite naturally, Mary? - -Mary Speaker Quite. Quite naturally. - -Mary Thinker _Death_ is quite natural. - -John Thinker And she is dying. - -John Speaker - -Well, if she had struggled and died... if she had died through any fault -of mine... I would always have reproached myself.... - -Mary Speaker - -You have nothing to reproach yourself for. You need never reproach -yourself with regard to her.... - -John Thinker - -She was old. She was very old. She will be better dead. - -Mary Thinker She is not quite dead. - -John Speaker - -I don't like the way she is breathing.... She is scarcely breathing.... -She doesn't seem to be breathing at all! - -Mary Speaker Old people breathe very quietly. - -Mary Thinker Old people die very quietly. - -John Thinker And she is dying. - -Mary Thinker - -She is dead! - -John Thinker - -Mary... Mary... is she breathing at all? Mary Speaker - -Call the maid.... Send for the doctor.... Call the maid! - -John Thinker It is too late for any doctor. - -Mary Thinker - -Too late! - -John Speaker - -Mary, Mary.... My God... she can't be _dead!_ - -Mary Speaker [_Bending above her._] - -John, dear... try to bear it bravely... but... but I'm afraid she is.... -Poor Cousin Fanny has left us! - -John Speaker - -[_Rapidly_.] - -Poor Cousin Fanny.... Poor Cousin Fanny.... Poor Cousin Fanny.... - -John Thinker - -Fifteen thousand a year... fifteen thousand a year.... Why do I think of -that?... But I can't help it.... I can't help thinking of it.... - -Mary Speaker I'll go get the maid. - -[_Going_.] - -John Speaker - -Stop.... Wait, Mary.... Don't call her yet... get her presently.... I -don't want to be alone just now.... I'm in a kind of fog.... - -[_Lights go out as he says this; he continues in the darkness._] - -I'm all in the dark. - -[_Lights on again_.] - -[_In the interim, which is very short, Cousin Fanny has gone over to the -room on the left in which are John and Mary Thinker, and sits in chair -corresponding to one which she has just left._] - -[_She is silent and motionless, but her head is lifted; her eyes are -open; she is alive again. When lights go on again, John and Mary Speaker -still stand before chair she has left as if she were in it; it is -apparent that they believe themselves to be still looking at the old -woman._] - -Mary Speaker - -Nonsense... all in the dark?... What do you mean by all in the dark? - -John Speaker - -Nothing... nothing now. It has passed.... - -[Pointing to chair where Cousin Fanny was.] She died with a smile on her -face! - -John Thinker - -But she isn't there.... Cousin Fanny isn't there. - -... She's here.... She's over here with us... over here with _us_! - -Mary Thinker - -Here with us... over here, forever, now. - -Mary Speaker - -[_Holding John Speaker's hand and gazing at vacant chair_.] - -How beautiful she looks! She is at rest, now! She is better off so. -Better dead. She is better at peace! - -John Thinker - -[_Violently; starting towards other room_.] - -My God. I'm going to stop it... stop it... stop that lying... stop it -at any cost.... I'm going to stop that pretending... that damned -pretending.... - -Mary Thinker - -[_Quickly getting in front of him; holding him back._] - -What are you going to do? - -John Thinker - -Stop it, I tell you.... Tell the truth... stop that pretense.... - -[_Moves towards the other room. As he does so, Mary Speaker and John -Speaker, for the first time become aware of John and Mary Thinker, and -shrink back in terror and alarm, clinging together, confused, convicted, -abject, retreating, powerless; Cousin Fanny leaps in front of John -Thinker at same instant, and bars him back, saying:_] - -Cousin Fanny - -Stop! - -John Thinker - -Why? I _will_ stop this pretense... Why not? - -Cousin Fanny - -[_All four of the others lean forward and hang eagerly upon her words_.] - -You must not. It can't be done. It is the foundation upon which your -society rests. It is necessary..._ over there!_ - -CURTAIN - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carter, and Other People, by Don Marquis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARTER, AND OTHER PEOPLE *** - -***** This file should be named 51913.txt or 51913.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51913/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |