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diff --git a/9295.txt b/9295.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..229ad73 --- /dev/null +++ b/9295.txt @@ -0,0 +1,921 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Night Out, by Edward Peple + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: A Night Out + +Author: Edward Peple + +Posting Date: June 14, 2013 [EBook #9295] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 17, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NIGHT OUT *** + + + + +Produced by Mary Meehan, Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia, +and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team + + + + + + + + + + + +A NIGHT OUT + +BY EDWARD PEPLE + +_Frontispiece by_ R.L. GOLDBERG + + + + + + +[Illustration: "The Beast has had the time of his life."] + + + + +I + + +Omar Ben Sufi was a cat. This unadorned statement would have wounded Omar +Ben to the marrow of his pride, for he chanced to be a splendid +tiger-marked feline of purest Persian breed, with glorious yellow eyes +and a Solomon-in-all-his-glory tail. His pedigree could be traced +directly back to Padisha Zim Yuki Yowsi Zind--a dignity, in itself, +sufficient to cause an aristocratic languor; but, to the layman, he was +just a cat. + +He dwelt with an exclusive family of humans in a little +eighty-thousand-dollar cottage on the outskirts of vulgarity--which is +to say, the villa was situated near enough to town to admit of marketing, +but far enough removed therefrom to escape the clatter of plebeian toil +and the noxious contact with the unhealthy, unwealthy herd. Here the +humans entertained selected friends who came at the ends of weeks to +admire the splendor of Omar Ben's tail, to bow down to the humans' money, +and to hate them fiercely because they had it. + +The master did not toil. He lived, for certain hours of the day, in Wall +Street, where he sank his patrician fingers into the throats of lesser +men, squeezed them dry, then washed his hands in violet water, and built +a church. True, he did not attend this church himself, but he built it; +otherwise his neighbors might have been deprived of the opportunity of +praising God. + +Omar Ben had a French maid all to himself--a perky little human with a +quasi-kinship to the feline race--who combed him and brushed him and +slicked him down and gave him endless, mortifying baths. Also, she tied +lavender bows about his neck, and fed him from Dresden china on minute +particles of flaked fish and raw sirloin, with a dessert of pasteurized +cream. + +In the rear of the eighty-thousand-dollar cottage there was a +thirty-thousand-dollar flower-garden--an oppressively clean garden, where +the big Jack-roses were as immaculate as a "mama's Lizzie-boy," and the +well-bred, timid little violets seemed to long to play in the dirt, yet +dared not because of the master-rule of "form." And here the clean cat +used to sun himself in the clean garden, thinking his clean thoughts and +perishing of _ennui_ clean through. + +Then, one day, from the vulgar outer world came an unclean incident. + +Omar Ben became conscious of an uproar beyond the garden wall. It +embraced a whimper of canine hope, a spitting taunt, and the patter of +flying paws; then, suddenly, on the top of the high brick wall appeared a +cat. The newcomer paused an instant to fling an obscene _au revoir_ at +the raging, disappointed dog, dropped carelessly down into a +geranium-bed, and took his bearings. + +He was not a patrician. Omar Ben eyed him in a sort of wondering awe. The +stranger was a long-barreled, rumple-furred, devil-clawed street arab, +of a caste--or no-caste--that battles for existence with the world--and +beats it. On his tail were rings of missing fur, suggesting former +attachments, not of lady friends, but of tin cans and strings. For +further assets, he possessed one eye and a twisted smile. His present +total liability lay in the dog beyond the wall, so the arab wasn't so +badly fixed, after all. Besides, he owned property. It consisted of a +bullfrog which he carried in his mouth, with its legs and web feet +protruding in wriggly, but unavailing, protest. + +To breathe the better, the street cat dropped his frog and set one mangy +paw upon it; then, suddenly, he spied the Persian. + +"Hello, bo!" he observed cheerfully. "Didn't see yer. Did yer pipe me +chase wid de yelper? Dat stilt-legged son of a saw-toothed tyke has had +his nose on me rudder-post fer more'n a mile." + +The Persian made no answer, and the arab continued, unabashed: + +"It's a hunch dat I could 'a' clawed de stuffin's outer him, but I didn't +want fer to lose me lunch. Say! Wot's yer name?" + +Omar Ben regarded the interloper with the same glance of refined surprise +that the master might have employed when a fleeced plebeian entered his +office, demanding to know why the market had slumped in direct +contradiction to confidential prophecy. He elevated his patrician brows, +but gave the desired information politely: + +"My ribbon-name is Omar Ben Sufi, first-born of the second litter of Yiki +Zootra and Sultana Yaggi Kiz. Here at home, however, I am known by a +variety of others, such as _Mon Prince de Maniere Charmante_, +Sugar-pie-precious, and--" + +"Aw, cut it!" snapped the street cat disgustedly. "Dem ain't no decent +names! D'ey's positive ridick'lous! _Mine's_ Ringtail Pete, but me +frien's has reasons fer fergittin' de tail part of it when dey names me +to me face--see?" + +He smiled his twisted smile, raised one paw, and regarded its claws with +a sort of humorous pride. + +The Persian cat said nothing. Ringtail Pete was obviously an undesirable +acquaintance; therefore Omar Ben held his tongue, and became interested +in the bullfrog. Curiosity, however, conquered refined reserve. + +"What is it?" he asked presently. + +"Frawg," said the street cat, with laconic candor, as he gracefully +mauled the subject of discussion. "I gets 'em over to the frawg-pawnd up +back of Lumkins's tannery. Have a piece?" + +"Thank you, no," returned the Persian, with a faint smile of his own. +"I've just had luncheon." + +Pete shrugged his gaunt shoulders, murdered the frog, and prepared to +dispose of it permanently. Omar Ben edged closer. In spite of his polite +refusal, the frog fascinated him. Never in all his benighted life had he +tasted one morsel which had not been prepared for him on dainty china; +but now it was different. Across the geranium-bed came a strange, +alluring scent--a scent which roused the memory of inheritance--a memory +well-nigh washed out of him, and his sire before him, by the bottle-pap +of luxury. A memory it was of wild things, to be killed--a blood-lust +memory--and now at last it woke in a pampered, velvet-hearted cat. + +Ringtail Pete was conscious of the other's wistful look, and laughed; for +his battle with life had taught him generosity. + +"Say, bo, yer don't want to do de bashful--see?--'cause me 'n' you is +gents what understands de game er chanst. Here--take holt an' chaw +yerse'f off a hunk!" + +The aristocrat hesitated, then slid down one rung on the ladder of +degradation--pushed by blood-lust and by the strange compelling +_camaraderie_ of an arab of the streets. It was wrong, he knew, but then +there was a certain flavor in this wrong; so, gingerly, he crossed the +geranium-bed, took one web foot firmly between his teeth, and wondered at +the thrill of life that sparked and snapped along his spine. Then Pete +and Omar Ben tugged and tugged, till the clean geranium-bed was a +comfortable, wholesome wreck. + +"Hully gee!" grinned Ringtail Pete. "We otter make a wish!" + +They made it, and the metaphoric wish-bone parted with a jerk, Omar Ben +rolling upon his lordly back in the healthy dirt; but he rose and +devoured his frog-leg to its smallest bone, wishing with all his heart +that the frog had been a bigger frog. Then he licked his chops and looked +in admiration on his worldly friend. + +"Thank you, _so_ much," he began, but the arab waved formality aside. + +"Aw, 't wan't nuttin'," he declared, "an' dey tastes a darn sight better +when yer wades fer 'em. Say! Look-a-here! You meet me to-night on de top +er dis here wall, an' I'll learn yer how to wade fer frawgs." + +"Oh, dear!" began the Persian, trembling at the very mention of the outer +world. "Really, Mr. Pete, I--really--" + +"Punk!" cut in the arab, dismissing the protest with a switch of his +mutilated tail. "I won't take 'naw' fer a answer; an' dis here's de way +fer to jump yer wealthy crib. You watch me!" + +He backed away, then took a running start and made the coping of the +wall in a splendid, scurrying rush, amid a shower of scattered +ivy-leaves. On the top he turned and called to the wondering aristocrat: + +"Jes' wait fer me an' de moon, me son, an' dontcher fergit dat frawgs +is frawgs!" + +Once more he smiled his twisted smile, and was gone into the vulgar outer +world. He had not waited for a promise from his friend, for Pete was wise +in his little hour of life and left the keeping of a tryst with the honor +of a gentleman. + + + + +II + + +As for Omar Ben, he sat in the healthy grime of the garden soil, his mind +a prey to the poison of glittering promises, till suddenly a human fell +upon him with an absurd French shriek and bore him away to the lap of +comfort and a scented bath. + +In the bath he yowled; and wept when another lavender bow was tied about +his neck; and yet, had Mlle. Frenchy observed him carefully, she might +have caught him smiling. + +All day long he dozed and dreamed--dreamed of the vulgar world beyond +the wall--for now it seemed to his pampered soul that the pole star of an +earthly cat's desire was "frawgs." + +At the humans' dinner-time he scorned their expensive fare and sneaked +away into the shadows of the garden to wait for Ringtail Pete and the +rising of the moon. It rose; and, as it peeped above the wall, there also +rose a cautious signal-wail, and Pete's one eye glowed green among the +ivy-vines. + +"Hi, spote!" grinned the owner of the eye, as Omar Ben clawed his way to +a perch beside him. "Yer clumb dat wall in a way dat make me proud. Now, +den, we're off!" + +They dropped into the outer world. Omar Ben was trembling somewhat, but +tried his best to conceal the mortifying fact, and presently he conquered +it. After walking for a quarter of a mile along a country road, they +approached the outskirts of the town and began to cross it, employing +unfrequented paths. They traversed an alley, black and reeking with +nightly smells, pausing at last on the verge of a lighted street whence +rose the sound of human mirth, bits of vulgar song, and the barking of +vagrant dogs. + +"S-h-h-h!" cautioned Ringtail. "You wait till I counts to t'ree, den +make a rush fer de alley acrost de street--see?" + +"But, why?" asked Omar Ben, wondering. + +Pete sniffed in scorn of the uninitiated. + +"Well, nemmine why! You do like I tells yer, or yer'll git yer +eggercation wid a brick. Now den! One--two--t'ree! Hump it, bo!" + +They humped it, making the other alley's mouth by a margin slim indeed, +followed by human howls and a clattering volley of sticks and stones. + +"Good gracious!" the Persian gasped, as they streaked through the +alley's filth. "What _are_ they?" + +"Boys," grinned Pete. "De town is gittin' fair congested wid 'em. But +'tain't nuttin', son; it's jes' a part er de game er life. Come on." + +The way was easier now, and they journeyed without alarm. Presently +Ringtail turned to his friend with his twisted smile: + +"Yer see dat lady settin' on de gate-post? Well, dat's me steady. I'll +interjuce yer in a minute." + +The lady in question was a thin, dirty white cat with bold eyes and a +brazen bearing, and Omar Ben was doubtful of her caste. + +"Thank you," he murmured non-committally, and hurried on; but the +meeting was unavoidable, for the lady crossed the street and stood +directly in his path. + +"Hi, Mame!" said Pete, in cordial greeting. "Shake hands wid me friend, +Mr.--er--aw hell! Shake hands wid bo!" + +Omar Ben had never seen a lady-cat, and his ideal of the sex was +something modest and retiring. Miss Mame was not retiring. She greeted +her friend's friend without the courtesy of a "Mr.," looked in open +admiration at the handsome gentleman, and asked if he were single. + +The aristocrat murmured a commonplace and edged away. At the slight the +lady took umbrage, spat warningly, and showed her claws, till Ringtail +averted trouble by a generous display of tact. + +"Now, don't git phony, Mame!" he remarked in a gentle whisper. "De gent's +all right, but he's young, dat's all, an' I'm goin' to learn him--see? +You chase aroun' fer Lizzie, an' if de goil ain't got no udder date, yet +kin meet us here 'bout moondown, an' we'll bring yer a brace er frawgs. +So long, Mame! Remember dat I loves yer!" + +With a partly mollified sniff, the lady retired to her gate-post, and the +two adventurers went on. They came to the evil-smelling tannery, and to +the frog-pond just behind it, stretching cold and still in the moonlight, +and covered with a noxious, slimy scum. It was horribly different from +the Persian's usual baths, but, once in he forgot its chill in the lust +of the hunt. + +They waded and swam and scrambled along the shore, Ringtail pointing out +that frogs were wont to crouch close down by the water's edge in the +shadow of some bush or vine. + +"Dere's one!" he whispered suddenly. "Now, sneak up, son, an' grab 'im!" + +Quivering with suppressed excitement, Omar Ben sneaked, but mistook the +especial frog to which his friend had reference. Instead, he pounced upon +a big yellow-throated beast weighing a pound and a half, and known +colloquially as a "sockdolliger" or a "joogger-room." There followed a +scuffling rush, a grunt, a startled yowl, and a swirl of water; then Omar +Ben came up coughing, minus his frog, but plus an overcoat of mud and +disappointment. + +"Great snakes!" yelled Pete. "Ain't yer got no gumption 't all? Ef I had +knowed yer wanted ter eat a cow, I'd 'a' took you up to de +slaughter-house! Go fer de little ones, bo. Yer don't gain nuttin' by +bein' a hawg. Take it from me--it's straight!" + +"Bo" went for the little ones. He had learned his lesson of experience, +and profited thereby. He made his virgin kill and devoured it, squatting +in the muddy pond, while around him rose the voices of the wild things of +the night; and never had morsel tasted sweeter to his pampered tongue. +And so the hunt went on, a never-to-be-forgotten hunt, when crawfish +nipped their tails, when insects preyed upon their eyes, and they dripped +with the sweat of joyful toil; then, presently, the friends stretched out +upon the bank, weary and replete. + +"Say, bo," said Ringtail, after a restful pause, "what do yer say to a +nip?" + +"A nip?" asked Omar Ben in astonishment. "What kind of a nip?" + +"W'y, a catnip, yer bloomin' bladderskite! Wot did yer t'ink I meant--a +cornder of de moon? I'm talkin' 'bout jes' straight catnip. Are you on?" + +"Yes, certainly," returned the Persian gravely. "I am on!" + +On the homeward way they turned into a lane and came to a clump of +catnip. True, Omar Ben had tasted the herb before, but dry and in +five-cent packages, which was different from the pure article direct from +nature's still and exuding its sharp, intoxicating breath. Pete and Omar +fell upon it greedily, rolled upon it, wallowed among the scattered +leaves, and chewed and chewed till their senses swam in a spirit-dance of +ecstasy. Then, after a nap, the two reeled homeward down the road, Pete +smiling his twisted smile, and Omar Ben Sufi wrapped in the comforting +belief that he was singing tunefully. + +"Say, R.T.," the Persian chuckled happily, "what did you say was the name +of your lady friend's other lady friend?" + +"Lizzie," answered Ringtail, astounded at the tone of familiarity; "an' +take it from me she's white!" + +"In color, do you mean?" + +"Naw--in disposition. Outside, she's kind of striped, but inside, de +lady's white; an' don't yer fergit it, bo, she's de owner of four good +sets of claws. + +"Thank you," said Omar Ben airily. "I shall endeavor to remember. Come +along, R.T.!" + +Pete objected somewhat to this pointed abbreviation of his name, but +forgave his friend on the grounds that he was drunk; so the two went on +and sought their rendezvous. The ladies were waiting, seated expectantly +on the gate-posts, but descended at Ringtail's call, and the "swell gent" +was formally introduced. Miss Lizzie seemed to like him immensely, and +the two progressed so well that Ringtail stretched his single eye to its +utmost capacity, cursing softly at his friend's unprecedented cheek. For +Omar Ben--thanks to his nip of catnip--so far forgot his strained reserve +that Miss Lizzie herself said afterward to a friend, in confidence: + +"I never _see_ sech a _forward_ gent sence me 'n' you was a couple er +half-way-drownded kits!" + +The flirtation, however, was short-lived, for suddenly, without an +instant's warning, Miss Lizzie, Miss Mame, and Pete himself went clawing +up a water-pipe to a convenient roof above, while down the street came +floating a shrill, defiant yowl. + +"Chase yerse'f, bo!" called Pete in a voice of fear. "It's Ash-Can Sam!" + +Now, Ash-Can Sam had a reputation of his own, as every cat in the +neighborhood could testify with sorrow and with tears. He weighed eleven +pounds. He kept himself in training; and, where others lived for love or +wealth or art, Ash-Can Sam existed for a finish fight alone. At the +present speaking he came swaggering around a corner, and paused in +astonishment at the sight of a stranger sitting in the middle of the +street. The insolence of it! It was past belief! + +"Oh, please, Mr. Bo!" wailed Lizzie, wringing her paws as she perched +upon the roof. "Do hurry while youse has got de chanst! He'll rip you +somethin' terrible! For _my_ sake, dearie, _won't_ you slope?" + +"No, not upon your life!" called Omar Ben gravely. "I will not demean +myself by retreating from any cat alive." + +This statement was fat with brave audacity, but lean in the matter of +discretion; so Pete leaned down with one last friendly whisper of appeal: + +"W'y, you chowder-headed ass, he'll make yer look like a moth-et flannel +shirt! _Beat it_!" + +The patrician declined to "beat it," and Ash-Can Sam edged a little +closer, wearing a dissolute, wicked leer of joy. He circled slowly round +the stranger cat, eying Omar Ben's glossy coat and humming a sort of +vulgar chant: + + Ain't it a sham-m-m-m-e! + To chaw up mommer's sugar-pet, + An' hurt his nose, not soon, but yet. + Oh, ain't it a sham-m-m-m-e! + +Omar Ben regarded the bully in calm scorn. "You disreputable beast," he +said, "shut up!" + +Sam, in no uncertain terms, stated his unwillingness to shut up, and the +conversation became personal. + +"Yer blink-eyed yard er silk, I'm a goin' to turn you cat-out-the-skin +an' sell yer tail fer a fancy dustin'-brush!" + +"Bosh! You'd run from a pet canary." + +"You're a liar!" + +"You're another!" + +"So's yer pa an' so's yer mother!" + +"_Pfst! Zzz-i-ttt! Y-eo-w!_" + +And the battle was on. + +"Oh, dear!" mewed Lizzie tearfully. "An' Mr. Bo was sech a easy-mannered +gent'man, too!" + +Sub-consciously, she was already referring to the foolish Persian in the +past tense; yet, in view of probable results, and in the stress of such +violent circumstance, her anti-mortem sorrow might at least be pardoned. + +Omar Ben had never had a fight, and yet the memory of inheritance had +waked within him, revealing other traits besides his yearning for +debauchery and "frawgs"; so now he squared himself and uncurled his +velvet toes. + +Ash-Can Sam crouched low and came in with a headlong rush. Omar Ben +side-stepped and raked him with a stiffly extended paw. It was a good +rake, and there was fur upon his claws--and blood. + +"Hully gee!" breathed Pete into Mame's convenient ear. "Did yer pipe de +way bo upper-cut 'im? Gee!" + +Ash-Can Sam was wounded--not so much in body as in pugilistic pride. He +turned to wipe away the stain, and, incidentally, to wipe the earth with +the body of a foreign cat. This time he came in, swearing, and the two +cats reared upon their haunches with the shock; then fell in a tangled, +rending, yowling snarl. Omar Ben, by instinctive craft, sought for a +point of vantage underneath his foe--a vantage because, when lying on his +back, he could claw straight up with all four feet, and the greater the +weight of the chap on top, the greater his woe--abdominally. + +This point of vantage, however, is rather difficult to hold, with two +most earnest gentlemen desirous of it; and so they changed +positions--changed so rapidly, in fact, that their bodies resembled a +sort of pyrotechnic pinwheel whose centrifugal sparks were composed of +eyes and claws and tufts of fur and cat profanity. Also, it lasted longer +than the ordinary pinwheel, and was a trifle more uproarious; but it died +at last with a sizzling spit, and a lean black streak shot out toward the +haven of an alley's mouth. + +The streak was Ash-Can Sam. Omar Ben Sufi sat down in the middle of the +street, and wondered. He had thrashed something, and he didn't understand +it. So he just sat there, quivering, bleeding, battered--but a conqueror. + +Ringtail Pete endeavored to express himself, but emotion choked him; +therefore he spat fervidly and said: + +"Hully gee!" + +Then he and the ladies descended from the roof, to walk in silent circles +around the champion, regarding him with a species of cataleptic awe. +Presently, however, Pete came to earth, extended his paw, and delivered +himself of an established truth: + +"Well, dang my hide, but it takes er 'ristercrat fer to glitter in a +scrap!" + +They escorted him all the way to his eighty-thousand-dollar home. The +ladies kissed him--both of them--and helped him to clamber weakly over +his garden wall. + +He turned to Ringtail with an easy, aristocratic smile: "_Au revoir,_ +R.T.! Those frawgs were most delicious!" + +"Hully gee!" breathed Pete, and disappeared through the dusk of the +outer world. + + + + +III + + +Now, in the eighty-thousand-dollar cottage black sorrow reigned +throughout the night. There were tears and linguistic prayers. There +were tinklings of little bells, while humans called shrilly to +vulgar officials along the wires. From a mass of incoherence the +officials learned that some evil-hearted ruffian had entered the +thirty-thousand-dollar garden and had stolen a priceless cat. + +Thus the outer world went hunting. So great was its zeal--so great was +the offer of reward--that it captured every cat in town, with the one +exception, of course, of Omar Ben Sufi. This particular hero was found +next morning, asleep, in the geranium-bed; so they bore him in, while +weepings burst forth afresh. And well they might. + +Poor Omar Ben was a sight to awaken pity, even in the stoniest of hearts. +The number of his hairs could be counted, almost, by plus and minus +tufts; one eye was closed; his splendid tail was bent in several angles +unrecognized by the rules of art, and he smelled of the outer +world--horribly. + +His mistress expressed her grief in a noiseless, refined whimper of +despair; the French maid shrieked, and called on Heaven to witness the +devastation of her every hope; but the master--who had lived, in spite of +his Wall Street training--laughed. + +"Nonsense!" said he. "You are squandering your sympathies upon a +shameless prodigal. The beast has had the time of his life, by George!" + +"Oh, Charles, how _can_ you?" wailed the mistress of the priceless cat. +"Can't you see how the precious child is suffering?" + +Again the master laughed--laughed brutally. + +"Of course he's suffering, my dear--but look at the smile on him!" + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Night Out, by Edward Peple + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NIGHT OUT *** + +***** This file should be named 9295.txt or 9295.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/9/9295/ + +Produced by Mary Meehan, Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia, +and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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. 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