STRICTLY BUSINESS

More Stories of the Four Million

by

O. HENRY

CONTENTS

I. STRICTLY BUSINESSII. THE GOLD THAT GLITTEREDIII. BABES IN THE JUNGLEIV. THE DAY RESURGENTV. THE FIFTH WHEELVI. THE POET AND THE PEASANTVII. THE ROBE OF PEACEVIII. THE GIRL AND THE GRAFTIX. THE CALL OF THE TAMEX. THE UNKNOWN QUANTITYXI. THE THING'S THE PLAYXII. A RAMBLE IN APHASIAXIII. A MUNICIPAL REPORTXIV. PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPERXV. A BIRD OF BAGDADXVI. COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASONXVII. A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIAXVIII. THE GIRL AND THE HABITXIX. PROOF OF THE PUDDINGXX. PAST ONE AT RODNEY'SXXI. THE VENTURERSXXII. THE DUELXXIII. "WHAT YOU WANT"

I

STRICTLY BUSINESS

I suppose you know all about the stage and stage people. You've beentouched with and by actors, and you read the newspaper criticisms andthe jokes in the weeklies about the Rialto and the chorus girls and thelong-haired tragedians. And I suppose that a condensed list of yourideas about the mysterious stageland would boil down to something likethis:

Leading ladies have five husbands, paste diamonds, and figures no betterthan your own (madam) if they weren't padded. Chorus girls areinseparable from peroxide, Panhards and Pittsburg. All shows walk backto New York on tan oxford and railroad ties. Irreproachable actressesreserve the comic-landlady part for their mothers on Broadway and theirstep-aunts on the road. Kyrle Bellew's real name is Boyle O'Kelley. Theravings of John McCullough in the phonograph were stolen from the firstsale of the Ellen Terry memoirs. Joe Weber is funnier than E. H. Sothern; but Henry Miller is getting older than he was. 

All theatrical people on leaving the theatre at night drink champagneand eat lobsters until noon the next day. After all, the moving pictureshave got the whole bunch pounded to a pulp. 

Now, few of us know the real life of the stage people. If we did, theprofession might be more overcrowded than it is. We look askance at theplayers with an eye full of patronizing superiority--and we go home andpractise all sorts of elocution and gestures in front of our lookingglasses. 

Latterly there has been much talk of the actor people in a new light. Itseems to have been divulged that instead of being motoring bacchanaliansand diamond-hungry _loreleis_ they are businesslike folk, students andascetics with childer and homes and libraries, owning real estate, andconducting their private affairs in as orderly and unsensational amanner as any of us good citizens who are bound to the chariot wheels ofthe gas, rent, coal, ice, and wardmen. 

Whether the old or the new report of the sock-and-buskiners be the trueone is a surmise that has no place here. I offer you merely this littlestory of two strollers; and for proof of its truth I can show you onlythe dark patch above the cast-iron of the stage-entrance door ofKeetor's old vaudeville theatre made there by the petulant push ofgloved hands too impatient to finger the clumsy thumb-latch--and where Ilast saw Cherry whisking through like a swallow into her nest, on timeto the minute, as usual, to dress for her act. 

The vaudeville team of Hart & Cherry was an inspiration. Bob Hart hadbeen roaming through the Eastern and Western circuits for four yearswith a mixed-up act comprising a monologue, three lightning changeswith songs, a couple of imitations of celebrated imitators, and abuck-and-wing dance that had drawn a glance of approval from thebass-viol player in more than one house--than which no performer everreceived more satisfactory evidence of good work. 

The greatest treat an actor can have is to witness the pitifulperformance with which all other actors desecrate the stage. In order togive himself this pleasure he will often forsake the sunniest Broadwaycorner between Thirty-fourth and Forty-fourth to attend a matinéeoffering by his less gifted brothers. Once during the lifetime of aminstrel joke one comes to scoff and remains to go through with thatmost difficult exercise of Thespian muscles--the audible contact of thepalm of one hand against the palm of the other. 

One afternoon Bob Hart presented his solvent, serious, well-knownvaudevillian face at the box-office window of a rival attraction and gothis d. H. Coupon for an orchestra seat. 

A, B, C, and D glowed successively on the announcement spaces and passedinto oblivion, each plunging Mr. Hart deeper into gloom. Others of theaudience shrieked, squirmed, whistled, and applauded; but Bob Hart, "Allthe Mustard and a Whole Show in Himself, " sat with his face as long andhis hands as far apart as a boy holding a hank of yarn for hisgrandmother to wind into a ball. 

But when H came on, "The Mustard" suddenly sat up straight. H was thehappy alphabetical prognosticator of Winona Cherry, in Character Songsand Impersonations. There were scarcely more than two bites to Cherry;but she delivered the merchandise tied with a pink cord and charged tothe old man's account. She first showed you a deliciously dewy andginghamy country girl with a basket of property daisies who informed youingenuously that there were other things to be learned at the old logschool-house besides cipherin' and nouns, especially "When the Teach-erKept Me in. " Vanishing, with a quick flirt of gingham apron-strings, she reappeared in considerably less than a "trice" as a fluffy"Parisienne"--so near does Art bring the old red mill to the MoulinRouge. And then--

But you know the rest. And so did Bob Hart; but he saw somebody else. Hethought he saw that Cherry was the only professional on the short orderstage that he had seen who seemed exactly to fit the part of "HelenGrimes" in the sketch he had written and kept tucked away in the trayof his trunk. Of course Bob Hart, as well as every other normal actor, grocer, newspaper man, professor, curb broker, and farmer, has a playtucked away somewhere. They tuck 'em in trays of trunks, trunks oftrees, desks, haymows, pigeonholes, inside pockets, safe-deposit vaults, handboxes, and coal cellars, waiting for Mr. Frohman to call. Theybelong among the fifty-seven different kinds. 

But Bob Hart's sketch was not destined to end in a pickle jar. He calledit "Mice Will Play. " He had kept it quiet and hidden away ever since hewrote it, waiting to find a partner who fitted his conception of "HelenGrimes. " And here was "Helen" herself, with all the innocent abandon, the youth, the sprightliness, and the flawless stage art that hiscritical taste demanded. 

After the act was over Hart found the manager in the box office, and gotCherry's address. At five the next afternoon he called at the musty oldhouse in the West Forties and sent up his professional card. 

By daylight, in a secular shirtwaist and plain _voile_ skirt, with herhair curbed and her Sister of Charity eyes, Winona Cherry might havebeen playing the part of Prudence Wise, the deacon's daughter, in thegreat (unwritten) New England drama not yet entitled anything. 

"I know your act, Mr. Hart, " she said after she had looked over his cardcarefully. "What did you wish to see me about?"

"I saw you work last night, " said Hart. "I've written a sketch that I'vebeen saving up. It's for two; and I think you can do the other part. Ithought I'd see you about it. "

"Come in the parlor, " said Miss Cherry. "I've been wishing for somethingof the sort. I think I'd like to act instead of doing turns. "

Bob Hart drew his cherished "Mice Will Play" from his pocket, and readit to her. 

"Read it again, please, " said Miss Cherry. 

And then she pointed out to him clearly how it could be improved byintroducing a messenger instead of a telephone call, and cutting thedialogue just before the climax while they were struggling with thepistol, and by completely changing the lines and business of HelenGrimes at the point where her jealousy overcomes her. Hart yielded toall her strictures without argument. She had at once put her finger onthe sketch's weaker points. That was her woman's intuition that he hadlacked. At the end of their talk Hart was willing to stake the judgment, experience, and savings of his four years of vaudeville that "Mice WillPlay" would blossom into a perennial flower in the garden of thecircuits. Miss Cherry was slower to decide. After many puckerings of hersmooth young brow and tappings on her small, white teeth with the end ofa lead pencil she gave out her dictum. 

"Mr. Hart, " said she, "I believe your sketch is going to win out. ThatGrimes part fits me like a shrinkable flannel after its first trip to ahandless hand laundry. I can make it stand out like the colonel of theForty-fourth Regiment at a Little Mothers' Bazaar. And I've seen youwork. I know what you can do with the other part. But business isbusiness. How much do you get a week for the stunt you do now?"

"Two hundred, " answered Hart. 

"I get one hundred for mine, " said Cherry. "That's about the naturaldiscount for a woman. But I live on it and put a few simoleons everyweek under the loose brick in the old kitchen hearth. The stage is allright. I love it; but there's something else I love better--that's alittle country home, some day, with Plymouth Rock chickens and six duckswandering around the yard. 

"Now, let me tell you, Mr. Hart, I am STRICTLY BUSINESS. If you want meto play the opposite part in your sketch, I'll do it. And I believe wecan make it go. And there's something else I want to say: There's nononsense in my make-up; I'm _on the level_, and I'm on the stage forwhat it pays me, just as other girls work in stores and offices. I'mgoing to save my money to keep me when I'm past doing my stunts. No OldLadies' Home or Retreat for Imprudent Actresses for me. 

"If you want to make this a business partnership, Mr. Hart, with allnonsense cut out of it, I'm in on it. I know something about vaudevilleteams in general; but this would have to be one in particular. I wantyou to know that I'm on the stage for what I can cart away from it everypay-day in a little manila envelope with nicotine stains on it, wherethe cashier has licked the flap. It's kind of a hobby of mine to want tocravenette myself for plenty of rainy days in the future. I want you toknow just how I am. I don't know what an all-night restaurant lookslike; I drink only weak tea; I never spoke to a man at a stage entrancein my life, and I've got money in five savings banks. "

"Miss Cherry, " said Bob Hart in his smooth, serious tones, "you're inon your own terms. I've got 'strictly business' pasted in my hat andstenciled on my make-up box. When I dream of nights I always see afive-room bungalow on the north shore of Long Island, with a Jap cookingclam broth and duckling in the kitchen, and me with the title deeds tothe place in my pongee coat pocket, swinging in a hammock on the sideporch, reading Stanley's 'Explorations into Africa. ' And nobody elsearound. You never was interested in Africa, was you, Miss Cherry?"

"Not any, " said Cherry. "What I'm going to do with my money is to bankit. You can get four per cent. On deposits. Even at the salary I've beenearning, I've figured out that in ten years I'd have an income of about$50 a month just from the interest alone. Well, I might invest some ofthe principal in a little business--say, trimming hats or a beautyparlor, and make more. "

"Well, " said Hart, "You've got the proper idea all right, all right, anyhow. There are mighty few actors that amount to anything at all whocouldn't fix themselves for the wet days to come if they'd save theirmoney instead of blowing it. I'm glad you've got the correct businessidea of it, Miss Cherry. I think the same way; and I believe this sketchwill more than double what both of us earn now when we get it shapedup. "

The subsequent history of "Mice Will Play" is the history of allsuccessful writings for the stage. Hart & Cherry cut it, pieced it, remodeled it, performed surgical operations on the dialogue andbusiness, changed the lines, restored 'em, added more, cut 'em out, renamed it, gave it back the old name, rewrote it, substituted a daggerfor the pistol, restored the pistol--put the sketch through all theknown processes of condensation and improvement. 

They rehearsed it by the old-fashioned boardinghouse clock in the rarelyused parlor until its warning click at five minutes to the hour wouldoccur every time exactly half a second before the click of the unloadedrevolver that Helen Grimes used in rehearsing the thrilling climax ofthe sketch. 

Yes, that was a thriller and a piece of excellent work. In the act areal 32-caliber revolver was used loaded with a real cartridge. HelenGrimes, who is a Western girl of decidedly Buffalo Billish skill anddaring, is tempestuously in love with Frank Desmond, the privatesecretary and confidential prospective son-in-law of her father, "Arapahoe" Grimes, quarter-million-dollar cattle king, owning a ranchthat, judging by the scenery, is in either the Bad Lands or Amagansett, L. I. Desmond (in private life Mr. Bob Hart) wears puttees and MeadowBrook Hunt riding trousers, and gives his address as New York, leavingyou to wonder why he comes to the Bad Lands or Amagansett (as the casemay be) and at the same time to conjecture mildly why a cattleman shouldwant puttees about his ranch with a secretary in 'em. 

Well, anyhow, you know as well as I do that we all like that kind ofplay, whether we admit it or not--something along in between "Bluebeard, Jr. , " and "Cymbeline" played in the Russian. 

There were only two parts and a half in "Mice Will Play. " Hart andCherry were the two, of course; and the half was a minor part alwaysplayed by a stage hand, who merely came in once in a Tuxedo coat and apanic to announce that the house was surrounded by Indians, and to turndown the gas fire in the grate by the manager's orders. 

There was another girl in the sketch--a Fifth Avenue societyswelless--who was visiting the ranch and who had sirened Jack Valentinewhen he was a wealthy club-man on lower Third Avenue before he losthis money. This girl appeared on the stage only in the photographicstate--Jack had her Sarony stuck up on the mantel of the Amagan--of theBad Lands droring room. Helen was jealous, of course. 

And now for the thriller. Old "Arapahoe" Grimes dies of angina pectorisone night--so Helen informs us in a stage-ferryboat whisper over thefootlights--while only his secretary was present. And that same day hewas known to have had $647, 000 in cash in his (ranch) library justreceived for the sale of a drove of beeves in the East (that accountsfor the price we pay for steak!). The cash disappears at the same time. Jack Valentine was the only person with the ranchman when he made his(alleged) croak. 

"Gawd knows I love him; but if he has done this deed--" you sabe, don'tyou? And then there are some mean things said about the Fifth AvenueGirl--who doesn't come on the stage--and can we blame her, with thevaudeville trust holding down prices until one actually must be buttonedin the back by a call boy, maids cost so much?

But, wait. Here's the climax. Helen Grimes, chaparralish as she can be, is goaded beyond imprudence. She convinces herself that Jack Valentineis not only a falsetto, but a financier. To lose at one fell swoop$647, 000 and a lover in riding trousers with angles in the sides likethe variations on the chart of a typhoid-fever patient is enough to makeany perfect lady mad. So, then!

They stand in the (ranch) library, which is furnished with mounted elkheads (didn't the Elks have a fish fry in Amagensett once?), and thedénouement begins. I know of no more interesting time in the run of aplay unless it be when the prologue ends. 

Helen thinks Jack has taken the money. Who else was there to take it?The box-office manager was at the front on his job; the orchestra hadn'tleft their seats; and no man could get past "Old Jimmy, " the stagedoor-man, unless he could show a Skye terrier or an automobile as aguarantee of eligibility. 

Goaded beyond imprudence (as before said), Helen says to Jack Valentine:"Robber and thief--and worse yet, stealer of trusting hearts, thisshould be your fate!"

With that out she whips, of course, the trusty 32-caliber. 

"But I will be merciful, " goes on Helen. "You shall live--that will beyour punishment. I will show you how easily I could have sent you to thedeath that you deserve. There is _her_ picture on the mantel. I willsend through her more beautiful face the bullet that should have piercedyour craven heart. "

And she does it. And there's no fake blank cartridges or assistantspulling strings. Helen fires. The bullet--the actual bullet--goesthrough the face of the photograph--and then strikes the hidden springof the sliding panel in the wall--and lo! the panel slides, and there isthe missing $647, 000 in convincing stacks of currency and bags of gold. It's great. You know how it is. Cherry practised for two months at atarget on the roof of her boarding house. It took good shooting. In thesketch she had to hit a brass disk only three inches in diameter, covered by wall paper in the panel; and she had to stand in exactly thesame spot every night, and the photo had to be in exactly the same spot, and she had to shoot steady and true every time. 

Of course old "Arapahoe" had tucked the funds away there in the secretplace; and, of course, Jack hadn't taken anything except his salary(which really might have come under the head of "obtaining money under";but that is neither here nor there); and, of course, the New York girlwas really engaged to a concrete house contractor in the Bronx; and, necessarily, Jack and Helen ended in a half-Nelson--and there you are. 

After Hart and Cherry had gotten "Mice Will Play" flawless, they had atry-out at a vaudeville house that accommodates. The sketch was a housewrecker. It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates atheatre from the roof down. The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats, being dressed for it, swam in tears. 

After the show the booking agents signed blank checks and pressedfountain pens upon Hart and Cherry. Five hundred dollars a week was whatit panned out. 

That night at 11:30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good nightat her boarding-house door. 

"Mr. Hart, " said she thoughtfully, "come inside just a few minutes. We've got our chance now to make good and make money. What we want to dois to cut expenses every cent we can, and save all we can. "

"Right, " said Bob. "It's business with me. You've got your scheme forbanking yours; and I dream every night of that bungalow with the Japcook and nobody around to raise trouble. Anything to enlarge the netreceipts will engage my attention. "

"Come inside just a few minutes, " repeated Cherry, deeply thoughtful. "I've got a proposition to make to you that will reduce our expenses alot and help you work out your own future and help me work out mine--andall on business principles. "

"Mice Will Play" had a tremendously successful run in New York for tenweeks--rather neat for a vaudeville sketch--and then it started on thecircuits. Without following it, it may be said that it was a soliddrawing card for two years without a sign of abated popularity. 

Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor's New York houses, said of Hart &Cherry:

"As square and high-toned a little team as ever came over the circuit. It's a pleasure to read their names on the booking list. Quiet, hardworkers, no Johnny and Mabel nonsense, on the job to the minute, straight home after their act, and each of 'em as gentlemanlike as alady. I don't expect to handle any attractions that give me less troubleor more respect for the profession. "

And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of thestory:

At the end of its second season "Mice Will Play" came back to New Yorkfor another run at the roof gardens and summer theatres. There was neverany trouble in booking it at the top-notch price. Bob Hart had hisbungalow nearly paid for, and Cherry had so many savings-deposit bankbooks that she had begun to buy sectional bookcases on the instalmentplan to hold them. 

I tell you these things to assure you, even if you can't believe it, that many, very many of the stage people are workers with abidingambitions--just the same as the man who wants to be president, or thegrocery clerk who wants a home in Flatbush, or a lady who is anxiousto flop out of the Count-pan into the Prince-fire. And I hope I may beallowed to say, without chipping into the contribution basket, that theyoften move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform. 

But, listen. 

At the first performance of "Mice Will Play" in New York at theWestphalia (no hams alluded to) Theatre, Winona Cherry was nervous. Whenshe fired at the photograph of the Eastern beauty on the mantel, thebullet, instead of penetrating the photo and then striking the disk, went into the lower left side of Bob Hart's neck. Not expecting to getit there, Hart collapsed neatly, while Cherry fainted in a most artisticmanner. 

The audience, surmising that they viewed a comedy instead of a tragedyin which the principals were married or reconciled, applauded with greatenjoyment. The Cool Head, who always graces such occasions, rang thecurtain down, and two platoons of scene shifters respectively and moreor less respectfully removed Hart & Cherry from the stage. The next turnwent on, and all went as merry as an alimony bell. 

The stage hands found a young doctor at the stage entrance who waswaiting for a patient with a decoction of Am. B'ty roses. The doctorexamined Hart carefully and laughed heartily. 

"No headlines for you, Old Sport, " was his diagnosis. "If it had beentwo inches to the left it would have undermined the carotid artery asfar as the Red Front Drug Store in Flatbush and Back Again. As it is, you just get the property man to bind it up with a flounce torn from anyone of the girls' Valenciennes and go home and get it dressed by theparlor-floor practitioner on your block, and you'll be all right. Excuseme; I've got a serious case outside to look after. "

After that, Bob Hart looked up and felt better. And then to where he laycame Vincente, the Tramp Juggler, great in his line. Vincente, a solemnman from Brattleboro, Vt. , named Sam Griggs at home, sent toys and maplesugar home to two small daughters from every town he played. Vincentehad moved on the same circuits with Hart & Cherry, and was theirperipatetic friend. 

"Bob, " said Vincente in his serious way, "I'm glad it's no worse. Thelittle lady is wild about you. "

"Who?" asked Hart. 

"Cherry, " said the juggler. "We didn't know how bad you were hurt; andwe kept her away. It's taking the manager and three girls to hold her. "

"It was an accident, of course, " said Hart. "Cherry's all right. Shewasn't feeling in good trim or she couldn't have done it. There's nohard feelings. She's strictly business. The doctor says I'll be on thejob again in three days. Don't let her worry. "

"Man, " said Sam Griggs severely, puckering his old, smooth, lined face, "are you a chess automaton or a human pincushion? Cherry's crying herheart out for you--calling 'Bob, Bob, ' every second, with them holdingher hands and keeping her from coming to you. "

"What's the matter with her?" asked Hart, with wide-open eyes. "Thesketch'll go on again in three days. I'm not hurt bad, the doctor says. She won't lose out half a week's salary. I know it was an accident. What's the matter with her?"

"You seem to be blind, or a sort of a fool, " said Vincente. "The girlloves you and is almost mad about your hurt. What's the matter with_you_? Is she nothing to you? I wish you could hear her call you. "

"Loves me?" asked Bob Hart, rising from the stack of scenery on which helay. "Cherry loves me? Why, it's impossible. "

"I wish you could see her and hear her, " said Griggs. 

"But, man, " said Bob Hart, sitting up, "it's impossible. It'simpossible, I tell you. I never dreamed of such a thing. "

"No human being, " said the Tramp Juggler, "could mistake it. She's wildfor love of you. How have you been so blind?"

"But, my God, " said Bob Hart, rising to his feet, "it's _too late_. It'stoo late, I tell you, Sam; _it's too late_. It can't be. You must bewrong. It's _impossible_. There's some mistake. 

"She's crying for you, " said the Tramp Juggler. "For love of you she'sfighting three, and calling your name so loud they don't dare to raisethe curtain. Wake up, man. "

"For love of me?" said Bob Hart with staring eyes. "Don't I tell youit's too late? It's too late, man. Why, _Cherry and I have been marriedtwo years!_"

II

THE GOLD THAT GLITTERED

A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It boresyou, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. Therefore let us have the moral first and be done with it. All is notgold that glitters, but it is a wise child that keeps the stopper in hisbottle of testing acid. 

Where Broadway skirts the corner of the square presided over by Georgethe Veracious is the Little Rialto. Here stand the actors of thatquarter, and this is their shibboleth: "'Nit, ' says I to Frohman, 'youcan't touch me for a kopeck less than two-fifty per, ' and out I walks. "

Westward and southward from the Thespian glare are one or two streetswhere a Spanish-American colony has huddled for a little tropicalwarmth in the nipping North. The centre of life in this precinct is "ElRefugio, " a café and restaurant that caters to the volatile exiles fromthe South. Up from Chili, Bolivia, Colombia, the rolling republics ofCentral America and the ireful islands of the Western Indies flit thecloaked and sombreroed señores, who are scattered like burning lava bythe political eruptions of their several countries. Hither they come tolay counterplots, to bide their time, to solicit funds, to enlistfilibusterers, to smuggle out arms and ammunitions, to play the game atlong taw. In El Refugio, they find the atmosphere in which they thrive. 

In the restaurant of El Refugio are served compounds delightful to thepalate of the man from Capricorn or Cancer. Altruism must halt the storythus long. On, diner, weary of the culinary subterfuges of the Gallicchef, hie thee to El Refugio! There only will you find a fish--bluefish, shad or pompano from the Gulf--baked after the Spanish method. Tomatoesgive it color, individuality and soul; chili colorado bestows uponit zest, originality and fervor; unknown herbs furnish piquancy andmystery, and--but its crowning glory deserves a new sentence. Aroundit, above it, beneath it, in its vicinity--but never in it--hovers anethereal aura, an effluvium so rarefied and delicate that only theSociety for Psychical Research could note its origin. Do not say thatgarlic is in the fish at El Refugio. It is not otherwise than as if thespirit of Garlic, flitting past, has wafted one kiss that lingers in theparsley-crowned dish as haunting as those kisses in life, "by hopelessfancy feigned on lips that are for others. " And then, when Conchito, thewaiter, brings you a plate of brown frijoles and a carafe of wine thathas never stood still between Oporto and El Refugio--ah, Dios!

One day a Hamburg-American liner deposited upon Pier No. 55 Gen. PerricoXimenes Villablanca Falcon, a passenger from Cartagena. The Generalwas between a claybank and a bay in complexion, had a 42-inch waistand stood 5 feet 4 with his Du Barry heels. He had the mustache ofa shooting-gallery proprietor, he wore the full dress of a Texascongressman and had the important aspect of an uninstructed delegate. 

Gen. Falcon had enough English under his hat to enable him to inquirehis way to the street in which El Refugio stood. When he reached thatneighborhood he saw a sign before a respectable red-brick house thatread, "Hotel Español. " In the window was a card in Spanish, "Aqui sehabla Español. " The General entered, sure of a congenial port. 

In the cozy office was Mrs. O'Brien, the proprietress. She hadblond--oh, unimpeachably blond hair. For the rest she was amiability, and ran largely to inches around. Gen. Falcon brushed the floor withhis broad-brimmed hat, and emitted a quantity of Spanish, the syllablessounding like firecrackers gently popping their way down the string ofa bunch. 

"Spanish or Dago?" asked Mrs. O'Brien, pleasantly. 

"I am a Colombian, madam, " said the General, proudly. "I speak theSpanish. The advisement in your window say the Spanish he is spokenhere. How is that?"

"Well, you've been speaking it, ain't you?" said the madam. "I'm sure Ican't. "

At the Hotel Español General Falcon engaged rooms and establishedhimself. At dusk he sauntered out upon the streets to view the wondersof this roaring city of the North. As he walked he thought of thewonderful golden hair of Mme. O'Brien. "It is here, " said the Generalto himself, no doubt in his own language, "that one shall find the mostbeautiful señoras in the world. I have not in my Colombia viewed amongour beauties one so fair. But no! It is not for the General Falcon tothink of beauty. It is my country that claims my devotion. "

At the corner of Broadway and the Little Rialto the General becameinvolved. The street cars bewildered him, and the fender of one upsethim against a pushcart laden with oranges. A cab driver missed him aninch with a hub, and poured barbarous execrations upon his head. Hescrambled to the sidewalk and skipped again in terror when the whistleof a peanut-roaster puffed a hot scream in his ear. "Válgame Dios! Whatdevil's city is this?"

As the General fluttered out of the streamers of passers like a woundedsnipe he was marked simultaneously as game by two hunters. One was"Bully" McGuire, whose system of sport required the use of a strong armand the misuse of an eight-inch piece of lead pipe. The other Nimrod ofthe asphalt was "Spider" Kelley, a sportsman with more refined methods. 

In pouncing upon their self-evident prey, Mr. Kelley was a shade thequicker. His elbow fended accurately the onslaught of Mr. McGuire. 

"G'wan!" he commanded harshly. "I saw it first. " McGuire slunk away, awed by superior intelligence. 

"Pardon me, " said Mr. Kelley, to the General, "but you got balled up inthe shuffle, didn't you? Let me assist you. " He picked up the General'shat and brushed the dust from it. 

The ways of Mr. Kelley could not but succeed. The General, bewilderedand dismayed by the resounding streets, welcomed his deliverer as acaballero with a most disinterested heart. 

"I have a desire, " said the General, "to return to the hotel of O'Brien, in which I am stop. Caramba! señor, there is a loudness and rapidness ofgoing and coming in the city of this Nueva York. "

Mr. Kelley's politeness would not suffer the distinguished Colombian tobrave the dangers of the return unaccompanied. At the door of the HotelEspañol they paused. A little lower down on the opposite side of thestreet shone the modest illuminated sign of El Refugio. Mr. Kelley, towhom few streets were unfamiliar, knew the place exteriorly as a "Dagojoint. " All foreigners Mr. Kelley classed under the two heads of"Dagoes" and Frenchmen. He proposed to the General that they repairthither and substantiate their acquaintance with a liquid foundation. 

An hour later found General Falcon and Mr. Kelley seated at a table inthe conspirator's corner of El Refugio. Bottles and glasses were betweenthem. For the tenth time the General confided the secret of his missionto the Estados Unidos. He was here, he declared, to purchase arms--2, 000stands of Winchester rifles--for the Colombian revolutionists. Hehad drafts in his pocket drawn by the Cartagena Bank on its New Yorkcorrespondent for $25, 000. At other tables other revolutionists wereshouting their political secrets to their fellow-plotters; but none wasas loud as the General. He pounded the table; he hallooed for some wine;he roared to his friend that his errand was a secret one, and not to behinted at to a living soul. Mr. Kelley himself was stirred tosympathetic enthusiasm. He grasped the General's hand across the table. 

"Monseer, " he said, earnestly, "I don't know where this country of yoursis, but I'm for it. I guess it must be a branch of the United States, though, for the poetry guys and the schoolmarms call us Columbia, too, sometimes. It's a lucky thing for you that you butted into me to-night. I'm the only man in New York that can get this gun deal through for you. The Secretary of War of the United States is me best friend. He's in thecity now, and I'll see him for you to-morrow. In the meantime, monseer, you keep them drafts tight in your inside pocket. I'll call for youto-morrow, and take you to see him. Say! that ain't the District ofColumbia you're talking about, is it?" concluded Mr. Kelley, with asudden qualm. "You can't capture that with no 2, 000 guns--it's beentried with more. "

"No, no, no!" exclaimed the General. "It is the Republic of Colombia--itis a g-r-reat republic on the top side of America of the South. Yes. Yes. "

"All right, " said Mr. Kelley, reassured. "Now suppose we trek along homeand go by-by. I'll write to the Secretary to-night and make a date withhim. It's a ticklish job to get guns out of New York. McClusky himselfcan't do it. "

They parted at the door of the Hotel Español. The General rolled hiseyes at the moon and sighed. 

"It is a great country, your Nueva York, " he said. "Truly the cars inthe streets devastate one, and the engine that cooks the nuts terriblymakes a squeak in the ear. But, ah, Señor Kelley--the señoras with hairof much goldness, and admirable fatness--they are magnificas! Muymagnificas!"

Kelley went to the nearest telephone booth and called up McCrary's café, far up on Broadway. He asked for Jimmy Dunn. 

"Is that Jimmy Dunn?" asked Kelley. 

"Yes, " came the answer. 

"You're a liar, " sang back Kelley, joyfully. "You're the Secretary ofWar. Wait there till I come up. I've got the finest thing down here inthe way of a fish you ever baited for. It's a Colorado-maduro, with agold band around it and free coupons enough to buy a red hall lamp and astatuette of Psyche rubbering in the brook. I'll be up on the next car. "

Jimmy Dunn was an A. M. Of Crookdom. He was an artist in the confidenceline. He never saw a bludgeon in his life; and he scorned knockoutdrops. In fact, he would have set nothing before an intended victim butthe purest of drinks, if it had been possible to procure such a thing inNew York. It was the ambition of "Spider" Kelley to elevate himself intoJimmy's class. 

These two gentlemen held a conference that night at McCrary's. Kelleyexplained. 

"He's as easy as a gumshoe. He's from the Island of Colombia, wherethere's a strike, or a feud, or something going on, and they've sent himup here to buy 2, 000 Winchesters to arbitrate the thing with. He showedme two drafts for $10, 000 each, and one for $5, 000 on a bank here. 'Struth, Jimmy, I felt real mad with him because he didn't have it inthousand-dollar bills, and hand it to me on a silver waiter. Now, we'vegot to wait till he goes to the bank and gets the money for us. "

They talked it over for two hours, and then Dunn said; "Bring him toNo. ---- Broadway, at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon. "

In due time Kelley called at the Hotel Español for the General. He foundthe wily warrior engaged in delectable conversation with Mrs. O'Brien. 

"The Secretary of War is waitin' for us, " said Kelley. 

The General tore himself away with an effort. 

"Ay, señor, " he said, with a sigh, "duty makes a call. But, señor, theseñoras of your Estados Unidos--how beauties! For exemplification, takeyou la Madame O'Brien--que magnifica! She is one goddess--one Juno--whatyou call one ox-eyed Juno. "

Now Mr. Kelley was a wit; and better men have been shriveled by the fireof their own imagination. 

"Sure!" he said with a grin; "but you mean a peroxide Juno, don't you?"

Mrs. O'Brien heard, and lifted an auriferous head. Her businesslike eyerested for an instant upon the disappearing form of Mr. Kelley. Exceptin street cars one should never be unnecessarily rude to a lady. 

When the gallant Colombian and his escort arrived at the Broadwayaddress, they were held in an anteroom for half an hour, and thenadmitted into a well-equipped office where a distinguished looking man, with a smooth face, wrote at a desk. General Falcon was presented to theSecretary of War of the United States, and his mission made known by hisold friend, Mr. Kelley. 

"Ah--Colombia!" said the Secretary, significantly, when he was made tounderstand; "I'm afraid there will be a little difficulty in that case. The President and I differ in our sympathies there. He prefers theestablished government, while I--" the secretary gave the General amysterious but encouraging smile. "You, of course, know, General Falcon, that since the Tammany war, an act of Congress has been passed requiringall manufactured arms and ammunition exported from this country to passthrough the War Department. Now, if I can do anything for you I will beglad to do so to oblige my old friend, Mr. Kelley. But it must be inabsolute secrecy, as the President, as I have said, does not regardfavorably the efforts of your revolutionary party in Colombia. I willhave my orderly bring a list of the available arms now in thewarehouse. "

The Secretary struck a bell, and an orderly with the letters A. D. T. Onhis cap stepped promptly into the room. 

"Bring me Schedule B of the small arms inventory, " said the Secretary. 

The orderly quickly returned with a printed paper. The Secretary studiedit closely. 

"I find, " he said, "that in Warehouse 9, of Government stores, there isshipment of 2, 000 stands of Winchester rifles that were ordered by theSultan of Morocco, who forgot to send the cash with his order. Our ruleis that legal-tender money must be paid down at the time of purchase. My dear Kelley, your friend, General Falcon, shall have this lot ofarms, if he desires it, at the manufacturer's price. And you willforgive me, I am sure, if I curtail our interview. I am expecting theJapanese Minister and Charles Murphy every moment!"

As one result of this interview, the General was deeply grateful to hisesteemed friend, Mr. Kelley. As another, the nimble Secretary of War wasextremely busy during the next two days buying empty rifle cases andfilling them with bricks, which were then stored in a warehouse rentedfor that purpose. As still another, when the General returned to theHotel Español, Mrs. O'Brien went up to him, plucked a thread from hislapel, and said:

"Say, señor, I don't want to 'butt in, ' but what does that monkey-faced, cat-eyed, rubber-necked tin horn tough want with you?"

"Sangre de mi vida!" exclaimed the General. "Impossible it is that youspeak of my good friend, Señor Kelley. "

"Come into the summer garden, " said Mrs. O'Brien. "I want to have a talkwith you. "

Let us suppose that an hour has elapsed. 

"And you say, " said the General, "that for the sum of $18, 000 can bepurchased the furnishment of the house and the lease of one year withthis garden so lovely--so resembling unto the patios of my caraColombia?"

"And dirt cheap at that, " sighed the lady. 

"Ah, Dios!" breathed General Falcon. "What to me is war and politics?This spot is one paradise. My country it have other brave heroes tocontinue the fighting. What to me should be glory and the shooting ofmans? Ah! no. It is here I have found one angel. Let us buy the HotelEspañol and you shall be mine, and the money shall not be waste onguns. "

Mrs. O'Brien rested her blond pompadour against the shoulder of theColombian patriot. 

"Oh, señor, " she sighed, happily, "ain't you terrible!"

Two days later was the time appointed for the delivery of the arms tothe General. The boxes of supposed rifles were stacked in the rentedwarehouse, and the Secretary of War sat upon them, waiting for hisfriend Kelley to fetch the victim. 

Mr. Kelley hurried, at the hour, to the Hotel Español. He found theGeneral behind the desk adding up accounts. 

"I have decide, " said the General, "to buy not guns. I have to-day buythe insides of this hotel, and there shall be marrying of the GeneralPerrico Ximenes Villablanca Falcon with la Madame O'Brien. "

Mr. Kelley almost strangled. 

"Say, you old bald-headed bottle of shoe polish, " he spluttered, "you'rea swindler--that's what you are! You've bought a boarding house withmoney belonging to your infernal country, wherever it is. "

"Ah, " said the General, footing up a column, "that is what you callpolitics. War and revolution they are not nice. Yes. It is not best thatone shall always follow Minerva. No. It is of quite desirable to keephotels and be with that Juno--that ox-eyed Juno. Ah! what hair of thegold it is that she have!"

Mr. Kelley choked again. 

"Ah, Senor Kelley!" said the General, feelingly and finally, "is it thatyou have never eaten of the corned beef hash that Madame O'Brien shemake?"

III

BABES IN THE JUNGLE

Montague Silver, the finest street man and art grafter in the West, saysto me once in Little Rock: "If you ever lose your mind, Billy, and gettoo old to do honest swindling among grown men, go to New York. In theWest a sucker is born every minute; but in New York they appear inchunks of roe--you can't count 'em!"

Two years afterward I found that I couldn't remember the names of theRussian admirals, and I noticed some gray hairs over my left ear; so Iknew the time had arrived for me to take Silver's advice. 

I struck New York about noon one day, and took a walk up Broadway. AndI run against Silver himself, all encompassed up in a spacious kind ofhaberdashery, leaning against a hotel and rubbing the half-moons on hisnails with a silk handkerchief. 

"Paresis or superannuated?" I asks him. 

"Hello, Billy, " says Silver; "I'm glad to see you. Yes, it seemed to methat the West was accumulating a little too much wiseness. I've beensaving New York for dessert. I know it's a low-down trick to take thingsfrom these people. They only know this and that and pass to and fro andthink ever and anon. I'd hate for my mother to know I was skinning theseweak-minded ones. She raised me better. "

"Is there a crush already in the waiting rooms of the old doctor thatdoes skin grafting?" I asks. 

"Well, no, " says Silver; "you needn't back Epidermis to win to-day. I've only been here a month. But I'm ready to begin; and the members ofWillie Manhattan's Sunday School class, each of whom has volunteered tocontribute a portion of cuticle toward this rehabilitation, may as wellsend their photos to the _Evening Daily_. 

"I've been studying the town, " says Silver, "and reading the papersevery day, and I know it as well as the cat in the City Hall knows anO'Sullivan. People here lie down on the floor and scream and kick whenyou are the least bit slow about taking money from them. Come up in myroom and I'll tell you. We'll work the town together, Billy, for thesake of old times. "

Silver takes me up in a hotel. He has a quantity of irrelevant objectslying about. 

"There's more ways of getting money from these metropolitan hayseeds, "says Silver, "than there is of cooking rice in Charleston, S. C. They'llbite at anything. The brains of most of 'em commute. The wiser they arein intelligence the less perception of cognizance they have. Why, didn'ta man the other day sell J. P. Morgan an oil portrait of Rockefeller, Jr. , for Andrea del Sarto's celebrated painting of the young Saint John!

"You see that bundle of printed stuff in the corner, Billy? That's goldmining stock. I started out one day to sell that, but I quit it in twohours. Why? Got arrested for blocking the street. People fought to buyit. I sold the policeman a block of it on the way to the station-house, and then I took it off the market. I don't want people to give me theirmoney. I want some little consideration connected with the transactionto keep my pride from being hurt. I want 'em to guess the missing letterin Chic--go, or draw to a pair of nines before they pay me a cent ofmoney. 

"Now there's another little scheme that worked so easy I had to quitit. You see that bottle of blue ink on the table? I tattooed an anchoron the back of my hand and went to a bank and told 'em I was AdmiralDewey's nephew. They offered to cash my draft on him for a thousand, butI didn't know my uncle's first name. It shows, though, what an easy townit is. As for burglars, they won't go in a house now unless there's ahot supper ready and a few college students to wait on 'em. They'reslugging citizens all over the upper part of the city and I guess, taking the town from end to end, it's a plain case of assault andBattery. "

"Monty, " says I, when Silver had slacked, up, "you may have Manhattancorrectly discriminated in your perorative, but I doubt it. I've onlybeen in town two hours, but it don't dawn upon me that it's ours with acherry in it. There ain't enough rus in urbe about it to suit me. I'd bea good deal much better satisfied if the citizens had a straw or more intheir hair, and run more to velveteen vests and buckeye watch charms. They don't look easy to me. "

"You've got it, Billy, " says Silver. "All emigrants have it. New York'sbigger than Little Rock or Europe, and it frightens a foreigner. You'llbe all right. I tell you I feel like slapping the people here becausethey don't send me all their money in laundry baskets, with germicidesprinkled over it. I hate to go down on the street to get it. Who wearsthe diamonds in this town? Why, Winnie, the Wiretapper's wife, andBella, the Buncosteerer's bride. New Yorkers can be worked easier than ablue rose on a tidy. The only thing that bothers me is I know I'll breakthe cigars in my vest pocket when I get my clothes all full oftwenties. "

"I hope you are right, Monty, " says I; "but I wish all the same I hadbeen satisfied with a small business in Little Rock. The crop of farmersis never so short out there but what you can get a few of 'em to signa petition for a new post office that you can discount for $200 atthe county bank. The people here appear to possess instincts ofself-preservation and illiberality. I fear me that we are not culturedenough to tackle this game. "

"Don't worry, " says Silver. "I've got this Jayville-near-Tarrytowncorrectly estimated as sure as North River is the Hudson and East Riverain't a river. Why, there are people living in four blocks of Broadwaywho never saw any kind of a building except a skyscraper in their lives!A good, live hustling Western man ought to get conspicuous enough hereinside of three months to incur either Jerome's clemency or Lawson'sdispleasure. "

"Hyperbole aside, " says I, "do you know of any immediate system ofbuncoing the community out of a dollar or two except by applying to theSalvation Army or having a fit on Miss Helen Gould's doorsteps?"

"Dozens of 'em, " says Silver. "How much capital have you got, Billy?"

"A thousand, " I told him. 

"I've got $1, 200, " says he. "We'll pool and do a big piece of business. There's so many ways we can make a million that I don't know how tobegin. "

The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous andstirred with a kind of silent joy. 

"We're to meet J. P. Morgan this afternoon, " says he. "A man I know inthe hotel wants to introduce us. He's a friend of his. He says he likesto meet people from the West. "

"That sounds nice and plausible, " says I. "I'd like to know Mr. Morgan. "

"It won't hurt us a bit, " says Silver, "to get acquainted with a fewfinance kings. I kind of like the social way New York has withstrangers. "

The man Silver knew was named Klein. At three o'clock Klein brought hisWall Street friend to see us in Silver's room. "Mr. Morgan" looked somelike his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his leftfoot, and he walked with a cane. 

"Mr. Silver and Mr. Pescud, " says Klein. "It sounds superfluous, " sayshe, "to mention the name of the greatest financial--"

"Cut it out, Klein, " says Mr. Morgan. "I'm glad to know you gents; Itake great interest in the West. Klein tells me you're from Little Rock. I think I've a railroad or two out there somewhere. If either of youguys would like to deal a hand or two of stud poker I--"

"Now, Pierpont, " cuts in Klein, "you forget!"

"Excuse me, gents!" says Morgan; "since I've had the gout so bad Isometimes play a social game of cards at my house. Neither of you neverknew One-eyed Peters, did you, while you was around Little Rock? Helived in Seattle, New Mexico. "

Before we could answer, Mr. Morgan hammers on the floor with his caneand begins to walk up and down, swearing in a loud tone of voice. 

"They have been pounding your stocks to-day on the Street, Pierpont?"asks Klein, smiling. 

"Stocks! No!" roars Mr. Morgan. "It's that picture I sent an agent toEurope to buy. I just thought about it. He cabled me to-day that itain't to be found in all Italy. I'd pay $50, 000 to-morrow for thatpicture--yes, $75, 000. I give the agent a la carte in purchasing it. Icannot understand why the art galleries will allow a De Vinchy to--"

"Why, Mr. Morgan, " says klein; "I thought you owned all of the De Vinchypaintings. "

"What is the picture like, Mr. Morgan?" asks Silver. "It must be as bigas the side of the Flatiron Building. "

"I'm afraid your art education is on the bum, Mr. Silver, " says Morgan. "The picture is 27 inches by 42; and it is called 'Love's Idle Hour. ' Itrepresents a number of cloak models doing the two-step on the bank of apurple river. The cablegram said it might have been brought to thiscountry. My collection will never be complete without that picture. Well, so long, gents; us financiers must keep early hours. "

Mr. Morgan and Klein went away together in a cab. Me and Silver talkedabout how simple and unsuspecting great people was; and Silver said whata shame it would be to try to rob a man like Mr. Morgan; and I said Ithought it would be rather imprudent, myself. Klein proposes a strollafter dinner; and me and him and Silver walks down toward Seventh Avenueto see the sights. Klein sees a pair of cuff links that instigate hisadmiration in a pawnshop window, and we all go in while he buys 'em. 

After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone, Silver jumps at meand waves his hands. 

"Did you see it?" says he. "Did you see it, Billy?"

"What?" I asks. 

"Why, that picture that Morgan wants. It's hanging in that pawnshop, behind the desk. I didn't say anything because Klein was there. It's thearticle sure as you live. The girls are as natural as paint can makethem, all measuring 36 and 25 and 42 skirts, if they had any skirts, andthey're doing a buck-and-wing on the bank of a river with the blues. What did Mr. Morgan say he'd give for it? Oh, don't make me tell you. They can't know what it is in that pawnshop. "

When the pawnshop opened the next morning me and Silver was standingthere as anxious as if we wanted to soak our Sunday suit to buy a drink. We sauntered inside, and began to look at watch-chains. 

"That's a violent specimen of a chromo you've got up there, " remarkedSilver, casual, to the pawnbroker. "But I kind of enthuse over the girlwith the shoulder-blades and red bunting. Would an offer of $2. 25 for itcause you to knock over any fragile articles of your stock in hurryingit off the nail?"

The pawnbroker smiles and goes on showing us plate watch-chains. 

"That picture, " says he, "was pledged a year ago by an Italiangentleman. I loaned him $500 on it. It is called 'Love's Idle Hour, ' andit is by Leonardo de Vinchy. Two days ago the legal time expired, and itbecame an unredeemed pledge. Here is a style of chain that is worn agreat deal now. "

At the end of half an hour me and Silver paid the pawnbroker $2, 000 andwalked out with the picture. Silver got into a cab with it and startedfor Morgan's office. I goes to the hotel and waits for him. In two hoursSilver comes back. 

"Did you see Mr. Morgan?" I asks. "How much did he pay you for it?"

Silver sits down and fools with a tassel on the table cover. 

"I never exactly saw Mr. Morgan, " he says, "because Mr. Morgan's beenin Europe for a month. But what's worrying me, Billy, is this: Thedepartment stores have all got that same picture on sale, framed, for$3. 48. And they charge $3. 50 for the frame alone--that's what I can'tunderstand. "

IV

THE DAY RESURGENT

I can see the artist bite the end of his pencil and frown when it comesto drawing his Easter picture; for his legitimate pictorial conceptionsof figures pertinent to the festival are but four in number. 

First comes Easter, pagan goddess of spring. Here his fancy may havefree play. A beautiful maiden with decorative hair and the proper numberof toes will fill the bill. Miss Clarice St. Vavasour, the well-knownmodel, will pose for it in the "Lethergogallagher, " or whatever it wasthat Trilby called it. 

Second--the melancholy lady with upturned eyes in a framework of lilies. This is magazine-covery, but reliable. 

Third--Miss Manhattan in the Fifth Avenue Easter Sunday parade. 

Fourth--Maggie Murphy with a new red feather in her old straw hat, happyand self-conscious, in the Grand Street turnout. 

Of course, the rabbits do not count. Nor the Easter eggs, since thehigher criticism has hard-boiled them. 

The limited field of its pictorial possibilities proves that Easter, ofall our festival days, is the most vague and shifting in our conception. It belongs to all religions, although the pagans invented it. Going backstill further to the first spring, we can see Eve choosing with pride anew green leaf from the tree _ficus carica_. 

Now, the object of this critical and learned preamble is to set forththe theorem that Easter is neither a date, a season, a festival, aholiday nor an occasion. What it is you shall find out if you follow inthe footsteps of Danny McCree. 

Easter Sunday dawned as it should, bright and early, in its place on thecalendar between Saturday and Monday. At 5. 24 the sun rose, and at 10. 30Danny followed its example. He went into the kitchen and washed hisface at the sink. His mother was frying bacon. She looked at his hard, smooth, knowing countenance as he juggled with the round cake of soap, and thought of his father when she first saw him stopping a hot grounderbetween second and third twenty-two years before on a vacant lot inHarlem, where the La Paloma apartment house now stands. In the frontroom of the flat Danny's father sat by an open window smoking his pipe, with his dishevelled gray hair tossed about by the breeze. He stillclung to his pipe, although his sight had been taken from him two yearsbefore by a precocious blast of giant powder that went off withoutpermission. Very few blind men care for smoking, for the reason thatthey cannot see the smoke. Now, could you enjoy having the news read toyou from an evening newspaper unless you could see the colors of theheadlines?

"'Tis Easter Day, " said Mrs. McCree. 

"Scramble mine, " said Danny. 

After breakfast he dressed himself in the Sabbath morning costume ofthe Canal Street importing house dray chauffeur--frock coat, stripedtrousers, patent leathers, gilded trace chain across front of vest, and wing collar, rolled-brim derby and butterfly bow from Schonstein's(between Fourteenth Street and Tony's fruit stand) Saturday night sale. 

"You'll be goin' out this day, of course, Danny, " said old man McCree, a little wistfully. "'Tis a kind of holiday, they say. Well, it's finespring weather. I can feel it in the air. "

"Why should I not be going out?" demanded Danny in his grumpiest chesttones. "Should I stay in? Am I as good as a horse? One day of rest myteam has a week. Who earns the money for the rent and the breakfastyou've just eat, I'd like to know? Answer me that!"

"All right, lad, " said the old man. "I'm not complainin'. While me twoeyes was good there was nothin' better to my mind than a Sunday out. There's a smell of turf and burnin' brush comin' in the windy. I have metobaccy. A good fine day and rist to ye, lad. Times I wish your motherhad larned to read, so I might hear the rest about the hippopotamus--butlet that be. "

"Now, what is this foolishness he talks of hippopotamuses?" asked Dannyof his mother, as he passed through the kitchen. "Have you been takinghim to the Zoo? And for what?"

"I have not, " said Mrs. McCree. "He sets by the windy all day. 'Tislittle recreation a blind man among the poor gets at all. I'm thinkin'they wander in their minds at times. One day he talks of grease withoutstoppin' for the most of an hour. I looks to see if there's lard burnin'in the fryin' pan. There is not. He says I do not understand. 'Tis wearydays, Sundays, and holidays and all, for a blind man, Danny. There wasno better nor stronger than him when he had his two eyes. 'Tis a fineday, son. Injoy yeself ag'inst the morning. There will be cold supper atsix. "

"Have you heard any talk of a hippopotamus?" asked Danny of Mike, thejanitor, as he went out the door downstairs. 

"I have not, " said Mike, pulling his shirtsleeves higher. "But 'tis theonly subject in the animal, natural and illegal lists of outrages thatI've not been complained to about these two days. See the landlord. Orelse move out if ye like. Have ye hippopotamuses in the lease? No, then?"

"It was the old man who spoke of it, " said Danny. "Likely there'snothing in it. "

Danny walked up the street to the Avenue and then struck northward intothe heart of the district where Easter--modern Easter, in new, brightraiment--leads the pascal march. Out of towering brown churches came theblithe music of anthems from the choirs. The broad sidewalks were movingparterres of living flowers--so it seemed when your eye looked upon theEaster girl. 

Gentlemen, frock-coated, silk-hatted, gardeniaed, sustained thebackground of the tradition. Children carried lilies in their hands. Thewindows of the brownstone mansions were packed with the most opulentcreations of Flora, the sister of the Lady of the Lilies. 

Around a corner, white-gloved, pink-gilled and tightly buttoned, walkedCorrigan, the cop, shield to the curb. Danny knew him. 

"Why, Corrigan, " he asked, "is Easter? I know it comes the first timeyou're full after the moon rises on the seventeenth of March--but why?Is it a proper and religious ceremony, or does the Governor appoint itout of politics?"

"'Tis an annual celebration, " said Corrigan, with the judicial air ofthe Third Deputy Police Commissioner, "peculiar to New York. It extendsup to Harlem. Sometimes they has the reserves out at One Hundred andTwenty-fifth Street. In my opinion 'tis not political. "

"Thanks, " said Danny. "And say--did you ever hear a man complain ofhippopotamuses? When not specially in drink, I mean. "

"Nothing larger than sea turtles, " said Corrigan, reflecting, "and therewas wood alcohol in that. "

Danny wandered. The double, heavy incumbency of enjoying simultaneouslya Sunday and a festival day was his. 

The sorrows of the hand-toiler fit him easily. They are worn so oftenthat they hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-madegarments. That is why well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in thegriefs of the common people their most striking models. But when thePhilistine would disport himself, the grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set his jaw hard at Easter, and took his pleasure sadly. 

The family entrance of Dugan's café was feasible; so Danny yielded tothe vernal season as far as a glass of bock. Seated in a dark, linoleumed, humid back room, his heart and mind still groped after themysterious meaning of the springtime jubilee. 

"Say, Tim, " he said to the waiter, "why do they have Easter?"

"Skiddoo!" said Tim, closing a sophisticated eye. "Is that a new one?All right. Tony Pastor's for you last night, I guess. I give it up. What's the answer--two apples or a yard and a half?"

From Dugan's Danny turned back eastward. The April sun seemed to stir inhim a vague feeling that he could not construe. He made a wrongdiagnosis and decided that it was Katy Conlon. 

A block from her house on Avenue A he met her going to church. Theypumped hands on the corner. 

"Gee! but you look dumpish and dressed up, " said Katy. "What's wrong?Come away with me to church and be cheerful. "

"What's doing at church?" asked Danny. 

"Why, it's Easter Sunday. Silly! I waited till after eleven expectin'you might come around to go. "

"What does this Easter stand for, Katy, " asked Danny gloomily. "Nobodyseems to know. "

"Nobody as blind as you, " said Katy with spirit. "You haven't evenlooked at my new hat. And skirt. Why, it's when all the girls put on newspring clothes. Silly! Are you coming to church with me?"

"I will, " said Danny. "If this Easter is pulled off there, they ought tobe able to give some excuse for it. Not that the hat ain't a beauty. Thegreen roses are great. "

At church the preacher did some expounding with no pounding. He spokerapidly, for he was in a hurry to get home to his early Sabbath dinner;but he knew his business. There was one word that controlled histheme--resurrection. Not a new creation; but a new life arising out ofthe old. The congregation had heard it often before. But there was awonderful hat, a combination of sweet peas and lavender, in the sixthpew from the pulpit. It attracted much attention. 

After church Danny lingered on a corner while Katy waited, with pique inher sky-blue eyes. 

"Are you coming along to the house?" she asked. "But don't mind me. I'llget there all right. You seem to be studyin' a lot about something. Allright. Will I see you at any time specially, Mr. McCree?"

"I'll be around Wednesday night as usual, " said Danny, turning andcrossing the street. 

Katy walked away with the green roses dangling indignantly. Dannystopped two blocks away. He stood still with his hands in his pockets, at the curb on the corner. His face was that of a graven image. Deepin his soul something stirred so small, so fine, so keen and leaveningthat his hard fibres did not recognize it. It was something more tenderthan the April day, more subtle than the call of the senses, purer anddeeper-rooted than the love of woman--for had he not turned away fromgreen roses and eyes that had kept him chained for a year? And Dannydid not know what it was. The preacher, who was in a hurry to go to hisdinner, had told him, but Danny had had no libretto with which to followthe drowsy intonation. But the preacher spoke the truth. 

Suddenly Danny slapped his leg and gave forth a hoarse yell of delight. 

"Hippopotamus!" he shouted to an elevated road pillar. "Well, how isthat for a bum guess? Why, blast my skylights! I know what he wasdriving at now. 

"Hippopotamus! Wouldn't that send you to the Bronx! It's been a yearsince he heard it; and he didn't miss it so very far. We quit at 469B. C. , and this comes next. Well, a wooden man wouldn't have guessedwhat he was trying to get out of him. "

Danny caught a crosstown car and went up to the rear flat that his laborsupported. 

Old man McCree was still sitting by the window. His extinct pipe lay onthe sill. 

"Will that be you, lad?" he asked. 

Danny flared into the rage of a strong man who is surprised at theoutset of committing a good deed. 

"Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?" hesnapped, viciously. "Have I no right to come in?"

"Ye're a faithful lad, " said old man McCree, with a sigh. "Is it eveningyet?"

Danny reached up on a shelf and took down a thick book labeled in giltletters, "The History of Greece. " Dust was on it half an inch thick. Helaid it on the table and found a place in it marked by a strip of paper. And then he gave a short roar at the top of his voice, and said:

"Was it the hippopotamus you wanted to be read to about then?"

"Did I hear ye open the book?" said old man McCree. "Many and weary bethe months since my lad has read it to me. I dinno; but I took a greatlikings to them Greeks. Ye left off at a place. 'Tis a fine day outside, lad. Be out and take rest from your work. I have gotten used to me chairby the windy and me pipe. "

"Pel-Peloponnesus was the place where we left off, and nothippopotamus, " said Danny. "The war began there. It kept something doingfor thirty years. The headlines says that a guy named Philip of Macedon, in 338 B. C. , got to be boss of Greece by getting the decision at thebattle of Cher-Cheronoea. I'll read it. "

With his hand to his ear, rapt in the Peloponnesian War, old man McCreesat for an hour, listening. 

Then he got up and felt his way to the door of the kitchen. Mrs. McCreewas slicing cold meat. She looked up. Tears were running from old manMcCree's eyes. 

"Do you hear our lad readin' to me?" he said. "There is none finer inthe land. My two eyes have come back to me again. "

After supper he said to Danny: "'Tis a happy day, this Easter. And nowye will be off to see Katy in the evening. Well enough. "

"Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?" saidDanny, angrily. "Have I no right to stay in it? After supper there isyet to come the reading of the battle of Corinth, 146 B. C. , when thekingdom, as they say, became an in-integral portion of the Roman Empire. Am I nothing in this house?"

V

THE FIFTH WHEEL

The ranks of the Bed Line moved closer together; for it was cold. Theywere alluvial deposit of the stream of life lodged in the delta of FifthAvenue and Broadway. The Bed Liners stamped their freezing feet, lookedat the empty benches in Madison Square whence Jack Frost had evictedthem, and muttered to one another in a confusion of tongues. TheFlatiron Building, with its impious, cloud-piercing architecture loomingmistily above them on the opposite delta, might well have stood for thetower of Babel, whence these polyglot idlers had been called by thewinged walking delegate of the Lord. 

Standing on a pine box a head higher than his flock of goats, thePreacher exhorted whatever transient and shifting audience the northwind doled out to him. It was a slave market. Fifteen cents bought you aman. You deeded him to Morpheus; and the recording angel gave youcredit. 

The preacher was incredibly earnest and unwearied. He had looked overthe list of things one may do for one's fellow man, and had assumed forhimself the task of putting to bed all who might apply at his soap boxon the nights of Wednesday and Sunday. That left but five nights forother philanthropists to handle; and had they done their part as well, this wicked city might have become a vast Arcadian dormitory where allmight snooze and snore the happy hours away, letting problem plays andthe rent man and business go to the deuce. 

The hour of eight was but a little while past; sightseers in a small, dark mass of pay ore were gathered in the shadow of General Worth'smonument. Now and then, shyly, ostentatiously, carelessly, or withconscientious exactness one would step forward and bestow upon thePreacher small bills or silver. Then a lieutenant of Scandinaviancoloring and enthusiasm would march away to a lodging house with a squadof the redeemed. All the while the Preacher exhorted the crowd in termsbeautifully devoid of eloquence--splendid with the deadly, accusativemonotony of truth. Before the picture of the Bed Liners fades you musthear one phrase of the Preacher's--the one that formed his theme thatnight. It is worthy of being stenciled on all the white ribbons in theworld. 

_"No man ever learned to be a drunkard on five-cent whisky. "_

Think of it, tippler. It covers the ground from the sprouting rye to thePotter's Field. 

A clean-profiled, erect young man in the rear rank of the bedlessemulated the terrapin, drawing his head far down into the shell of hiscoat collar. It was a well-cut tweed coat; and the trousers still showedsigns of having flattened themselves beneath the compelling goose. But, conscientiously, I must warn the milliner's apprentice who reads this, expecting a Reginald Montressor in straits, to peruse no further. Theyoung man was no other than Thomas McQuade, ex-coachman, discharged fordrunkenness one month before, and now reduced to the grimy ranks of theone-night bed seekers. 

If you live in smaller New York you must know the Van Smuythe familycarriage, drawn by the two 1, 500-pound, 100 to 1-shot bays. The carriageis shaped like a bath-tub. In each end of it reclines an old lady VanSmuythe holding a black sunshade the size of a New Year's Eve feathertickler. Before his downfall Thomas McQuade drove the Van Smuythe baysand was himself driven by Annie, the Van Smuythe lady's maid. But it isone of the saddest things about romance that a tight shoe or an emptycommissary or an aching tooth will make a temporary heretic of anyCupid-worshiper. And Thomas's physical troubles were not few. Therefore, his soul was less vexed with thoughts of his lost lady's maid than itwas by the fancied presence of certain non-existent things that hisracked nerves almost convinced him were flying, dancing, crawling, andwriggling on the asphalt and in the air above and around the dismalcampus of the Bed Line army. Nearly four weeks of straight whisky anda diet limited to crackers, bologna, and pickles often guarantees apsycho-zoological sequel. Thus desperate, freezing, angry, beset byphantoms as he was, he felt the need of human sympathy and intercourse. 

The Bed Liner standing at his right was a young man of about his ownage, shabby but neat. 

"What's the diagnosis of your case, Freddy?" asked Thomas, with thefreemasonic familiarity of the damned--"Booze? That's mine. You don'tlook like a panhandler. Neither am I. A month ago I was pushing thelines over the backs of the finest team of Percheron buffaloes that evermade their mile down Fifth Avenue in 2. 85. And look at me now! Say; howdo you come to be at this bed bargain-counter rummage sale. "

The other young man seemed to welcome the advances of the airyex-coachman. 

"No, " said he, "mine isn't exactly a case of drink. Unless we allow thatCupid is a bartender. I married unwisely, according to the opinion of myunforgiving relatives. I've been out of work for a year because I don'tknow how to work; and I've been sick in Bellevue and other hospitals formonths. My wife and kid had to go back to her mother. I was turned outof the hospital yesterday. And I haven't a cent. That's my tale of woe. "

"Tough luck, " said Thomas. "A man alone can pull through all right. ButI hate to see the women and kids get the worst of it. "

Just then there hummed up Fifth Avenue a motor car so splendid, so red, so smoothly running, so craftily demolishing the speed regulations thatit drew the attention even of the listless Bed Liners. Suspended andpinioned on its left side was an extra tire. 

When opposite the unfortunate company the fastenings of this tire becameloosed. It fell to the asphalt, bounded and rolled rapidly in the wakeof the flying car. 

Thomas McQuade, scenting an opportunity, darted from his place among thePreacher's goats. In thirty seconds he had caught the rolling tire, swung it over his shoulder, and was trotting smartly after the car. Onboth sides of the avenue people were shouting, whistling, and wavingcanes at the red car, pointing to the enterprising Thomas coming up withthe lost tire. 

One dollar, Thomas had estimated, was the smallest guerdon that so grandan automobilist could offer for the service he had rendered, and savehis pride. 

Two blocks away the car had stopped. There was a little, brown, muffledchauffeur driving, and an imposing gentleman wearing a magnificentsealskin coat and a silk hat on a rear seat. 

Thomas proffered the captured tire with his best ex-coachman mannerand a look in the brighter of his reddened eyes that was meant to besuggestive to the extent of a silver coin or two and receptive up tohigher denominations. 

But the look was not so construed. The sealskinned gentleman receivedthe tire, placed it inside the car, gazed intently at the ex-coachman, and muttered to himself inscrutable words. 

"Strange--strange!" said he. "Once or twice even I, myself, have fanciedthat the Chaldean Chiroscope has availed. Could it be possible?"

Then he addressed less mysterious words to the waiting and hopefulThomas. 

"Sir, I thank you for your kind rescue of my tire. And I would ask you, if I may, a question. Do you know the family of Van Smuythes living inWashington Square North?"

"Oughtn't I to?" replied Thomas. "I lived there. Wish I did yet. "

The sealskinned gentleman opened a door of the car. 

"Step in please, " he said. "You have been expected. "

Thomas McQuade obeyed with surprise but without hesitation. A seat in amotor car seemed better than standing room in the Bed Line. But afterthe lap-robe had been tucked about him and the auto had sped on itscourse, the peculiarity of the invitation lingered in his mind. 

"Maybe the guy hasn't got any change, " was his diagnosis. "Lots of theseswell rounders don't lug about any ready money. Guess he'll dump me outwhen he gets to some joint where he can get cash on his mug. Anyhow, it's a cinch that I've got that open-air bed convention beat to afinish. "

Submerged in his greatcoat, the mysterious automobilist seemed, himself, to marvel at the surprises of life. "Wonderful! amazing! strange!" herepeated to himself constantly. 

When the car had well entered the crosstown Seventies it swung eastwarda half block and stopped before a row of high-stooped, brownstone-fronthouses. 

"Be kind enough to enter my house with me, " said the sealskinnedgentleman when they had alighted. "He's going to dig up, sure, "reflected Thomas, following him inside. 

There was a dim light in the hall. His host conducted him through a doorto the left, closing it after him and leaving them in absolute darkness. Suddenly a luminous globe, strangely decorated, shone faintly inthe centre of an immense room that seemed to Thomas more splendidlyappointed than any he had ever seen on the stage or read of in fairytales. 

The walls were hidden by gorgeous red hangings embroidered withfantastic gold figures. At the rear end of the room were drapedportières of dull gold spangled with silver crescents and stars. Thefurniture was of the costliest and rarest styles. The ex-coachman's feetsank into rugs as fleecy and deep as snowdrifts. There were three orfour oddly shaped stands or tables covered with black velvet drapery. 

Thomas McQuade took in the splendors of this palatial apartment with oneeye. With the other he looked for his imposing conductor--to find thathe had disappeared. 

"B'gee!" muttered Thomas, "this listens like a spook shop. Shouldn'twonder if it ain't one of these Moravian Nights' adventures that youread about. Wonder what became of the furry guy. "

Suddenly a stuffed owl that stood on an ebony perch near the illuminatedglobe slowly raised his wings and emitted from his eyes a brilliantelectric glow. 

With a fright-born imprecation, Thomas seized a bronze statuette ofHebe from a cabinet near by and hurled it with all his might at theterrifying and impossible fowl. The owl and his perch went over with acrash. With the sound there was a click, and the room was flooded withlight from a dozen frosted globes along the walls and ceiling. The goldportières parted and closed, and the mysterious automobilist entered theroom. He was tall and wore evening dress of perfect cut and accuratetaste. A Vandyke beard of glossy, golden brown, rather long and wavyhair, smoothly parted, and large, magnetic, orientally occult eyes gavehim a most impressive and striking appearance. If you can conceivea Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah's throne-room advancing to greet avisiting Emperor, you will gather something of the majesty of hismanner. But Thomas McQuade was too near his _d t's_ to be mindful of his_p's_ and _q's_. When he viewed this silken, polished, and somewhatterrifying host he thought vaguely of dentists. 

"Say, doc, " said he resentfully, "that's a hot bird you keep on tap. I hope I didn't break anything. But I've nearly got the williwalloos, and when he threw them 32-candle-power lamps of his on me, I took asnap-shot at him with that little brass Flatiron Girl that stood on thesideboard. "

"That is merely a mechanical toy, " said the gentleman with a wave of hishand. "May I ask you to be seated while I explain why I brought you tomy house. Perhaps you would not understand nor be in sympathy with thepsychological prompting that caused me to do so. So I will come to thepoint at once by venturing to refer to your admission that you know theVan Smuythe family, of Washington Square North. "

"Any silver missing?" asked Thomas tartly. "Any joolry displaced? Ofcourse I know 'em. Any of the old ladies' sunshades disappeared? Well, I know 'em. And then what?"

The Grand Duke rubbed his white hands together softly. 

"Wonderful!" he murmured. "Wonderful! Shall I come to believe in theChaldean Chiroscope myself? Let me assure you, " he continued, "thatthere is nothing for you to fear. Instead, I think I can promise youthat very good fortune awaits you. We will see. "

"Do they want me back?" asked Thomas, with something of his oldprofessional pride in his voice. "I'll promise to cut out the booze anddo the right thing if they'll try me again. But how did you get wise, doc? B'gee, it's the swellest employment agency I was ever in, with itsflashlight owls and so forth. "

With an indulgent smile the gracious host begged to be excused for twominutes. He went out to the sidewalk and gave an order to the chauffeur, who still waited with the car. Returning to the mysterious apartment, he sat by his guest and began to entertain him so well by his witty andgenial converse that the poor Bed Liner almost forgot the cold streetsfrom which he had been so recently and so singularly rescued. A servantbrought some tender cold fowl and tea biscuits and a glass of miraculouswine; and Thomas felt the glamour of Arabia envelop him. Thus half anhour sped quickly; and then the honk of the returned motor car at thedoor suddenly drew the Grand Duke to his feet, with another softpetition for a brief absence. 

Two women, well muffled against the cold, were admitted at the frontdoor and suavely conducted by the master of the house down the hallthrough another door to the left and into a smaller room, which wasscreened and segregated from the larger front room by heavy, doubleportières. Here the furnishings were even more elegant and exquisitelytasteful than in the other. On a gold-inlaid rosewood table werescattered sheets of white paper and a queer, triangular instrument ortoy, apparently of gold, standing on little wheels. 

The taller woman threw back her black veil and loosened her cloak. Shewas fifty, with a wrinkled and sad face. The other, young and plump, took a chair a little distance away and to the rear as a servant or anattendant might have done. 

"You sent for me, Professor Cherubusco, " said the elder woman, wearily. "I hope you have something more definite than usual to say. I've aboutlost the little faith I had in your art. I would not have responded toyour call this evening if my sister had not insisted upon it. "

"Madam, " said the professor, with his princeliest smile, "the true Artcannot fail. To find the true psychic and potential branch sometimesrequires time. We have not succeeded, I admit, with the cards, thecrystal, the stars, the magic formulæ of Zarazin, nor the Oracle ofPo. But we have at last discovered the true psychic route. The ChaldeanChiroscope has been successful in our search. "

The professor's voice had a ring that seemed to proclaim his belief inhis own words. The elderly lady looked at him with a little moreinterest. 

"Why, there was no sense in those words that it wrote with my hands onit, " she said. "What do you mean?"

"The words were these, " said Professor Cherubusco, rising to his fullmagnificent height: "_'By the fifth wheel of the chariot he shallcome. '_"

"I haven't seen many chariots, " said the lady, "but I never saw one withfive wheels. "

"Progress, " said the professor--"progress in science and mechanics hasaccomplished it--though, to be exact, we may speak of it only as anextra tire. Progress in occult art has advanced in proportion. Madam, Irepeat that the Chaldean Chiroscope has succeeded. I can not only answerthe question that you have propounded, but I can produce before youreyes the proof thereof. "

And now the lady was disturbed both in her disbelief and in her poise. 

"O professor!" she cried anxiously--"When?--where? Has he been found? Donot keep me in suspense. "

"I beg you will excuse me for a very few minutes, " said ProfessorCherubusco, "and I think I can demonstrate to you the efficacy of thetrue Art. "

Thomas was contentedly munching the last crumbs of the bread and fowlwhen the enchanter appeared suddenly at his side. 

"Are you willing to return to your old home if you are assured of awelcome and restoration to favor?" he asked, with his courteous, royalsmile. 

"Do I look bughouse?" answered Thomas. "Enough of the footback life forme. But will they have me again? The old lady is as fixed in her ways asa nut on a new axle. "

"My dear young man, " said the other, "she has been searching for youeverywhere. "

"Great!" said Thomas. "I'm on the job. That team of dropsicaldromedaries they call horses is a handicap for a first-class coachmanlike myself; but I'll take the job back, sure, doc. They're good peopleto be with. "

And now a change came o'er the suave countenance of the Caliph ofBagdad. He looked keenly and suspiciously at the ex-coachman. 

"May I ask what your name is?" he said shortly. 

"You've been looking for me, " said Thomas, "and don't know my name?You're a funny kind of sleuth. You must be one of the Central Officegumshoers. I'm Thomas McQuade, of course; and I've been chauffeur ofthe Van Smuythe elephant team for a year. They fired me a month agofor--well, doc, you saw what I did to your old owl. I went broke onbooze, and when I saw the tire drop off your whiz wagon I was standingin that squad of hoboes at the Worth monument waiting for a free bed. Now, what's the prize for the best answer to all this?"

To his intense surprise Thomas felt himself lifted by the collar anddragged, without a word of explanation, to the front door. This wasopened, and he was kicked forcibly down the steps with one heavy, disillusionizing, humiliating impact of the stupendous Arabian's shoe. 

As soon as the ex-coachman had recovered his feet and his wits hehastened as fast as he could eastward toward Broadway. 

"Crazy guy, " was his estimate of the mysterious automobilist. "Justwanted to have some fun kiddin', I guess. He might have dug up a dollar, anyhow. Now I've got to hurry up and get back to that gang of bum bedhunters before they all get preached to sleep. "

When Thomas reached the end of his two-mile walk he found the ranks ofthe homeless reduced to a squad of perhaps eight or ten. He took theproper place of a newcomer at the left end of the rear rank. In a filein front of him was the young man who had spoken to him of hospitals andsomething of a wife and child. 

"Sorry to see you back again, " said the young man, turning to speak tohim. "I hoped you had struck something better than this. "

"Me?" said Thomas. "Oh, I just took a run around the block to keep warm!I see the public ain't lending to the Lord very fast to-night. "

"In this kind of weather, " said the young man, "charity avails itself ofthe proverb, and both begins and ends at home. "

And the Preacher and his vehement lieutenant struck up a last hymn ofpetition to Providence and man. Those of the Bed Liners whose windpipesstill registered above 32 degrees hopelessly and tunelessly joined in. 

In the middle of the second verse Thomas saw a sturdy girl withwind-tossed drapery battling against the breeze and coming straighttoward him from the opposite sidewalk. "Annie!" he yelled, and rantoward her. 

"You fool, you fool!" she cried, weeping and laughing, and hanging uponhis neck, "why did you do it?"

"The Stuff, " explained Thomas briefly. "You know. But subsequently nit. Not a drop. " He led her to the curb. "How did you happen to see me?"

"I came to find you, " said Annie, holding tight to his sleeve. "Oh, youbig fool! Professor Cherubusco told us that we might find you here. "

"Professor Ch---- Don't know the guy. What saloon does he work in?"

"He's a clairvoyant, Thomas; the greatest in the world. He found youwith the Chaldean telescope, he said. "

"He's a liar, " said Thomas. "I never had it. He never saw me haveanybody's telescope. "

"And he said you came in a chariot with five wheels or something. "

"Annie, " said Thoms solicitously, "you're giving me the wheels now. IfI had a chariot I'd have gone to bed in it long ago. And without anysinging and preaching for a nightcap, either. "

"Listen, you big fool. The Missis says she'll take you back. I beggedher to. But you must behave. And you can go up to the house to-night;and your old room over the stable is ready. "

"Great!" said Thomas earnestly. "You are It, Annie. But when did thesestunts happen?"

"To-night at Professor Cherubusco's. He sent his automobile for theMissis, and she took me along. I've been there with her before. "

"What's the professor's line?"

"He's a clearvoyant and a witch. The Missis consults him. He knowseverything. But he hasn't done the Missis any good yet, though she'spaid him hundreds of dollars. But he told us that the stars told him wecould find you here. "

"What's the old lady want this cherry-buster to do?"

"That's a family secret, " said Annie. "And now you've asked enoughquestions. Come on home, you big fool. "

They had moved but a little way up the street when Thomas stopped. 

"Got any dough with you, Annie?" he asked. 

Annie looked at him sharply. 

"Oh, I know what that look means, " said Thomas. "You're wrong. Notanother drop. But there's a guy that was standing next to me in the bedline over there that's in bad shape. He's the right kind, and he's gotwives or kids or something, and he's on the sick list. No booze. If youcould dig up half a dollar for him so he could get a decent bed I'd likeit. "

Annie's fingers began to wiggle in her purse. 

"Sure, I've got money, " said she. "Lots of it. Twelve dollars. " And thenshe added, with woman's ineradicable suspicion of vicarious benevolence:"Bring him here and let me see him first. "

Thomas went on his mission. The wan Bed Liner came readily enough. Asthe two drew near, Annie looked up from her purse and screamed:

"Mr. Walter-- Oh--Mr. Walter!

"Is that you, Annie?" said the young man meekly. 

"Oh, Mr. Walter!--and the Missis hunting high and low for you!"

"Does mother want to see me?" he asked, with a flush coming out on hispale cheek. 

"She's been hunting for you high and low. Sure, she wants to see you. She wants you to come home. She's tried police and morgues and lawyersand advertising and detectives and rewards and everything. And then shetook up clearvoyants. You'll go right home, won't you, Mr. Walter?"

"Gladly, if she wants me, " said the young man. "Three years is a longtime. I suppose I'll have to walk up, though, unless the street cars aregiving free rides. I used to walk and beat that old plug team of bays weused to drive to the carriage. Have they got them yet?"

"They have, " said Thomas, feelingly. "And they'll have 'em ten yearsfrom now. The life of the royal elephantibus truckhorseibus is onehundred and forty-nine years. I'm the coachman. Just got myreappointment five minutes ago. Let's all ride up in a surface car--thatis--er--if Annie will pay the fares. "

On the Broadway car Annie handed each one of the prodigals a nickel topay the conductor. 

"Seems to me you are mighty reckless the way you throw large sums ofmoney around, " said Thomas sarcastically. 

"In that purse, " said Annie decidedly, "is exactly $11. 85. I shall takeevery cent of it to-morrow and give it to professor Cherubusco, thegreatest man in the world. "

"Well, " said Thomas, "I guess he must be a pretty fly guy to pipe offthings the way he does. I'm glad his spooks told him where you couldfind me. If you'll give me his address, some day I'll go up there, myself, and shake his hand. "

Presently Thomas moved tentatively in his seat, and thoughtfully felt anabrasion or two on his knees and his elbows. 

"Say, Annie, " said he confidentially, maybe it's one of the last dreamsof booze, but I've a kind of a recollection of riding in an automobilewith a swell guy that took me to a house full of eagles and arc lights. He fed me on biscuits and hot air, and then kicked me down the frontsteps. If it was the _d t's_, why am I so sore?"

"Shut up, you fool, " said Annie. 

"If I could find that funny guy's house, " said Thomas, in conclusion, "I'd go up there some day and punch his nose for him. "

VI

THE POET AND THE PEASANT

The other day a poet friend of mine, who has lived in close communionwith nature all his life, wrote a poem and took it to an editor. 

It was a living pastoral, full of the genuine breath of the fields, thesong of birds, and the pleasant chatter of trickling streams. 

When the poet called again to see about it, with hopes of a beefsteakdinner in his heart, it was handed back to him with the comment:

"Too artificial. "

Several of us met over spaghetti and Dutchess County chianti, andswallowed indignation with slippery forkfuls. 

And there we dug a pit for the editor. With us was Conant, awell-arrived writer of fiction--a man who had trod on asphalt all hislife, and who had never looked upon bucolic scenes except withsensations of disgust from the windows of express trains. 

Conant wrote a poem and called it "The Doe and the Brook. " It was afine specimen of the kind of work you would expect from a poet who hadstrayed with Amaryllis only as far as the florist's windows, and whosesole ornithological discussion had been carried on with a waiter. Conantsigned this poem, and we sent it to the same editor. 

But this has very little to do with the story. 

Just as the editor was reading the first line of the poem, on the nextmorning, a being stumbled off the West Shore ferryboat, and loped slowlyup Forty-second Street. 

The invader was a young man with light blue eyes, a hanging lip andhair the exact color of the little orphan's (afterward discovered to bethe earl's daughter) in one of Mr. Blaney's plays. His trousers werecorduroy, his coat short-sleeved, with buttons in the middle of hisback. One bootleg was outside the corduroys. You looked expectantly, though in vain, at his straw hat for ear holes, its shape inauguratingthe suspicion that it had been ravaged from a former equine possessor. In his hand was a valise--description of it is an impossible task; aBoston man would not have carried his lunch and law books to his officein it. And above one ear, in his hair, was a wisp of hay--the rustic'sletter of credit, his badge of innocence, the last clinging touch of theGarden of Eden lingering to shame the gold-brick men. 

Knowingly, smilingly, the city crowds passed him by. They saw the rawstranger stand in the gutter and stretch his neck at the tall buildings. At this they ceased to smile, and even to look at him. It had beendone so often. A few glanced at the antique valise to see what Coney"attraction" or brand of chewing gum he might be thus dinning into hismemory. But for the most part he was ignored. Even the newsboys lookedbored when he scampered like a circus clown out of the way of cabs andstreet cars. 

At Eighth Avenue stood "Bunco Harry, " with his dyed mustache and shiny, good-natured eyes. Harry was too good an artist not to be pained at thesight of an actor overdoing his part. He edged up to the countryman, whohad stopped to open his mouth at a jewelry store window, and shook hishead. 

"Too thick, pal, " he said, critically--"too thick by a couple of inches. I don't know what your lay is; but you've got the properties too thick. That hay, now--why, they don't even allow that on Proctor's circuit anymore. "

"I don't understand you, mister, " said the green one. "I'm not lookin'for any circus. I've just run down from Ulster County to look at thetown, bein' that the hayin's over with. Gosh! but it's a whopper. Ithought Poughkeepsie was some punkins; but this here town is five timesas big. "

"Oh, well, " said "Bunco Harry, " raising his eyebrows, "I didn't meanto butt in. You don't have to tell. I thought you ought to tone downa little, so I tried to put you wise. Wish you success at your graft, whatever it is. Come and have a drink, anyhow. "

"I wouldn't mind having a glass of lager beer, " acknowledged the other. 

They went to a café frequented by men with smooth faces and shifty eyes, and sat at their drinks. 

"I'm glad I come across you, mister, " said Haylocks. "How'd you like toplay a game or two of seven-up? I've got the keerds. "

He fished them out of Noah's valise--a rare, inimitable deck, greasywith bacon suppers and grimy with the soil of cornfields. 

"Bunco Harry" laughed loud and briefly. 

"Not for me, sport, " he said, firmly. "I don't go against that make-upof yours for a cent. But I still say you've overdone it. The Reubshaven't dressed like that since '79. I doubt if you could work Brooklynfor a key-winding watch with that layout. "

"Oh, you needn't think I ain't got the money, " boasted Haylocks. He drewforth a tightly rolled mass of bills as large as a teacup, and laid iton the table. 

"Got that for my share of grandmother's farm, " he announced. "There's$950 in that roll. Thought I'd come to the city and look around for alikely business to go into. "

"Bunco Harry" took up the roll of money and looked at it with almostrespect in his smiling eyes. 

"I've seen worse, " he said, critically. "But you'll never do it in themclothes. You want to get light tan shoes and a black suit and a strawhat with a colored band, and talk a good deal about Pittsburg andfreight differentials, and drink sherry for breakfast in order to workoff phony stuff like that. "

"What's his line?" asked two or three shifty-eyed men of "Bunco Harry"after Haylocks had gathered up his impugned money and departed. 

"The queer, I guess, " said Harry. "Or else he's one of Jerome's men. Or some guy with a new graft. He's too much hayseed. Maybe that his--Iwonder now--oh, no, it couldn't have been real money. "

Haylocks wandered on. Thirst probably assailed him again, for he divedinto a dark groggery on a side street and bought beer. At first sightof him their eyes brightened; but when his insistent and exaggeratedrusticity became apparent their expressions changed to wary suspicion. 

Haylocks swung his valise across the bar. 

"Keep that a while for me, mister, " he said, chewing at the end of avirulent claybank cigar. "I'll be back after I knock around a spell. Andkeep your eye on it, for there's $950 inside of it, though maybe youwouldn't think so to look at me. "

Somewhere outside a phonograph struck up a band piece, and Haylocks wasoff for it, his coat-tail buttons flopping in the middle of his back. 

"Divvy, Mike, " said the men hanging upon the bar, winking openly at oneanother. 

"Honest, now, " said the bartender, kicking the valise to one side. "Youdon't think I'd fall to that, do you? Anybody can see he ain't no jay. One of McAdoo's come-on squad, I guess. He's a shine if he made himselfup. There ain't no parts of the country now where they dress like thatsince they run rural free delivery to Providence, Rhode Island. If he'sgot nine-fifty in that valise it's a ninety-eight cent Waterbury that'sstopped at ten minutes to ten. "

When Haylocks had exhausted the resources of Mr. Edison to amuse hereturned for his valise. And then down Broadway he gallivanted, cullingthe sights with his eager blue eyes. But still and evermore Broadwayrejected him with curt glances and sardonic smiles. He was the oldest ofthe "gags" that the city must endure. He was so flagrantly impossible, so ultra rustic, so exaggerated beyond the most freakish products of thebarnyard, the hayfield and the vaudeville stage, that he excited onlyweariness and suspicion. And the wisp of hay in his hair was so genuine, so fresh and redolent of the meadows, so clamorously rural that even ashell-game man would have put up his peas and folded his table at thesight of it. 

Haylocks seated himself upon a flight of stone steps and once moreexhumed his roll of yellow-backs from the valise. The outer one, atwenty, he shucked off and beckoned to a newsboy. 

"Son, " said he, "run somewhere and get this changed for me. I'm mightynigh out of chicken feed. I guess you'll get a nickel if you'll hurryup. "

A hurt look appeared through the dirt on the newsy's face. 

"Aw, watchert'ink! G'wan and get yer funny bill changed yerself. Deyain't no farm clothes yer got on. G'wan wit yer stage money. "

On a corner lounged a keen-eyed steerer for a gambling-house. He sawHaylocks, and his expression suddenly grew cold and virtuous. 

"Mister, " said the rural one. "I've heard of places in this here townwhere a fellow could have a good game of old sledge or peg a card atkeno. I got $950 in this valise, and I come down from old Ulster to seethe sights. Know where a fellow could get action on about $9 or $10? I'mgoin' to have some sport, and then maybe I'll buy out a business of somekind. "

The steerer looked pained, and investigated a white speck on his leftforefinger nail. 

"Cheese it, old man, " he murmured, reproachfully. "The Central Officemust be bughouse to send you out looking like such a gillie. Youcouldn't get within two blocks of a sidewalk crap game in them TonyPastor props. The recent Mr. Scotty from Death Valley has got you beata crosstown block in the way of Elizabethan scenery and mechanicalaccessories. Let it be skiddoo for yours. Nay, I know of no gilded hallswhere one may bet a patrol wagon on the ace. "

Rebuffed once again by the great city that is so swift to detectartificialities, Haylocks sat upon the curb and presented his thoughtsto hold a conference. 

"It's my clothes, " said he; "durned if it ain't. They think I'm ahayseed and won't have nothin' to do with me. Nobody never made fun ofthis hat in Ulster County. I guess if you want folks to notice you inNew York you must dress up like they do. "

So Haylocks went shopping in the bazaars where men spake through theirnoses and rubbed their hands and ran the tape line ecstatically over thebulge in his inside pocket where reposed a red nubbin of corn with aneven number of rows. And messengers bearing parcels and boxes streamedto his hotel on Broadway within the lights of Long Acre. 

At 9 o'clock in the evening one descended to the sidewalk whom UlsterCounty would have foresworn. Bright tan were his shoes; his hat thelatest block. His light gray trousers were deeply creased; a gay bluesilk handkerchief flapped from the breast pocket of his elegant Englishwalking coat. His collar might have graced a laundry window; his blondhair was trimmed close; the wisp of hay was gone. 

For an instant he stood, resplendent, with the leisurely air of aboulevardier concocting in his mind the route for his evening pleasures. And then he turned down the gay, bright street with the easy andgraceful tread of a millionaire. 

But in the instant that he had paused the wisest and keenest eyes in thecity had enveloped him in their field of vision. A stout man with grayeyes picked two of his friends with a lift of his eyebrows from the rowof loungers in front of the hotel. 

"The juiciest jay I've seen in six months, " said the man with gray eyes. "Come along. "

It was half-past eleven when a man galloped into the West Forty-seventhStreet Police Station with the story of his wrongs. 

"Nine hundred and fifty dollars, " he gasped, "all my share ofgrandmother's farm. "

The desk sergeant wrung from him the name Jabez Bulltongue, of LocustValley farm, Ulster County, and then began to take descriptions of thestrong-arm gentlemen. 

When Conant went to see the editor about the fate of his poem, he wasreceived over the head of the office boy into the inner office that isdecorated with the statuettes by Rodin and J. G. Brown. 

"When I read the first line of 'The Doe and the Brook, '" said theeditor, "I knew it to be the work of one whose life has been heart toheart with Nature. The finished art of the line did not blind me to thatfact. To use a somewhat homely comparison, it was as if a wild, freechild of the woods and fields were to don the garb of fashion and walkdown Broadway. Beneath the apparel the man would show. "

"Thanks, " said Conant. "I suppose the check will be round on Thursday, as usual. "

The morals of this story have somehow gotten mixed. You can take yourchoice of "Stay on the Farm" or "Don't Write Poetry. "

VII

THE ROBE OF PEACE

Mysteries follow one another so closely in a great city that the readingpublic and the friends of Johnny Bellchambers have ceased to marvelat his sudden and unexplained disappearance nearly a year ago. Thisparticular mystery has now been cleared up, but the solution is sostrange and incredible to the mind of the average man that only a selectfew who were in close touch with Bellchambers will give it fullcredence. 

Johnny Bellchambers, as is well known, belonged to the intrinsicallyinner circle of the _élite_. Without any of the ostentation of thefashionable ones who endeavor to attract notice by eccentric display ofwealth and show he still was _au fait_ in everything that gave deservedlustre to his high position in the ranks of society. 

Especially did he shine in the matter of dress. In this he was thedespair of imitators. Always correct, exquisitely groomed, and possessedof an unlimited wardrobe, he was conceded to be the best-dressed man inNew York, and, therefore, in America. There was not a tailor in Gothamwho would not have deemed it a precious boon to have been granted theprivilege of making Bellchambers' clothes without a cent of pay. As hewore them, they would have been a priceless advertisement. Trouserswere his especial passion. Here nothing but perfection would he notice. He would have worn a patch as quickly as he would have overlooked awrinkle. He kept a man in his apartments always busy pressing his amplesupply. His friends said that three hours was the limit of time that hewould wear these garments without exchanging. 

Bellchambers disappeared very suddenly. For three days his absencebrought no alarm to his friends, and then they began to operate theusual methods of inquiry. All of them failed. He had left absolutely notrace behind. Then the search for a motive was instituted, but none wasfound. He had no enemies, he had no debts, there was no woman. Therewere several thousand dollars in his bank to his credit. He had nevershowed any tendency toward mental eccentricity; in fact, he was of aparticularly calm and well-balanced temperament. Every means of tracingthe vanished man was made use of, but without avail. It was one of thosecases--more numerous in late years--where men seem to have gone out likethe flame of a candle, leaving not even a trail of smoke as a witness. 

In May, Tom Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam, two of Bellchambers' oldfriends, went for a little run on the other side. While pottering aroundin Italy and Switzerland, they happened, one day, to hear of a monasteryin the Swiss Alps that promised something outside of the ordinarytourist-beguiling attractions. The monastery was almost inaccessible tothe average sightseer, being on an extremely rugged and precipitous spurof the mountains. The attractions it possessed but did not advertisewere, first, an exclusive and divine cordial made by the monks that wassaid to far surpass benedictine and chartreuse. Next a huge brass bellso purely and accurately cast that it had not ceased sounding since itwas first rung three hundred years ago. Finally, it was asserted that noEnglishman had ever set foot within its walls. Eyres and Gilliam decidedthat these three reports called for investigation. 

It took them two days with the aid of two guides to reach the monasteryof St. Gondrau. It stood upon a frozen, wind-swept crag with the snowpiled about it in treacherous, drifting masses. They were hospitablyreceived by the brothers whose duty it was to entertain the infrequentguest. They drank of the precious cordial, finding it rarely potent andreviving. They listened to the great, ever-echoing bell, and learnedthat they were pioneer travelers, in those gray stone walls, over theEnglishman whose restless feet have trodden nearly every corner of theearth. 

At three o'clock on the afternoon they arrived, the two young Gothamitesstood with good Brother Cristofer in the great, cold hallway of themonastery to watch the monks march past on their way to the refectory. They came slowly, pacing by twos, with their heads bowed, treadingnoiselessly with sandaled feet upon the rough stone flags. As theprocession slowly filed past, Eyres suddenly gripped Gilliam by the arm. "Look, " he whispered, eagerly, "at the one just opposite you now--theone on this side, with his hand at his waist--if that isn't JohnnyBellchambers then I never saw him!"

Gilliam saw and recognized the lost glass of fashion. 

"What the deuce, " said he, wonderingly, "is old Bell doing here? Tommy, it surely can't be he! Never heard of Bell having a turn for thereligious. Fact is, I've heard him say things when a four-in-hand didn'tseem to tie up just right that would bring him up for court-martialbefore any church. "

"It's Bell, without a doubt, " said Eyres, firmly, "or I'm pretty badlyin need of an oculist. But think of Johnny Bellchambers, the Royal HighChancellor of swell togs and the Mahatma of pink teas, up here in coldstorage doing penance in a snuff-colored bathrobe! I can't get itstraight in my mind. Let's ask the jolly old boy that's doing thehonors. "

Brother Cristofer was appealed to for information. By that time themonks had passed into the refectory. He could not tell to which one theyreferred. Bellchambers? Ah, the brothers of St. Gondrau abandoned theirworldly names when they took the vows. Did the gentlemen wish to speakwith one of the brothers? If they would come to the refectory andindicate the one they wished to see, the reverend abbot in authoritywould, doubtless, permit it. 

Eyres and Gilliam went into the dining hall and pointed out to BrotherCristofer the man they had seen. Yes, it was Johnny Bellchambers. Theysaw his face plainly now, as he sat among the dingy brothers, neverlooking up, eating broth from a coarse, brown bowl. 

Permission to speak to one of the brothers was granted to the twotravelers by the abbot, and they waited in a reception room for him tocome. When he did come, treading softly in his sandals, both Eyres andGilliam looked at him in perplexity and astonishment. It was JohnnyBellchambers, but he had a different look. Upon his smooth-shaven facewas an expression of ineffable peace, of rapturous attainment, ofperfect and complete happiness. His form was proudly erect, his eyesshone with a serene and gracious light. He was as neat and well-groomedas in the old New York days, but how differently was he clad! Now heseemed clothed in but a single garment--a long robe of rough browncloth, gathered by a cord at the waist, and falling in straight, loosefolds nearly to his feet. He shook hands with his visitors with his oldease and grace of manner. If there was any embarrassment in that meetingit was not manifested by Johnny Bellchambers. The room had no seats;they stood to converse. 

"Glad to see you, old man, " said Eyres, somewhat awkwardly. "Wasn'texpecting to find you up here. Not a bad idea though, after all. Society's an awful sham. Must be a relief to shake the giddy whirl andretire to--er--contemplation and--er--prayer and hymns, and thosethings. 

"Oh, cut that, Tommy, " said Bellchambers, cheerfully. "Don't be afraidthat I'll pass around the plate. I go through these thing-um-bobs withthe rest of these old boys because they are the rules. I'm BrotherAmbrose here, you know. I'm given just ten minutes to talk to youfellows. That's rather a new design in waistcoats you have on, isn't it, Gilliam? Are they wearing those things on Broadway now?"

"It's the same old Johnny, " said Gilliam, joyfully. "What the devil--Imean why-- Oh, confound it! what did you do it for, old man?"

"Peel the bathrobe, " pleaded Eyres, almost tearfully, "and go back withus. The old crowd'll go wild to see you. This isn't in your line, Bell. I know half a dozen girls that wore the willow on the quiet when youshook us in that unaccountable way. Hand in your resignation, or get adispensation, or whatever you have to do to get a release from this icefactory. You'll get catarrh here, Johnny--and-- My God! you haven't anysocks on!"

Bellchambers looked down at his sandaled feet and smiled. 

"You fellows don't understand, " he said, soothingly. "It's nice of youto want me to go back, but the old life will never know me again. Ihave reached here the goal of all my ambitions. I am entirely happyand contented. Here I shall remain for the remainder of my days. Yousee this robe that I wear?" Bellchambers caressingly touched thestraight-hanging garment: "At last I have found something that will notbag at the knees. I have attained--"

At that moment the deep boom of the great brass bell reverberatedthrough the monastery. It must have been a summons to immediatedevotions, for Brother Ambrose bowed his head, turned and left thechamber without another word. A slight wave of his hand as he passedthrough the stone doorway seemed to say a farewell to his old friends. They left the monastery without seeing him again. 

And this is the story that Tommy Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam brought backwith them from their latest European tour. 

VIII

THE GIRL AND THE GRAFT

The other day I ran across my old friend Ferguson Pogue. Pogue isa conscientious grafter of the highest type. His headquarters isthe Western Hemisphere, and his line of business is anything fromspeculating in town lots on the Great Staked Plains to selling woodentoys in Connecticut, made by hydraulic pressure from nutmegs ground to apulp. 

Now and then when Pogue has made a good haul he comes to New York fora rest. He says the jug of wine and loaf of bread and Thou in thewilderness business is about as much rest and pleasure to him as slidingdown the bumps at Coney would be to President Taft. "Give me, " saysPogue, "a big city for my vacation. Especially New York. I'm not muchfond of New Yorkers, and Manhattan is about the only place on the globewhere I don't find any. "

While in the metropolis Pogue can always be found at one of two places. One is a little second-hand book-shop on Fourth Avenue, where he readsbooks about his hobbies, Mahometanism and taxidermy. I found him atthe other--his hall bedroom in Eighteenth Street--where he sat in hisstocking feet trying to pluck "The Banks of the Wabash" out of a smallzither. Four years he has practised this tune without arriving nearenough to cast the longest trout line to the water's edge. On thedresser lay a blued-steel Colt's forty-five and a tight roll of tens andtwenties large enough around to belong to the spring rattlesnake-storyclass. A chambermaid with a room-cleaning air fluttered nearby in thehall, unable to enter or to flee, scandalized by the stocking feet, aghast at the Colt's, yet powerless, with her metropolitan instincts, to remove herself beyond the magic influence of the yellow-hued roll. 

I sat on his trunk while Ferguson Pogue talked. No one could be frankeror more candid in his conversation. Beside his expression the cry ofHenry James for lacteal nourishment at the age of one month would haveseemed like a Chaldean cryptogram. He told me stories of his professionwith pride, for he considered it an art. And I was curious enough to askhim whether he had known any women who followed it. 

"Ladies?" said Pogue, with Western chivalry. "Well, not to any greatextent. They don't amount to much in special lines of graft, becausethey're all so busy in general lines. What? Why, they have to. Who's gotthe money in the world? The men. Did you ever know a man to give a womana dollar without any consideration? A man will shell out his dust toanother man free and easy and gratis. But if he drops a penny in one ofthe machines run by the Madam Eve's Daughters' Amalgamated Associationand the pineapple chewing gum don't fall out when he pulls the lever youcan hear him kick to the superintendent four blocks away. Man is thehardest proposition a woman has to go up against. He's the low-gradeone, and she has to work overtime to make him pay. Two times out offive she's salted. She can't put in crushers and costly machinery. He'dnotice 'em and be onto the game. They have to pan out what they get, andit hurts their tender hands. Some of 'em are natural sluice troughs andcan carry out $1, 000 to the ton. The dry-eyed ones have to depend onsigned letters, false hair, sympathy, the kangaroo walk, cowhide whips, ability to cook, sentimental juries, conversational powers, silkunderskirts, ancestry, rouge, anonymous letters, violet sachet powders, witnesses, revolvers, pneumatic forms, carbolic acid, moonlight, coldcream and the evening newspapers. "

"You are outrageous, Ferg, " I said. "Surely there is none of this'graft' as you call it, in a perfect and harmonious matrimonial union!"

"Well, " said Pogue, "nothing that would justify you every time incalling Police Headquarters and ordering out the reserves and avaudeville manager on a dead run. But it's this way: Suppose you're aFifth Avenue millionaire, soaring high, on the right side of copper andcappers. 

"You come home at night and bring a $9, 000, 000 diamond brooch to thelady who's staked you for a claim. You hand it over. She says, 'Oh, George!' and looks to see if it's backed. She comes up and kisses you. You've waited for it. You get it. All right. It's graft. 

"But I'm telling you about Artemisia Blye. She was from Kansas and shesuggested corn in all of its phases. Her hair was as yellow as the silk;her form was as tall and graceful as a stalk in the low grounds during awet summer; her eyes were as big and startling as bunions, and green washer favorite color. 

"On my last trip into the cool recesses of your sequestered city I met ahuman named Vaucross. He was worth--that is, he had a million. He toldme he was in business on the street. 'A sidewalk merchant?' says I, sarcastic. 'Exactly, ' says he, 'Senior partner of a paving concern. '

"I kind of took to him. For this reason, I met him on Broadway one nightwhen I was out of heart, luck, tobacco and place. He was all silk hat, diamonds and front. He was all front. If you had gone behind him youwould have only looked yourself in the face. I looked like a crossbetween Count Tolstoy and a June lobster. I was out of luck. I had--butlet me lay my eyes on that dealer again. 

"Vaucross stopped and talked to me a few minutes and then he took me toa high-toned restaurant to eat dinner. There was music, and then someBeethoven, and Bordelaise sauce, and cussing in French, and frangipangi, and some hauteur and cigarettes. When I am flush I know them places. 

"I declare, I must have looked as bad as a magazine artist sitting therewithout any money and my hair all rumpled like I was booked to read achapter from 'Elsie's School Days' at a Brooklyn Bohemian smoker. ButVaucross treated me like a bear hunter's guide. He wasn't afraid ofhurting the waiter's feelings. 

"'Mr. Pogue, ' he explains to me, 'I am using you. '

"'Go on, ' says I; 'I hope you don't wake up. '

"And then he tells me, you know, the kind of man he was. He was aNew Yorker. His whole ambition was to be noticed. He wanted to beconspicuous. He wanted people to point him out and bow to him, and tellothers who he was. He said it had been the desire of his life always. Hedidn't have but a million, so he couldn't attract attention by spendingmoney. He said he tried to get into public notice one time by plantinga little public square on the east side with garlic for free use ofthe poor; but Carnegie heard of it, and covered it over at once with alibrary in the Gaelic language. Three times he had jumped in the way ofautomobiles; but the only result was five broken ribs and a notice inthe papers that an unknown man, five feet ten, with four amalgam-filledteeth, supposed to be the last of the famous Red Leary gang had been runover. 

"'Ever try the reporters, ' I asked him. 

"'Last month, ' says Mr. Vaucross, 'my expenditure for lunches toreporters was $124. 80. '

"'Get anything out of that?' I asks. 

"'That reminds me, ' says he; 'add $8. 50 for pepsin. Yes, I gotindigestion. '

"'How am I supposed to push along your scramble for prominence?' Iinquires. 'Contrast?'

"'Something of that sort to-night, ' says Vaucross. 'It grieves me; butI am forced to resort to eccentricity. ' And here he drops his napkin inhis soup and rises up and bows to a gent who is devastating a potatounder a palm across the room. 

"'The Police Commissioner, ' says my climber, gratified. 'Friend', saysI, in a hurry, 'have ambitions but don't kick a rung out of your ladder. When you use me as a stepping stone to salute the police you spoil myappetite on the grounds that I may be degraded and incriminated. Bethoughtful. '

"At the Quaker City squab en casserole the idea about Artemisia Blyecomes to me. 

"'Suppose I can manage to get you in the papers, ' says I--'a column ortwo every day in all of 'em and your picture in most of 'em for a week. How much would it be worth to you?'

"'Ten thousand dollars, ' says Vaucross, warm in a minute. 'But nomurder, ' says he; 'and I won't wear pink pants at a cotillon. '

"'I wouldn't ask you to, ' says I. 'This is honorable, stylish anduneffeminate. Tell the waiter to bring a demi tasse and some otherbeans, and I will disclose to you the opus moderandi. '

"We closed the deal an hour later in the rococo rouge et noise room. Itelegraphed that night to Miss Artemisia in Salina. She took a coupleof photographs and an autograph letter to an elder in the FourthPresbyterian Church in the morning, and got some transportation and $80. She stopped in Topeka long enough to trade a flashlight interior and avalentine to the vice-president of a trust company for a mileage bookand a package of five-dollar notes with $250 scrawled on the band. 

"The fifth evening after she got my wire she was waiting, all décolletéeand dressed up, for me and Vaucross to take her to dinner in one ofthese New York feminine apartment houses where a man can't get in unlesshe plays bezique and smokes depilatory powder cigarettes. 

"'She's a stunner, ' says Vaucross when he saw her. 'They'll give her atwo-column cut sure. '

"This was the scheme the three of us concocted. It was business straightthrough. Vaucross was to rush Miss Blye with all the style and displayand emotion he could for a month. Of course, that amounted to nothing asfar as his ambitions were concerned. The sight of a man in a white tieand patent leather pumps pouring greenbacks through the large end ofa cornucopia to purchase nutriment and heartsease for tall, willowyblondes in New York is as common a sight as blue turtles in deliriumtremens. But he was to write her love letters--the worst kind of loveletters, such as your wife publishes after you are dead--every day. Atthe end of the month he was to drop her, and she would bring suit for$100, 000 for breach of promise. 

"Miss Artemisia was to get $10, 000. If she won the suit that was all;and if she lost she was to get it anyhow. There was a signed contract tothat effect. 

"Sometimes they had me out with 'em, but not often. I couldn't keep upto their style. She used to pull out his notes and criticize them likebills of lading. 

"'Say, you!' she'd say. 'What do you call this--letter to a HardwareMerchant from His Nephew on Learning that His Aunt Has Nettlerash? YouEastern duffers know as much about writing love letters as a Kansasgrasshopper does about tugboats. "My dear Miss Blye!"--wouldn't that putpink icing and a little red sugar bird on your bridal cake? How long doyou expect to hold an audience in a court-room with that kind of stuff?You want to get down to business, and call me "Tweedlums Babe" and"Honeysuckle, " and sign yourself "Mama's Own Big Bad Puggy Wuggy Boy" ifyou want any limelight to concentrate upon your sparse gray hairs. Getsappy. '

"After that Vaucross dipped his pen in the indelible tabasco. Hisnotes read like something or other in the original. I could see a jurysitting up, and women tearing one another's hats to hear 'em read. And Icould see piling up for Mr. Vaucross as much notoriousness as ArchbishopCranmer or the Brooklyn Bridge or cheese-on-salad ever enjoyed. Heseemed mighty pleased at the prospects. 

"They agreed on a night; and I stood on Fifth Avenue outside a solemnrestaurant and watched 'em. A process-server walked in and handedVaucross the papers at his table. Everybody looked at 'em; and helooked as proud as Cicero. I went back to my room and lit a five-centcigar, for I knew the $10, 000 was as good as ours. 

"About two hours later somebody knocked at my door. There stood Vaucrossand Miss Artemisia, and she was clinging--yes, sir, clinging--to hisarm. And they tells me they'd been out and got married. And theyarticulated some trivial cadences about love and such. And they laiddown a bundle on the table and said 'Good night' and left. 

"And that's why I say, " concluded Ferguson Pogue, "that a woman is toobusy occupied with her natural vocation and instinct of graft such as isgiven her for self-preservation and amusement to make any great successin special lines. "

"What was in the bundle that they left?" I asked, with my usualcuriosity. 

"Why, " said Ferguson, "there was a scalper's railroad ticket as far asKansas City and two pairs of Mr. Vaucross's old pants. "

IX

THE CALL OF THE TAME

When the inauguration was accomplished--the proceedings were made smoothby the presence of the Rough Riders--it is well known that a herd ofthose competent and loyal ex-warriors paid a visit to the big city. Thenewspaper reporters dug out of their trunks the old broad-brimmed hatsand leather belts that they wear to North Beach fish fries, and mixedwith the visitors. No damage was done beyond the employment of thewonderful plural "tenderfeet" in each of the scribe's stories. TheWesterners mildly contemplated the skyscrapers as high as the thirdstory, yawned at Broadway, hunched down in the big chairs in hotelcorridors, and altogether looked as bored and dejected as a member of YeAncient and Honorable Artillery separated during a sham battle from hisvalet. 

Out of this sightseeing delegations of good King Teddy's Gentlemen ofthe Royal Bear-hounds dropped one Greenbrier Nye, of Pin Feather, Ariz. 

The daily cyclone of Sixth Avenue's rush hour swept him away from thecompany of his pardners true. The dust from a thousand rustling skirtsfilled his eyes. The mighty roar of trains rushing across the skydeafened him. The lightning-flash of twice ten hundred beaming eyesconfused his vision. 

The storm was so sudden and tremendous that Greenbrier's first impulsewas to lie down and grab a root. And then he remembered that thedisturbance was human, and not elemental; and he backed out of it witha grin into a doorway. 

The reporters had written that but for the wide-brimmed hats the Westwas not visible upon these gauchos of the North. Heaven sharpen theireyes! The suit of black diagonal, wrinkled in impossible places; thebright blue four-in-hand, factory tied; the low, turned-down collar, pattern of the days of Seymour and Blair, white glazed as the letterson the window of the open-day-and-night-except-Sunday restaurants; theout-curve at the knees from the saddle grip; the peculiar spread ofthe half-closed right thumb and fingers from the stiff hold upon thecircling lasso; the deeply absorbed weather tan that the hottestsun of Cape May can never equal; the seldom-winking blue eyes thatunconsciously divided the rushing crowds into fours, as though they werebeing counted out of a corral; the segregated loneliness and solemnityof expression, as of an Emperor or of one whose horizons have notintruded upon him nearer than a day's ride--these brands of the Westwere set upon Greenbrier Nye. Oh, yes; he wore a broad-brimmed hat, gentle reader--just like those the Madison Square Post Office mailcarriers wear when they go up to Bronx Park on Sunday afternoons. 

Suddenly Greenbrier Nye jumped into the drifting herd of metropolitancattle, seized upon a man, dragged him out of the stream and gave hima buffet upon his collar-bone that sent him reeling against a wall. 

The victim recovered his hat, with the angry look of a New Yorker whohas suffered an outrage and intends to write to the Trib. About it. Buthe looked at his assailant, and knew that the blow was in considerationof love and affection after the manner of the West, which greets itsfriends with contumely and uproar and pounding fists, and receives itsenemies in decorum and order, such as the judicious placing of thewelcoming bullet demands. 

"God in the mountains!" cried Greenbrier, holding fast to the foreleg ofhis cull. "Can this be Longhorn Merritt?"

The other man was--oh, look on Broadway any day for thepattern--business man--latest rolled-brim derby--good barber, business, digestion and tailor. 

"Greenbrier Nye!" he exclaimed, grasping the hand that had smitten him. "My dear fellow! So glad to see you! How did you come to--oh, to besure--the inaugural ceremonies--I remember you joined the Rough Riders. You must come and have luncheon with me, of course. "

Greenbrier pinned him sadly but firmly to the wall with a hand the size, shape and color of a McClellan saddle. 

"Longy, " he said, in a melancholy voice that disturbed traffic, "whathave they been doing to you? You act just like a citizen. They done madeyou into an inmate of the city directory. You never made no such JohnnyBranch execration of yourself as that out on the Gila. 'Come and havelunching with me!' You never defined grub by any such terms of reproachin them days. "

"I've been living in New York seven years, " said Merritt. "It's beeneight since we punched cows together in Old Man Garcia's outfit. Well, let's go to a café, anyhow. It sounds good to hear it called 'grub'again. "

They picked their way through the crowd to a hotel, and drifted, as bya natural law, to the bar. 

"Speak up, " invited Greenbrier. 

"A dry Martini, " said Merritt. 

"Oh, Lord!" cried Greenbrier; "and yet me and you once saw the same pinkGila monsters crawling up the walls of the same hotel in Cañon Diablo! Adry--but let that pass. Whiskey straight--and they're on you. "

Merritt smiled, and paid. 

They lunched in a small extension of the dining room that connected withthe café. Merritt dexterously diverted his friend's choice, that hoveredover ham and eggs, to a purée of celery, a salmon cutlet, a partridgepie and a desirable salad. 

"On the day, " said Greenbrier, grieved and thunderous, "when I can'thold but one drink before eating when I meet a friend I ain't seen ineight years at a 2 by 4 table in a thirty-cent town at 1 o'clock on thethird day of the week, I want nine broncos to kick me forty times over a640-acre section of land. Get them statistics?"

"Right, old man, " laughed Merritt. "Waiter, bring an absinthe frappéand--what's yours, Greenbrier?"

"Whiskey straight, " mourned Nye. "Out of the neck of a bottle you usedto take it, Longy--straight out of the neck of a bottle on a gallopingpony--Arizona redeye, not this ab--oh, what's the use? They're on you. "

Merritt slipped the wine card under his glass. 

"All right. I suppose you think I'm spoiled by the city. I'm as good aWesterner as you are, Greenbrier; but, somehow, I can't make up my mindto go back out there. New York is comfortable--comfortable. I make agood living, and I live it. No more wet blankets and riding herd insnowstorms, and bacon and cold coffee, and blowouts once in six monthsfor me. I reckon I'll hang out here in the future. We'll take in thetheatre to-night, Greenbrier, and after that we'll dine at--"

"I'll tell you what you are, Merritt, " said Greenbrier, laying one elbowin his salad and the other in his butter. "You are a concentrated, effete, unconditional, short-sleeved, gotch-eared Miss Sally Walker. Godmade you perpendicular and suitable to ride straddle and use cuss wordsin the original. Wherefore you have suffered his handiwork to elapseby removing yourself to New York and putting on little shoes tied withstrings, and making faces when you talk. I've seen you rope and tie asteer in 42 1/2. If you was to see one now you'd write to the PoliceCommissioner about it. And these flapdoodle drinks that you inoculateyour system with--these little essences of cowslip with acorns in 'em, and paregoric flip--they ain't anyways in assent with the cordiality ofmanhood. I hate to see you this way. "

"Well, Mr. Greenbrier, " said Merritt, with apology in his tone, "in away you are right. Sometimes I do feel like I was being raised on thebottle. But, I tell you, New York is comfortable--comfortable. There'ssomething about it--the sights and the crowds, and the way it changesevery day, and the very air of it that seems to tie a one-mile-longstake rope around a man's neck, with the other end fastened somewhereabout Thirty-fourth Street. I don't know what it is. "

"God knows, " said Greenbrier sadly, "and I know. The East has gobbledyou up. You was venison, and now you're veal. You put me in mind of ajaponica in a window. You've been signed, sealed and diskivered. Requiescat in hoc signo. You make me thirsty. "

"A green chartreuse here, " said Merritt to the waiter. 

"Whiskey straight, " sighed Greenbrier, "and they're on you, you renegadeof the round-ups. "

"Guilty, with an application for mercy, " said Merritt. "You don't knowhow it is, Greenbrier. It's so comfortable here that--"

"Please loan me your smelling salts, " pleaded Greenbrier. "If I hadn'tseen you once bluff three bluffers from Mazatzal City with an empty gunin Phoenix--"

Greenbrier's voice died away in pure grief. 

"Cigars!" he called harshly to the waiter, to hide his emotion. 

"A pack of Turkish cigarettes for mine, " said Merritt. 

"They're on you, " chanted Greenbrier, struggling to conceal hiscontempt. 

At seven they dined in the Where-to-Dine-Well column. 

That evening a galaxy had assembled there. Bright shone the lights o'erfair women and br--let it go, anyhow--brave men. The orchestra playedcharmingly. Hardly had a tip from a diner been placed in its hands by awaiter when it would burst forth into soniferousness. The more beer youcontributed to it the more Meyerbeer it gave you. Which is reciprocity. 

Merritt put forth exertions on the dinner. Greenbrier was his oldfriend, and he liked him. He persuaded him to drink a cocktail. 

"I take the horehound tea, " said Greenbrier, "for old times' sake. ButI'd prefer whiskey straight. They're on you. "

"Right!" said Merritt. "Now, run your eye down that bill of fare and seeif it seems to hitch on any of these items. "

"Lay me on my lava bed!" said Greenbrier, with bulging eyes. "All thesespecimens of nutriment in the grub wagon! What's this? Horse with theheaves? I pass. But look along! Here's truck for twenty round-ups allspelled out in different directions. Wait till I see. "

The viands ordered, Merritt turned to the wine list. 

"This Medoc isn't bad, " he suggested. 

"You're the doc, " said Greenbrier. "I'd rather have whiskey straight. It's on you. "

Greenbrier looked around the room. The waiter brought things and tookdishes away. He was observing. He saw a New York restaurant crowdenjoying itself. 

"How was the range when you left the Gila?" asked Merritt. 

"Fine, " said Greenbrier. "You see that lady in the red speckled silk atthat table. Well, she could warm over her beans at my campfire. Yes, therange was good. She looks as nice as a white mustang I see once on BlackRiver. "

When the coffee came, Greenbrier put one foot on the seat of the chairnext to him. 

"You said it was a comfortable town, Longy, " he said, meditatively. "Yes, it's a comfortable town. It's different from the plains in a bluenorther. What did you call that mess in the crock with the handle, Longy? Oh, yes, squabs in a cash roll. They're worth the roll. Thatwhite mustang had just such a way of turning his head and shaking hismane--look at her, Longy. If I thought I could sell out my ranch at afair price, I believe I'd--

"Gyar--song!" he suddenly cried, in a voice that paralyzed every knifeand fork in the restaurant. 

The waiter dived toward the table. 

"Two more of them cocktail drinks, " ordered Greenbrier. 

Merritt looked at him and smiled significantly. 

"They're on me, " said Greenbrier, blowing a puff of smoke to theceiling. 

X

THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY

The poet Longfellow--or was it Confucius, the inventor ofwisdom?--remarked:

 "Life is real, life is earnest; And things are not what they seem. "

As mathematics are--or is: thanks, old subscriber!--the only just ruleby which questions of life can be measured, let us, by all means, adjust our theme to the straight edge and the balanced column of thegreat goddess Two-and-Two-Makes-Four. Figures--unassailable sums inaddition--shall be set over against whatever opposing element theremay be. 

A mathematician, after scanning the above two lines of poetry, wouldsay: "Ahem! young gentlemen, if we assume that X plus--that is, thatlife is real--then things (all of which life includes) are real. Anything that is real is what it seems. Then if we consider theproposition that 'things are not what they seem, ' why--"

But this is heresy, and not poesy. We woo the sweet nymph Algebra; wewould conduct you into the presence of the elusive, seductive, pursued, satisfying, mysterious X. 

Not long before the beginning of this century, Septimus Kinsolving, anold New Yorker, invented an idea. He originated the discovery that breadis made from flour and not from wheat futures. Perceiving that the flourcrop was short, and that the Stock Exchange was having no perceptibleeffect on the growing wheat, Mr. Kinsolving cornered the flour market. 

The result was that when you or my landlady (before the war she neverhad to turn her hand to anything; Southerners accommodated) bought afive-cent loaf of bread you laid down an additional two cents, whichwent to Mr. Kinsolving as a testimonial to his perspicacity. 

A second result was that Mr. Kinsolving quit the game with $2, 000, 000prof--er--rake-off. 

Mr. Kinsolving's son Dan was at college when the mathematical experimentin breadstuffs was made. Dan came home during vacation, and found theold gentleman in a red dressing-gown reading "Little Dorrit" on theporch of his estimable red brick mansion in Washington Square. He hadretired from business with enough extra two-cent pieces from breadbuyers to reach, if laid side by side, fifteen times around the earthand lap as far as the public debt of Paraguay. 

Dan shook hands with his father, and hurried over to Greenwich Villageto see his old high-school friend, Kenwitz. Dan had always admiredKenwitz. Kenwitz was pale, curly-haired, intense, serious, mathematical, studious, altruistic, socialistic, and the natural foe of oligarchies. Kenwitz had foregone college, and was learning watch-making in hisfather's jewelry store. Dan was smiling, jovial, easy-tempered andtolerant alike of kings and ragpickers. The two foregathered joyously, being opposites. And then Dan went back to college, and Kenwitz to hismainsprings--and to his private library in the rear of the jewelry shop. 

Four years later Dan came back to Washington Square with theaccumulations of B. A. And two years of Europe thick upon him. He took afilial look at Septimus Kinsolving's elaborate tombstone in Greenwoodand a tedious excursion through typewritten documents with the familylawyer; and then, feeling himself a lonely and hopeless millionaire, hurried down to the old jewelry store across Sixth Avenue. 

Kenwitz unscrewed a magnifying glass from his eye, routed out his parentfrom a dingy rear room, and abandoned the interior of watches foroutdoors. He went with Dan, and they sat on a bench in WashingtonSquare. Dan had not changed much; he was stalwart, and had a dignitythat was inclined to relax into a grin. Kenwitz was more serious, moreintense, more learned, philosophical and socialistic. 

"I know about it now, " said Dan, finally. "I pumped it out of theeminent legal lights that turned over to me poor old dad's collectionsof bonds and boodle. It amounts to $2, 000, 000, Ken. And I am told thathe squeezed it out of the chaps that pay their pennies for loaves ofbread at little bakeries around the corner. You've studied economics, Dan, and you know all about monopolies, and the masses, and octopuses, and the rights of laboring people. I never thought about those thingsbefore. Football and trying to be white to my fellow-man were about theextent of my college curriculum. 

"But since I came back and found out how dad made his money I've beenthinking. I'd like awfully well to pay back those chaps who had to giveup too much money for bread. I know it would buck the line of my incomefor a good many yards; but I'd like to make it square with 'em. Is thereany way it can be done, old Ways and Means?"

Kenwitz's big black eyes glowed fierily. His thin, intellectual facetook on almost a sardonic cast. He caught Dan's arm with the grip of afriend and a judge. 

"You can't do it!" he said, emphatically. "One of the chief punishmentsof you men of ill-gotten wealth is that when you do repent you find thatyou have lost the power to make reparation or restitution. I admireyour good intentions, Dan, but you can't do anything. Those people wererobbed of their precious pennies. It's too late to remedy the evil. Youcan't pay them back"

"Of course, " said Dan, lighting his pipe, "we couldn't hunt up every oneof the duffers and hand 'em back the right change. There's an awful lotof 'em buying bread all the time. Funny taste they have--I never caredfor bread especially, except for a toasted cracker with the Roquefort. But we might find a few of 'em and chuck some of dad's cash back whereit came from. I'd feel better if I could. It seems tough for people to beheld up for a soggy thing like bread. One wouldn't mind standing a risein broiled lobsters or deviled crabs. Get to work and think, Ken. I wantto pay back all of that money I can. "

"There are plenty of charities, " said Kenwitz, mechanically. 

"Easy enough, " said Dan, in a cloud of smoke. "I suppose I could givethe city a park, or endow an asparagus bed in a hospital. But I don'twant Paul to get away with the proceeds of the gold brick we sold Peter. It's the bread shorts I want to cover, Ken. "

The thin fingers of Kenwitz moved rapidly. 

"Do you know how much money it would take to pay back the losses ofconsumers during that corner in flour?" he asked. 

"I do not. " said Dan, stoutly. "My lawyer tells me that I have twomillions. "

"If you had a hundred millions, " said Kenwitz, vehemently, "you couldn'trepair a thousandth part of the damage that has been done. You cannotconceive of the accumulated evils produced by misapplied wealth. Each penny that was wrung from the lean purses of the poor reacted athousandfold to their harm. You do not understand. You do not see howhopeless is your desire to make restitution. Not in a single instancecan it be done. "

"Back up, philosopher!" said Dan. "The penny has no sorrow that thedollar cannot heal. "

"Not in one instance, " repeated Kenwitz. "I will give you one, and letus see. Thomas Boyne had a little bakery over there in Varick Street. He sold bread to the poorest people. When the price of flour went up hehad to raise the price of bread. His customers were too poor to pay it, Boyne's business failed and he lost his $1, 000 capital--all he had inthe world. "

Dan Kinsolving struck the park bench a mighty blow with his fist. 

"I accept the instance, " he cried. "Take me to Boyne. I will repay histhousand dollars and buy him a new bakery. "

"Write your check, " said Kenwitz, without moving, "and then begin towrite checks in payment of the train of consequences. Draw the next onefor $50, 000. Boyne went insane after his failure and set fire to thebuilding from which he was about to be evicted. The loss amounted tothat much. Boyne died in an asylum. "

"Stick to the instance, " said Dan. "I haven't noticed any insurancecompanies on my charity list. "

"Draw your next check for $100, 000, " went on Kenwitz. "Boyne's son fellinto bad ways after the bakery closed, and was accused of murder. He wasacquitted last week after a three years' legal battle, and the statedraws upon taxpayers for that much expense. "

"Back to the bakery!" exclaimed Dan, impatiently. "The Governmentdoesn't need to stand in the bread line. "

"The last item of the instance is--come and I will show you, " saidKenwitz, rising. 

The Socialistic watchmaker was happy. He was a millionaire-baiter bynature and a pessimist by trade. Kenwitz would assure you in one breaththat money was but evil and corruption, and that your brand-new watchneeded cleaning and a new ratchet-wheel. 

He conducted Kinsolving southward out of the square and into ragged, poverty-haunted Varick Street. Up the narrow stairway of a squalid bricktenement he led the penitent offspring of the Octopus. He knocked on adoor, and a clear voice called to them to enter. 

In that almost bare room a young woman sat sewing at a machine. Shenodded to Kenwitz as to a familiar acquaintance. One little stream ofsunlight through the dingy window burnished her heavy hair to the colorof an ancient Tuscan's shield. She flashed a rippling smile at Kenwitzand a look of somewhat flustered inquiry. 

Kinsolving stood regarding her clear and pathetic beauty inheart-throbbing silence. Thus they came into the presence of the lastitem of the Instance. 

"How many this week, Miss Mary?" asked the watchmaker. A mountain ofcoarse gray shirts lay upon the floor. 

"Nearly thirty dozen, " said the young woman cheerfully. "I've madealmost $4. I'm improving, Mr. Kenwitz. I hardly know what to do with somuch money. " Her eyes turned, brightly soft, in the direction of Dan. Alittle pink spot came out on her round, pale cheek. 

Kenwitz chuckled like a diabolic raven. 

"Miss Boyne, " he said, "let me present Mr. Kinsolving, the son of theman who put bread up five years ago. He thinks he would like to dosomething to aid those who where inconvenienced by that act. "

The smile left the young woman's face. She rose and pointed herforefinger toward the door. This time she looked Kinsolving straight inthe eye, but it was not a look that gave delight. 

The two men went down Varick Street. Kenwitz, letting all his pessimismand rancor and hatred of the Octopus come to the surface, gibed at themoneyed side of his friend in an acrid torrent of words. Dan appeared tobe listening, and then turned to Kenwitz and shook hands with himwarmly. 

"I'm obliged to you, Ken, old man, " he said, vaguely--"a thousand timesobliged. "

"Mein Gott! you are crazy!" cried the watchmaker, dropping hisspectacles for the first time in years. 

Two months afterward Kenwitz went into a large bakery on lower Broadwaywith a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses that he had mended for theproprietor. 

A lady was giving an order to a clerk as Kenwitz passed her. 

"These loaves are ten cents, " said the clerk. 

"I always get them at eight cents uptown, " said the lady. "You need notfill the order. I will drive by there on my way home. "

The voice was familiar. The watchmaker paused. 

"Mr. Kenwitz!" cried the lady, heartily. "How do you do?"

Kenwitz was trying to train his socialistic and economic comprehensionon her wonderful fur boa and the carriage waiting outside. 

"Why, Miss Boyne!" he began. 

"Mrs. Kinsolving, " she corrected. "Dan and I were married a month ago. "

XI

THE THING'S THE PLAY

Being acquainted with a newspaper reporter who had a couple of freepasses, I got to see the performance a few nights ago at one of thepopular vaudeville houses. 

One of the numbers was a violin solo by a striking-looking man not muchpast forty, but with very gray thick hair. Not being afflicted with ataste for music, I let the system of noises drift past my ears while Iregarded the man. 

"There was a story about that chap a month or two ago, " said thereporter. "They gave me the assignment. It was to run a column and wasto be on the extremely light and joking order. The old man seems to likethe funny touch I give to local happenings. Oh, yes, I'm working ona farce comedy now. Well, I went down to the house and got all thedetails; but I certainly fell down on that job. I went back and turnedin a comic write-up of an east side funeral instead. Why? Oh, I couldn'tseem to get hold of it with my funny hooks, somehow. Maybe you couldmake a one-act tragedy out of it for a curtain-raiser. I'll give you thedetails. "

After the performance my friend, the reporter, recited to me the factsover the Würzburger. 

"I see no reason, " said I, when he had concluded, "why that shouldn'tmake a rattling good funny story. Those three people couldn't have actedin a more absurd and preposterous manner if they had been real actors ina real theatre. I'm really afraid that all the stage is a world, anyhow, and all the players men and women. 'The thing's the play, ' is the way Iquote Mr. Shakespeare. "

"Try it, " said the reporter. 

"I will, " said I; and I did, to show him how he could have made ahumorous column of it for his paper. 

There stands a house near Abingdon Square. On the ground floor there hasbeen for twenty-five years a little store where toys and notions andstationery are sold. 

One night twenty years ago there was a wedding in the rooms above thestore. The Widow Mayo owned the house and store. Her daughter Helen wasmarried to Frank Barry. John Delaney was best man. Helen was eighteen, and her picture had been printed in a morning paper next to theheadlines of a "Wholesale Female Murderess" story from Butte, Mont. Butafter your eye and intelligence had rejected the connection, you seizedyour magnifying glass and read beneath the portrait her description asone of a series of Prominent Beauties and Belles of the lower west side. 

Frank Barry and John Delaney were "prominent" young beaux of the sameside, and bosom friends, whom you expected to turn upon each other everytime the curtain went up. One who pays his money for orchestra seats andfiction expects this. That is the first funny idea that has turned up inthe story yet. Both had made a great race for Helen's hand. When Frankwon, John shook his hand and congratulated him--honestly, he did. 

After the ceremony Helen ran upstairs to put on her hat. She wasgetting married in a traveling dress. She and Frank were going to OldPoint Comfort for a week. Downstairs the usual horde of gibberingcave-dwellers were waiting with their hands full of old Congress gaitersand paper bags of hominy. 

Then there was a rattle of the fire-escape, and into her room jumps themad and infatuated John Delaney, with a damp curl drooping upon hisforehead, and made violent and reprehensible love to his lost one, entreating her to flee or fly with him to the Riviera, or the Bronx, orany old place where there are Italian skies and _dolce far niente_. 

It would have carried Blaney off his feet to see Helen repulse him. Withblazing and scornful eyes she fairly withered him by demanding whateverhe meant by speaking to respectable people that way. 

In a few moments she had him going. The manliness that had possessed himdeparted. He bowed low, and said something about "irresistible impulse"and "forever carry in his heart the memory of"--and she suggested thathe catch the first fire-escape going down. 

"I will away, " said John Delaney, "to the furthermost parts of theearth. I cannot remain near you and know that you are another's. I willto Africa, and there amid other scenes strive to for--"

"For goodness sake, get out, " said Helen. "Somebody might come in. "

He knelt upon one knee, and she extended him one white hand that hemight give it a farewell kiss. 

Girls, was this choice boon of the great little god Cupid evervouchsafed you--to have the fellow you want hard and fast, and have theone you don't want come with a damp curl on his forehead and kneel toyou and babble of Africa and love which, in spite of everything, shallforever bloom, an amaranth, in his heart? To know your power, and tofeel the sweet security of your own happy state; to send the unluckyone, broken-hearted, to foreign climes, while you congratulate yourselfas he presses his last kiss upon your knuckles, that your nails are wellmanicured--say, girls, it's galluptious--don't ever let it get by you. 

And then, of course--how did you guess it?--the door opened and instalked the bridegroom, jealous of slow-tying bonnet strings. 

The farewell kiss was imprinted upon Helen's hand, and out of the windowand down the fire-escape sprang John Delaney, Africa bound. 

A little slow music, if you please--faint violin, just a breath in theclarinet and a touch of the 'cello. Imagine the scene. Frank, white-hot, with the cry of a man wounded to death bursting from him. Helen, rushingand clinging to him, trying to explain. He catches her wrists and tearsthem from his shoulders--once, twice, thrice he sways her this way andthat--the stage manager will show you how--and throws her from him tothe floor a huddled, crushed, moaning thing. Never, he cries, will helook upon her face again, and rushes from the house through the staringgroups of astonished guests. 

And, now because it is the Thing instead of the Play, the audience muststroll out into the real lobby of the world and marry, die, grow gray, rich, poor, happy or sad during the intermission of twenty years whichmust precede the rising of the curtain again. 

Mrs. Barry inherited the shop and the house. At thirty-eight she couldhave bested many an eighteen-year-old at a beauty show on points andgeneral results. Only a few people remembered her wedding comedy, butshe made of it no secret. She did not pack it in lavender or moth balls, nor did she sell it to a magazine. 

One day a middle-aged money-making lawyer, who bought his legal cap andink of her, asked her across the counter to marry him. 

"I'm really much obliged to you, " said Helen, cheerfully, "but I marriedanother man twenty years ago. He was more a goose than a man, but Ithink I love him yet. I have never seen him since about half an hourafter the ceremony. Was it copying ink that you wanted or just writingfluid?"

The lawyer bowed over the counter with old-time grace and left arespectful kiss on the back of her hand. Helen sighed. Parting salutes, however romantic, may be overdone. Here she was at thirty-eight, beautiful and admired; and all that she seemed to have got from herlovers were approaches and adieus. Worse still, in the last one she hadlost a customer, too. 

Business languished, and she hung out a Room to Let card. Two largerooms on the third floor were prepared for desirable tenants. Roomerscame, and went regretfully, for the house of Mrs. Barry was the abodeof neatness, comfort and taste. 

One day came Ramonti, the violinist, and engaged the front room above. The discord and clatter uptown offended his nice ear; so a friend hadsent him to this oasis in the desert of noise. 

Ramonti, with his still youthful face, his dark eyebrows, his short, pointed, foreign, brown beard, his distinguished head of gray hair, andhis artist's temperament--revealed in his light, gay and sympatheticmanner--was a welcome tenant in the old house near Abingdon Square. 

Helen lived on the floor above the store. The architecture of it wassingular and quaint. The hall was large and almost square. Up one sideof it, and then across the end of it ascended an open stairway to thefloor above. This hall space she had furnished as a sitting room andoffice combined. There she kept her desk and wrote her business letters;and there she sat of evenings by a warm fire and a bright red light andsewed or read. Ramonti found the atmosphere so agreeable that he spentmuch time there, describing to Mrs. Barry the wonders of Paris, where hehad studied with a particularly notorious and noisy fiddler. 

Next comes lodger No. 2, a handsome, melancholy man in the early 40's, with a brown, mysterious beard, and strangely pleading, haunting eyes. He, too, found the society of Helen a desirable thing. With the eyes ofRomeo and Othello's tongue, he charmed her with tales of distant climesand wooed her by respectful innuendo. 

From the first Helen felt a marvelous and compelling thrill in thepresence of this man. His voice somehow took her swiftly back to thedays of her youth's romance. This feeling grew, and she gave way toit, and it led her to an instinctive belief that he had been a factorin that romance. And then with a woman's reasoning (oh, yes, they do, sometimes) she leaped over common syllogisms and theory, and logic, andwas sure that her husband had come back to her. For she saw in his eyeslove, which no woman can mistake, and a thousand tons of regret andremorse, which aroused pity, which is perilously near to love requited, which is the _sine qua non_ in the house that Jack built. 

But she made no sign. A husband who steps around the corner for twentyyears and then drops in again should not expect to find his slipperslaid out too conveniently near nor a match ready lighted for his cigar. There must be expiation, explanation, and possibly execration. A littlepurgatory, and then, maybe, if he were properly humble, he might betrusted with a harp and crown. And so she made no sign that she knew orsuspected. 

And my friend, the reporter, could see nothing funny in this! Sent outon an assignment to write up a roaring, hilarious, brilliant joshingstory of--but I will not knock a brother--let us go on with the story. 

One evening Ramonti stopped in Helen's hall-office-reception-room andtold his love with the tenderness and ardor of the enraptured artist. His words were a bright flame of the divine fire that glows in the heartof a man who is a dreamer and doer combined. 

"But before you give me an answer, " he went on, before she could accusehim of suddenness, "I must tell you that 'Ramonti' is the only name Ihave to offer you. My manager gave me that. I do not know who I am orwhere I came from. My first recollection is of opening my eyes in ahospital. I was a young man, and I had been there for weeks. My lifebefore that is a blank to me. They told me that I was found lying in thestreet with a wound on my head and was brought there in an ambulance. They thought I must have fallen and struck my head upon the stones. There was nothing to show who I was. I have never been able to remember. After I was discharged from the hospital, I took up the violin. I havehad success. Mrs. Barry--I do not know your name except that--I loveyou; the first time I saw you I realized that you were the one woman inthe world for me--and"--oh, a lot of stuff like that. 

Helen felt young again. First a wave of pride and a sweet little thrillof vanity went all over her; and then she looked Ramonti in the eyes, and a tremendous throb went through her heart. She hadn't expected thatthrob. It took her by surprise. The musician had become a big factor inher life, and she hadn't been aware of it. 

"Mr. Ramonti, " she said sorrowfully (this was not on the stage, remember; it was in the old home near Abingdon Square), "I'm awfullysorry, but I'm a married woman. "

And then she told him the sad story of her life, as a heroine must do, sooner or later, either to a theatrical manager or to a reporter. 

Ramonti took her hand, bowed low and kissed it, and went up to his room. 

Helen sat down and looked mournfully at her hand. Well she might. Threesuitors had kissed it, mounted their red roan steeds and ridden away. 

In an hour entered the mysterious stranger with the haunting eyes. Helenwas in the willow rocker, knitting a useless thing in cotton-wool. Hericocheted from the stairs and stopped for a chat. Sitting across thetable from her, he also poured out his narrative of love. And then hesaid: "Helen, do you not remember me? I think I have seen it in youreyes. Can you forgive the past and remember the love that has lastedfor twenty years? I wronged you deeply--I was afraid to come back toyou--but my love overpowered my reason. Can you, will you, forgive me?"

Helen stood up. The mysterious stranger held one of her hands in astrong and trembling clasp. 

There she stood, and I pity the stage that it has not acquired a scenelike that and her emotions to portray. 

For she stood with a divided heart. The fresh, unforgettable, virginallove for her bridegroom was hers; the treasured, sacred, honored memoryof her first choice filled half her soul. She leaned to that purefeeling. Honor and faith and sweet, abiding romance bound her to it. Butthe other half of her heart and soul was filled with something else--alater, fuller, nearer influence. And so the old fought against the new. 

And while she hesitated, from the room above came the soft, racking, petitionary music of a violin. The hag, music, bewitches some of thenoblest. The daws may peck upon one's sleeve without injury, but whoeverwears his heart upon his tympanum gets it not far from the neck. 

This music and the musician caller her, and at her side honor and theold love held her back. 

"Forgive me, " he pleaded. 

"Twenty years is a long time to remain away from the one you say youlove, " she declared, with a purgatorial touch. 

"How could I tell?" he begged. "I will conceal nothing from you. Thatnight when he left I followed him. I was mad with jealousy. On a darkstreet I struck him down. He did not rise. I examined him. His head hadstruck a stone. I did not intend to kill him. I was mad with love andjealousy. I hid near by and saw an ambulance take him away. Although youmarried him, Helen--"

"_Who Are You?_" cried the woman, with wide-open eyes, snatching herhand away. 

"Don't you remember me, Helen--the one who has always loved you best? Iam John Delaney. If you can forgive--"

But she was gone, leaping, stumbling, hurrying, flying up the stairstoward the music and him who had forgotten, but who had known her forhis in each of his two existences, and as she climbed up she sobbed, cried and sang: "Frank! Frank! Frank!"

Three mortals thus juggling with years as though they were billiardballs, and my friend, the reporter, couldn't see anything funny in it!

XII

A RAMBLE IN APHASIA

My wife and I parted on that morning in precisely our usual manner. Sheleft her second cup of tea to follow me to the front door. There sheplucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act ofwoman to proclaim ownership) and bade me to take care of my cold. I hadno cold. Next came her kiss of parting--the level kiss of domesticityflavored with Young Hyson. There was no fear of the extemporaneous, of variety spicing her infinite custom. With the deft touch of longmalpractice, she dabbed awry my well-set scarf pin; and then, as Iclosed the door, I heard her morning slippers pattering back to hercooling tea. 

When I set out I had no thought or premonition of what was to occur. The attack came suddenly. 

For many weeks I had been toiling, almost night and day, at a famousrailroad law case that I won triumphantly but a few days previously. Infact, I had been digging away at the law almost without cessation formany years. Once or twice good Doctor Volney, my friend and physician, had warned me. 

"If you don't slacken up, Bellford, " he said, "you'll go suddenly topieces. Either your nerves or your brain will give way. Tell me, does a week pass in which you do not read in the papers of a case ofaphasia--of some man lost, wandering nameless, with his past and hisidentity blotted out--and all from that little brain clot made byoverwork or worry?"

"I always thought, " said I, "that the clot in those instances was reallyto be found on the brains of the newspaper reporters. "

Doctor Volney shook his head. 

"The disease exists, " he said. "You need a change or a rest. Court-room, office and home--there is the only route you travel. For recreationyou--read law books. Better take warning in time. "

"On Thursday nights, " I said, defensively, "my wife and I play cribbage. On Sundays she reads to me the weekly letter from her mother. That lawbooks are not a recreation remains yet to be established. "

That morning as I walked I was thinking of Doctor Volney's words. I wasfeeling as well as I usually did--possibly in better spirits than usual. 

I woke with stiff and cramped muscles from having slept long on theincommodious seat of a day coach. I leaned my head against the seat andtried to think. After a long time I said to myself: "I must have a nameof some sort. " I searched my pockets. Not a card; not a letter; not apaper or monogram could I find. But I found in my coat pocket nearly$3, 000 in bills of large denomination. "I must be some one, of course, "I repeated to myself, and began again to consider. 

The car was well crowded with men, among whom, I told myself, there musthave been some common interest, for they intermingled freely, and seemedin the best good humor and spirits. One of them--a stout, spectacledgentleman enveloped in a decided odor of cinnamon and aloes--took thevacant half of my seat with a friendly nod, and unfolded a newspaper. In the intervals between his periods of reading, we conversed, astravelers will, on current affairs. I found myself able to sustain theconversation on such subjects with credit, at least to my memory. By andby my companion said:

"You are one of us, of course. Fine lot of men the West sends in thistime. I'm glad they held the convention in New York; I've never beenEast before. My name's R. P. Bolder--Bolder & Son, of Hickory Grove, Missouri. "

Though unprepared, I rose to the emergency, as men will when put to it. Now must I hold a christening, and be at once babe, parson and parent. My senses came to the rescue of my slower brain. The insistent odor ofdrugs from my companion supplied one idea; a glance at his newspaper, where my eye met a conspicuous advertisement, assisted me further. 

"My name, " said I, glibly, "is Edward Pinkhammer. I am a druggist, andmy home is in Cornopolis, Kansas. "

"I knew you were a druggist, " said my fellow traveler, affably. "I sawthe callous spot on your right forefinger where the handle of the pestlerubs. Of course, you are a delegate to our National Convention. "

"Are all these men druggists?" I asked, wonderingly. 

"They are. This car came through from the West. And they're yourold-time druggists, too--none of your patent tablet-and-granulepharmashootists that use slot machines instead of a prescription desk. We percolate our own paregoric and roll our own pills, and we ain'tabove handling a few garden seeds in the spring, and carrying a sideline of confectionery and shoes. I tell you Hampinker, I've got an ideato spring on this convention--new ideas is what they want. Now, youknow the shelf bottles of tartar emetic and Rochelle salt Ant. Et Pot. Tart. And Sod. Et Pot. Tart. --one's poison, you know, and the other'sharmless. It's easy to mistake one label for the other. Where dodruggists mostly keep 'em? Why, as far apart as possible, on differentshelves. That's wrong. I say keep 'em side by side, so when you wantone you can always compare it with the other and avoid mistakes. Do youcatch the idea?"

"It seems to me a very good one, " I said. 

"All right! When I spring it on the convention you back it up. We'llmake some of these Eastern orange-phosphate-and-massage-cream professorsthat think they're the only lozenges in the market look like hypodermictablets. "

"If I can be of any aid, " I said, warming, "the two bottles of--er--"

"Tartrate of antimony and potash, and tartrate of soda and potash. "

"Shall henceforth sit side by side, " I concluded, firmly. 

"Now, there's another thing, " said Mr. Bolder. "For an excipient inmanipulating a pill mass which do you prefer--the magnesia carbonate orthe pulverised glycerrhiza radix?"

"The--er--magnesia, " I said. It was easier to say than the other word. 

Mr. Bolder glanced at me distrustfully through his spectacles. 

"Give me the glycerrhiza, " said he. "Magnesia cakes. "

"Here's another one of these fake aphasia cases, " he said, presently, handing me his newspaper, and laying his finger upon an article. "Idon't believe in 'em. I put nine out of ten of 'em down as frauds. A mangets sick of his business and his folks and wants to have a good time. He skips out somewhere, and when they find him he pretends to have losthis memory--don't know his own name, and won't even recognize thestrawberry mark on his wife's left shoulder. Aphasia! Tut! Why can'tthey stay at home and forget?"

I took the paper and read, after the pungent headlines, the following:

 "DENVER, June 12. --Elwyn C. Bellford, a prominent lawyer, is mysteriously missing from his home since three days ago, and all efforts to locate him have been in vain. Mr. Bellford is a well-known citizen of the highest standing, and has enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice. He is married and owns a fine home and the most extensive private library in the State. On the day of his disappearance, he drew quite a large sum of money from his bank. No one can be found who saw him after he left the bank. Mr. Bellford was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his happiness in his home and profession. If any clue at all exists to his strange disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the Q. Y. And Z. Railroad Company. It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind. Every effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man. "

"It seems to me you are not altogether uncynical, Mr. Bolder, " I said, after I had read the despatch. "This has the sound, to me, of a genuinecase. Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, choose suddenly to abandon everything? I know that these lapses ofmemory do occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a home. "

"Oh, gammon and jalap!" said Mr. Bolder. "It's larks they're after. There's too much education nowadays. Men know about aphasia, and theyuse it for an excuse. The women are wise, too. When it's all over theylook you in the eye, as scientific as you please, and say: 'Hehypnotized me. '"

Thus Mr. Bolder diverted, but did not aid, me with his comments andphilosophy. 

We arrived in New York about ten at night. I rode in a cab to a hotel, and I wrote my name "Edward Pinkhammer" in the register. As I did soI felt pervade me a splendid, wild, intoxicating buoyancy--a sense ofunlimited freedom, of newly attained possibilities. I was just born intothe world. The old fetters--whatever they had been--were stricken frommy hands and feet. The future lay before me a clear road such as aninfant enters, and I could set out upon it equipped with a man'slearning and experience. 

I thought the hotel clerk looked at me five seconds too long. I had nobaggage. 

"The Druggists' Convention, " I said. "My trunk has somehow failed toarrive. " I drew out a roll of money. 

"Ah!" said he, showing an auriferous tooth, "we have quite a number ofthe Western delegates stopping here. " He struck a bell for the boy. 

I endeavored to give color to my rôle. 

"There is an important movement on foot among us Westerners, " I said, "in regard to a recommendation to the convention that the bottlescontaining the tartrate of antimony and potash, and the tartrate ofsodium and potash be kept in a contiguous position on the shelf. "

"Gentleman to three-fourteen, " said the clerk, hastily. I was whiskedaway to my room. 

The next day I bought a trunk and clothing, and began to live the lifeof Edward Pinkhammer. I did not tax my brain with endeavors to solveproblems of the past. 

It was a piquant and sparkling cup that the great island city held up tomy lips. I drank of it gratefully. The keys of Manhattan belong to himwho is able to bear them. You must be either the city's guest or itsvictim. 

The following few days were as gold and silver. Edward Pinkhammer, yetcounting back to his birth by hours only, knew the rare joy of havingcome upon so diverting a world full-fledged and unrestrained. I satentranced on the magic carpets provided in theatres and roof-gardens, that transported one into strange and delightful lands full offrolicsome music, pretty girls and grotesque drolly extravagant parodiesupon human kind. I went here and there at my own dear will, bound byno limits of space, time or comportment. I dined in weird cabarets, atweirder _tables d'hôte_ to the sound of Hungarian music and the wildshouts of mercurial artists and sculptors. Or, again, where the nightlife quivers in the electric glare like a kinetoscopic picture, and themillinery of the world, and its jewels, and the ones whom they adorn, and the men who make all three possible are met for good cheer and thespectacular effect. And among all these scenes that I have mentioned Ilearned one thing that I never knew before. And that is that the key toliberty is not in the hands of License, but Convention holds it. Comityhas a toll-gate at which you must pay, or you may not enter the landof Freedom. In all the glitter, the seeming disorder, the parade, theabandon, I saw this law, unobtrusive, yet like iron, prevail. Therefore, in Manhattan you must obey these unwritten laws, and then you will befreest of the free. If you decline to be bound by them, you put onshackles. 

Sometimes, as my mood urged me, I would seek the stately, softlymurmuring palm rooms, redolent with high-born life and delicaterestraint, in which to dine. Again I would go down to the waterways insteamers packed with vociferous, bedecked, unchecked love-making clerksand shop-girls to their crude pleasures on the island shores. And therewas always Broadway--glistening, opulent, wily, varying, desirableBroadway--growing upon one like an opium habit. 

One afternoon as I entered my hotel a stout man with a big nose and ablack mustache blocked my way in the corridor. When I would have passedaround him, he greet me with offensive familiarity. 

"Hello, Bellford!" he cried, loudly. "What the deuce are you doing inNew York? Didn't know anything could drag you away from that old bookden of yours. Is Mrs. B. Along or is this a little business run alone, eh?"

"You have made a mistake, sir, " I said, coldly, releasing my hand fromhis grasp. "My name is Pinkhammer. You will excuse me. "

The man dropped to one side, apparently astonished. As I walked to theclerk's desk I heard him call to a bell boy and say something abouttelegraph blanks. 

"You will give me my bill, " I said to the clerk, "and have my baggagebrought down in half an hour. I do not care to remain where I am annoyedby confidence men. "

I moved that afternoon to another hotel, a sedate, old-fashioned one onlower Fifth Avenue. 

There was a restaurant a little way off Broadway where one could beserved almost _al fresco_ in a tropic array of screening flora. Quietand luxury and a perfect service made it an ideal place in which to takeluncheon or refreshment. One afternoon I was there picking my way to atable among the ferns when I felt my sleeve caught. 

"Mr. Bellford!" exclaimed an amazingly sweet voice. 

I turned quickly to see a lady seated alone--a lady of about thirty, with exceedingly handsome eyes, who looked at me as though I had beenher very dear friend. 

"You were about to pass me, " she said, accusingly. "Don't tell me youdo not know me. Why should we not shake hands--at least once in fifteenyears?"

I shook hands with her at once. I took a chair opposite her at thetable. I summoned with my eyebrows a hovering waiter. The lady wasphilandering with an orange ice. I ordered a _crème de menthe_. Her hairwas reddish bronze. You could not look at it, because you could not lookaway from her eyes. But you were conscious of it as you are conscious ofsunset while you look into the profundities of a wood at twilight. 

"Are you sure you know me?" I asked. 

"No, " she said, smiling. "I was never sure of that. "

"What would you think, " I said, a little anxiously, "if I were to tellyou that my name is Edward Pinkhammer, from Cornopolis, Kansas?"

"What would I think?" she repeated, with a merry glance. "Why, that youhad not brought Mrs. Bellford to New York with you, of course. I do wishyou had. I would have liked to see Marian. " Her voice loweredslightly--"You haven't changed much, Elwyn. "

I felt her wonderful eyes searching mine and my face more closely. 

"Yes, you have, " she amended, and there was a soft, exultant note inher latest tones; "I see it now. You haven't forgotten. You haven'tforgotten for a year or a day or an hour. I told you you never could. "

I poked my straw anxiously in the _crème de menthe_. 

"I'm sure I beg your pardon, " I said, a little uneasy at her gaze. "Butthat is just the trouble. I have forgotten. I've forgotten everything. "

She flouted my denial. She laughed deliciously at something she seemedto see in my face. 

"I've heard of you at times, " she went on. "You're quite a big lawyerout West--Denver, isn't it, or Los Angeles? Marian must be very proud ofyou. You knew, I suppose, that I married six months after you did. Youmay have seen it in the papers. The flowers alone cost two thousanddollars. "

She had mentioned fifteen years. Fifteen years is a long time. 

"Would it be too late, " I asked, somewhat timorously, "to offer youcongratulations?"

"Not if you dare do it, " she answered, with such fine intrepidity thatI was silent, and began to crease patterns on the cloth with my thumbnail. 

"Tell me one thing, " she said, leaning toward me rather eagerly--"athing I have wanted to know for many years--just from a woman'scuriosity, of course--have you ever dared since that night to touch, smell or look at white roses--at white roses wet with rain and dew?"

I took a sip of _crème de menthe_. 

"It would be useless, I suppose, " I said, with a sigh, "for me to repeatthat I have no recollection at all about these things. My memory iscompletely at fault. I need not say how much I regret it. "

The lady rested her arms upon the table, and again her eyes disdainedmy words and went traveling by their own route direct to my soul. Shelaughed softly, with a strange quality in the sound--it was a laugh ofhappiness--yes, and of content--and of misery. I tried to look away fromher. 

"You lie, Elwyn Bellford, " she breathed, blissfully. "Oh, I know youlie!"

I gazed dully into the ferns. 

"My name is Edward Pinkhammer, " I said. "I came with the delegates tothe Druggists' National Convention. There is a movement on foot forarranging a new position for the bottles of tartrate of antimony andtartrate of potash, in which, very likely, you would take littleinterest. "

A shining landau stopped before the entrance. The lady rose. I took herhand, and bowed. 

"I am deeply sorry, " I said to her, "that I cannot remember. I couldexplain, but fear you would not understand. You will not concedePinkhammer; and I really cannot at all conceive of the--the roses andother things. "

"Good-by, Mr. Bellford, " she said, with her happy, sorrowful smile, asshe stepped into her carriage. 

I attended the theatre that night. When I returned to my hotel, a quietman in dark clothes, who seemed interested in rubbing his finger nailswith a silk handkerchief, appeared, magically, at my side. 

 "Mr. Pinkhammer, " he said, giving the bulk of his attention to hisforefinger, "may I request you to step aside with me for a littleconversation? There is a room here. "

"Certainly, " I answered. 

He conducted me into a small, private parlor. A lady and a gentlemanwere there. The lady, I surmised, would have been unusually good-lookinghad her features not been clouded by an expression of keen worry andfatigue. She was of a style of figure and possessed coloring andfeatures that were agreeable to my fancy. She was in a traveling dress;she fixed upon me an earnest look of extreme anxiety, and pressed anunsteady hand to her bosom. I think she would have started forward, butthe gentleman arrested her movement with an authoritative motion of hishand. He then came, himself, to meet me. He was a man of forty, a littlegray about the temples, and with a strong, thoughtful face. 

"Bellford, old man, " he said, cordially, "I'm glad to see you again. Ofcourse we know everything is all right. I warned you, you know, that youwere overdoing it. Now, you'll go back with us, and be yourself again inno time. "

I smiled ironically. 

"I have been 'Bellforded' so often, " I said, "that it has lost its edge. Still, in the end, it may grow wearisome. Would you be willing at all toentertain the hypothesis that my name is Edward Pinkhammer, and that Inever saw you before in my life?"

Before the man could reply a wailing cry came from the woman. She sprangpast his detaining arm. "Elwyn!" she sobbed, and cast herself upon me, and clung tight. "Elwyn, " she cried again, "don't break my heart. I amyour wife--call my name once--just once. I could see you dead ratherthan this way. "

I unwound her arms respectfully, but firmly. 

"Madam, " I said, severely, "pardon me if I suggest that you accept aresemblance too precipitately. It is a pity, " I went on, with an amusedlaugh, as the thought occurred to me, "that this Bellford and I couldnot be kept side by side upon the same shelf like tartrates of sodiumand antimony for purposes of identification. In order to understand theallusion, " I concluded airily, "it may be necessary for you to keep aneye on the proceedings of the Druggists' National Convention. "

The lady turned to her companion, and grasped his arm. 

"What is it, Doctor Volney? Oh, what is it?" she moaned. 

He led her to the door. 

"Go to your room for a while, " I heard him say. "I will remain and talkwith him. His mind? No, I think not--only a portion of the brain. Yes, I am sure he will recover. Go to your room and leave me with him. "

The lady disappeared. The man in dark clothes also went outside, stillmanicuring himself in a thoughtful way. I think he waited in the hall. 

"I would like to talk with you a while, Mr. Pinkhammer, if I may, " saidthe gentleman who remained. 

"Very well, if you care to, " I replied, "and will excuse me if I take itcomfortably; I am rather tired. " I stretched myself upon a couch by awindow and lit a cigar. He drew a chair nearby. 

"Let us speak to the point, " he said, soothingly. "Your name is notPinkhammer. "

"I know that as well as you do, " I said, coolly. "But a man must have aname of some sort. I can assure you that I do not extravagantly admirethe name of Pinkhammer. But when one christens one's self suddenly, thefine names do not seem to suggest themselves. But, suppose it had beenScheringhausen or Scroggins! I think I did very well with Pinkhammer. "

"Your name, " said the other man, seriously, "is Elwyn C. Bellford. Youare one of the first lawyers in Denver. You are suffering from an attackof aphasia, which has caused you to forget your identity. The cause ofit was over-application to your profession, and, perhaps, a life toobare of natural recreation and pleasures. The lady who has just left theroom is your wife. "

"She is what I would call a fine-looking woman, " I said, after ajudicial pause. "I particularly admire the shade of brown in her hair. "

"She is a wife to be proud of. Since your disappearance, nearly twoweeks ago, she has scarcely closed her eyes. We learned that you were inNew York through a telegram sent by Isidore Newman, a traveling man fromDenver. He said that he had met you in a hotel here, and that you didnot recognize him. "

"I think I remember the occasion, " I said. "The fellow called me'Bellford, ' if I am not mistaken. But don't you think it about time, now, for you to introduce yourself?"

"I am Robert Volney--Doctor Volney. I have been your close friend fortwenty years, and your physician for fifteen. I came with Mrs. Bellfordto trace you as soon as we got the telegram. Try, Elwyn, old man--try toremember!"

"What's the use to try?" I asked, with a little frown. "You say you area physician. Is aphasia curable? When a man loses his memory does itreturn slowly, or suddenly?"

"Sometimes gradually and imperfectly; sometimes as suddenly as it went. "

"Will you undertake the treatment of my case, Doctor Volney?" I asked. 

"Old friend, " said he, "I'll do everything in my power, and will havedone everything that science can do to cure you. "

"Very well, " said I. "Then you will consider that I am your patient. Everything is in confidence now--professional confidence. "

"Of course, " said Doctor Volney. 

I got up from the couch. Some one had set a vase of white roses on thecentre table--a cluster of white roses, freshly sprinkled and fragrant. I threw them far out of the window, and then I laid myself upon thecouch again. 

"It will be best, Bobby, " I said, "to have this cure happen suddenly. I'm rather tired of it all, anyway. You may go now and bring Marian in. But, oh, Doc, " I said, with a sigh, as I kicked him on the shin--"goodold Doc--it was glorious!"

XIII

A MUNICIPAL REPORT

 The cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each-- This from her mountainside, That from her burthened beach. R. KIPLING. 

 Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are "story cities"--New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco. --FRANK NORRIS. 

East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of aState. They are the Southerners of the West. Now, Chicagoans are no lessloyal to their city; but when you ask them why, they stammer and speakof lake fish and the new Odd Fellows Building. But Californians go intodetail. 

Of course they have, in the climate, an argument that is good for halfan hour while you are thinking of your coal bills and heavy underwear. But as soon as they come to mistake your silence for conviction, madnesscomes upon them, and they picture the city of the Golden Gate as theBagdad of the New World. So far, as a matter of opinion, no refutationis necessary. But, dear cousins all (from Adam and Eve descended), itis a rash one who will lay his finger on the map and say: "In this townthere can be no romance--what could happen here?" Yes, it is a bold anda rash deed to challenge in one sentence history, romance, and Rand andMcNally. 

 NASHVILLE--A city, port of delivery, and the capital of the State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River and on the N. C. & St. L. And the L. & N. Railroads. This city is regarded as the most important educational centre in the South. 

I stepped off the train at 8 P. M. Having searched the thesaurus in vainfor adjectives, I must, as a substitution, hie me to comparison in theform of a recipe. 

Take a London fog 30 parts; malaria 10 parts; gas leaks 20 parts;dewdrops gathered in a brick yard at sunrise, 25 parts; odor ofhoneysuckle 15 parts. Mix. 

The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashvilledrizzle. It is not so fragrant as a moth-ball nor as thick as pea-soup;but 'tis enough--'twill serve. 

I went to a hotel in a tumbril. It required strong self-suppression forme to keep from climbing to the top of it and giving an imitation ofSidney Carton. The vehicle was drawn by beasts of a bygone era anddriven by something dark and emancipated. 

I was sleepy and tired, so when I got to the hotel I hurriedly paid itthe fifty cents it demanded (with approximate lagniappe, I assure you). I knew its habits; and I did not want to hear it prate about its old"marster" or anything that happened "befo' de wah. "

The hotel was one of the kind described as "renovated. " That means$20, 000 worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brasscuspidors in the lobby, and a new L. & N. Time table and a lithograph ofLookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The managementwas without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored asRip Van Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. Thereis no other hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers _enbrochette_. 

At dinner I asked a Negro waiter if there was anything doing in town. Hepondered gravely for a minute, and then replied: "Well, boss, I don'treally reckon there's anything at all doin' after sundown. "

Sundown had been accomplished; it had been drowned in the drizzle longbefore. So that spectacle was denied me. But I went forth upon thestreets in the drizzle to see what might be there. 

 It is built on undulating grounds; and the streets are lighted by electricity at a cost of $32, 470 per annum. 

As I left the hotel there was a race riot. Down upon me charged acompany of freedmen, or Arabs, or Zulus, armed with--no, I saw withrelief that they were not rifles, but whips. And I saw dimly a caravanof black, clumsy vehicles; and at the reassuring shouts, "Kyar youanywhere in the town, boss, fuh fifty cents, " I reasoned that I wasmerely a "fare" instead of a victim. 

I walked through long streets, all leading uphill. I wondered how thosestreets ever came down again. Perhaps they didn't until they were"graded. " On a few of the "main streets" I saw lights in stores here andthere; saw street cars go by conveying worthy burghers hither and yon;saw people pass engaged in the art of conversation, and heard a burst ofsemi-lively laughter issuing from a soda-water and ice-cream parlor. The streets other than "main" seemed to have enticed upon their bordershouses consecrated to peace and domesticity. In many of them lightsshone behind discreetly drawn window shades; in a few pianos tinkledorderly and irreproachable music. There was, indeed, little "doing. "I wished I had come before sundown. So I returned to my hotel. 

 In November, 1864, the Confederate General Hood advanced against Nashville, where he shut up a National force under General Thomas. The latter then sallied forth and defeated the Confederates in a terrible conflict. 

All my life I have heard of, admired, and witnessed the finemarksmanship of the South in its peaceful conflicts in thetobacco-chewing regions. But in my hotel a surprise awaited me. Therewere twelve bright, new, imposing, capacious brass cuspidors in thegreat lobby, tall enough to be called urns and so wide-mouthed that thecrack pitcher of a lady baseball team should have been able to throw aball into one of them at five paces distant. But, although a terriblebattle had raged and was still raging, the enemy had not suffered. Bright, new, imposing, capacious, untouched, they stood. But, shades ofJefferson Brick! the tile floor--the beautiful tile floor! I could notavoid thinking of the battle of Nashville, and trying to draw, as is myfoolish habit, some deductions about hereditary marksmanship. 

Here I first saw Major (by misplaced courtesy) Wentworth Caswell. I knewhim for a type the moment my eyes suffered from the sight of him. A rathas no geographical habitat. My old friend, A. Tennyson, said, as he sowell said almost everything:

 Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, And curse me the British vermin, the rat. 

Let us regard the word "British" as interchangeable _ad lib_. A ratis a rat. 

This man was hunting about the hotel lobby like a starved dog that hadforgotten where he had buried a bone. He had a face of great acreage, red, pulpy, and with a kind of sleepy massiveness like that of Buddha. He possessed one single virtue--he was very smoothly shaven. The markof the beast is not indelible upon a man until he goes about with astubble. I think that if he had not used his razor that day I would haverepulsed his advances, and the criminal calendar of the world would havebeen spared the addition of one murder. 

I happened to be standing within five feet of a cuspidor when MajorCaswell opened fire upon it. I had been observant enough to perceivethat the attacking force was using Gatlings instead of squirrel rifles;so I side-stepped so promptly that the major seized the opportunity toapologize to a noncombatant. He had the blabbing lip. In four minutes hehad become my friend and had dragged me to the bar. 

I desire to interpolate here that I am a Southerner. But I am not one byprofession or trade. I eschew the string tie, the slouch hat, the PrinceAlbert, the number of bales of cotton destroyed by Sherman, and plugchewing. When the orchestra plays Dixie I do not cheer. I slide a littlelower on the leather-cornered seat and, well, order another Würzburgerand wish that Longstreet had--but what's the use?

Major Caswell banged the bar with his fist, and the first gun at FortSumter re-echoed. When he fired the last one at Appomattox I began tohope. But then he began on family trees, and demonstrated that Adamwas only a third cousin of a collateral branch of the Caswell family. Genealogy disposed of, he took up, to my distaste, his private familymatters. He spoke of his wife, traced her descent back to Eve, andprofanely denied any possible rumor that she may have had relations inthe land of Nod. 

By this time I was beginning to suspect that he was trying to obscureby noise the fact that he had ordered the drinks, on the chance thatI would be bewildered into paying for them. But when they were down hecrashed a silver dollar loudly upon the bar. Then, of course, anotherserving was obligatory. And when I had paid for that I took leave of himbrusquely; for I wanted no more of him. But before I had obtained myrelease he had prated loudly of an income that his wife received, andshowed a handful of silver money. 

When I got my key at the desk the clerk said to me courteously: "If thatman Caswell has annoyed you, and if you would like to make a complaint, we will have him ejected. He is a nuisance, a loafer, and without anyknown means of support, although he seems to have some money most thetime. But we don't seem to be able to hit upon any means of throwing himout legally. "

"Why, no, " said I, after some reflection; "I don't see my way clearto making a complaint. But I would like to place myself on record asasserting that I do not care for his company. Your town, " I continued, "seems to be a quiet one. What manner of entertainment, adventure, orexcitement have you to offer to the stranger within your gates?"

"Well, sir, " said the clerk, "there will be a show here next Thursday. It is--I'll look it up and have the announcement sent up to your roomwith the ice water. Good night. "

After I went up to my room I looked out the window. It was only aboutten o'clock, but I looked upon a silent town. The drizzle continued, spangled with dim lights, as far apart as currants in a cake sold at theLadies' Exchange. 

"A quiet place, " I said to myself, as my first shoe struck the ceilingof the occupant of the room beneath mine. "Nothing of the life here thatgives color and variety to the cities in the East and West. Just a good, ordinary, humdrum, business town. "

 Nashville occupies a foremost place among the manufacturing centres of the country. It is the fifth boot and shoe market in the United States, the largest candy and cracker manufacturing city in the South, and does an enormous wholesale drygoods, grocery, and drug business. 

I must tell you how I came to be in Nashville, and I assure you thedigression brings as much tedium to me as it does to you. I wastraveling elsewhere on my own business, but I had a commission from aNorthern literary magazine to stop over there and establish a personalconnection between the publication and one of its contributors, AzaleaAdair. 

Adair (there was no clue to the personality except the handwriting) hadsent in some essays (lost art!) and poems that had made the editorsswear approvingly over their one o'clock luncheon. So they hadcommissioned me to round up said Adair and corner by contract his or heroutput at two cents a word before some other publisher offered her tenor twenty. 

At nine o'clock the next morning, after my chicken livers _en brochette_(try them if you can find that hotel), I strayed out into the drizzle, which was still on for an unlimited run. At the first corner I cameupon Uncle Cæsar. He was a stalwart Negro, older than the pyramids, with gray wool and a face that reminded me of Brutus, and a secondafterwards of the late King Cettiwayo. He wore the most remarkable coatthat I ever had seen or expect to see. It reached to his ankles and hadonce been a Confederate gray in colors. But rain and sun and age had sovariegated it that Joseph's coat, beside it, would have faded to a palemonochrome. I must linger with that coat, for it has to do with thestory--the story that is so long in coming, because you can hardlyexpect anything to happen in Nashville. 

Once it must have been the military coat of an officer. The cape of ithad vanished, but all adown its front it had been frogged and tasseledmagnificently. But now the frogs and tassles were gone. In their steadhad been patiently stitched (I surmised by some surviving "black mammy")new frogs made of cunningly twisted common hempen twine. This twinewas frayed and disheveled. It must have been added to the coat as asubstitute for vanished splendors, with tasteless but painstakingdevotion, for it followed faithfully the curves of the long-missingfrogs. And, to complete the comedy and pathos of the garment, allits buttons were gone save one. The second button from the top aloneremained. The coat was fastened by other twine strings tied through thebuttonholes and other holes rudely pierced in the opposite side. Therewas never such a weird garment so fantastically bedecked and of so manymottled hues. The lone button was the size of a half-dollar, made ofyellow horn and sewed on with coarse twine. 

This Negro stood by a carriage so old that Ham himself might havestarted a hack line with it after he left the ark with the two animalshitched to it. As I approached he threw open the door, drew out afeather duster, waved it without using it, and said in deep, rumblingtones:

"Step right in, suh; ain't a speck of dust in it--jus' got back from afuneral, suh. "

I inferred that on such gala occasions carriages were given an extracleaning. I looked up and down the street and perceived that there waslittle choice among the vehicles for hire that lined the curb. I lookedin my memorandum book for the address of Azalea Adair. 

"I want to go to 861 Jessamine Street, " I said, and was about to stepinto the hack. But for an instant the thick, long, gorilla-like arm ofthe old Negro barred me. On his massive and saturnine face a look ofsudden suspicion and enmity flashed for a moment. Then, with quicklyreturning conviction, he asked blandishingly: "What are you gwine therefor, boss?"

"What is it to you?" I asked, a little sharply. 

"Nothin', suh, jus' nothin'. Only it's a lonesome kind of part of townand few folks ever has business out there. Step right in. The seats isclean--jes' got back from a funeral, suh. "

A mile and a half it must have been to our journey's end. I could hearnothing but the fearful rattle of the ancient hack over the uneven brickpaving; I could smell nothing but the drizzle, now further flavored withcoal smoke and something like a mixture of tar and oleander blossoms. All I could see through the streaming windows were two rows of dimhouses. 

 The city has an area of 10 square miles; 181 miles of streets, of which 137 miles are paved; a system of water-works that cost $2, 000, 000, with 77 miles of mains. 

Eight-sixty-one Jessamine Street was a decayed mansion. Thirty yardsback from the street it stood, outmerged in a splendid grove of treesand untrimmed shrubbery. A row of box bushes overflowed and almost hidthe paling fence from sight; the gate was kept closed by a rope noosethat encircled the gate post and the first paling of the gate. But whenyou got inside you saw that 861 was a shell, a shadow, a ghost of formergrandeur and excellence. But in the story, I have not yet got inside. 

When the hack had ceased from rattling and the weary quadrupeds cameto a rest I handed my jehu his fifty cents with an additional quarter, feeling a glow of conscious generosity, as I did so. He refused it. 

"It's two dollars, suh, " he said. 

"How's that?" I asked. "I plainly heard you call out at the hotel:'Fifty cents to any part of the town. '"

"It's two dollars, suh, " he repeated obstinately. "It's a long ways fromthe hotel. "

"It is within the city limits and well within them. " I argued. "Don'tthink that you have picked up a greenhorn Yankee. Do you see those hillsover there?" I went on, pointing toward the east (I could not see them, myself, for the drizzle); "well, I was born and raised on their otherside. You old fool nigger, can't you tell people from other people whenyou see 'em?"

The grim face of King Cettiwayo softened. "Is you from the South, suh?I reckon it was them shoes of yourn fooled me. They is somethin' sharpin the toes for a Southern gen'l'man to wear. "

"Then the charge is fifty cents, I suppose?" said I inexorably. 

His former expression, a mingling of cupidity and hostility, returned, remained ten seconds, and vanished. 

"Boss, " he said, "fifty cents is right; but I _needs_ two dollars, suh;I'm _obleeged_ to have two dollars. I ain't _demandin'_ it now, suh;after I know whar you's from; I'm jus' sayin' that I _has_ to have twodollars to-night, and business is mighty po'. "

Peace and confidence settled upon his heavy features. He had beenluckier than he had hoped. Instead of having picked up a greenhorn, ignorant of rates, he had come upon an inheritance. 

"You confounded old rascal, " I said, reaching down to my pocket, "youought to be turned over to the police. "

For the first time I saw him smile. He knew; _he knew_. HE KNEW. 

I gave him two one-dollar bills. As I handed them over I noticed thatone of them had seen parlous times. Its upper right-hand corner wasmissing, and it had been torn through the middle, but joined again. Astrip of blue tissue paper, pasted over the split, preserved itsnegotiability. 

Enough of the African bandit for the present: I left him happy, liftedthe rope and opened a creaky gate. 

The house, as I said, was a shell. A paint brush had not touched it intwenty years. I could not see why a strong wind should not have bowledit over like a house of cards until I looked again at the trees thathugged it close--the trees that saw the battle of Nashville and stilldrew their protecting branches around it against storm and enemy andcold. 

Azalea Adair, fifty years old, white-haired, a descendant of thecavaliers, as thin and frail as the house she lived in, robed in thecheapest and cleanest dress I ever saw, with an air as simple as aqueen's, received me. 

The reception room seemed a mile square, because there was nothing init except some rows of books, on unpainted white-pine bookshelves, acracked marble-top table, a rag rug, a hairless horsehair sofa and twoor three chairs. Yes, there was a picture on the wall, a colored crayondrawing of a cluster of pansies. I looked around for the portrait ofAndrew Jackson and the pinecone hanging basket but they were not there. 

Azalea Adair and I had conversation, a little of which will be repeatedto you. She was a product of the old South, gently nurtured in thesheltered life. Her learning was not broad, but was deep and of splendidoriginality in its somewhat narrow scope. She had been educated athome, and her knowledge of the world was derived from inference andby inspiration. Of such is the precious, small group of essayistsmade. While she talked to me I kept brushing my fingers, trying, unconsciously, to rid them guiltily of the absent dust from thehalf-calf backs of Lamb, Chaucer, Hazlitt, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigneand Hood. She was exquisite, she was a valuable discovery. Nearlyeverybody nowadays knows too much--oh, so much too much--of real life. 

I could perceive clearly that Azalea Adair was very poor. A house and adress she had, not much else, I fancied. So, divided between my duty tothe magazine and my loyalty to the poets and essayists who fought Thomasin the valley of the Cumberland, I listened to her voice, which was likea harpsichord's, and found that I could not speak of contracts. In thepresence of the nine Muses and the three Graces one hesitated to lowerthe topic to two cents. There would have to be another colloquy afterI had regained my commercialism. But I spoke of my mission, and threeo'clock of the next afternoon was set for the discussion of the businessproposition. 

"Your town, " I said, as I began to make ready to depart (which is thetime for smooth generalities), "seems to be a quiet, sedate place. Ahome town, I should say, where few things out of the ordinary everhappen. "

 It carries on an extensive trade in stoves and hollow ware with the West and South, and its flouring mills have a daily capacity of more than 2, 000 barrels. 

Azalea Adair seemed to reflect. 

"I have never thought of it that way, " she said, with a kind of sincereintensity that seemed to belong to her. "Isn't it in the still, quietplaces that things do happen? I fancy that when God began to create theearth on the first Monday morning one could have leaned out one's windowand heard the drops of mud splashing from His trowel as He built up theeverlasting hills. What did the noisiest project in the world--I meanthe building of the Tower of Babel--result in finally? A page and a halfof Esperanto in the _North American Review_. "

"Of course, " said I platitudinously, "human nature is the sameeverywhere; but there is more color--er--more drama and movementand--er--romance in some cities than in others. "

"On the surface, " said Azalea Adair. "I have traveled many times aroundthe world in a golden airship wafted on two wings--print and dreams. Ihave seen (on one of my imaginary tours) the Sultan of Turkey bowstringwith his own hands one of his wives who had uncovered her face inpublic. I have seen a man in Nashville tear up his theatre ticketsbecause his wife was going out with her face covered--with rice powder. In San Francisco's Chinatown I saw the slave girl Sing Yee dippedslowly, inch by inch, in boiling almond oil to make her swear she wouldnever see her American lover again. She gave in when the boiling oil hadreached three inches above her knee. At a euchre party in East Nashvillethe other night I saw Kitty Morgan cut dead by seven of her schoolmatesand lifelong friends because she had married a house painter. Theboiling oil was sizzling as high as her heart; but I wish you could haveseen the fine little smile that she carried from table to table. Oh, yes, it is a humdrum town. Just a few miles of red brick houses and mudand lumber yards. "

Some one knocked hollowly at the back of the house. Azalea Adairbreathed a soft apology and went to investigate the sound. She came backin three minutes with brightened eyes, a faint flush on her cheeks, andten years lifted from her shoulders. 

"You must have a cup of tea before you go, " she said, "and a sugarcake. "

She reached and shook a little iron bell. In shuffled a small Negro girlabout twelve, barefoot, not very tidy, glowering at me with thumb inmouth and bulging eyes. 

Azalea Adair opened a tiny, worn purse and drew out a dollar bill, a dollar bill with the upper right-hand corner missing, torn in twopieces, and pasted together again with a strip of blue tissue paper. Itwas one of the bills I had given the piratical Negro--there was no doubtabout it. 

"Go up to Mr. Baker's store on the corner, Impy, " she said, handing thegirl the dollar bill, "and get a quarter of a pound of tea--the kind healways sends me--and ten cents worth of sugar cakes. Now, hurry. Thesupply of tea in the house happens to be exhausted, " she explained tome. 

Impy left by the back way. Before the scrape of her hard, bare feethad died away on the back porch, a wild shriek--I was sure it washers--filled the hollow house. Then the deep, gruff tones of an angryman's voice mingled with the girl's further squeals and unintelligiblewords. 

Azalea Adair rose without surprise or emotion and disappeared. For twominutes I heard the hoarse rumble of the man's voice; then somethinglike an oath and a slight scuffle, and she returned calmly to her chair. 

"This is a roomy house, " she said, "and I have a tenant for part of it. I am sorry to have to rescind my invitation to tea. It was impossibleto get the kind I always use at the store. Perhaps to-morrow, Mr. Bakerwill be able to supply me. "

I was sure that Impy had not had time to leave the house. I inquiredconcerning street-car lines and took my leave. After I was well onmy way I remembered that I had not learned Azalea Adair's name. Butto-morrow would do. 

That same day I started in on the course of iniquity that thisuneventful city forced upon me. I was in the town only two days, butin that time I managed to lie shamelessly by telegraph, and to be anaccomplice--after the fact, if that is the correct legal term--to amurder. 

As I rounded the corner nearest my hotel the Afrite coachman of thepolychromatic, nonpareil coat seized me, swung open the dungeony door ofhis peripatetic sarcophagus, flirted his feather duster and began hisritual: "Step right in, boss. Carriage is clean--jus' got back from afuneral. Fifty cents to any--"

And then he knew me and grinned broadly. "'Scuse me, boss; you is degen'l'man what rid out with me dis mawnin'. Thank you kindly, suh. "

"I am going out to 861 again to-morrow afternoon at three, " said I, "and if you will be here, I'll let you drive me. So you know MissAdair?" I concluded, thinking of my dollar bill. 

"I belonged to her father, Judge Adair, suh, " he replied. 

"I judge that she is pretty poor, " I said. "She hasn't much money tospeak of, has she?"

For an instant I looked again at the fierce countenance of KingCettiwayo, and then he changed back to an extortionate old Negro hackdriver. 

"She ain't gwine to starve, suh, " he said slowly. "She has reso'ces, suh; she has reso'ces. "

"I shall pay you fifty cents for the trip, " said I. 

"Dat is puffeckly correct, suh, " he answered humbly. "I jus' _had_ tohave dat two dollars dis mawnin', boss. "

I went to the hotel and lied by electricity. I wired the magazine: "A. Adair holds out for eight cents a word. "

The answer that came back was: "Give it to her quick you duffer. "

Just before dinner "Major" Wentworth Caswell bore down upon me with thegreetings of a long-lost friend. I have seen few men whom I have soinstantaneously hated, and of whom it was so difficult to be rid. I wasstanding at the bar when he invaded me; therefore I could not wave thewhite ribbon in his face. I would have paid gladly for the drinks, hoping, thereby, to escape another; but he was one of those despicable, roaring, advertising bibbers who must have brass bands and fireworksattend upon every cent that they waste in their follies. 

With an air of producing millions he drew two one-dollar bills from apocket and dashed one of them upon the bar. I looked once more at thedollar bill with the upper right-hand corner missing, torn through themiddle, and patched with a strip of blue tissue paper. It was my dollarbill again. It could have been no other. 

I went up to my room. The drizzle and the monotony of a dreary, eventless Southern town had made me tired and listless. I remember thatjust before I went to bed I mentally disposed of the mysterious dollarbill (which might have formed the clew to a tremendously fine detectivestory of San Francisco) by saying to myself sleepily: "Seems as if alot of people here own stock in the Hack-Driver's Trust. Pays dividendspromptly, too. Wonder if--" Then I fell asleep. 

King Cettiwayo was at his post the next day, and rattled my bones overthe stones out to 861. He was to wait and rattle me back again when Iwas ready. 

Azalea Adair looked paler and cleaner and frailer than she had lookedon the day before. After she had signed the contract at eight cents perword she grew still paler and began to slip out of her chair. Withoutmuch trouble I managed to get her up on the antediluvian horsehair sofaand then I ran out to the sidewalk and yelled to the coffee-coloredPirate to bring a doctor. With a wisdom that I had not expected in him, he abandoned his team and struck off up the street afoot, realizing thevalue of speed. In ten minutes he returned with a grave, gray-hairedand capable man of medicine. In a few words (worth much less than eightcents each) I explained to him my presence in the hollow house ofmystery. He bowed with stately understanding, and turned to the oldNegro. 

"Uncle Cæsar, " he said calmly, "Run up to my house and ask Miss Lucy togive you a cream pitcher full of fresh milk and half a tumbler of portwine. And hurry back. Don't drive--run. I want you to get back sometimethis week. "

It occurred to me that Dr. Merriman also felt a distrust as to thespeeding powers of the land-pirate's steeds. After Uncle Cæsar wasgone, lumberingly, but swiftly, up the street, the doctor looked meover with great politeness and as much careful calculation until hehad decided that I might do. 

"It is only a case of insufficient nutrition, " he said. "In other words, the result of poverty, pride, and starvation. Mrs. Caswell has manydevoted friends who would be glad to aid her, but she will acceptnothing except from that old Negro, Uncle Cæsar, who was once owned byher family. "

"Mrs. Caswell!" said I, in surprise. And then I looked at the contractand saw that she had signed it "Azalea Adair Caswell. "

"I thought she was Miss Adair, " I said. 

"Married to a drunken, worthless loafer, sir, " said the doctor. "Itis said that he robs her even of the small sums that her old servantcontributes toward her support. "

When the milk and wine had been brought the doctor soon revived AzaleaAdair. She sat up and talked of the beauty of the autumn leaves thatwere then in season, and their height of color. She referred lightly toher fainting seizure as the outcome of an old palpitation of the heart. Impy fanned her as she lay on the sofa. The doctor was due elsewhere, and I followed him to the door. I told him that it was within my powerand intentions to make a reasonable advance of money to Azalea Adair onfuture contributions to the magazine, and he seemed pleased. 

"By the way, " he said, "perhaps you would like to know that you have hadroyalty for a coachman. Old Cæsar's grandfather was a king in Congo. Cæsar himself has royal ways, as you may have observed. "

As the doctor was moving off I heard Uncle Cæsar's voice inside: "Didhe get bofe of dem two dollars from you, Mis' Zalea?"

"Yes, Cæsar, " I heard Azalea Adair answer weakly. And then I went inand concluded business negotiations with our contributor. I assumed theresponsibility of advancing fifty dollars, putting it as a necessaryformality in binding our bargain. And then Uncle Cæsar drove me backto the hotel. 

Here ends all of the story as far as I can testify as a witness. Therest must be only bare statements of facts. 

At about six o'clock I went out for a stroll. Uncle Cæsar was at hiscorner. He threw open the door of his carriage, flourished his dusterand began his depressing formula: "Step right in, suh. Fifty cents toanywhere in the city--hack's puffickly clean, suh--jus' got back from afuneral--"

And then he recognized me. I think his eyesight was getting bad. Hiscoat had taken on a few more faded shades of color, the twine stringswere more frayed and ragged, the last remaining button--the button ofyellow horn--was gone. A motley descendant of kings was Uncle Cæsar!

About two hours later I saw an excited crowd besieging the front ofa drug store. In a desert where nothing happens this was manna; so Iwedged my way inside. On an extemporized couch of empty boxes and chairswas stretched the mortal corporeality of Major Wentworth Caswell. Adoctor was testing him for the immortal ingredient. His decision wasthat it was conspicuous by its absence. 

The erstwhile Major had been found dead on a dark street and brought bycurious and ennuied citizens to the drug store. The late human being hadbeen engaged in terrific battle--the details showed that. Loafer andreprobate though he had been, he had been also a warrior. But he hadlost. His hands were yet clinched so tightly that his fingers would notbe opened. The gentle citizens who had know him stood about and searchedtheir vocabularies to find some good words, if it were possible, tospeak of him. One kind-looking man said, after much thought: "When 'Cas'was about fo'teen he was one of the best spellers in school. "

While I stood there the fingers of the right hand of "the man that was"which hung down the side of a white pine box, relaxed, and droppedsomething at my feet. I covered it with one foot quietly, and a littlelater on I picked it up and pocketed it. I reasoned that in his laststruggle his hand must have seized that object unwittingly and held itin a death grip. 

At the hotel that night the main topic of conversation, with thepossible exceptions of politics and prohibition, was the demise of MajorCaswell. I heard one man say to a group of listeners:

"In my opinion, gentlemen, Caswell was murdered by some of theseno-account niggers for his money. He had fifty dollars this afternoonwhich he showed to several gentlemen in the hotel. When he was foundthe money was not on his person. "

I left the city the next morning at nine, and as the train was crossingthe bridge over the Cumberland River I took out of my pocket a yellowhorn overcoat button the size of a fifty-cent piece, with frayed endsof coarse twine hanging from it, and cast it out of the window into theslow, muddy waters below. 

_I wonder what's doing in Buffalo!_

XIV

PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPER

If you are a philosopher you can do this thing: you can go to the topof a high building, look down upon your fellow-men 300 feet below, anddespise them as insects. Like the irresponsible black waterbugs onsummer ponds, they crawl and circle and hustle about idiotically withoutaim or purpose. They do not even move with the admirable intelligenceof ants, for ants always know when they are going home. The ant is ofa lowly station, but he will often reach home and get his slippers onwhile you are left at your elevated station. 

Man, then, to the housetopped philosopher, appears to be but a creeping, contemptible beetle. Brokers, poets, millionaires, bootblacks, beauties, hod-carriers and politicians become little black specks dodging biggerblack specks in streets no wider than your thumb. 

From this high view the city itself becomes degraded to anunintelligible mass of distorted buildings and impossible perspectives;the revered ocean is a duck pond; the earth itself a lost golf ball. Allthe minutiae of life are gone. The philosopher gazes into the infiniteheavens above him, and allows his soul to expand to the influence ofhis new view. He feels that he is the heir to Eternity and the child ofTime. Space, too, should be his by the right of his immortal heritage, and he thrills at the thought that some day his kind shall traversethose mysterious aerial roads between planet and planet. The tiny worldbeneath his feet upon which this towering structure of steel rests as aspeck of dust upon a Himalayan mountain--it is but one of a countlessnumber of such whirling atoms. What are the ambitions, the achievements, the paltry conquests and loves of those restless black insects belowcompared with the serene and awful immensity of the universe that liesabove and around their insignificant city?

It is guaranteed that the philosopher will have these thoughts. Theyhave been expressly compiled from the philosophies of the world and setdown with the proper interrogation point at the end of them to representthe invariable musings of deep thinkers on high places. And when thephilosopher takes the elevator down his mind is broader, his heart is atpeace, and his conception of the cosmogony of creation is as wide as thebuckle of Orion's summer belt. 

But if your name happened to be Daisy, and you worked in an EighthAvenue candy store and lived in a little cold hall bedroom, five feetby eight, and earned $6 per week, and ate ten-cent lunches and werenineteen years old, and got up at 6. 30 and worked till 9, and never hadstudied philosophy, maybe things wouldn't look that way to you from thetop of a skyscraper. 

Two sighed for the hand of Daisy, the unphilosophical. One was Joe, whokept the smallest store in New York. It was about the size of a tool-boxof the D. P. W. , and was stuck like a swallow's nest against a cornerof a down-town skyscraper. Its stock consisted of fruit, candies, newspapers, song books, cigarettes, and lemonade in season. When sternwinter shook his congealed locks and Joe had to move himself and thefruit inside, there was exactly room in the store for the proprietor, his wares, a stove the size of a vinegar cruet, and one customer. 

Joe was not of the nation that keeps us forever in a furore with fuguesand fruit. He was a capable American youth who was laying by money, andwanted Daisy to help him spend it. Three times he had asked her. 

"I got money saved up, Daisy, " was his love song; "and you know how badI want you. That store of mine ain't very big, but--"

"Oh, ain't it?" would be the antiphony of the unphilosophical one. "Why, I heard Wanamaker's was trying to get you to sublet part of your floorspace to them for next year. "

Daisy passed Joe's corner every morning and evening. 

"Hello, Two-by-Four!" was her usual greeting. "Seems to me your storelooks emptier. You must have sold a pack of chewing gum. "

"Ain't much room in here, sure, " Joe would answer, with his slow grin, "except for you, Daise. Me and the store are waitin' for you wheneveryou'll take us. Don't you think you might before long?"

"Store!"--a fine scorn was expressed by Daisy's uptilted nose--"sardinebox! Waitin' for me, you say? Gee! you'd have to throw out about ahundred pounds of candy before I could get inside of it, Joe. "

"I wouldn't mind an even swap like that, " said Joe, complimentary. 

Daisy's existence was limited in every way. She had to walk sidewaysbetween the counter and the shelves in the candy store. In her own hallbedroom coziness had been carried close to cohesiveness. The walls wereso near to one another that the paper on them made a perfect Babel ofnoise. She could light the gas with one hand and close the door with theother without taking her eyes off the reflection of her brown pompadourin the mirror. She had Joe's picture in a gilt frame on the dresser, andsometimes--but her next thought would always be of Joe's funny littlestore tacked like a soap box to the corner of that great building, andaway would go her sentiment in a breeze of laughter. 

Daisy's other suitor followed Joe by several months. He came to boardin the house where she lived. His name was Dabster, and he was aphilosopher. Though young, attainments stood out upon him likecontinental labels on a Passaic (N. J. ) suit-case. Knowledge he hadkidnapped from cyclopedias and handbooks of useful information; but asfor wisdom, when she passed he was left sniffling in the road withoutso much as the number of her motor car. He could and would tell you theproportion of water and muscle-making properties of peas and veal, theshortest verse in the Bible, the number of pounds of shingle nailsrequired to fasten 256 shingles laid four inches to the weather, thepopulation of Kankakee, Ill. , the theories of Spinoza, the name of Mr. H. McKay Twombly's second hall footman, the length of the Hoosac Tunnel, the best time to set a hen, the salary of the railway post-officemessenger between Driftwood and Red Bank Furnace, Pa. , and the numberof bones in the foreleg of a cat. 

The weight of learning was no handicap to Dabster. His statistics werethe sprigs of parsley with which he garnished the feast of small talkthat he would set before you if he conceived that to be your taste. Andagain he used them as breastworks in foraging at the boardinghouse. Firing at you a volley of figures concerning the weight of a linealfoot of bar-iron 5 x 2 3/4 inches, and the average annual rainfall atFort Snelling, Minn. , he would transfix with his fork the best piece ofchicken on the dish while you were trying to rally sufficiently to askhim weakly why does a hen cross the road. 

Thus, brightly armed, and further equipped with a measure of good looks, of a hair-oily, shopping-district-at-three-in-the-afternoon kind, itseems that Joe, of the Lilliputian emporium, had a rival worthy of hissteel. But Joe carried no steel. There wouldn't have been room in hisstore to draw it if he had. 

One Saturday afternoon, about four o'clock, Daisy and Mr. Dabsterstopped before Joe's booth. Dabster wore a silk hat, and--well, Daisywas a woman, and that hat had no chance to get back in its box until Joehad seen it. A stick of pineapple chewing gum was the ostensible objectof the call. Joe supplied it through the open side of his store. He didnot pale or falter at sight of the hat. 

"Mr. Dabster's going to take me on top of the building to observe theview, " said Daisy, after she had introduced her admirers. "I never wason a skyscraper. I guess it must be awfully nice and funny up there. "

"H'm!" said Joe. 

"The panorama, " said Mr. Dabster, "exposed to the gaze from the top ofa lofty building is not only sublime, but instructive. Miss Daisy hasa decided pleasure in store for her. "

"It's windy up there, too, as well as here, " said Joe. "Are you dressedwarm enough, Daise?"

"Sure thing! I'm all lined, " said Daisy, smiling slyly at his cloudedbrow. "You look just like a mummy in a case, Joe. Ain't you just put inan invoice of a pint of peanuts or another apple? Your stock looks awfulover-stocked. "

Daisy giggled at her favorite joke; and Joe had to smile with her. 

"Your quarters are somewhat limited, Mr. --er--er, " remarked Dabster, "in comparison with the size of this building. I understand the areaof its side to be about 340 by 100 feet. That would make you occupya proportionate space as if half of Beloochistan were placed upon aterritory as large as the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, with the Province of Ontario and Belgium added. "

"Is that so, sport?" said Joe, genially. "You are Weisenheimer onfigures, all right. How many square pounds of baled hay do you thinka jackass could eat if he stopped brayin' long enough to keep still aminute and five eighths?"

A few minutes later Daisy and Mr. Dabster stepped from an elevator tothe top floor of the skyscraper. Then up a short, steep stairway and outupon the roof. Dabster led her to the parapet so she could look down atthe black dots moving in the street below. 

"What are they?" she asked, trembling. She had never been on a heightlike this before. 

And then Dabster must needs play the philosopher on the tower, andconduct her soul forth to meet the immensity of space. 

"Bipeds, " he said, solemnly. "See what they become even at the smallelevation of 340 feet--mere crawling insects going to and fro atrandom. "

"Oh, they ain't anything of the kind, " exclaimed Daisy, suddenly--"they're folks! I saw an automobile. Oh, gee! are we thathigh up?"

"Walk over this way, " said Dabster. 

He showed her the great city lying like an orderly array of toys farbelow, starred here and there, early as it was, by the first beaconlights of the winter afternoon. And then the bay and sea to the southand east vanishing mysteriously into the sky. 

"I don't like it, " declared Daisy, with troubled blue eyes. "Say we godown. "

But the philosopher was not to be denied his opportunity. He would lether behold the grandeur of his mind, the half-nelson he had on theinfinite, and the memory he had for statistics. And then she wouldnevermore be content to buy chewing gum at the smallest store in NewYork. And so he began to prate of the smallness of human affairs, andhow that even so slight a removal from earth made man and his works looklike one tenth part of a dollar thrice computed. And that one shouldconsider the sidereal system and the maxims of Epictetus and becomforted. 

"You don't carry me with you, " said Daisy. "Say, I think it's awful tobe up so high that folks look like fleas. One of them we saw might havebeen Joe. Why, Jiminy! we might as well be in New Jersey! Say, I'mafraid up here!"

The philosopher smiled fatuously. 

"The earth, " said he, "is itself only as a grain of wheat in space. Lookup there. "

Daisy gazed upward apprehensively. The short day was spent and the starswere coming out above. 

"Yonder star, " said Dabster, "is Venus, the evening star. She is66, 000, 000 miles from the sun. "

"Fudge!" said Daisy, with a brief flash of spirit, "where do you thinkI come from--Brooklyn? Susie Price, in our store--her brother sent hera ticket to go to San Francisco--that's only three thousand miles. "

The philosopher smiled indulgently. 

"Our world, " he said, "is 91, 000, 000 miles from the sun. There areeighteen stars of the first magnitude that are 211, 000 times furtherfrom us than the sun is. If one of them should be extinguished it wouldbe three years before we would see its light go out. There are sixthousand stars of the sixth magnitude. It takes thirty-six years for thelight of one of them to reach the earth. With an eighteen-foot telescopewe can see 43, 000, 000 stars, including those of the thirteenthmagnitude, whose light takes 2, 700 years to reach us. Each of thesestars--"

"You're lyin', " cried Daisy, angrily. "You're tryin' to scare me. Andyou have; I want to go down!"

She stamped her foot. 

"Arcturus--" began the philosopher, soothingly, but he was interruptedby a demonstration out of the vastness of the nature that he wasendeavoring to portray with his memory instead of his heart. For to theheart-expounder of nature the stars were set in the firmament expresslyto give soft light to lovers wandering happily beneath them; and if youstand tiptoe some September night with your sweetheart on your arm youcan almost touch them with your hand. Three years for their light toreach us, indeed!

Out of the west leaped a meteor, lighting the roof of the skyscraperalmost to midday. Its fiery parabola was limned against the sky towardthe east. It hissed as it went, and Daisy screamed. 

"Take me down, " she cried, vehemently, "you--you mental arithmetic!"

Dabster got her to the elevator, and inside of it. She was wild-eyed, and she shuddered when the express made its debilitating drop. 

Outside the revolving door of the skyscraper the philosopher lost her. She vanished; and he stood, bewildered, without figures or statisticsto aid him. 

Joe had a lull in trade, and by squirming among his stock succeeded inlighting a cigarette and getting one cold foot against the attenuatedstove. 

The door was burst open, and Daisy, laughing, crying, scattering fruitand candies, tumbled into his arms. 

"Oh, Joe, I've been up on the skyscraper. Ain't it cozy and warm andhomelike in here! I'm ready for you, Joe, whenever you want me. "

XV

A BIRD OF BAGDAD

Without a doubt much of the spirit and genius of the Caliph Harun AlRashid descended to the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. 

Quigg's restaurant is in Fourth Avenue--that street that the city seemsto have forgotten in its growth. Fourth Avenue--born and bred in theBowery--staggers northward full of good resolutions. 

Where it crosses Fourteenth Street it struts for a brief moment proudlyin the glare of the museums and cheap theatres. It may yet become a fitmate for its high-born sister boulevard to the west, or its roaring, polyglot, broad-waisted cousin to the east. It passes Union Square; andhere the hoofs of the dray horses seem to thunder in unison, recallingthe tread of marching hosts--Hooray! But now come the silent andterrible mountains--buildings square as forts, high as the clouds, shutting out the sky, where thousands of slaves bend over desks all day. On the ground floors are only little fruit shops and laundries and bookshops, where you see copies of "Littell's Living Age" and G. W. M. Reynold's novels in the windows. And next--poor Fourth Avenue!--thestreet glides into a mediaeval solitude. On each side are shops devotedto "Antiques. "

Let us say it is night. Men in rusty armor stand in the windows andmenace the hurrying cars with raised, rusty iron gauntlets. Hauberks andhelms, blunderbusses, Cromwellian breastplates, matchlocks, creeses, andthe swords and daggers of an army of dead-and-gone gallants gleam dullyin the ghostly light. Here and there from a corner saloon (lit withJack-o'-lanterns or phosphorus), stagger forth shuddering, home-boundcitizens, nerved by the tankards within to their fearsome journey adownthat eldrich avenue lined with the bloodstained weapons of the fightingdead. What street could live inclosed by these mortuary relics, and trodby these spectral citizens in whose sunken hearts scarce one good whoopor tra-la-la remained?

Not Fourth Avenue. Not after the tinsel but enlivening glories of theLittle Rialto--not after the echoing drum-beats of Union Square. Thereneed be no tears, ladies and gentlemen; 'tis but the suicide of astreet. With a shriek and a crash Fourth Avenue dives headlong into thetunnel at Thirty-fourth and is never seen again. 

Near the sad scene of the thoroughfare's dissolution stood the modestrestaurant of Quigg. It stands there yet if you care to view itscrumbling red-brick front, its show window heaped with oranges, tomatoes, layer cakes, pies, canned asparagus--its papier-mâché lobsterand two Maltese kittens asleep on a bunch of lettuce--if you care tosit at one of the little tables upon whose cloth has been traced in theyellowest of coffee stains the trail of the Japanese advance--to sitthere with one eye on your umbrella and the other upon the bogus bottlefrom which you drop the counterfeit sauce foisted upon us by the cursedcharlatan who assumes to be our dear old lord and friend, the "Noblemanin India. "

Quigg's title came through his mother. One of her ancestors was aMargravine of Saxony. His father was a Tammany brave. On account ofthe dilution of his heredity he found that he could neither becomea reigning potentate nor get a job in the City Hall. So he opened arestaurant. He was a man full of thought and reading. The business gavehim a living, though he gave it little attention. One side of his housebequeathed to him a poetic and romantic adventure. The other gave himthe restless spirit that made him seek adventure. By day he was Quigg, the restaurateur. By night he was the Margrave--the Caliph--the Princeof Bohemia--going about the city in search of the odd, the mysterious, the inexplicable, the recondite. 

One night at 9, at which hour the restaurant closed, Quigg set forthupon his quest. There was a mingling of the foreign, the military andthe artistic in his appearance as he buttoned his coat high up under hisshort-trimmed brown and gray beard and turned westward toward the morecentral life conduits of the city. In his pocket he had stored anassortment of cards, written upon, without which he never stirred out ofdoors. Each of those cards was good at his own restaurant for its facevalue. Some called simply for a bowl of soup or sandwiches and coffee;others entitled their bearer to one, two, three or more days of fullmeals; a few were for single regular meals; a very few were, in effect, meal tickets good for a week. 

Of riches and power Margrave Quigg had none; but he had a Caliph'sheart--it may be forgiven him if his head fell short of the measure ofHarun Al Rashid's. Perhaps some of the gold pieces in Bagdad had putless warmth and hope into the complainants among the bazaars than hadQuigg's beef stew among the fishermen and one-eyed calenders ofManhattan. 

Continuing his progress in search of romance to divert him, or ofdistress that he might aid, Quigg became aware of a fast-gathering crowdthat whooped and fought and eddied at a corner of Broadway and thecrosstown street that he was traversing. Hurrying to the spot he behelda young man of an exceedingly melancholy and preoccupied demeanorengaged in the pastime of casting silver money from his pockets in themiddle of the street. With each motion of the generous one's hand thecrowd huddled upon the falling largesse with yells of joy. Traffic wassuspended. A policeman in the centre of the mob stooped often to theground as he urged the blockaders to move on. 

The Margrave saw at a glance that here was food for his hunger afterknowledge concerning abnormal working of the human heart. He made hisway swiftly to the young man's side and took his arm. "Come with me atonce, " he said, in the low but commanding voice that his waiters hadlearned to fear. 

"Pinched, " remarked the young man, looking up at him with expressionlesseyes. "Pinched by a painless dentist. Take me away, flatty, and give megas. Some lay eggs and some lay none. When is a hen?"

Still deeply seized by some inward grief, but tractable, he allowedQuigg to lead him away and down the street to a little park. 

There, seated on a bench, he upon whom a corner of the great Caliph'smantle has descended, spake with kindness and discretion, seeking toknow what evil had come upon the other, disturbing his soul and drivinghim to such ill-considered and ruinous waste of his substance andstores. 

"I was doing the Monte Cristo act as adapted by Pompton, N. J. , wasn'tI?" asked the young man. 

"You were throwing small coins into the street for the people toscramble after, " said the Margrave. 

"That's it. You buy all the beer you can hold, and then you throwchicken feed to-- Oh, curse that word chicken, and hens, feathers, roosters, eggs, and everything connected with it!"

"Young sir, " said the Margrave kindly, but with dignity, "though I donot ask your confidence, I invite it. I know the world and I knowhumanity. Man is my study, though I do not eye him as the scientisteyes a beetle or as the philanthropist gazes at the objects of hisbounty--through a veil of theory and ignorance. It is my pleasureand distraction to interest myself in the peculiar and complicatedmisfortunes that life in a great city visits upon my fellow-men. You maybe familiar with the history of that glorious and immortal ruler, theCaliph Harun Al Rashid, whose wise and beneficent excursions among hispeople in the city of Bagdad secured him the privilege of relieving somuch of their distress. In my humble way I walk in his footsteps. I seekfor romance and adventure in city streets--not in ruined castles or incrumbling palaces. To me the greatest marvels of magic are those thattake place in men's hearts when acted upon by the furious and diverseforces of a crowded population. In your strange behavior this eveningI fancy a story lurks. I read in your act something deeper than thewanton wastefulness of a spendthrift. I observe in your countenance thecertain traces of consuming grief or despair. I repeat--I invite yourconfidence. I am not without some power to alleviate and advise. Willyou not trust me?"

"Gee, how you talk!" exclaimed the young man, a gleam of admirationsupplanting for a moment the dull sadness of his eyes. "You've got theAstor Library skinned to a synopsis of preceding chapters. I mind thatold Turk you speak of. I read 'The Arabian Nights' when I was a kid. Hewas a kind of Bill Devery and Charlie Schwab rolled into one. But, say, you might wave enchanted dishrags and make copper bottles smoke up coongiants all night without ever touching me. My case won't yield to thatkind of treatment. "

"If I could hear your story, " said the Margrave, with his lofty, serioussmile. 

"I'll spiel it in about nine words, " said the young man, with a deepsigh, "but I don't think you can help me any. Unless you're a peach atguessing it's back to the Bosphorus for you on your magic linoleum. "

THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE HARNESS MAKER'S RIDDLE

"I work in Hildebrant's saddle and harness shop down in Grant Street. I've worked there five years. I get $18 a week. That's enough to marryon, ain't it? Well, I'm not going to get married. Old Hildebrant isone of these funny Dutchmen--you know the kind--always getting off bumjokes. He's got about a million riddles and things that he faked fromRogers Brothers' great-grandfather. Bill Watson works there, too. Me andBill have to stand for them chestnuts day after day. Why do we do it?Well, jobs ain't to be picked off every Anheuser bush-- And then there'sLaura. 

"What? The old man's daughter. Comes in the shop every day. Aboutnineteen, and the picture of the blonde that sits on the palisades ofthe Rhine and charms the clam-diggers into the surf. Hair the color ofstraw matting, and eyes as black and shiny as the best harnessblacking--think of that!

"Me? well, it's either me or Bill Watson. She treats us both equal. Billis all to the psychopathic about her; and me?--well, you saw me platingthe roadbed of the Great Maroon Way with silver to-night. That was onaccount of Laura. I was spiflicated, Your Highness, and I wot not ofwhat I wouldst. 

"How? Why, old Hildebrandt says to me and Bill this afternoon: 'Boys, one riddle have I for you gehabt haben. A young man who cannot riddlesantworten, he is not so good by business for ein family to provide--isnot that--hein?' And he hands us a riddle--a conundrum, some callsit--and he chuckles interiorly and gives both of us till to-morrowmorning to work out the answer to it. And he says whichever of usguesses the repartee end of it goes to his house o' Wednesday night tohis daughter's birthday party. And it means Laura for whichever of usgoes, for she's naturally aching for a husband, and it's either me orBill Watson, for old Hildebrant likes us both, and wants her to marrysomebody that'll carry on the business after he's stitched his last pairof traces. 

"The riddle? Why, it was this: 'What kind of a hen lays the longest?Think of that! What kind of a hen lays the longest? Ain't it like aDutchman to risk a man's happiness on a fool proposition like that?Now, what's the use? What I don't know about hens would fill severalincubators. You say you're giving imitations of the old Arab guy thatgave away--libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairythat'll solve this hen query, or not?"

When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by thepark bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, and said, in graveand impressive tones:

"I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent insearch of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountereda more interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I haveoverlooked hens in my researches and observations. As to theirhabits, their times and manner of laying, their many varieties andcross-breedings, their span of life, their--"

"Oh, don't make an Ibsen drama of it!" interrupted the young man, flippantly. "Riddles--especially old Hildebrant's riddles--don't haveto be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford andHarry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can't strike justthe answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. To-morrow will tell. Well, Your Majesty, I'm glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the timeaway. I guess Mr. Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one ofhis constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I'll say goodnight. Peace fo' yours, and what-you-may-call-its of Allah. "

The Margrave, still with a gloomy air, held out his hand. 

"I cannot express my regret, " he said, sadly. "Never before have Ifound myself unable to assist in some way. 'What kind of a hen lays thelongest? It is a baffling problem. There is a hen, I believe, calledthe Plymouth Rock that--"

"Cut it out, " said the young man. "The Caliph trade is a mighty seriousone. I don't suppose you'd even see anything funny in a preacher'sdefense of John D. Rockefeller. Well, good night, Your Nibs. "

From habit the Margrave began to fumble in his pockets. He drew fortha card and handed it to the young man. 

"Do me the favor to accept this, anyhow, " he said. "The time may comewhen it might be of use to you. "

"Thanks!" said the young man, pocketing it carelessly. "My name isSimmons. "

 * * * * * *

Shame to him who would hint that the reader's interest shall altogetherpursue the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. I am indeed astrayif my hand fail in keeping the way where my peruser's heart wouldfollow. Then let us, on the morrow, peep quickly in at the door ofHildebrant, harness maker. 

Hildebrant's 200 pounds reposed on a bench, silver-buckling a rawleather martingale. 

Bill Watson came in first. 

"Vell, " said Hildebrant, shaking all over with the vile conceit of thejoke-maker, "haf you guessed him? 'Vat kind of a hen lays der longest?'"

"Er--why, I think so, " said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. "I think so, Mr. Hildebrant--the one that lives the longest-- Is that right?"

"Nein!" said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. "You haf notguessed der answer. "

Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood. 

In came the young man of the Arabian Night's fiasco--pale, melancholy, hopeless. 

"Vell, " said Hildebrant, "haf you guessed him? 'Vat kind of a hen laysder longest?'"

Simmons regarded him with dull savagery in his eye. Should he curse thismountain of pernicious humor--curse him and die? Why should-- But therewas Laura. 

Dogged, speechless, he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and stood. His hand encountered the strange touch of the Margrave's card. He drewit out and looked at it, as men about to be hanged look at a crawlingfly. There was written on it in Quigg's bold, round hand: "Good for oneroast chicken to bearer. "

Simmons looked up with a flashing eye. 

"A dead one!" said he. 

"Goot!" roared Hildebrant, rocking the table with giant glee. "Dot isright! You gome at mine house at 8 o'clock to der party. "

XVI

COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON

There are no more Christmas stories to write. Fiction is exhausted;and newspaper items, the next best, are manufactured by clever youngjournalists who have married early and have an engagingly pessimisticview of life. Therefore, for seasonable diversion, we are reducedto very questionable sources--facts and philosophy. We will beginwith--whichever you choose to call it. 

Children are pestilential little animals with which we have to copeunder a bewildering variety of conditions. Especially when childishsorrows overwhelm them are we put to our wits' end. We exhaust ourpaltry store of consolation; and then beat them, sobbing, to sleep. Thenwe grovel in the dust of a million years, and ask God why. Thus we callout of the rat-trap. As for the children, no one understands them exceptold maids, hunchbacks, and shepherd dogs. 

Now comes the facts in the case of the Rag-Doll, the Tatterdemalion, and the Twenty-fifth of December. 

On the tenth of that month the Child of the Millionaire lost herrag-doll. There were many servants in the Millionaire's palace on theHudson, and these ransacked the house and grounds, but without findingthe lost treasure. The child was a girl of five, and one of thoseperverse little beasts that often wound the sensibilities of wealthyparents by fixing their affections upon some vulgar, inexpensive toyinstead of upon diamond-studded automobiles and pony phaetons. 

The Child grieved sorely and truly, a thing inexplicable to theMillionaire, to whom the rag-doll market was about as interesting as BayState Gas; and to the Lady, the Child's mother, who was all form--thatis, nearly all, as you shall see. 

The Child cried inconsolably, and grew hollow-eyed, knock-kneed, spindling, and corykilverty in many other respects. The Millionairesmiled and tapped his coffers confidently. The pick of the output ofthe French and German toymakers was rushed by special delivery to themansion; but Rachel refused to be comforted. She was weeping for herrag child, and was for a high protective tariff against all foreignfoolishness. Then doctors with the finest bedside manners andstop-watches were called in. One by one they chattered futilely aboutpeptomanganate of iron and sea voyages and hypophosphites until theirstop-watches showed that Bill Rendered was under the wire for show orplace. Then, as men, they advised that the rag-doll be found as soonas possible and restored to its mourning parent. The Child sniffed attherapeutics, chewed a thumb, and wailed for her Betsy. And all thistime cablegrams were coming from Santa Claus saying that he would soonbe here and enjoining us to show a true Christian spirit and let up onthe pool-rooms and tontine policies and platoon systems long enough togive him a welcome. Everywhere the spirit of Christmas was diffusingitself. The banks were refusing loans, the pawn-brokers had doubledtheir gang of helpers, people bumped your shins on the streets with redsleds, Thomas and Jeremiah bubbled before you on the bars while youwaited on one foot, holly-wreaths of hospitality were hung in windows ofthe stores, they who had 'em were getting their furs. You hardly knewwhich was the best bet in balls--three, high, moth, or snow. It was notime at which to lose the rag-doll or your heart. 

If Doctor Watson's investigating friend had been called in to solve thismysterious disappearance he might have observed on the Millionaire'swall a copy of "The Vampire. " That would have quickly suggested, byinduction, "A rag and a bone and a hank of hair. " "Flip, " a Scotchterrier, next to the rag-doll in the Child's heart, frisked through thehalls. The hank of hair! Aha! X, the unfound quantity, represented therag-doll. But, the bone? Well, when dogs find bones they--Done! It werean easy and a fruitful task to examine Flip's forefeet. Look, Watson!Earth--dried earth between the toes. Of course, the dog--but Sherlockwas not there. Therefore it devolves. But topography and architecturemust intervene. 

The Millionaire's palace occupied a lordly space. In front of it was alawn close-mowed as a South Ireland man's face two days after a shave. At one side of it, and fronting on another street was a pleasauncetrimmed to a leaf, and the garage and stables. The Scotch pup hadravished the rag-doll from the nursery, dragged it to a corner ofthe lawn, dug a hole, and buried it after the manner of carelessundertakers. There you have the mystery solved, and no checks to writefor the hypodermical wizard or fi'-pun notes to toss to the sergeant. Then let's get down to the heart of the thing, tiresome readers--theChristmas heart of the thing. 

Fuzzy was drunk--not riotously or helplessly or loquaciously, as you orI might get, but decently, appropriately, and inoffensively, as becomesa gentleman down on his luck. 

Fuzzy was a soldier of misfortune. The road, the haystack, thepark bench, the kitchen door, the bitter round of eleemosynarybeds-with-shower-bath-attachment, the petty pickings and ignoblygarnered largesse of great cities--these formed the chapters of hishistory. 

Fuzzy walked toward the river, down the street that bounded one side ofthe Millionaire's house and grounds. He saw a leg of Betsy, the lostrag-doll, protruding, like the clue to a Lilliputian murder mystery, from its untimely grave in a corner of the fence. He dragged forth themaltreated infant, tucked it under his arm, and went on his way crooninga road song of his brethren that no doll that has been brought up to thesheltered life should hear. Well for Betsy that she had no ears. Andwell that she had no eyes save unseeing circles of black; for the facesof Fuzzy and the Scotch terrier were those of brothers, and the heart ofno rag-doll could withstand twice to become the prey of such fearsomemonsters. 

Though you may not know it, Grogan's saloon stands near the river andnear the foot of the street down which Fuzzy traveled. In Grogan's, Christmas cheer was already rampant. 

Fuzzy entered with his doll. He fancied that as a mummer at the feast ofSaturn he might earn a few drops from the wassail cup. 

He set Betsy on the bar and addressed her loudly and humorously, seasoning his speech with exaggerated compliments and endearments, asone entertaining his lady friend. The loafers and bibbers around caughtthe farce of it, and roared. The bartender gave Fuzzy a drink. Oh, manyof us carry rag-dolls. 

"One for the lady?" suggested Fuzzy impudently, and tucked anothercontribution to Art beneath his waistcoat. 

He began to see possibilities in Betsy. His first-night had been asuccess. Visions of a vaudeville circuit about town dawned upon him. 

In a group near the stove sat "Pigeon" McCarthy, Black Riley, and"One-ear" Mike, well and unfavorably known in the tough shoestringdistrict that blackened the left bank of the river. They passed anewspaper back and forth among themselves. The item that each solid andblunt forefinger pointed out was an advertisement headed "One HundredDollars Reward. " To earn it one must return the rag-doll lost, strayed, or stolen from the Millionaire's mansion. It seemed that grief stillravaged, unchecked, in the bosom of the too faithful Child. Flip, theterrier, capered and shook his absurd whisker before her, powerless todistract. She wailed for her Betsy in the faces of walking, talking, mama-ing, and eye-closing French Mabelles and Violettes. Theadvertisement was a last resort. 

Black Riley came from behind the stove and approached Fuzzy in hisone-sided parabolic way. 

The Christmas mummer, flushed with success, had tucked Betsy under hisarm, and was about to depart to the filling of impromptu dateselsewhere. 

"Say, 'Bo, " said Black Riley to him, "where did you cop out dat doll?"

"This doll?" asked Fuzzy, touching Betsy with his forefinger to be surethat she was the one referred to. Why, this doll was presented to me bythe Emperor of Beloochistan. I have seven hundred others in my countryhome in Newport. This doll--"

"Cheese the funny business, " said Riley. "You swiped it or picked it upat de house on de hill where--but never mind dat. You want to take fiftycents for de rags, and take it quick. Me brother's kid at home might bewantin' to play wid it. Hey--what?"

He produced the coin. 

Fuzzy laughed a gurgling, insolent, alcoholic laugh in his face. Go tothe office of Sarah Bernhardt's manager and propose to him that she bereleased from a night's performance to entertain the Tackytown Lyceumand Literary Coterie. You will hear the duplicate of Fuzzy's laugh. 

Black Riley gauged Fuzzy quickly with his blueberry eye as a wrestlerdoes. His hand was itching to play the Roman and wrest the rag Sabinefrom the extemporaneous merry-andrew who was entertaining an angelunaware. But he refrained. Fuzzy was fat and solid and big. Three inchesof well-nourished corporeity, defended from the winter winds by dingylinen, intervened between his vest and trousers. Countless small, circular wrinkles running around his coat-sleeves and knees guaranteedthe quality of his bone and muscle. His small, blue eyes, bathed in themoisture of altruism and wooziness, looked upon you kindly, yet withoutabashment. He was whiskerly, whiskyly, fleshily formidable. So, BlackRiley temporized. 

"Wot'll you take for it, den?" he asked. 

"Money, " said Fuzzy, with husky firmness, "cannot buy her. "

He was intoxicated with the artist's first sweet cup of attainment. To set a faded-blue, earth-stained rag-doll on a bar, to hold mimicconverse with it, and to find his heart leaping with the sense ofplaudits earned and his throat scorching with free libations poured inhis honor--could base coin buy him from such achievements? You willperceive that Fuzzy had the temperament. 

Fuzzy walked out with the gait of a trained sea-lion in search of othercafés to conquer. 

Though the dusk of twilight was hardly yet apparent, lights werebeginning to spangle the city like pop-corn bursting in a deep skillet. Christmas Eve, impatiently expected, was peeping over the brink of thehour. Millions had prepared for its celebration. Towns would be paintedred. You, yourself, have heard the horns and dodged the capers of theSaturnalians. 

"Pigeon" McCarthy, Black Riley, and "One-ear" Mike held a hasty converseoutside Grogan's. They were narrow-chested, pallid striplings, notfighters in the open, but more dangerous in their ways of warfare thanthe most terrible of Turks. Fuzzy, in a pitched battle, could have eatenthe three of them. In a go-as-you-please encounter he was alreadydoomed. 

They overtook him just as he and Betsy were entering Costigan's Casino. They deflected him, and shoved the newspaper under his nose. Fuzzy couldread--and more. 

"Boys, " said he, "you are certainly damn true friends. Give me a week tothink it over. "

The soul of a real artist is quenched with difficulty. 

The boys carefully pointed out to him that advertisements were soulless, and that the deficiencies of the day might not be supplied by themorrow. 

"A cool hundred, " said Fuzzy thoughtfully and mushily. 

"Boys, " said he, "you are true friends. I'll go up and claim the reward. The show business is not what it used to be. "

Night was falling more surely. The three tagged at his sides to the footof the rise on which stood the Millionaire's house. There Fuzzy turnedupon them acrimoniously. 

"You are a pack of putty-faced beagle-hounds, " he roared. "Go away. "

They went away--a little way. 

In "Pigeon" McCarthy's pocket was a section of one-inch gas-pipe eightinches long. In one end of it and in the middle of it was a lead plug. One-half of it was packed tight with solder. Black Riley carried aslung-shot, being a conventional thug. "One-ear" Mike relied upon apair of brass knucks--an heirloom in the family. 

"Why fetch and carry, " said Black Riley, "when some one will do it forye? Let him bring it out to us. Hey--what?"

"We can chuck him in the river, " said "Pigeon" McCarthy, "with a stonetied to his feet. "

"Youse guys make me tired, " said "One-ear" Mike sadly. "Ain't progressever appealed to none of yez? Sprinkle a little gasoline on 'im, anddrop 'im on the Drive--well?"

Fuzzy entered the Millionaire's gate and zigzagged toward the softlyglowing entrance of the mansion. The three goblins came up to the gateand lingered--one on each side of it, one beyond the roadway. Theyfingered their cold metal and leather, confident. 

Fuzzy rang the door-bell, smiling foolishly and dreamily. An atavisticinstinct prompted him to reach for the button of his right glove. But hewore no gloves; so his left hand dropped, embarrassed. 

The particular menial whose duty it was to open doors to silks and lacesshied at first sight of Fuzzy. But a second glance took in his passport, his card of admission, his surety of welcome--the lost rag-doll of thedaughter of the house dangling under his arm. 

Fuzzy was admitted into a great hall, dim with the glow from unseenlights. The hireling went away and returned with a maid and the Child. The doll was restored to the mourning one. She clasped her lost darlingto her breast; and then, with the inordinate selfishness and candor ofchildhood, stamped her foot and whined hatred and fear of the odiousbeing who had rescued her from the depths of sorrow and despair. Fuzzywriggled himself into an ingratiatory attitude and essayed the idioticsmile and blattering small talk that is supposed to charm the buddingintellect of the young. The Child bawled, and was dragged away, huggingher Betsy close. 

There came the Secretary, pale, poised, polished, gliding in pumps, andworshipping pomp and ceremony. He counted out into Fuzzy's hand tenten-dollar bills; then dropped his eye upon the door, transferred it toJames, its custodian, indicated the obnoxious earner of the reward withthe other, and allowed his pumps to waft him away to secretarialregions. 

James gathered Fuzzy with his own commanding optic and swept him as faras the front door. 

When the money touched fuzzy's dingy palm his first instinct was to taketo his heels; but a second thought restrained him from that blunderof etiquette. It was his; it had been given him. It--and, oh, what anelysium it opened to the gaze of his mind's eye! He had tumbled to thefoot of the ladder; he was hungry, homeless, friendless, ragged, cold, drifting; and he held in his hand the key to a paradise of the mud-honeythat he craved. The fairy doll had waved a wand with her rag-stuffedhand; and now wherever he might go the enchanted palaces with shiningfoot-rests and magic red fluids in gleaming glassware would be open tohim. 

He followed James to the door. 

He paused there as the flunky drew open the great mahogany portal forhim to pass into the vestibule. 

Beyond the wrought-iron gates in the dark highway Black Riley and histwo pals casually strolled, fingering under their coats the inevitablyfatal weapons that were to make the reward of the rag-doll theirs. 

Fuzzy stopped at the Millionaire's door and bethought himself. Likelittle sprigs of mistletoe on a dead tree, certain living green thoughtsand memories began to decorate his confused mind. He was quite drunk, mind you, and the present was beginning to fade. Those wreaths andfestoons of holly with their scarlet berries making the great hallgay--where had he seen such things before? Somewhere he had knownpolished floors and odors of fresh flowers in winter, and--and some onewas singing a song in the house that he thought he had heard before. Some one singing and playing a harp. Of course, it was Christmas--Fuzzythough he must have been pretty drunk to have overlooked that. 

And then he went out of the present, and there came back to him out ofsome impossible, vanished, and irrevocable past a little, pure-white, transient, forgotten ghost--the spirit of _noblesse oblige_. Upon agentleman certain things devolve. 

James opened the outer door. A stream of light went down the graveledwalk to the iron gate. Black Riley, McCarthy, and "One-ear" Mike saw, and carelessly drew their sinister cordon closer about the gate. 

With a more imperious gesture than James's master had ever used or couldever use, Fuzzy compelled the menial to close the door. Upon a gentlemancertain things devolve. Especially at the Christmas season. 

"It is cust--customary, " he said to James, the flustered, "when agentleman calls on Christmas Eve to pass the compliments of the seasonwith the lady of the house. You und'stand? I shall not move shtep tillI pass compl'ments season with lady the house. Und'stand?"

There was an argument. James lost. Fuzzy raised his voice and sent itthrough the house unpleasantly. I did not say he was a gentleman. He wassimply a tramp being visited by a ghost. 

A sterling silver bell rang. James went back to answer it, leaving Fuzzyin the hall. James explained somewhere to some one. 

Then he came and conducted Fuzzy into the library. 

The lady entered a moment later. She was more beautiful and holy thanany picture that Fuzzy had seen. She smiled, and said something about adoll. Fuzzy didn't understand that; he remembered nothing about a doll. 

A footman brought in two small glasses of sparkling wine on a stampedsterling-silver waiter. The Lady took one. The other was handed toFuzzy. 

As his fingers closed on the slender glass stem his disabilities droppedfrom him for one brief moment. He straightened himself; and Time, sodisobliging to most of us, turned backward to accommodate Fuzzy. 

Forgotten Christmas ghosts whiter than the false beards of the mostopulent Kris Kringle were rising in the fumes of Grogan's whisky. Whathad the Millionaire's mansion to do with a long, wainscoted Virginiahall, where the riders were grouped around a silver punch-bowl, drinkingthe ancient toast of the House? And why should the patter of the cabhorses' hoofs on the frozen street be in any wise related to the soundof the saddled hunters stamping under the shelter of the west veranda?And what had Fuzzy to do with any of it?

The Lady, looking at him over her glass, let her condescending smilefade away like a false dawn. Her eyes turned serious. She saw somethingbeneath the rags and Scotch terrier whiskers that she did notunderstand. But it did not matter. 

Fuzzy lifted his glass and smiled vacantly. 

"P-pardon, lady, " he said, "but couldn't leave without exchangin'comp'ments sheason with lady th' house. 'Gainst princ'ples gen'leman dosho. "

And then he began the ancient salutation that was a tradition in theHouse when men wore lace ruffles and powder. 

"The blessings of another year--"

Fuzzy's memory failed him. The Lady prompted:

"--Be upon this hearth. "

"--The guest--" stammered Fuzzy. 

"--And upon her who--" continued the Lady, with a leading smile. 

"Oh, cut it out, " said Fuzzy, ill-manneredly. "I can't remember. Drinkhearty. "

Fuzzy had shot his arrow. They drank. The Lady smiled again the smile ofher caste. James enveloped and re-conducted him toward the front door. The harp music still softly drifted through the house. 

Outside, Black Riley breathed on his cold hands and hugged the gate. 

"I wonder, " said the Lady to herself, musing, "who--but there were somany who came. I wonder whether memory is a curse or a blessing to themafter they have fallen so low. "

Fuzzy and his escort were nearly at the door. The Lady called: "James!"

James stalked back obsequiously, leaving Fuzzy waiting unsteadily, withhis brief spark of the divine fire gone. 

Outside, Black Riley stamped his cold feet and got a firmer grip on hissection of gas-pipe. 

"You will conduct this gentleman, " said the lady, "Downstairs. Then tellLouis to get out the Mercedes and take him to whatever place he wishesto go. "

XVII

A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIA

The great city of Bagdad-on-the-Subway is caliph-ridden. Its palaces, bazaars, khans, and byways are thronged with Al Rashids in diversdisguises, seeking diversion and victims for their unbridled generosity. You can scarcely find a poor beggar whom they are willing to let enjoyhis spoils unsuccored, nor a wrecked unfortunate upon whom they will notreshower the means of fresh misfortune. You will hardly find anywhere ahungry one who has not had the opportunity to tighten his belt in giftlibraries, nor a poor pundit who has not blushed at the holiday basketof celery-crowned turkey forced resoundingly through his door by theeleemosynary press. 

So then, fearfully through the Harun-haunted streets creep the one-eyedcalenders, the Little Hunchback and the Barber's Sixth Brother, hopingto escape the ministrations of the roving horde of caliphoid sultans. 

Entertainment for many Arabian nights might be had from the historiesof those who have escaped the largesse of the army of Commanders of theFaithful. Until dawn you might sit on the enchanted rug and listen tosuch stories as are told of the powerful genie Roc-Ef-El-Er who sent theForty Thieves to soak up the oil plant of Ali Baba; of the good CaliphKar-Neg-Ghe, who gave away palaces; of the Seven Voyages of Sailbad, theSinner, who frequented wooden excursion steamers among the islands; ofthe Fisherman and the Bottle; of the Barmecides' Boarding house; ofAladdin's rise to wealth by means of his Wonderful Gas-meter. 

But now, there being ten sultans to one Sheherazade, she is held toovaluable to be in fear of the bowstring. In consequence the art ofnarrative languishes. And, as the lesser caliphs are hunting the happypoor and the resigned unfortunate from cover to cover in order to heapupon them strange mercies and mysterious benefits, too often comes thereport from Arabian headquarters that the captive refused "to talk. "

This reticence, then, in the actors who perform the sad comedies oftheir philanthropy-scourged world, must, in a degree, account for theshortcomings of this painfully gleaned tale, which shall be called

THE STORY OF THE CALIPH WHO ALLEVIATED HIS CONSCIENCE

Old Jacob Spraggins mixed for himself some Scotch and lithia waterat his $1, 200 oak sideboard. Inspiration must have resulted from itsimbibition, for immediately afterward he struck the quartered oaksoundly with his fist and shouted to the empty dining room:

"By the coke ovens of hell, it must be that ten thousand dollars! IfI can get that squared, it'll do the trick. "

Thus, by the commonest artifice of the trade, having gained yourinterest, the action of the story will now be suspended, leaving yougrumpily to consider a sort of dull biography beginning fifteen yearsbefore. 

When old Jacob was young Jacob he was a breaker boy in a Pennsylvaniacoal mine. I don't know what a breaker boy is; but his occupation seemsto be standing by a coal dump with a wan look and a dinner-pail to havehis picture taken for magazine articles. Anyhow, Jacob was one. But, instead of dying of overwork at nine, and leaving his helpless parentsand brothers at the mercy of the union strikers' reserve fund, hehitched up his galluses, put a dollar or two in a side proposition nowand then, and at forty-five was worth $20, 000, 000. 

There now! it's over. Hardly had time to yawn, did you? I've seenbiographies that--but let us dissemble. 

I want you to consider Jacob Spraggins, Esq. , after he had arrived atthe seventh stage of his career. The stages meant are, first, humbleorigin; second, deserved promotion; third, stockholder; fourth, capitalist; fifth, trust magnate; sixth, rich malefactor; seventh, caliph; eighth, _x_. The eighth stage shall be left to the highermathematics. 

At fifty-five Jacob retired from active business. The income of aczar was still rolling in on him from coal, iron, real estate, oil, railroads, manufactories, and corporations, but none of it touchedJacob's hands in a raw state. It was a sterilized increment, carefullycleaned and dusted and fumigated until it arrived at its ultimate stageof untainted, spotless checks in the white fingers of his privatesecretary. Jacob built a three-million-dollar palace on a corner lotfronting on Nabob Avenue, city of New Bagdad, and began to feel themantle of the late H. A. Rashid descending upon him. Eventually Jacobslipped the mantle under his collar, tied it in a neat four-in-hand, andbecame a licensed harrier of our Mesopotamian proletariat. 

When a man's income becomes so large that the butcher actually sendshim the kind of steak he orders, he begins to think about his soul'ssalvation. Now, the various stages or classes of rich men must not beforgotten. The capitalist can tell you to a dollar the amount of hiswealth. The trust magnate "estimates" it. The rich malefactor hands youa cigar and denies that he has bought the P. D. & Q. The caliph merelysmiles and talks about Hammerstein and the musical lasses. There is arecord of tremendous altercation at breakfast in a "Where-to-Dine-Well"tavern between a magnate and his wife, the rift within the loot beingthat the wife calculated their fortune at a figure $3, 000, 000 higherthan did her future _divorcé_. Oh, well, I, myself, heard a similarquarrel between a man and his wife because he found fifty cents less inhis pockets than he thought he had. After all, we are all human--CountTolstoi, R. Fitzsimmons, Peter Pan, and the rest of us. 

Don't lose heart because the story seems to be degenerating into a sortof moral essay for intellectual readers. 

There will be dialogue and stage business pretty soon. 

When Jacob first began to compare the eyes of needles with the camelsin the Zoo he decided upon organized charity. He had his secretary senda check for one million to the Universal Benevolent Association of theGlobe. You may have looked down through a grating in front of a decayedwarehouse for a nickel that you had dropped through. But that is neitherhere nor there. The Association acknowledged receipt of his favor ofthe 24th ult. With enclosure as stated. Separated by a double line, butstill mighty close to the matter under the caption of "Oddities of theDay's News" in an evening paper, Jacob Spraggins read that one "JasperSpargyous" had "donated $100, 000 to the U. B. A. Of G. " A camel may havea stomach for each day in the week; but I dare not venture to accord himwhiskers, for fear of the Great Displeasure at Washington; but if hehave whiskers, surely not one of them will seem to have been inserted inthe eye of a needle by that effort of that rich man to enter the K. OfH. The right is reserved to reject any and all bids; signed, S. Peter, secretary and gatekeeper. 

Next, Jacob selected the best endowed college he could scare up andpresented it with a $200, 000 laboratory. The college did not maintaina scientific course, but it accepted the money and built an elaboratelavatory instead, which was no diversion of funds so far as Jacob everdiscovered. 

The faculty met and invited Jacob to come over and take his A B Cdegree. Before sending the invitation they smiled, cut out the C, addedthe proper punctuation marks, and all was well. 

While walking on the campus before being capped and gowned, Jacob sawtwo professors strolling nearby. Their voices, long adapted to indooracoustics, undesignedly reached his ear. 

"There goes the latest _chevalier d'industrie_, " said one of them, "tobuy a sleeping powder from us. He gets his degree to-morrow. "

"_In foro conscientiæ_, " said the other. "Let's 'eave 'arf a brick at'im. "

Jacob ignored the Latin, but the brick pleasantry was not too hard forhim. There was no mandragora in the honorary draught of learning that hehad bought. That was before the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act. 

Jacob wearied of philanthropy on a large scale. 

"If I could see folks made happier, " he said to himself--"If I could see'em myself and hear 'em express their gratitude for what I done for 'emit would make me feel better. This donatin' funds to institutions andsocieties is about as satisfactory as dropping money into a broken slotmachine. "

So Jacob followed his nose, which led him through unswept streets to thehomes of the poorest. 

"The very thing!" said Jacob. "I will charter two river steamboats, packthem full of these unfortunate children and--say ten thousand dolls anddrums and a thousand freezers of ice cream, and give them a delightfulouting up the Sound. The sea breezes on that trip ought to blow thetaint off some of this money that keeps coming in faster than I can workit off my mind. "

Jacob must have leaked some of his benevolent intentions, for an immenseperson with a bald face and a mouth that looked as if it ought to have a"Drop Letters Here" sign over it hooked a finger around him and set himin a space between a barber's pole and a stack of ash cans. Words cameout of the post-office slit--smooth, husky words with gloves on 'em, butsounding as if they might turn to bare knuckles any moment. 

"Say, Sport, do you know where you are at? Well, dis is Mike O'Grady'sdistrict you're buttin' into--see? Mike's got de stomach-ache privilegefor every kid in dis neighborhood--see? And if dere's any picnics or redballoons to be dealt out here, Mike's money pays for 'em--see? Don'tyou butt in, or something'll be handed to you. Youse d---- settlers andreformers with your social ologies and your millionaire detectives havegot dis district in a hell of a fix, anyhow. With your college studentsand professors rough-housing de soda-water stands and dem rubber-neckcoaches fillin' de streets, de folks down here are 'fraid to go out ofde houses. Now, you leave 'em to Mike. Dey belongs to him, and he knowshow to handle 'em. Keep on your own side of de town. Are you some wisernow, uncle, or do you want to scrap wit' Mike O'Grady for de Santa Clausbelt in dis district?"

Clearly, that spot in the moral vineyard was preempted. So CaliphSpraggins menaced no more the people in the bazaars of the East Side. To keep down his growing surplus he doubled his donations to organizedcharity, presented the Y. M. C. A. Of his native town with a $10, 000collection of butterflies, and sent a check to the famine sufferersin China big enough to buy new emerald eyes and diamond-filled teethfor all their gods. But none of these charitable acts seemed to bringpeace to the caliph's heart. He tried to get a personal note into hisbenefactions by tipping bellboys and waiters $10 and $20 bills. He gotwell snickered at and derided for that by the minions who accept withrespect gratuities commensurate to the service performed. He sought outan ambitious and talented but poor young woman, and bought for her thestar part in a new comedy. He might have gotten rid of $50, 000 more ofhis cumbersome money in this philanthropy if he had not neglected towrite letters to her. But she lost the suit for lack of evidence, whilehis capital still kept piling up, and his _optikos needleorumcamelibus_--or rich man's disease--was unrelieved. 

In Caliph Spraggins's $3, 000, 000 home lived his sister Henrietta, whoused to cook for the coal miners in a twenty-five-cent eating house inCoketown, Pa. , and who now would have offered John Mitchell only twofingers of her hand to shake. And his daughter Celia, nineteen, backfrom boarding-school and from being polished off by private instructorsin the restaurant languages and those études and things. 

Celia is the heroine. Lest the artist's delineation of her charmson this very page humbug your fancy, take from me her authorizeddescription. She was a nice-looking, awkward, loud, rather bashful, brown-haired girl, with a sallow complexion, bright eyes, and aperpetual smile. She had a wholesome, Spraggins-inherited love for plainfood, loose clothing, and the society of the lower classes. She had toomuch health and youth to feel the burden of wealth. She had a wide mouththat kept the peppermint-pepsin tablets rattling like hail from theslot-machine wherever she went, and she could whistle hornpipes. Keepthis picture in mind; and let the artist do his worst. 

Celia looked out of her window one day and gave her heart to thegrocer's young man. The receiver thereof was at that moment engagedin conceding immortality to his horse and calling down upon him theultimate fate of the wicked; so he did not notice the transfer. A horseshould stand still when you are lifting a crate of strictly new-laideggs out of the wagon. 

Young lady reader, you would have liked that grocer's young manyourself. But you wouldn't have given him your heart, because you aresaving it for a riding-master, or a shoe-manufacturer with a torpidliver, or something quiet but rich in gray tweeds at Palm Beach. Oh, Iknow about it. So I am glad the grocer's young man was for Celia, andnot for you. 

The grocer's young man was slim and straight and as confident and easyin his movements as the man in the back of the magazines who wears thenew frictionless roller suspenders. He wore a gray bicycle cap on theback of his head, and his hair was straw-colored and curly, and hissunburned face looked like one that smiled a good deal when he was notpreaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment to delivery-wagonhorses. He slung imported A1 fancy groceries about as though they wereonly the stuff he delivered at boarding-houses; and when he picked uphis whip, your mind instantly recalled Mr. Tackett and his air with thebuttonless foils. 

Tradesmen delivered their goods at a side gate at the rear of the house. The grocer's wagon came about ten in the morning. For three days Celiawatched the driver when he came, finding something new each time toadmire in the lofty and almost contemptuous way he had of tossing aroundthe choicest gifts of Pomona, Ceres, and the canning factories. Then sheconsulted Annette. 

To be explicit, Annette McCorkle, the second housemaid who deserves aparagraph herself. Annette Fletcherized large numbers of romantic novelswhich she obtained at a free public library branch (donated by one ofthe biggest caliphs in the business). She was Celia's side-kicker andchum, though Aunt Henrietta didn't know it, you may hazard a bean ortwo. 

"Oh, canary-bird seed!" exclaimed Annette. "Ain't it a corkin'situation? You a heiress, and fallin' in love with him on sight! He's asweet boy, too, and above his business. But he ain't susceptible likethe common run of grocer's assistants. He never pays no attention tome. "

"He will to me, " said Celia. 

"Riches--" began Annette, unsheathing the not unjustifiable femininesting. 

"Oh, you're not so beautiful, " said Celia, with her wide, disarmingsmile. "Neither am I; but he sha'n't know that there's any money mixedup with my looks, such as they are. That's fair. Now, I want you to lendme one of your caps and an apron, Annette. "

"Oh, marshmallows!" cried Annette. "I see. Ain't it lovely? It's justlike 'Lurline, the Left-Handed; or, A Buttonhole Maker's Wrongs. ' I'llbet he'll turn out to be a count. "

There was a long hallway (or "passageway, " as they call it in the landof the Colonels) with one side latticed, running along the rear of thehouse. The grocer's young man went through this to deliver his goods. One morning he passed a girl in there with shining eyes, sallowcomplexion, and wide, smiling mouth, wearing a maid's cap and apron. Butas he was cumbered with a basket of Early Drumhead lettuce and Trophytomatoes and three bunches of asparagus and six bottles of the mostexpensive Queen olives, he saw no more than that she was one of themaids. 

But on his way out he came up behind her, and she was whistling"Fisher's Hornpipe" so loudly and clearly that all the piccolos in theworld should have disjointed themselves and crept into their cases forshame. 

The grocer's young man stopped and pushed back his cap until it hung onhis collar button behind. 

"That's out o' sight, Kid, " said he. 

"My name is Celia, if you please, " said the whistler, dazzling him witha three-inch smile. 

That's all right. I'm Thomas McLeod. What part of the house do you workin?"

"I'm the--the second parlor maid. "

"Do you know the 'Falling Waters'?"

"No, " said Celia, "we don't know anybody. We got rich too quick--thatis, Mr. Spraggins did. "

"I'll make you acquainted, " said Thomas McLeod. "It's a strathspey--thefirst cousin to a hornpipe. "

If Celia's whistling put the piccolos out of commission, Thomas McLeod'ssurely made the biggest flutes hunt their holes. He could actuallywhistle _bass_. 

When he stopped Celia was ready to jump into his delivery wagon and ridewith him clear to the end of the pier and on to the ferry-boat of theCharon line. 

"I'll be around to-morrow at 10:15, " said Thomas, "with some spinach anda case of carbonic. "

"I'll practice that what-you-may-call-it, " said Celia. "I can whistle afine second. "

The processes of courtship are personal, and do not belong to generalliterature. They should be chronicled in detail only in advertisementsof iron tonics and in the secret by-laws of the Woman's Auxiliary ofthe Ancient Order of the Rat Trap. But genteel writing may contain adescription of certain stages of its progress without intruding uponthe province of the X-ray or of park policemen. 

A day came when Thomas McLeod and Celia lingered at the end of thelatticed "passage. "

"Sixteen a week isn't much, " said Thomas, letting his cap rest on hisshoulder blades. 

Celia looked through the lattice-work and whistled a dead march. Shopping with Aunt Henrietta the day before, she had paid that much fora dozen handkerchiefs. 

"Maybe I'll get a raise next month, " said Thomas. "I'll be aroundto-morrow at the same time with a bag of flour and the laundry soap. "

"All right, " said Celia. "Annette's married cousin pays only $20 a monthfor a flat in the Bronx. "

Never for a moment did she count on the Spraggins money. She knew AuntHenrietta's invincible pride of caste and pa's mightiness as a Colossusof cash, and she understood that if she chose Thomas she and hergrocer's young man might go whistle for a living. 

Another day came, Thomas violating the dignity of Nabob Avenue with"The Devil's Dream, " whistled keenly between his teeth. 

"Raised to eighteen a week yesterday, " he said. "Been pricing flatsaround Morningside. You want to start untying those apron strings andunpinning that cap, old girl. "

"Oh, Tommy!" said Celia, with her broadest smile. "Won't that be enough?I got Betty to show me how to make a cottage pudding. I guess we couldcall it a flat pudding if we wanted to. "

"And tell no lie, " said Thomas. 

"And I can sweep and polish and dust--of course, a parlor maid learnsthat. And we could whistle duets of evenings. "

"The old man said he'd raise me to twenty at Christmas if Bryan couldn'tthink of any harder name to call a Republican than a 'postponer, '" saidthe grocer's young man. 

"I can sew, " said Celia; "and I know that you must make the gascompany's man show his badge when he comes to look at the meter; and Iknow how to put up quince jam and window curtains. "

"Bully! you're all right, Cele. Yes, I believe we can pull it off oneighteen. "

As he was jumping into the wagon the second parlor maid braved discoveryby running swiftly to the gate. 

"And, oh, Tommy, I forgot, " she called, softly. "I believe I could makeyour neckties. "

"Forget it, " said Thomas decisively. 

"And another thing, " she continued. "Sliced cucumbers at night willdrive away cockroaches. "

"And sleep, too, you bet, " said Mr. McLeod. "Yes, I believe if I have adelivery to make on the West Side this afternoon I'll look in at afurniture store I know over there. "

It was just as the wagon dashed away that old Jacob Spraggins struckthe sideboard with his fist and made the mysterious remark aboutten thousand dollars that you perhaps remember. Which justifies thereflection that some stories, as well as life, and puppies thrown intowells, move around in circles. Painfully but briefly we must shed lighton Jacob's words. 

The foundation of his fortune was made when he was twenty. A poorcoal-digger (ever hear of a rich one?) had saved a dollar or two andbought a small tract of land on a hillside on which he tried to raisecorn. Not a nubbin. Jacob, whose nose was a divining-rod, told him therewas a vein of coal beneath. He bought the land from the miner for $125and sold it a month afterward for $10, 000. Luckily the miner had enoughleft of his sale money to drink himself into a black coat opening in theback, as soon as he heard the news. 

And so, for forty years afterward, we find Jacob illuminated with thesudden thought that if he could make restitution of this sum of moneyto the heirs or assigns of the unlucky miner, respite and Nepenthe mightbe his. 

And now must come swift action, for we have here some four thousandwords and not a tear shed and never a pistol, joke, safe, nor bottlecracked. 

Old Jacob hired a dozen private detectives to find the heirs, if anyexisted, of the old miner, Hugh McLeod. 

Get the point? Of course I know as well as you do that Thomas is goingto be the heir. I might have concealed the name; but why always holdback your mystery till the end? I say, let it come near the middle sopeople can stop reading there if they want to. 

After the detectives had trailed false clues about three thousanddollars--I mean miles--they cornered Thomas at the grocery and got hisconfession that Hugh McLeod had been his grandfather, and that therewere no other heirs. They arranged a meeting for him and old Jacob onemorning in one of their offices. 

Jacob liked the young man very much. He liked the way he looked straightat him when he talked, and the way he threw his bicycle cap over the topof a rose-colored vase on the centre-table. 

There was a slight flaw in Jacob's system of restitution. He did notconsider that the act, to be perfect, should include confession. So herepresented himself to be the agent of the purchaser of the land who hadsent him to refund the sale price for the ease of his conscience. 

"Well, sir, " said Thomas, "this sounds to me like an illustratedpost-card from South Boston with 'We're having a good time here' writtenon it. I don't know the game. Is this ten thousand dollars money, or doI have to save so many coupons to get it?"

Old Jacob counted out to him twenty five-hundred-dollar bills. 

That was better, he thought, than a check. Thomas put them thoughtfullyinto his pocket. 

"Grandfather's best thanks, " he said, "to the party who sends it. "

Jacob talked on, asking him about his work, how he spent his leisuretime, and what his ambitions were. The more he saw and heard of Thomas, the better he liked him. He had not met many young men in Bagdad sofrank and wholesome. 

"I would like to have you visit my house, " he said. "I might help you ininvesting or laying out your money. I am a very wealthy man. I have adaughter about grown, and I would like for you to know her. There arenot many young men I would care to have call on her. "

"I'm obliged, " said Thomas. "I'm not much at making calls. It'sgenerally the side entrance for mine. And, besides, I'm engaged to agirl that has the Delaware peach crop killed in the blossom. She's aparlor maid in a house where I deliver goods. She won't be workingthere much longer, though. Say, don't forget to give your friend mygrandfather's best regards. You'll excuse me now; my wagon's outsidewith a lot of green stuff that's got to be delivered. See you again, sir. "

At eleven Thomas delivered some bunches of parsley and lettuce at theSpraggins mansion. Thomas was only twenty-two; so, as he came back, he took out the handful of five-hundred-dollar bills and waved themcarelessly. Annette took a pair of eyes as big as creamed onion to thecook. 

"I told you he was a count, " she said, after relating. "He never wouldcarry on with me. "

"But you say he showed money, " said the cook. 

"Hundreds of thousands, " said Annette. "Carried around loose in hispockets. And he never would look at me. "

"It was paid to me to-day, " Thomas was explaining to Celia outside. "Itcame from my grandfather's estate. Say, Cele, what's the use of waitingnow? I'm going to quit the job to-night. Why can't we get married nextweek?"

"Tommy, " said Celia. "I'm no parlor maid. I've been fooling you. I'mMiss Spraggins--Celia Spraggins. The newspapers say I'll be worth fortymillion dollars some day. "

Thomas pulled his cap down straight on his head for the first time sincewe have known him. 

"I suppose then, " said he, "I suppose then you'll not be marrying menext week. But you _can_ whistle. "

"No, " said Celia, "I'll not be marrying you next week. My father wouldnever let me marry a grocer's clerk. But I'll marry you to-night, Tommy, if you say so. "

Old Jacob Spraggins came home at 9:30 P. M. , in his motor car. The makeof it you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidizedfiction; had it been a street car I could have told you its voltageand the number of wheels it had. Jacob called for his daughter; he hadbought a ruby necklace for her, and wanted to hear her say what a kind, thoughtful, dear old dad he was. 

There was a brief search in the house for her, and then came Annette, glowing with the pure flame of truth and loyalty well mixed with envyand histrionics. 

"Oh, sir, " said she, wondering if she should kneel, "Miss Celia's justthis minute running away out of the side gate with a young man to bemarried. I couldn't stop her, sir. They went in a cab. "

"What young man?" roared old Jacob. 

"A millionaire, if you please, sir--a rich nobleman in disguise. Hecarries his money with him, and the red peppers and the onions was onlyto blind us, sir. He never did seem to take to me. "

Jacob rushed out in time to catch his car. The chauffeur had beendelayed by trying to light a cigarette in the wind. 

"Here, Gaston, or Mike, or whatever you call yourself, scoot around thecorner quicker than blazes and see if you can see a cab. If you do, runit down. "

There was a cab in sight a block away. Gaston, or Mike, with his eyeshalf shut and his mind on his cigarette, picked up the trail, neatlycrowded the cab to the curb and pocketed it. 

"What t'ell you doin'?" yelled the cabman. 

"Pa!" shrieked Celia. 

"Grandfather's remorseful friend's agent!" said Thomas. "Wonder what'son his conscience now. "

"A thousand thunders, " said Gaston, or Mike. "I have no other match. "

"Young man, " said old Jacob, severely, "how about that parlor maid youwere engaged to?"

A couple of years afterward old Jacob went into the office of hisprivate secretary. 

"The Amalgamated Missionary Society solicits a contribution of $30, 000toward the conversion of the Koreans, " said the secretary. 

"Pass 'em up, " said Jacob. 

"The University of Plumville writes that its yearly endowment fund of$50, 000 that you bestowed upon it is past due. "

"Tell 'em it's been cut out. "

"The Scientific Society of Clam Cove, Long Island, asks for $10, 000 tobuy alcohol to preserve specimens. "

"Waste basket. "

"The Society for Providing Healthful Recreation for Working Girls wants$20, 000 from you to lay out a golf course. "

"Tell 'em to see an undertaker. "

"Cut 'em all out, " went on Jacob. "I've quit being a good thing. I needevery dollar I can scrape or save. I want you to write to the directorsof every company that I'm interested in and recommend a 10 per cent. Cutin salaries. And say--I noticed half a cake of soap lying in a corner ofthe hall as I came in. I want you to speak to the scrubwoman aboutwaste. I've got no money to throw away. And say--we've got vinegarpretty well in hand, haven't we?'

"The Globe Spice & Seasons Company, " said secretary, "controls themarket at present. "

"Raise vinegar two cents a gallon. Notify all our branches. "

Suddenly Jacob Spraggins's plump red face relaxed into a pulpy grin. Hewalked over to the secretary's desk and showed a small red mark on histhick forefinger. 

"Bit it, " he said, "darned if he didn't, and he ain't had the tooththree weeks--Jaky McLeod, my Celia's kid. He'll be worth a hundredmillions by the time he's twenty-one if I can pile it up for him. "

As he was leaving, old Jacob turned at the door, and said:

"Better make that vinegar raise three cents instead of two. I'll be backin an hour and sign the letters. "

The true history of the Caliph Harun Al Rashid relates that toward theend of his reign he wearied of philanthropy, and caused to be beheadedall his former favorites and companions of his "Arabian Nights" rambles. Happy are we in these days of enlightenment, when the only death warrantthe caliphs can serve on us is in the form of a tradesman's bill. 

XVIII

THE GIRL AND THE HABIT

HABIT--a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or frequentrepetition. 

The critics have assailed every source of inspiration save one. To thatone we are driven for our moral theme. When we levied upon the mastersof old they gleefully dug up the parallels to our columns. When westrove to set forth real life they reproached us for trying to imitateHenry George, George Washington, Washington Irving, and IrvingBacheller. We wrote of the West and the East, and they accused usof both Jesse and Henry James. We wrote from our heart--and theysaid something about a disordered liver. We took a text from Matthewor--er--yes, Deuteronomy, but the preachers were hammering away at theinspiration idea before we could get into type. So, driven to the wall, we go for our subject-matter to the reliable, old, moral, unassailablevade mecum--the unabridged dictionary. 

Miss Merriam was cashier at Hinkle's. Hinkle's is one of the bigdowntown restaurants. It is in what the papers call the "financialdistrict. " Each day from 12 o'clock to 2 Hinkle's was full of hungrycustomers--messenger boys, stenographers, brokers, owners of miningstock, promoters, inventors with patents pending--and also people withmoney. 

The cashiership at Hinkle's was no sinecure. Hinkle egged and toastedand griddle-caked and coffeed a good many customers; and he lunched(as good a word as "dined") many more. It might be said that Hinkle'sbreakfast crowd was a contingent, but his luncheon patronage amountedto a horde. 

Miss Merriam sat on a stool at a desk inclosed on three sides by astrong, high fencing of woven brass wire. Through an arched opening atthe bottom you thrust your waiter's check and the money, while yourheart went pit-a-pat. 

For Miss Merriam was lovely and capable. She could take 45 cents out ofa $2 bill and refuse an offer of marriage before you could--Next!--lostyour chance--please don't shove. She could keep cool and collected whileshe collected your check, give you the correct change, win your heart, indicate the toothpick stand, and rate you to a quarter of a cent betterthan Bradstreet could to a thousand in less time than it takes to pepperan egg with one of Hinkle's casters. 

There is an old and dignified allusion to the "fierce light that beatsupon a throne. " The light that beats upon the young lady cashier's cageis also something fierce. The other fellow is responsible for the slang. 

Every male patron of Hinkle's, from the A. D. T. Boys up to thecurbstone brokers, adored Miss Merriam. When they paid their checksthey wooed her with every wile known to Cupid's art. Between the meshesof the brass railing went smiles, winks, compliments, tender vows, invitations to dinner, sighs, languishing looks and merry banter thatwas wafted pointedly back by the gifted Miss Merriam. 

There is no coign of vantage more effective than the position of younglady cashier. She sits there, easily queen of the court of commerce; sheis duchess of dollars and devoirs, countess of compliments and coin, leading lady of love and luncheon. You take from her a smile and aCanadian dime, and you go your way uncomplaining. You count the cheeryword or two that she tosses you as misers count their treasures; andyou pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brass-boundinaccessibility multiplies her charms--anyhow, she is a shirt-waistedangel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready, alert--Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from yourcirculating medium after your sirloin medium. 

The young men who broke bread at Hinkle's never settled with the cashierwithout an exchange of badinage and open compliment. Many of them wentto greater lengths and dropped promissory hints of theatre ticketsand chocolates. The older men spoke plainly of orange blossoms, generally withering the tentative petals by after-allusions to Harlemflats. One broker, who had been squeezed by copper proposed to MissMerriam more regularly than he ate. 

During a brisk luncheon hour Miss Merriam's conversation, while she tookmoney for checks, would run something like this:

"Good morning, Mr. Haskins--sir?--it's natural, thank you--don't bequite so fresh . . . Hello, Johnny--ten, fifteen, twenty--chase alongnow or they'll take the letters off your cap . . . Beg pardon--countit again, please--Oh, don't mention it . . . Vaudeville?--thanks;not on your moving picture--I was to see Carter in Hedda Gabler onWednesday night with Mr. Simmons . . . 'Scuse me, I thought thatwas a quarter . . . Twenty-five and seventy-five's a dollar--gotthat ham-and-cabbage habit yet. I see, Billy . . . Who are youaddressing?--say--you'll get all that's coming to you in aminute . . . Oh, fudge! Mr. Bassett--you're always fooling--no--?Well, maybe I'll marry you some day--three, four and sixty-fiveis five . . . Kindly keep them remarks to yourself, if youplease . . . Ten cents?--'scuse me; the check calls for seventy--well, maybe it is a one instead of a seven . . . Oh, do you like it thatway, Mr. Saunders?--some prefer a pomp; but they say this Cleo deMerody does suit refined features . . . And ten is fifty . . . Hikealong there, buddy; don't take this for a Coney Island ticketbooth . . . Huh?--why, Macy's--don't it fit nice? Oh, no, it isn't toocool--these light-weight fabrics is all the go this season . . . Comeagain, please--that's the third time you've tried to--what?--forgetit--that lead quarter is an old friend of mine . . . Sixty-five?--musthave had your salary raised, Mr. Wilson . . . I seen you on SixthAvenue Tuesday afternoon, Mr. De Forest--swell?--oh, my!--whois she? . . . What's the matter with it?--why, it ain'tmoney--what?--Columbian half?--well, this ain't SouthAmerica . . . Yes, I like the mixed best--Friday?--awfullysorry, but I take my jiu-jitsu lesson on Friday--Thursday, then . . . Thanks--that's sixteen times I've been told that thismorning--I guess I must be beautiful . . . Cut that out, please--whodo you think I am? . . . Why, Mr. Westbrook--do you really thinkso?--the idea!--one--eighty and twenty's a dollar--thank you ever somuch, but I don't ever go automobile riding with gentlemen--youraunt?--well, that's different--perhaps . . . Please don't getfresh--your check was fifteen cents, I believe--kindly step aside andlet . . . Hello, Ben--coming around Thursday evening?--there's agentleman going to send around a box of chocolates, and . . . Fortyand sixty is a dollar, and one is two . . . "

About the middle of one afternoon the dizzy goddess Vertigo--whose othername is Fortune--suddenly smote an old, wealthy and eccentric bankerwhile he was walking past Hinkle's, on his way to a street car. Awealthy and eccentric banker who rides in street cars is--move up, please; there are others. 

A Samaritan, a Pharisee, a man and a policeman who were first on thespot lifted Banker McRamsey and carried him into Hinkle's restaurant. When the aged but indestructible banker opened his eyes he saw abeautiful vision bending over him with a pitiful, tender smile, bathinghis forehead with beef tea and chafing his hands with something frappéout of a chafing-dish. Mr. McRamsey sighed, lost a vest button, gazedwith deep gratitude upon his fair preserveress, and then recoveredconsciousness. 

To the Seaside Library all who are anticipating a romance! BankerMcRamsey had an aged and respected wife, and his sentiments towardMiss Merriam were fatherly. He talked to her for half an hour withinterest--not the kind that went with his talks during business hours. The next day he brought Mrs. McRamsey down to see her. The old couplewere childless--they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn. 

To make a short story shorter, the beautiful cashier won the heartsof the good old couple. They came to Hinkle's again and again; theyinvited her to their old-fashioned but splendid home in one of the EastSeventies. Miss Merriam's winning loveliness, her sweet frankness andimpulsive heart took them by storm. They said a hundred times that MissMerriam reminded them so much of their lost daughter. The Brooklynmatron, née Ramsey, had the figure of Buddha and a face like the idealof an art photographer. Miss Merriam was a combination of curves, smiles, rose leaves, pearls, satin and hair-tonic posters. Enough of thefatuity of parents. 

A month after the worthy couple became acquainted with Miss Merriam, shestood before Hinkle one afternoon and resigned her cashiership. 

"They're going to adopt me, " she told the bereft restaurateur. "They'refunny old people, but regular dears. And the swell home they have got!Say, Hinkle, there isn't any use of talking--I'm on the à la carte towear brown duds and goggles in a whiz wagon, or marry a duke at least. Still, I somehow hate to break out of the old cage. I've been cashieringso long I feel funny doing anything else. I'll miss joshing the fellowsawfully when they line up to pay for the buckwheats and. But I can't letthis chance slide. And they're awfully good, Hinkle; I know I'll have aswell time. You owe me nine-sixty-two and a half for the week. Cut outthe half if it hurts you, Hinkle. "

And they did. Miss Merriam became Miss Rosa McRamsey. And she graced thetransition. Beauty is only skin-deep, but the nerves lie very near tothe skin. Nerve--but just here will you oblige by perusing again thequotation with which this story begins?

The McRamseys poured out money like domestic champagne to polish theiradopted one. Milliners, dancing masters and private tutors got it. Miss--er--McRamsey was grateful, loving, and tried to forget Hinkle's. To give ample credit to the adaptability of the American girl, Hinkle'sdid fade from her memory and speech most of the time. 

Not every one will remember when the Earl of Hitesbury came to EastSeventy---- Street, America. He was only a fair-to-medium earl, withoutdebts, and he created little excitement. But you will surely rememberthe evening when the Daughters of Benevolence held their bazaar in theW----f-A----a Hotel. For you were there, and you wrote a note to Fannieon the hotel paper, and mailed it, just to show her that--you did not?Very well; that was the evening the baby was sick, of course. 

At the bazaar the McRamseys were prominent. Miss Mer--er--McRamsey wasexquisitely beautiful. The Earl of Hitesbury had been very attentive toher since he dropped in to have a look at America. At the charity bazaarthe affair was supposed to be going to be pulled off to a finish. Anearl is as good as a duke. Better. His standing may be lower, but hisoutstanding accounts are also lower. 

Our ex-young-lady-cashier was assigned to a booth. She was expected tosell worthless articles to nobs and snobs at exorbitant prices. Theproceeds of the bazaar were to be used for giving the poor children ofthe slums a Christmas din----Say! did you ever wonder where they get theother 364?

Miss McRamsey--beautiful, palpitating, excited, charming, radiant--fluttered about in her booth. An imitation brass network, witha little arched opening, fenced her in. 

Along came the Earl, assured, delicate, accurate, admiring--admiringgreatly, and faced the open wicket. 

"You look chawming, you know--'pon my word you do--my deah, " he said, beguilingly. 

Miss McRamsey whirled around. 

"Cut that joshing out, " she said, coolly and briskly. "Who do you thinkyou are talking to? Your check, please. Oh, Lordy!--"

Patrons of the bazaar became aware of a commotion and pressed around acertain booth. The Earl of Hitesbury stood near by pulling a pale blondand puzzled whisker. 

"Miss McRamsey has fainted, " some one explained. 

XIX

PROOF OF THE PUDDING

Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the _MinervaMagazine_, and deflected him from his course. He had lunched in hisfavorite corner of a Broadway hotel, and was returning to his officewhen his feet became entangled in the lure of the vernal coquette. Whichis by way of saying that he turned eastward in Twenty-sixth Street, safely forded the spring freshet of vehicles in Fifth Avenue, andmeandered along the walks of budding Madison Square. 

The lenient air and the settings of the little park almost formed apastoral; the color motif was green--the presiding shade at the creationof man and vegetation. 

The callow grass between the walks was the color of verdigris, apoisonous green, reminiscent of the horde of derelict humans that hadbreathed upon the soil during the summer and autumn. The bursting treebuds looked strangely familiar to those who had botanized among thegarnishings of the fish course of a forty-cent dinner. The sky abovewas of that pale aquamarine tint that ballroom poets rhyme with "true"and "Sue" and "coo. " The one natural and frank color visible was theostensible green of the newly painted benches--a shade between the colorof a pickled cucumber and that of a last year's fast-black cravenetteraincoat. But, to the city-bred eye of Editor Westbrook, the landscapeappeared a masterpiece. 

And now, whether you are of those who rush in, or of the gentleconcourse that fears to tread, you must follow in a brief invasion ofthe editor's mind. 

Editor Westbrook's spirit was contented and serene. The April number ofthe _Minerva_ had sold its entire edition before the tenth day of themonth--a newsdealer in Keokuk had written that he could have sold fiftycopies more if he had 'em. The owners of the magazine had raised his(the editor's) salary; he had just installed in his home a jewel of arecently imported cook who was afraid of policemen; and the morningpapers had published in full a speech he had made at a publishers'banquet. Also there were echoing in his mind the jubilant notes of asplendid song that his charming young wife had sung to him before heleft his up-town apartment that morning. She was taking enthusiasticinterest in her music of late, practising early and diligently. Whenhe had complimented her on the improvement in her voice she had fairlyhugged him for joy at his praise. He felt, too, the benign, tonicmedicament of the trained nurse, Spring, tripping softly adown the wardsof the convalescent city. 

While Editor Westbrook was sauntering between the rows of park benches(already filling with vagrants and the guardians of lawless childhood)he felt his sleeve grasped and held. Suspecting that he was about to bepanhandled, he turned a cold and unprofitable face, and saw that hiscaptor was--Dawe--Shackleford Dawe, dingy, almost ragged, the genteelscarcely visible in him through the deeper lines of the shabby. 

While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlightbiography of Dawe is offered. 

He was a fiction writer, and one of Westbrook's old acquaintances. At one time they might have called each other old friends. Dawe hadsome money in those days, and lived in a decent apartment house nearWestbrook's. The two families often went to theatres and dinnerstogether. Mrs. Dawe and Mrs. Westbrook became "dearest" friends. Then one day a little tentacle of the octopus, just to amuse itself, ingurgitated Dawe's capital, and he moved to the Gramercy Parkneighborhood where one, for a few groats per week, may sit upon one'strunk under eight-branched chandeliers and opposite Carrara marblemantels and watch the mice play upon the floor. Dawe thought to liveby writing fiction. Now and then he sold a story. He submitted manyto Westbrook. The _Minerva_ printed one or two of them; the rest werereturned. Westbrook sent a careful and conscientious personal letterwith each rejected manuscript, pointing out in detail his reasonsfor considering it unavailable. Editor Westbrook had his own clearconception of what constituted good fiction. So had Dawe. Mrs. Dawe wasmainly concerned about the constituents of the scanty dishes of foodthat she managed to scrape together. One day Dawe had been spouting toher about the excellencies of certain French writers. At dinner they satdown to a dish that a hungry schoolboy could have encompassed at a gulp. Dawe commented. 

"It's Maupassant hash, " said Mrs. Dawe. "It may not be art, but I dowish you would do a five-course Marion Crawford serial with an EllaWheeler Wilcox sonnet for dessert. I'm hungry. "

As far as this from success was Shackleford Dawe when he plucked EditorWestbrook's sleeve in Madison Square. That was the first time the editorhad seen Dawe in several months. 

"Why, Shack, is this you?" said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for theform of his phrase seemed to touch upon the other's changed appearance. 

"Sit down for a minute, " said Dawe, tugging at his sleeve. "This is myoffice. I can't come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, sit down--you won'tbe disgraced. Those half-plucked birds on the other benches will takeyou for a swell porch-climber. They won't know you are only an editor. "

"Smoke, Shack?" said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon thevirulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield. 

Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sunperch, or a girlpecks at a chocolate cream. 

"I have just--" began the editor. 

"Oh, I know; don't finish, " said Dawe. "Give me a match. You have justten minutes to spare. How did you manage to get past my office-boy andinvade my sanctum? There he goes now, throwing his club at a dog thatcouldn't read the 'Keep off the Grass' signs. "

"How goes the writing?" asked the editor. 

"Look at me, " said Dawe, "for your answer. Now don't put on thatembarrassed, friendly-but-honest look and ask me why I don't get a jobas a wine agent or a cab driver. I'm in the fight to a finish. I know Ican write good fiction and I'll force you fellows to admit it yet. I'llmake you change the spelling of 'regrets' to 'c-h-e-q-u-e' before I'mdone with you. "

Editor Westbrook gazed through his nose-glasses with a sweetlysorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression--thecopyrighted expression of the editor beleagured by the unavailablecontributor. 

"Have you read the last story I sent you--'The Alarum of the Soul'?"asked Dawe. 

"Carefully. I hesitated over that story, Shack, really I did. It hadsome good points. I was writing you a letter to send with it when itgoes back to you. I regret--"

"Never mind the regrets, " said Dawe, grimly. "There's neither salve norsting in 'em any more. What I want to know is _why_. Come now; out withthe good points first. "

"The story, " said Westbrook, deliberately, after a suppressed sigh, "iswritten around an almost original plot. Characterization--the best youhave done. Construction--almost as good, except for a few weak jointswhich might be strengthened by a few changes and touches. It was a goodstory, except--"

"I can write English, can't I?" interrupted Dawe. 

"I have always told you, " said the editor, "that you had a style. "

"Then the trouble is--"

"Same old thing, " said Editor Westbrook. "You work up to your climaxlike an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I don'tknow what form of obstinate madness possesses you, but that is what youdo with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparisonwith the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of itsimpossible perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every dénouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokesof your brush that I have so often complained of. If you would rise tothe literary pinnacle of your dramatic senses, and paint them in thehigh colors that art requires, the postman would leave fewer bulky, self-addressed envelopes at your door. "

"Oh, fiddles and footlights!" cried Dawe, derisively. "You've got thatold sawmill drama kink in your brain yet. When the man with the blackmustache kidnaps golden-haired Bessie you are bound to have the motherkneel and raise her hands in the spotlight and say: 'May high heavenwitness that I will rest neither night nor day till the heartlessvillain that has stolen me child feels the weight of another'svengeance!'"

Editor Westbrook conceded a smile of impervious complacency. 

"I think, " said he, "that in real life the woman would express herselfin those words or in very similar ones. "

"Not in a six hundred nights' run anywhere but on the stage, " said Dawehotly. "I'll tell you what she'd say in real life. She'd say: 'What!Bessie led away by a strange man? Good Lord! It's one trouble afteranother! Get my other hat, I must hurry around to the police-station. Why wasn't somebody looking after her, I'd like to know? For God's sake, get out of my way or I'll never get ready. Not that hat--the brown onewith the velvet bows. Bessie must have been crazy; she's usually shy ofstrangers. Is that too much powder? Lordy! How I'm upset!'

"That's the way she'd talk, " continued Dawe. "People in real life don'tfly into heroics and blank verse at emotional crises. They simply can'tdo it. If they talk at all on such occasions they draw from the samevocabulary that they use every day, and muddle up their words and ideasa little more, that's all. "

"Shack, " said Editor Westbrook impressively, "did you ever pick up themangled and lifeless form of a child from under the fender of a streetcar, and carry it in your arms and lay it down before the distractedmother? Did you ever do that and listen to the words of grief anddespair as they flowed spontaneously from her lips?"

"I never did, " said Dawe. "Did you?"

"Well, no, " said Editor Westbrook, with a slight frown. "But I can wellimagine what she would say. "

"So can I, " said Dawe. 

And now the fitting time had come for Editor Westbrook to play theoracle and silence his opinionated contributor. It was not for anunarrived fictionist to dictate words to be uttered by the heroes andheroines of the _Minerva Magazine_, contrary to the theories of theeditor thereof. 

"My dear Shack, " said he, "if I know anything of life I know that everysudden, deep and tragic emotion in the human heart calls forth anapposite, concordant, conformable and proportionate expression offeeling. How much of this inevitable accord between expression andfeeling should be attributed to nature, and how much to the influence ofart, it would be difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of thelioness that has been deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far aboveher customary whine and purr as the kingly and transcendent utterancesof Lear are above the level of his senile vaporings. But it is also truethat all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramaticsense that is awakened by a sufficiently deep and powerful emotion--asense unconsciously acquired from literature and the stage that promptsthem to express those emotions in language befitting their importanceand histrionic value. "

"And in the name of the seven sacred saddle-blankets of Sagittarius, where did the stage and literature get the stunt?" asked Dawe. 

"From life, " answered the editor, triumphantly. 

The story writer rose from the bench and gesticulated eloquently butdumbly. He was beggared for words with which to formulate adequately hisdissent. 

On a bench nearby a frowzy loafer opened his red eyes and perceived thathis moral support was due a downtrodden brother. 

"Punch him one, Jack, " he called hoarsely to Dawe. "W'at's he comemakin' a noise like a penny arcade for amongst gen'lemen that comes inthe square to set and think?"

Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of leisure. 

"Tell me, " asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, "what especial faults in'The Alarum of the Soul' caused you to throw it down?"

"When Gabriel Murray, " said Westbrook, "goes to his telephone and istold that his fiancée has been shot by a burglar, he says--I do notrecall the exact words, but--"

"I do, " said Dawe. "He says: 'Damn Central; she always cuts me off. '(And then to his friend) 'Say, Tommy, does a thirty-two bullet make abig hole? It's kind of hard luck, ain't it? Could you get me a drinkfrom the sideboard, Tommy? No; straight; nothing on the side. '"

"And again, " continued the editor, without pausing for argument, "whenBerenice opens the letter from her husband informing her that he hasfled with the manicure girl, her words are--let me see--"

"She says, " interposed the author: "'Well, what do you think of that!'"

"Absurdly inappropriate words, " said Westbrook, "presenting ananti-climax--plunging the story into hopeless bathos. Worse yet; theymirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal colloquialismswhen confronted by sudden tragedy. "

"Wrong, " said Dawe, closing his unshaven jaws doggedly. "I say no manor woman ever spouts 'high-falutin' talk when they go up against a realclimax. They talk naturally and a little worse. "

The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and insideinformation. 

"Say, Westbrook, " said Dawe, pinning him by the lapel, "would you haveaccepted 'The Alarum of the Soul' if you had believed that the actionsand words of the characters were true to life in the parts of the storythat we discussed?"

"It is very likely that I would, if I believed that way, " said theeditor. "But I have explained to you that I do not. "

"If I could prove to you that I am right?"

"I'm sorry, Shack, but I'm afraid I haven't time to argue any furtherjust now. "

"I don't want to argue, " said Dawe. "I want to demonstrate to you fromlife itself that my view is the correct one. "

"How could you do that?" asked Westbrook, in a surprised tone. 

"Listen, " said the writer, seriously. "I have thought of a way. It isimportant to me that my theory of true-to-life fiction be recognized ascorrect by the magazines. I've fought for it for three years, and I'mdown to my last dollar, with two months' rent due. "

"I have applied the opposite of your theory, " said the editor, "inselecting the fiction for the _Minerva Magazine_. The circulation hasgone up from ninety thousand to--"

"Four hundred thousand, " said Dawe. "Whereas it should have been boostedto a million. "

"You said something to me just now about demonstrating your pet theory. "

"I will. If you'll give me about half an hour of your time I'll prove toyou that I am right. I'll prove it by Louise. "

"Your wife!" exclaimed Westbrook. "How?"

"Well, not exactly by her, but _with_ her, " said Dawe. "Now, you knowhow devoted and loving Louise has always been. She thinks I'm the onlygenuine preparation on the market that bears the old doctor's signature. She's been fonder and more faithful than ever, since I've been cast forthe neglected genius part. "

"Indeed, she is a charming and admirable life companion, " agreed theeditor. "I remember what inseparable friends she and Mrs. Westbrook oncewere. We are both lucky chaps, Shack, to have such wives. You must bringMrs. Dawe up some evening soon, and we'll have one of those informalchafing-dish suppers that we used to enjoy so much. "

"Later, " said Dawe. "When I get another shirt. And now I'll tell you myscheme. When I was about to leave home after breakfast--if you can calltea and oatmeal breakfast--Louise told me she was going to visit heraunt in Eighty-ninth Street. She said she would return at three o'clock. She is always on time to a minute. It is now--"

Dawe glanced toward the editor's watch pocket. 

"Twenty-seven minutes to three, " said Westbrook, scanning histime-piece. 

"We have just enough time, " said Dawe. "We will go to my flat at once. Iwill write a note, address it to her and leave it on the table where shewill see it as she enters the door. You and I will be in the dining-roomconcealed by the portières. In that note I'll say that I have fled fromher forever with an affinity who understands the needs of my artisticsoul as she never did. When she reads it we will observe her actions andhear her words. Then we will know which theory is the correct one--yoursor mine. "

"Oh, never!" exclaimed the editor, shaking his head. "That would beinexcusably cruel. I could not consent to have Mrs. Dawe's feelingsplayed upon in such a manner. "

"Brace up, " said the writer. "I guess I think as much of her as you do. It's for her benefit as well as mine. I've got to get a market for mystories in some way. It won't hurt Louise. She's healthy and sound. Herheart goes as strong as a ninety-eight-cent watch. It'll last for only aminute, and then I'll step out and explain to her. You really owe it tome to give me the chance, Westbrook. "

Editor Westbrook at length yielded, though but half willingly. And inthe half of him that consented lurked the vivisectionist that is in allof us. Let him who has not used the scalpel rise and stand in his place. Pity 'tis that there are not enough rabbits and guinea-pigs to goaround. 

The two experimenters in Art left the Square and hurried eastward andthen to the south until they arrived in the Gramercy neighborhood. Within its high iron railings the little park had put on its smart coatof vernal green, and was admiring itself in its fountain mirror. Outsidethe railings the hollow square of crumbling houses, shells of a bygonegentry, leaned as if in ghostly gossip over the forgotten doings of thevanished quality. _Sic transit gloria urbis_. 

A block or two north of the Park, Dawe steered the editor againeastward, then, after covering a short distance, into a lofty but narrowflathouse burdened with a floridly over-decorated façade. To the fifthstory they toiled, and Dawe, panting, pushed his latch-key into the doorof one of the front flats. 

When the door opened Editor Westbrook saw, with feelings of pity, howmeanly and meagerly the rooms were furnished. 

"Get a chair, if you can find one, " said Dawe, "while I hunt up pen andink. Hello, what's this? Here's a note from Louise. She must have leftit there when she went out this morning. "

He picked up an envelope that lay on the centre-table and tore it open. He began to read the letter that he drew out of it; and once havingbegun it aloud he so read it through to the end. These are the wordsthat Editor Westbrook heard:

 "Dear Shackleford:

 "By the time you get this I will be about a hundred miles away and still a-going. I've got a place in the chorus of the Occidental Opera Co. , and we start on the road to-day at twelve o'clock. I didn't want to starve to death, and so I decided to make my own living. I'm not coming back. Mrs. Westbrook is going with me. She said she was tired of living with a combination phonograph, iceberg and dictionary, and she's not coming back, either. We've been practising the songs and dances for two months on the quiet. I hope you will be successful, and get along all right! Good-bye. 

 "Louise. "

Dawe dropped the letter, covered his face with his trembling hands, andcried out in a deep, vibrating voice:

_"My God, why hast thou given me this cup to drink? Since she is false, then let Thy Heaven's fairest gifts, faith and love, become the jestingby-words of traitors and fiends!"_

Editor Westbrook's glasses fell to the floor. The fingers of one handfumbled with a button on his coat as he blurted between his pale lips:

_"Say, Shack, ain't that a hell of a note? Wouldn't that knock you offyour perch, Shack? Ain't it hell, now, Shack--ain't it?"_

XX

PAST ONE AT ROONEY'S

Only on the lower East Side of New York do the houses of Capulet andMontagu survive. There they do not fight by the book of arithmetic. Ifyou but bite your thumb at an upholder of your opposing house you havework cut out for your steel. On Broadway you may drag your man along adozen blocks by his nose, and he will only bawl for the watch; but inthe domain of the East Side Tybalts and Mercutios you must observe theniceties of deportment to the wink of any eyelash and to an inch ofelbow room at the bar when its patrons include foes of your house andkin. 

So, when Eddie McManus, known to the Capulets as Cork McManus, driftedinto Dutch Mike's for a stein of beer, and came upon a bunch ofMontagus making merry with the suds, he began to observe the strictestparliamentary rules. Courtesy forbade his leaving the saloon with histhirst unslaked; caution steered him to a place at the bar where themirror supplied the cognizance of the enemy's movements that hisindifferent gaze seemed to disdain; experience whispered to him that thefinger of trouble would be busy among the chattering steins at DutchMike's that night. Close by his side drew Brick Cleary, his Mercutio, companion of his perambulations. Thus they stood, four of the MulberryHill Gang and two of the Dry Dock Gang, minding their P's and Q's sosolicitously that Dutch Mike kept one eye on his customers and the otheron an open space beneath his bar in which it was his custom to seeksafety whenever the ominous politeness of the rival associationscongealed into the shapes of bullets and cold steel. 

But we have not to do with the wars of the Mulberry Hills and the DryDocks. We must to Rooney's, where, on the most blighted dead branch ofthe tree of life, a little pale orchid shall bloom. 

Overstrained etiquette at last gave way. It is not known who firstoverstepped the bounds of punctilio; but the consequences wereimmediate. Buck Malone, of the Mulberry Hills, with a Dewey-likeswiftness, got an eight-inch gun swung round from his hurricane deck. But McManus's simile must be the torpedo. He glided in under the gunsand slipped a scant three inches of knife blade between the ribs of theMulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile Brick Cleary, a devotee to strategy, had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch of theelectrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of gunfire alone. Dutch Mike crawled from his haven and ran into the street crying for thewatch instead of for a Shakespeare to immortalize the Cimmerian shindy. 

The cop came, and found a prostrate, bleeding Montagu supported by threedistrait and reticent followers of the House. Faithful to the ethics ofthe gangs, no one knew whence the hurt came. There was no Capulet to beseen. 

"Raus mit der interrogatories, " said Buck Malone to the officer. "Sure Iknow who done it. I always manages to get a bird's eye view of any guythat comes up an' makes a show case for a hardware store out of me. No. I'm not telling you his name. I'll settle with um meself. Wow--ouch!Easy, boys! Yes, I'll attend to his case meself. I'm not making anycomplaint. "

At midnight McManus strolled around a pile of lumber near an East Sidedock, and lingered in the vicinity of a certain water plug. Brick Clearydrifted casually to the trysting place ten minutes later. "He'll maybenot croak, " said Brick; "and he won't tell, of course. But Dutch Mikedid. He told the police he was tired of having his place shot up. It'sunhandy just now, because Tim Corrigan's in Europe for a week's end withKings. He'll be back on the _Kaiser Williams_ next Friday. You'll haveto duck out of sight till then. Tim'll fix it up all right for us whenhe comes back. "

This goes to explain why Cork McManus went into Rooney's one night andthere looked upon the bright, stranger face of Romance for the firsttime in his precarious career. 

Until Tim Corrigan should return from his jaunt among Kings and Princesand hold up his big white finger in private offices, it was unsafe forCork in any of the old haunts of his gang. So he lay, perdu, in the highrear room of a Capulet, reading pink sporting sheets and cursing theslow paddle wheels of the _Kaiser Wilhelm_. 

It was on Thursday evening that Cork's seclusion became intolerable tohim. Never a hart panted for water fountain as he did for the cool touchof a drifting stein, for the firm security of a foot-rail in the hollowof his shoe and the quiet, hearty challenges of friendship and reparteealong and across the shining bars. But he must avoid the district wherehe was known. The cops were looking for him everywhere, for news wasscarce, and the newspapers were harping again on the failure of thepolice to suppress the gangs. If they got him before Corrigan came back, the big white finger could not be uplifted; it would be too late then. But Corrigan would be home the next day, so he felt sure there would besmall danger in a little excursion that night among the crass pleasuresthat represented life to him. 

At half-past twelve McManus stood in a darkish cross-town street lookingup at the name "Rooney's, " picked out by incandescent lights againsta signboard over a second-story window. He had heard of the placeas a tough "hang-out"; with its frequenters and its locality he wasunfamiliar. Guided by certain unerring indications common to all suchresorts, he ascended the stairs and entered the large room over thecafé. 

Here were some twenty or thirty tables, at this time about half-filledwith Rooney's guests. Waiters served drinks. At one end a humanpianola with drugged eyes hammered the keys with automatic and furiousunprecision. At merciful intervals a waiter would roar or squeak asong--songs full of "Mr. Johnsons" and "babes" and "coons"--historicalword guaranties of the genuineness of African melodies composed by redwaistcoated young gentlemen, natives of the cotton fields and riceswamps of West Twenty-eighth Street. 

For one brief moment you must admire Rooney with me as he receives, seats, manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. Hehas Wellington's nose, Dante's chin, the cheek-bones of an Iroquois, the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett's foot work, and the poise of aneleven-year-old East Side Central Park Queen of the May. He is assistedby a lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, whogoes among the tables seeing that dull care does not intrude. Now, what is there about Rooney's to inspire all this pother? It is morerespectable by daylight; stout ladies with children and mittens andbundles and unpedigreed dogs drop up of afternoons for a stein and achat. Even by gaslight the diversions are melancholy i' the mouth--drinkand rag-time, and an occasional surprise when the waiter swabs the sudsfrom under your sticky glass. There is an answer. Transmigration! Thesoul of Sir Walter Raleigh has traveled from beneath his slashed doubletto a kindred home under Rooney's visible plaid waistcoat. Rooney's istwenty years ahead of the times. Rooney has removed the embargo. Rooneyhas spread his cloak upon the soggy crossing of public opinion, and anyElizabeth who treads upon it is as much a queen as another. Attend tothe revelation of the secret. In Rooney's ladies may smoke!

McManus sat down at a vacant table. He paid for the glass of beerthat he ordered, tilted his narrow-brimmed derby to the back of hisbrick-dust head, twined his feet among the rungs of his chair, andheaved a sigh of contentment from the breathing spaces of his innermostsoul; for this mud honey was clarified sweetness to his taste. The shamgaiety, the hectic glow of counterfeit hospitality, the self-conscious, joyless laughter, the wine-born warmth, the loud music retrieving thehour from frequent whiles of awful and corroding silence, the presenceof well-clothed and frank-eyed beneficiaries of Rooney's removal of therestrictions laid upon the weed, the familiar blended odors of soakedlemon peel, flat beer, and _peau d'Espagne_--all these were manna toCork McManus, hungry for his week in the desert of the Capulet's highrear room. 

A girl, alone, entered Rooney's, glanced around with leisurelyswiftness, and sat opposite McManus at his table. Her eyes rested uponhim for two seconds in the look with which woman reconnoitres all menwhom she for the first time confronts. In that space of time she willdecide upon one of two things--either to scream for the police, or thatshe may marry him later on. 

Her brief inspection concluded, the girl laid on the table a worn redmorocco shopping bag with the inevitable top-gallant sail of frayed lacehandkerchief flying from a corner of it. After she had ordered a smallbeer from the immediate waiter she took from her bag a box of cigarettesand lighted one with slightly exaggerated ease of manner. Then shelooked again in the eyes of Cork McManus and smiled. 

Instantly the doom of each was sealed. 

The unqualified desire of a man to buy clothes and build fires for awoman for a whole lifetime at first sight of her is not uncommon amongthat humble portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet orcoats-of-arms or Shaw's plays. Love at first sight has occurred a timeor two in high life; but, as a rule, the extempore mania is to be foundamong unsophisticated creatures such as the dove, the blue-taileddingbat, and the ten-dollar-a-week clerk. Poets, subscribers to allfiction magazines, and schatchens, take notice. 

With the exchange of the mysterious magnetic current came to each ofthem the instant desire to lie, pretend, dazzle and deceive, which isthe worst thing about the hypocritical disorder known as love. 

"Have another beer?" suggested Cork. In his circle the phrase wasconsidered to be a card, accompanied by a letter of introduction andreferences. 

"No, thanks, " said the girl, raising her eyebrows and choosing herconventional words carefully. "I--merely dropped in for--a slightrefreshment. " The cigarette between her fingers seemed to requireexplanation. "My aunt is a Russian lady, " she concluded, "and we oftenhave a post perannual cigarette after dinner at home. "

"Cheese it!" said Cork, whom society airs oppressed. "Your fingers areas yellow as mine. "

"Say, " said the girl, blazing upon him with low-voiced indignation, "what do you think I am? Say, who do you think you are talking to?What?"

She was pretty to look at. Her eyes were big, brown, intrepid andbright. Under her flat sailor hat, planted jauntily on one side, hercrinkly, tawny hair parted and was drawn back, low and massy, in athick, pendant knot behind. The roundness of girlhood still lingered inher chin and neck, but her cheeks and fingers were thinning slightly. She looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion, and sullen wonder. Her smart, short tan coat was soiled and expensive. Two inches below herblack dress dropped the lowest flounce of a heliotrope silk underskirt. 

"Beg your pardon, " said Cork, looking at her admiringly. "I didn't meananything. Sure, it's no harm to smoke, Maudy. "

"Rooney's, " said the girl, softened at once by his amends, "is the onlyplace I know where a lady can smoke. Maybe it ain't a nice habit, butaunty lets us at home. And my name ain't Maudy, if you please; it's RubyDelamere. "

"That's a swell handle, " said Cork approvingly. "Mine'sMcManus--Cor--er--Eddie McManus. "

"Oh, you can't help that, " laughed Ruby. "Don't apologize. "

Cork looked seriously at the big clock on Rooney's wall. The girl'subiquitous eyes took in the movement. 

"I know it's late, " she said, reaching for her bag; "but you know howyou want a smoke when you want one. Ain't Rooney's all right? I neversaw anything wrong here. This is twice I've been in. I work in abookbindery on Third Avenue. A lot of us girls have been workingovertime three nights a week. They won't let you smoke there, of course. I just dropped in here on my way home for a puff. Ain't it all right inhere? If it ain't, I won't come any more. "

"It's a little bit late for you to be out alone anywhere, " said Cork. "I'm not wise to this particular joint; but anyhow you don't want tohave your picture taken in it for a present to your Sunday Schoolteacher. Have one more beer, and then say I take you home. "

"But I don't know you, " said the girl, with fine scrupulosity. "I don'taccept the company of gentlemen I ain't acquainted with. My aunt neverwould allow that. "

"Why, " said Cork McManus, pulling his ear, "I'm the latest thing insuitings with side vents and bell skirt when it comes to escortin' alady. You bet you'll find me all right, Ruby. And I'll give you a tip asto who I am. My governor is one of the hottest cross-buns of the WallStreet push. Morgan's cab horse casts a shoe every time the old mansticks his head out the window. Me! Well, I'm in trainin' down theStreet. The old man's goin' to put a seat on the Stock Exchange in mystockin' my next birthday. But it all sounds like a lemon to me. What Ilike is golf and yachtin' and--er--well, say a corkin' fast ten-roundbout between welter-weights with walkin' gloves. "

"I guess you can walk to the door with me, " said the girl hesitatingly, but with a certain pleased flutter. "Still I never heard anything extragood about Wall Street brokers, or sports who go to prize fights, either. Ain't you got any other recommendations?"

"I think you're the swellest looker I've had my lamps on in little oldNew York, " said Cork impressively. 

"That'll be about enough of that, now. Ain't you the kidder!" Shemodified her chiding words by a deep, long, beaming, smile-embellishedlook at her cavalier. "We'll drink our beer before we go, ha?"

A waiter sang. The tobacco smoke grew denser, drifting and rising inspirals, waves, tilted layers, cumulus clouds, cataracts and suspendedfogs like some fifth element created from the ribs of the ancient four. Laughter and chat grew louder, stimulated by Rooney's liquids andRooney's gallant hospitality to Lady Nicotine. 

One o'clock struck. Down-stairs there was a sound of closing andlocking doors. Frank pulled down the green shades of the front windowscarefully. Rooney went below in the dark hall and stood at the frontdoor, his cigarette cached in the hollow of his hand. Thenceforthwhoever might seek admittance must present a countenance familiar toRooney's hawk's eye--the countenance of a true sport. 

Cork McManus and the bookbindery girl conversed absorbedly, with theirelbows on the table. Their glasses of beer were pushed to one side, scarcely touched, with the foam on them sunken to a thin white scum. Since the stroke of one the stale pleasures of Rooney's had becomerenovated and spiced; not by any addition to the list of distractions, but because from that moment the sweets became stolen ones. The flattestglass of beer acquired the tang of illegality; the mildest claret punchstruck a knockout blow at law and order; the harmless and genial companybecame outlaws, defying authority and rule. For after the stroke of onein such places as Rooney's, where neither bed nor board is to be had, drink may not be set before the thirsty of the city of the four million. It is the law. 

"Say, " said Cork McManus, almost covering the table with his eloquentchest and elbows, "was that dead straight about you workin' in thebookbindery and livin' at home--and just happenin' in here--and--andall that spiel you gave me?"

"Sure it was, " answered the girl with spirit. "Why, what do you think?Do you suppose I'd lie to you? Go down to the shop and ask 'em. I handedit to you on the level. "

"On the dead level?" said Cork. "That's the way I want it; because--"

"Because what?"

"I throw up my hands, " said Cork. "You've got me goin'. You're the girlI've been lookin' for. Will you keep company with me, Ruby?"

"Would you like me to--Eddie?"

"Surest thing. But I wanted a straight story about--about yourself, youknow. When a fellow had a girl--a steady girl--she's got to be allright, you know. She's got to be straight goods. "

"You'll find I'll be straight goods, Eddie. "

"Of course you will. I believe what you told me. But you can't blame mefor wantin' to find out. You don't see many girls smokin' cigarettes inplaces like Rooney's after midnight that are like you. "

The girl flushed a little and lowered her eyes. "I see that now, " shesaid meekly. "I didn't know how bad it looked. But I won't do it anymore. And I'll go straight home every night and stay there. And I'llgive up cigarettes if you say so, Eddie--I'll cut 'em out from thisminute on. "

Cork's air became judicial, proprietary, condemnatory, yet sympathetic. "A lady can smoke, " he decided, slowly, "at times and places. Why?Because it's bein' a lady that helps her pull it off. "

"I'm going to quit. There's nothing to it, " said the girl. She flickedthe stub of her cigarette to the floor. 

"At times and places, " repeated Cork. "When I call round for you ofevenin's we'll hunt out a dark bench in Stuyvesant Square and have apuff or two. But no more Rooney's at one o'clock--see?"

"Eddie, do you really like me?" The girl searched his hard but frankfeatures eagerly with anxious eyes. 

"On the dead level. "

"When are you coming to see me--where I live?"

"Thursday--day after to-morrow evenin'. That suit you?"

"Fine. I'll be ready for you. Come about seven. Walk to the door with meto-night and I'll show you where I live. Don't forget, now. And don'tyou go to see any other girls before then, mister! I bet you will, though. "

"On the dead level, " said Cork, "you make 'em all look like rag-dolls tome. Honest, you do. I know when I'm suited. On the dead level, I do. "

Against the front door down-stairs repeated heavy blows were delivered. The loud crashes resounded in the room above. Only a trip-hammer or apoliceman's foot could have been the author of those sounds. Rooneyjumped like a bullfrog to a corner of the room, turned off the electriclights and hurried swiftly below. The room was left utterly dark exceptfor the winking red glow of cigars and cigarettes. A second volley ofcrashes came up from the assaulted door. A little, rustling, murmuringpanic moved among the besieged guests. Frank, cool, smooth, reassuring, could be seen in the rosy glow of the burning tobacco, going from tableto table. 

"All keep still!" was his caution. "Don't talk or make any noise!Everything will be all right. Now, don't feel the slightest alarm. We'lltake care of you all. "

Ruby felt across the table until Cork's firm hand closed upon hers. "Areyou afraid, Eddie?" she whispered. "Are you afraid you'll get a freeride?"

"Nothin' doin' in the teeth-chatterin' line, " said Cork. "I guessRooney's been slow with his envelope. Don't you worry, girly; I'll lookout for you all right. "

Yet Mr. McManus's ease was only skin- and muscle-deep. With the policelooking everywhere for Buck Malone's assailant, and with Corrigan stillon the ocean wave, he felt that to be caught in a police raid would meanan ended career for him. He wished he had remained in the high rear roomof the true Capulet reading the pink extras. 

Rooney seemed to have opened the front door below and engaged the policein conference in the dark hall. The wordless low growl of their voicescame up the stairway. Frank made a wireless news station of himself atthe upper door. Suddenly he closed the door, hurried to the extreme rearof the room and lighted a dim gas jet. 

"This way, everybody!" he called sharply. "In a hurry; but no noise, please!"

The guests crowded in confusion to the rear. Rooney's lieutenant swungopen a panel in the wall, overlooking the back yard, revealing a ladderalready placed for the escape. 

"Down and out, everybody!" he commanded. "Ladies first! Less talking, please! Don't crowd! There's no danger. "

Among the last, Cork and Ruby waited their turn at the open panel. Suddenly she swept him aside and clung to his arm fiercely. 

"Before we go out, " she whispered in his ear--"before anything happens, tell me again, Eddie, do you l--do you really like me?"

"On the dead level, " said Cork, holding her close with one arm, "when itcomes to you, I'm all in. "

When they turned they found they were lost and in darkness. The lastof the fleeing customers had descended. Half way across the yard theybore the ladder, stumbling, giggling, hurrying to place it against anadjoining low building over the roof of which their only route tosafety. 

"We may as well sit down, " said Cork grimly. "Maybe Rooney will standthe cops off, anyhow. "

They sat at a table; and their hands came together again. 

A number of men then entered the dark room, feeling their way about. Oneof them, Rooney himself, found the switch and turned on the electriclight. The other man was a cop of the old régime--a big cop, a thickcop, a fuming, abrupt cop--not a pretty cop. He went up to the pair atthe table and sneered familiarly at the girl. 

"What are youse doin' in here?" he asked. 

"Dropped in for a smoke, " said Cork mildly. 

"Had any drinks?"

"Not later than one o'clock. "

"Get out--quick!" ordered the cop. Then, "Sit down!" he countermanded. 

He took off Cork's hat roughly and scrutinized him shrewdly. "Yourname's McManus. "

"Bad guess, " said Cork. "It's Peterson. "

"Cork McManus, or something like that, " said the cop. "You put a knifeinto a man in Dutch Mike's saloon a week ago. "

"Aw, forget it!" said Cork, who perceived a shade of doubt in theofficer's tones. "You've got my mug mixed with somebody else's. "

"Have I? Well, you'll come to the station with me, anyhow, and be lookedover. The description fits you all right. " The cop twisted his fingersunder Cork's collar. "Come on!" he ordered roughly. 

Cork glanced at Ruby. She was pale, and her thin nostrils quivered. Her quick eye danced from one man's face to the other as they spoke ormoved. What hard luck! Cork was thinking--Corrigan on the briny; andRuby met and lost almost within an hour! Somebody at the police stationwould recognize him, without a doubt. Hard luck!

But suddenly the girl sprang up and hurled herself with both armsextended against the cop. His hold on Cork's collar was loosened and hestumbled back two or three paces. 

"Don't go so fast, Maguire!" she cried in shrill fury. "Keep your handsoff my man! You know me, and you know I'm givin' you good advice. Don'tyou touch him again! He's not the guy you are lookin' for--I'll standfor that. "

"See here, Fanny, " said the Cop, red and angry, "I'll take you, too, ifyou don't look out! How do you know this ain't the man I want? What areyou doing in here with him?"

"How do I know?" said the girl, flaming red and white by turns. "BecauseI've known him a year. He's mine. Oughtn't I to know? And what am Idoin' here with him? That's easy. "

She stooped low and reached down somewhere into a swirl of flirteddraperies, heliotrope and black. An elastic snapped, she threw on thetable toward Cork a folded wad of bills. The money slowly straighteneditself with little leisurely jerks. 

"Take that, Jimmy, and let's go, " said the girl. "I'm declarin' theusual dividends, Maguire, " she said to the officer. "You had your usualfive-dollar graft at the usual corner at ten. "

"A lie!" said the cop, turning purple. "You go on my beat again and I'llarrest you every time I see you. "

"No, you won't, " said the girl. "And I'll tell you why. Witnesses saw megive you the money to-night, and last week, too. I've been getting fixedfor you. "

Cork put the wad of money carefully into his pocket, and said: "Come on, Fanny; let's have some chop suey before we go home. "

"Clear out, quick, both of you, or I'll--"

The cop's bluster trailed away into inconsequentiality. 

At the corner of the street the two halted. Cork handed back themoney without a word. The girl took it and slipped it slowly into herhand-bag. Her expression was the same she had worn when she enteredRooney's that night--she looked upon the world with defiance, suspicionand sullen wonder. 

"I guess I might as well say good-bye here, " she said dully. "You won'twant to see me again, of course. Will you--shake hands--Mr. McManus. "

"I mightn't have got wise if you hadn't give the snap away, " said Cork. "Why did you do it?"

"You'd have been pinched if I hadn't. That's why. Ain't that reasonenough?" Then she began to cry. "Honest, Eddie, I was goin' to be thebest girl in the world. I hated to be what I am; I hated men; I wasready almost to die when I saw you. And you seemed different fromeverybody else. And when I found you liked me, too, why, I thought I'dmake you believe I was good, and I was goin' to be good. When you askedto come to my house and see me, why, I'd have died rather than doanything wrong after that. But what's the use of talking about it? I'llsay good-by, if you will, Mr. McManus. "

Cork was pulling at his ear. "I knifed Malone, " said he. "I was the onethe cop wanted. "

"Oh, that's all right, " said the girl listlessly. "It didn't make anydifference about that. "

"That was all hot air about Wall Street. I don't do nothin' but hang outwith a tough gang on the East Side. "

"That was all right, too, " repeated the girl. "It didn't make anydifference. "

Cork straightened himself, and pulled his hat down low. "I could get ajob at O'Brien's, " he said aloud, but to himself. 

"Good-by, " said the girl. 

"Come on, " said Cork, taking her arm. "I know a place. "

Two blocks away he turned with her up the steps of a red brick housefacing a little park. 

"What house is this?" she asked, drawing back. "Why are you going inthere?"

A street lamp shone brightly in front. There was a brass nameplate atone side of the closed front doors. Cork drew her firmly up the steps. "Read that, " said he. 

She looked at the name on the plate, and gave a cry between a moan and ascream. "No, no, no, Eddie! Oh, my God, no! I won't let you do that--notnow! Let me go! You shan't do that! You can't--you mus'n't! Not afteryou know! No, no! Come away quick! Oh, my God! Please, Eddie, come!"

Half fainting, she reeled, and was caught in the bend of his arm. Cork'sright hand felt for the electric button and pressed it long. 

Another cop--how quickly they scent trouble when trouble is on thewing!--came along, saw them, and ran up the steps. "Here! What are youdoing with that girl?" he called gruffly. 

"She'll be all right in a minute, " said Cork. "It's a straight deal. "

"Reverend Jeremiah Jones, " read the cop from the door-plate with truedetective cunning. 

"Correct, " said Cork. "On the dead level, we're goin' to get married. "

XXI

THE VENTURERS

Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the _Non Sequitur_Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observationcar "_Raison d'être_" for one moment. It is for no longer than toconsider a brief essay on the subject--let us call it: "What's Aroundthe Corner. "

_Omne mundus in duas partes divisum est_--men who wear rubbers and paypoll-taxes, and men who discover new continents. There are no morecontinents to discover; but by the time overshoes are out of date andthe poll has developed into an income tax, the other half will beparalleling the canals of Mars with radium railways. 

Fortune, Chance, and Adventure are given as synonymous in thedictionaries. To the knowing each has a different meaning. Fortune is aprize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurkin the shadows at the roadside. The face of Fortune is radiant andalluring; that of Adventure is flushed and heroic. The face of Chance isthe beautiful countenance--perfect because vague and dream-born--that wesee in our tea-cups at breakfast while we growl over our chops andtoast. 

The VENTURER is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and waysidegroves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune. That is thedifference between him and the Adventurer. Eating the forbidden fruitwas the best record ever made by a Venturer. Trying to prove that ithappened is the highest work of the Adventuresome. To be either isdisturbing to the cosmogony of creation. So, as bracket-sawed andcity-directoried citizens, let us light our pipes, chide the childrenand the cat, arrange ourselves in the willow rocker under the flickeringgas jet at the coolest window and scan this little tale of two modernfollowers of Chance. 

"Did you ever hear that story about the man from the West?" askedBillinger, in the little dark-oak room to your left as you penetratethe interior of the Powhatan Club. 

"Doubtless, " said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the room. 

Forster got his straw hat (straws will be in and maybe out again longbefore this is printed) from the checkroom boy, and walked out of theair (as Hamlet says). Billinger was used to having his stories insultedand would not mind. Forster was in his favorite mood and wanted to goaway from anywhere. A man, in order to get on good terms with himself, must have his opinions corroborated and his moods matched by some oneelse. (I had written that "somebody"; but an A. D. T. Boy who once tooka telegram for me pointed out that I could save money by using thecompound word. This is a vice versa case. )

Forster's favorite mood was that of greatly desiring to be a follower ofChance. He was a Venturer by nature, but convention, birth, traditionand the narrowing influences of the tribe of Manhattan had denied himfull privilege. He had trodden all the main-traveled thoroughfares andmany of the side roads that are supposed to relieve the tedium of life. But none had sufficed. The reason was that he knew what was to be foundat the end of every street. He knew from experience and logic almostprecisely to what end each digression from routine must lead. He found adepressing monotony in all the variations that the music of his spherehad grafted upon the tune of life. He had not learned that, although theworld was made round, the circle has been squared, and that it's trueinterest is to be in "What's Around the Corner. "

Forster walked abroad aimlessly from the Powhatan, trying not to taxeither his judgment or his desire as to what streets he traveled. Hewould have been glad to lose his way if it were possible; but he had nohope of that. Adventure and Fortune move at your beck and call in theGreater City; but Chance is oriental. She is a veiled lady in a sedanchair, protected by a special traffic squad of dragonians. Crosstown, uptown, and downtown you may move without seeing her. 

At the end of an hour's stroll, Forster stood on a corner of a broad, smooth avenue, looking disconsolately across it at a picturesque oldhotel softly but brilliantly lit. Disconsolately, because he knew thathe must dine; and dining in that hotel was no venture. It was one of hisfavorite caravansaries, and so silent and swift would be the service andso delicately choice the food, that he regretted the hunger that must beappeased by the "dead perfection" of the place's cuisine. Even the musicthere seemed to be always playing _da capo_. 

Fancy came to him that he would dine at some cheap, even dubious, restaurant lower down in the city, where the erratic chefs from allcountries of the world spread their national cookery for the omnivorousAmerican. Something might happen there out of the routine--he might comeupon a subject without a predicate, a road without an end, a questionwithout an answer, a cause without an effect, a gulf stream in life'ssalt ocean. He had not dressed for evening; he wore a dark business suitthat would not be questioned even where the waiters served the spaghettiin their shirt sleeves. 

So John Reginald Forster began to search his clothes for money; becausethe more cheaply you dine, the more surely must you pay. All of thethirteen pockets, large and small, of his business suit he exploredcarefully and found not a penny. His bank book showed a balance of fivefigures to his credit in the Old Ironsides Trust Company, but--

Forster became aware of a man nearby at his left hand who was reallyregarding him with some amusement. He looked like any business man ofthirty or so, neatly dressed and standing in the attitude of one waitingfor a street car. But there was no car line on that avenue. So hisproximity and unconcealed curiosity seemed to Forster to partake of thenature of a personal intrusion. But, as he was a consistent seeker after"What's Around the Corner, " instead of manifesting resentment he onlyturned a half-embarrassed smile upon the other's grin of amusement. 

"All in?" asked the intruder, drawing nearer. 

"Seems so, " said Forster. "Now, I thought there was a dollar in--"

"Oh, I know, " said the other man, with a laugh. "But there wasn't. I'vejust been through the same process myself, as I was coming around thecorner. I found in an upper vest pocket--I don't know how they gotthere--exactly two pennies. You know what kind of a dinner exactly twopennies will buy!"

"You haven't dined, then?" asked Forster. 

"I have not. But I would like to. Now, I'll make you a proposition. You look like a man who would take up one. Your clothes look neat andrespectable. Excuse personalities. I think mine will pass the scrutinyof a head waiter, also. Suppose we go over to that hotel and dinetogether. We will choose from the menu like millionaires--or, if youprefer, like gentlemen in moderate circumstances dining extravagantlyfor once. When we have finished we will match with my two pennies tosee which of us will stand the brunt of the house's displeasure andvengeance. My name is Ives. I think we have lived in the same stationof life--before our money took wings. "

"You're on, " said Forster, joyfully. 

Here was a venture at least within the borders of the mysterious countryof Chance--anyhow, it promised something better than the staleinfestivity of a table d'hôte. 

The two were soon seated at a corner table in the hotel dining room. Ives chucked one of his pennies across the table to Forster. 

"Match for which of us gives the order, " he said. 

Forster lost. 

Ives laughed and began to name liquids and viands to the waiter with theabsorbed but calm deliberation of one who was to the menu born. Forster, listening, gave his admiring approval of the order. 

"I am a man, " said Ives, during the oysters, "Who has made a lifetimesearch after the to-be-continued-in-our-next. I am not like the ordinaryadventurer who strikes for a coveted prize. Nor yet am I like a gamblerwho knows he is either to win or lose a certain set stake. What I wantis to encounter an adventure to which I can predict no conclusion. It is the breath of existence to me to dare Fate in its blindestmanifestations. The world has come to run so much by rote andgravitation that you can enter upon hardly any footpath of chance inwhich you do not find signboards informing you of what you may expectat its end. I am like the clerk in the Circumlocution Office who alwayscomplained bitterly when any one came in to ask information. 'He wantedto _know_, you know!' was the kick he made to his fellow-clerks. Well, I don't want to know, I don't want to reason, I don't want to guess--Iwant to bet my hand without seeing it. "

"I understand, " said Forster delightedly. "I've often wanted the way Ifeel put into words. You've done it. I want to take chances on what'scoming. Suppose we have a bottle of Moselle with the next course. "

"Agreed, " said Ives. "I'm glad you catch my idea. It will increase theanimosity of the house toward the loser. If it does not weary you, wewill pursue the theme. Only a few times have I met a true venturer--onewho does not ask a schedule and map from Fate when he begins a journey. But, as the world becomes more civilized and wiser, the more difficultit is to come upon an adventure the end of which you cannot foresee. Inthe Elizabethan days you could assault the watch, wring knockers fromdoors and have a jolly set-to with the blades in any convenient angle ofa wall and 'get away with it. ' Nowadays, if you speak disrespectfully toa policeman, all that is left to the most romantic fancy is toconjecture in what particular police station he will land you. "

"I know--I know, " said Forster, nodding approval. 

"I returned to New York to-day, " continued Ives, "from a three years'ramble around the globe. Things are not much better abroad than they areat home. The whole world seems to be overrun by conclusions. The onlything that interests me greatly is a premise. I've tried shooting biggame in Africa. I know what an express rifle will do at so many yards;and when an elephant or a rhinoceros falls to the bullet, I enjoy itabout as much as I did when I was kept in after school to do a sum inlong division on the blackboard. "

"I know--I know, " said Forster. 

"There might be something in aeroplanes, " went on Ives, reflectively. "I've tried ballooning; but it seems to be merely a cut-and-dried affairof wind and ballast. "

"Women, " suggested Forster, with a smile. 

"Three months ago, " said Ives. "I was pottering around in one of thebazaars in Constantinople. I noticed a lady, veiled, of course, but witha pair of especially fine eyes visible, who was examining some amber andpearl ornaments at one of the booths. With her was an attendant--a bigNubian, as black as coal. After a while the attendant drew nearer to meby degrees and slipped a scrap of paper into my hand. I looked at itwhen I got a chance. On it was scrawled hastily in pencil: 'The archedgate of the Nightingale Garden at nine to-night. ' Does that appear toyou to be an interesting premise, Mr. Forster?"

"I made inquiries and learned that the Nightingale Garden was theproperty of an old Turk--a grand vizier, or something of the sort. Ofcourse I prospected for the arched gate and was there at nine. The sameNubian attendant opened the gate promptly on time, and I went inside andsat on a bench by a perfumed fountain with the veiled lady. We had quitean extended chat. She was Myrtle Thompson, a lady journalist, who waswriting up the Turkish harems for a Chicago newspaper. She said shenoticed the New York cut of my clothes in the bazaar and wondered ifI couldn't work something into the metropolitan papers about it. "

"I see, " said Forster. "I see. "

"I've canoed through Canada, " said Ives, "down many rapids and over manyfalls. But I didn't seem to get what I wanted out of it because I knewthere were only two possible outcomes--I would either go to the bottomor arrive at the sea level. I've played all games at cards; but themathematicians have spoiled that sport by computing the percentages. I've made acquaintances on trains, I've answered advertisements, I'verung strange door-bells, I've taken every chance that presented itself;but there has always been the conventional ending--the logicalconclusion to the premise. "

"I know, " repeated Forster. "I've felt it all. But I've had fewchances to take my chance at chances. Is there any life so devoid ofimpossibilities as life in this city? There seems to be a myriad ofopportunities for testing the undeterminable; but not one in a thousandfails to land you where you expected it to stop. I wish the subways andstreet cars disappointed one as seldom. "

"The sun has risen, " said Ives, "on the Arabian nights. There areno more caliphs. The fisherman's vase is turned to a vacuum bottle, warranted to keep any genie boiling or frozen for forty-eight hours. Life moves by rote. Science has killed adventure. There are no moreopportunities such as Columbus and the man who ate the first oyster had. The only certain thing is that there is nothing uncertain. "

"Well, " said Forster, "my experience has been the limited one of a cityman. I haven't seen the world as you have; but it seems that we viewit with the same opinion. But, I tell you I am grateful for even thislittle venture of ours into the borders of the haphazard. There maybe at least one breathless moment when the bill for the dinner ispresented. Perhaps, after all, the pilgrims who traveled without scripor purse found a keener taste to life than did the knights of the RoundTable who rode abroad with a retinue and King Arthur's certified checksin the lining of their helmets. And now, if you've finished your coffee, suppose we match one of your insufficient coins for the impending blowof Fate. What have I up?"

"Heads, " called Ives. 

"Heads it is, " said Forster, lifting his hand. "I lose. We forgot toagree upon a plan for the winner to escape. I suggest that when thewaiter comes you make a remark about telephoning to a friend. I willhold the fort and the dinner check long enough for you to get your hatand be off. I thank you for an evening out of the ordinary, Mr. Ives, and wish we might have others. "

"If my memory is not at fault, " said Ives, laughing, "the nearest policestation is in MacDougal Street. I have enjoyed the dinner, too, let meassure you. "

Forster crooked his finger for the waiter. Victor, with a locomotiveeffort that seemed to owe more to pneumatics than to pedestrianism, glided to the table and laid the card, face downward, by the loser'scup. Forster took it up and added the figures with deliberate care. Ivesleaned back comfortably in his chair. 

"Excuse me, " said Forster; "but I thought you were going to ring Grimesabout that theatre party for Thursday night. Had you forgotten aboutit?"

"Oh, " said Ives, settling himself more comfortably, "I can do that lateron. Get me a glass of water, waiter. "

"Want to be in at the death, do you?" asked Forster. 

"I hope you don't object, " said Ives, pleadingly. "Never in my life haveI seen a gentleman arrested in a public restaurant for swindling it outof a dinner. "

"All right, " said Forster, calmly. "You are entitled to see a Christiandie in the arena as your _pousse-café_. "

Victor came with the glass of water and remained, with the disengagedair of an inexorable collector. 

Forster hesitated for fifteen seconds, and then took a pencil from hispocket and scribbled his name on the dinner check. The waiter bowed andtook it away. 

"The fact is, " said Forster, with a little embarrassed laugh, "I doubtwhether I'm what they call a 'game sport, ' which means the same as a'soldier of Fortune. ' I'll have to make a confession. I've been diningat this hotel two or three times a week for more than a year. I alwayssign my checks. " And then, with a note of appreciation in his voice: "Itwas first-rate of you to stay to see me through with it when you knew Ihad no money, and that you might be scooped in, too. "

"I guess I'll confess, too, " said Ives, with a grin. "I own the hotel. I don't run it, of course, but I always keep a suite on the third floorfor my use when I happen to stray into town. "

He called a waiter and said: "Is Mr. Gilmore still behind the desk? Allright. Tell him that Mr. Ives is here, and ask him to have my rooms madeready and aired. "

"Another venture cut short by the inevitable, " said Forster. "Is therea conundrum without an answer in the next number? But let's hold to oursubject just for a minute or two, if you will. It isn't often that Imeet a man who understands the flaws I pick in existence. I am engagedto be married a month from to-day. "

"I reserve comment, " said Ives. 

"Right; I am going to add to the assertion. I am devotedly fond ofthe lady; but I can't decide whether to show up at the church ormake a sneak for Alaska. It's the same idea, you know, that we werediscussing--it does for a fellow as far as possibilities are concerned. Everybody knows the routine--you get a kiss flavored with Ceylon teaafter breakfast; you go to the office; you come back home and dress fordinner--theatre twice a week--bills--moping around most evenings tryingto make conversation--a little quarrel occasionally--maybe sometimes abig one, and a separation--or else a settling down into a middle-agedcontentment, which is worst of all. "

"I know, " said Ives, nodding wisely. 

"It's the dead certainty of the thing, " went on Forster, "that keeps mein doubt. There'll nevermore be anything around the corner. "

"Nothing after the 'Little Church, '" said Ives. "I know. "

"Understand, " said Forster, "that I am in no doubt as to my feelingstoward the lady. I may say that I love her truly and deeply. But thereis something in the current that runs through my veins that cries outagainst any form of the calculable. I do not know what I want; but Iknow that I want it. I'm talking like an idiot, I suppose, but I'm sureof what I mean. "

"I understand you, " said Ives, with a slow smile. "Well, I think I willbe going up to my rooms now. If you would dine with me here one eveningsoon, Mr. Forster, I'd be glad. "

"Thursday?" suggested Forster. 

"At seven, if it's convenient, " answered Ives. 

"Seven goes, " assented Forster. 

At half-past eight Ives got into a cab and was driven to a number in oneof the correct West Seventies. His card admitted him to the receptionroom of an old-fashioned house into which the spirits of Fortune, Chanceand Adventure had never dared to enter. On the walls were the Whistleretchings, the steel engravings by Oh-what's-his-name?, the still-lifepaintings of the grapes and garden truck with the watermelon seedsspilled on the table as natural as life, and the Greuze head. It wasa household. There was even brass andirons. On a table was an album, half-morocco, with oxidized-silver protections on the corners of thelids. A clock on the mantel ticked loudly, with a warning click at fiveminutes to nine. Ives looked at it curiously, remembering a time-piecein his grandmother's home that gave such a warning. 

And then down the stairs and into the room came Mary Marsden. She wastwenty-four, and I leave her to your imagination. But I must say thismuch--youth and health and simplicity and courage and greenish-violeteyes are beautiful, and she had all these. She gave Ives her hand withthe sweet cordiality of an old friendship. 

"You can't think what a pleasure it is, " she said, "to have you drop inonce every three years or so. "

For half an hour they talked. I confess that I cannot repeat theconversation. You will find it in books in the circulating library. Whenthat part of it was over, Mary said:

"And did you find what you wanted while you were abroad?"

"What I wanted?" said Ives. 

"Yes. You know you were always queer. Even as a boy you wouldn't playmarbles or baseball or any game with rules. You wanted to dive in waterwhere you didn't know whether it was ten inches or ten feet deep. Andwhen you grew up you were just the same. We've often talked about yourpeculiar ways. "

"I suppose I am an incorrigible, " said Ives. "I am opposed to thedoctrine of predestination, to the rule of three, gravitation, taxation, and everything of the kind. Life has always seemed to me something likea serial story would be if they printed above each instalment a synopsisof _succeeding_ chapters. "

Mary laughed merrily. 

"Bob Ames told us once, " she said, "of a funny thing you did. It waswhen you and he were on a train in the South, and you got off at a townwhere you hadn't intended to stop just because the brakeman hung up asign in the end of the car with the name of the next station on it. "

"I remember, " said Ives. "That 'next station' has been the thing I'vealways tried to get away from. "

"I know it, " said Mary. "And you've been very foolish. I hope you didn'tfind what you wanted not to find, or get off at the station where therewasn't any, or whatever it was you expected wouldn't happen to youduring the three years you've been away. "

"There was something I wanted before I went away, " said Ives. 

Mary looked in his eyes clearly, with a slight, but perfectly sweetsmile. 

"There was, " she said. "You wanted me. And you could have had me, as youvery well know. "

Without replying, Ives let his gaze wander slowly about the room. Therehad been no change in it since last he had been in it, three yearsbefore. He vividly recalled the thoughts that had been in his mind then. The contents of that room were as fixed, in their way, as the everlastinghills. No change would ever come there except the inevitable oneswrought by time and decay. That silver-mounted album would occupy thatcorner of that table, those pictures would hang on the walls, thosechairs be found in their same places every morn and noon and night whilethe household hung together. The brass andirons were monuments to orderand stability. Here and there were relics of a hundred years ago whichwere still living mementos and would be for many years to come. Onegoing from and coming back to that house would never need to forecast ordoubt. He would find what he left, and leave what he found. The veiledlady, Chance, would never lift her hand to the knocker on the outerdoor. 

And before him sat the lady who belonged in the room. Cool and sweetand unchangeable she was. She offered no surprises. If one should passhis life with her, though she might grow white-haired and wrinkled, hewould never perceive the change. Three years he had been away from her, and she was still waiting for him as established and constant as thehouse itself. He was sure that she had once cared for him. It was theknowledge that she would always do so that had driven him away. Thushis thoughts ran. 

"I am going to be married soon, " said Mary. 

On the next Thursday afternoon Forster came hurriedly to Ive's hotel. 

"Old man, " said he, "we'll have to put that dinner off for a year or so;I'm going abroad. The steamer sails at four. That was a great talk wehad the other night, and it decided me. I'm going to knock around theworld and get rid of that incubus that has been weighing on both you andme--the terrible dread of knowing what's going to happen. I've done onething that hurts my conscience a little; but I know it's best for bothof us. I've written to the lady to whom I was engaged and explainedeverything--told her plainly why I was leaving--that the monotony ofmatrimony would never do for me. Don't you think I was right?"

"It is not for me to say, " answered Ives. "Go ahead and shoot elephantsif you think it will bring the element of chance into your life. We'vegot to decide these things for ourselves. But I tell you one thing, Forster, I've found the way. I've found out the biggest hazard in theworld--a game of chance that never is concluded, a venture that may endin the highest heaven or the blackest pit. It will keep a man on edgeuntil the clods fall on his coffin, because he will never know--notuntil his last day, and not then will he know. It is a voyage withouta rudder or compass, and you must be captain and crew and keep watch, every day and night, yourself, with no one to relieve you. I have foundthe VENTURE. Don't bother yourself about leaving Mary Marsden, Forster. I married her yesterday at noon. "

XXII

THE DUEL

The gods, lying beside their nectar on 'Lympus and peeping over the edgeof the cliff, perceive a difference in cities. Although it would seemthat to their vision towns must appear as large or small ant-hillswithout special characteristics, yet it is not so. Studying the habitsof ants from so great a height should be but a mild diversion whencoupled with the soft drink that mythology tells us is their onlysolace. But doubtless they have amused themselves by the comparison ofvillages and towns; and it will be no news to them (nor, perhaps, tomany mortals), that in one particularity New York stands unique amongthe cities of the world. This shall be the theme of a little storyaddressed to the man who sits smoking with his Sabbath-slippered feeton another chair, and to the woman who snatches the paper for a momentwhile boiling greens or a narcotized baby leaves her free. With these Ilove to sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of Kings. 

New York City is inhabited by 4, 000, 000 mysterious strangers; thusbeating Bird Centre by three millions and half a dozen nine's. Theycame here in various ways and for many reasons--Hendrik Hudson, the artschools, green goods, the stork, the annual dressmakers' convention, thePennsylvania Railroad, love of money, the stage, cheap excursion rates, brains, personal column ads. , heavy walking shoes, ambition, freighttrains--all these have had a hand in making up the population. 

But every man Jack when he first sets foot on the stones of Manhattanhas got to fight. He has got to fight at once until either he or hisadversary wins. There is no resting between rounds, for there are norounds. It is slugging from the first. It is a fight to a finish. 

Your opponent is the City. You must do battle with it from the time theferry-boat lands you on the island until either it is yours or it hasconquered you. It is the same whether you have a million in your pocketor only the price of a week's lodging. 

The battle is to decide whether you shall become a New Yorker or turnthe rankest outlander and Philistine. You must be one or the other. Youcannot remain neutral. You must be for or against--lover or enemy--bosomfriend or outcast. And, oh, the city is a general in the ring. Not onlyby blows does it seek to subdue you. It woos you to its heart with thesubtlety of a siren. It is a combination of Delilah, green Chartreuse, Beethoven, chloral and John L. In his best days. 

In other cities you may wander and abide as a stranger man as longas you please. You may live in Chicago until your hair whitens, andbe a citizen and still prate of beans if Boston mothered you, andwithout rebuke. You may become a civic pillar in any other town butKnickerbocker's, and all the time publicly sneering at its buildings, comparing them with the architecture of Colonel Telfair's residence inJackson, Miss. , whence you hail, and you will not be set upon. But inNew York you must be either a New Yorker or an invader of a modern Troy, concealed in the wooden horse of your conceited provincialism. And thisdreary preamble is only to introduce to you the unimportant figures ofWilliam and Jack. 

They came out of the West together, where they had been friends. Theycame to dig their fortunes out of the big city. 

Father Knickerbocker met them at the ferry, giving one a right-hander onthe nose and the other an upper-cut with his left, just to let them knowthat the fight was on. 

William was for business; Jack was for Art. Both were young andambitious; so they countered and clinched. I think they were fromNebraska or possibly Missouri or Minnesota. Anyhow, they were out forsuccess and scraps and scads, and they tackled the city like twoLochinvars with brass knucks and a pull at the City Hall. 

Four years afterward William and Jack met at luncheon. The business manblew in like a March wind, hurled his silk hat at a waiter, dropped intothe chair that was pushed under him, seized the bill of fare, and hadordered as far as cheese before the artist had time to do more than nod. After the nod a humorous smile came into his eyes. 

"Billy, " he said, "you're done for. The city has gobbled you up. It hastaken you and cut you to its pattern and stamped you with its brand. Youare so nearly like ten thousand men I have seen to-day that you couldn'tbe picked out from them if it weren't for your laundry marks. "

"Camembert, " finished William. "What's that? Oh, you've stillgot your hammer out for New York, have you? Well, little oldNoisyville-on-the-Subway is good enough for me. It's giving me mine. And, say, I used to think the West was the whole round world--onlyslightly flattened at the poles whenever Bryan ran. I used to yellmyself hoarse about the free expense, and hang my hat on the horizon, and say cutting things in the grocery to little soap drummers fromthe East. But I'd never seen New York, then, Jack. Me for it from therathskellers up. Sixth Avenue is the West to me now. Have you heard thisfellow Crusoe sing? The desert isle for him, I say, but my wife made mego. Give me May Irwin or E. S. Willard any time. "

"Poor Billy, " said the artist, delicately fingering a cigarette. "Youremember, when we were on our way to the East how we talked about thisgreat, wonderful city, and how we meant to conquer it and never let itget the best of us? We were going to be just the same fellows we hadalways been, and never let it master us. It has downed you, old man. Youhave changed from a maverick into a butterick. "

"Don't see exactly what you are driving at, " said William. "I don't wearan alpaca coat with blue trousers and a seersucker vest on dressoccasions, like I used to do at home. You talk about being cut to apattern--well, ain't the pattern all right? When you're in Rome you'vegot to do as the Dagoes do. This town seems to me to have other allegedmetropolises skinned to flag stations. According to the railroadschedule I've got in mind, Chicago and Saint Jo and Paris, France, areasterisk stops--which means you wave a red flag and get on every otherTuesday. I like this little suburb of Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. There'ssomething or somebody doing all the time. I'm clearing $8, 000 a yearselling automatic pumps, and I'm living like kings-up. Why, yesterday, Iwas introduced to John W. Gates. I took an auto ride with a wine agent'ssister. I saw two men run over by a street car, and I seen Edna Mayplay in the evening. Talk about the West, why, the other night I wokeeverybody up in the hotel hollering. I dreamed I was walking on a boardsidewalk in Oshkosh. What have you got against this town, Jack? There'sonly one thing in it that I don't care for, and that's a ferryboat. "

The artist gazed dreamily at the cartridge paper on the wall. "Thistown, " said he, "is a leech. It drains the blood of the country. Whoevercomes to it accepts a challenge to a duel. Abandoning the figure of theleech, it is a juggernaut, a Moloch, a monster to which the innocence, the genius, and the beauty of the land must pay tribute. Hand to handevery newcomer must struggle with the leviathan. You've lost, Billy. Itshall never conquer me. I hate it as one hates sin or pestilence or--thecolor work in a ten-cent magazine. I despise its very vastness andpower. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, thelowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw. Ithas caught you, old man, but I will never run beside its chariot wheels. It glosses itself as the Chinaman glosses his collars. Give me thedomestic finish. I could stand a town ruled by wealth or one ruled byan aristocracy; but this is one controlled by its lowest ingredients. Claiming culture, it is the crudest; asseverating its pre-eminence, it is the basest; denying all outside values and virtue, it is thenarrowest. Give me the pure and the open heart of the West country. I would go back there to-morrow if I could. "

"Don't you like this _filet mignon_?" said William. "Shucks, now, what'sthe use to knock the town! It's the greatest ever. I couldn't sellone automatic pump between Harrisburg and Tommy O'Keefe's saloon, inSacramento, where I sell twenty here. And have you seen Sara Bernhardtin 'Andrew Mack' yet?"

"The town's got you, Billy, " said Jack. 

"All right, " said William. "I'm going to buy a cottage on LakeRonkonkoma next summer. "

At midnight Jack raised his window and sat close to it. He caught hisbreath at what he saw, though he had seen and felt it a hundred times. 

Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream. Theirregular houses were like the broken exteriors of cliffs lining deepgulches and winding streams. Some were mountainous; some lay in long, desert cañons. Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city. But into this backgroundwere cut myriads of brilliant parallelograms and circles and squaresthrough which glowed many colored lights. And out of the violet andpurple depths ascended like the city's soul sounds and odors andthrills that make up the civic body. There arose the breath of gaietyunrestrained, of love, of hate, of all the passions that man can know. There below him lay all things, good or bad, that can be brought fromthe four corners of the earth to instruct, please, thrill, enrich, despoil, elevate, cast down, nurture or kill. Thus the flavor of it cameup to him and went into his blood. 

There was a knock on his door. A telegram had come for him. It came fromthe West, and these were its words:

 "Come back and the answer will be yes. 

 "DOLLY. "

He kept the boy waiting ten minutes, and then wrote the reply:"Impossible to leave here at present. " Then he sat at the window againand let the city put its cup of mandragora to his lips again. 

After all it isn't a story; but I wanted to know which one of the heroeswon the battle against the city. So I went to a very learned friend andlaid the case before him. What he said was: "Please don't bother me; Ihave Christmas presents to buy. "

So there it rests; and you will have to decide for yourself. 

XXIII

"WHAT YOU WANT"

Night had fallen on that great and beautiful city known asBagdad-on-the-Subway. And with the night came the enchanted glamourthat belongs not to Arabia alone. In different masquerade the streets, bazaars and walled houses of the occidental city of romance were filledwith the same kind of folk that so much interested our interesting oldfriend, the late Mr. H. A. Rashid. They wore clothes eleven hundredyears nearer to the latest styles than H. A. Saw in old Bagdad; but theywere about the same people underneath. With the eye of faith, you couldhave seen the Little Hunchback, Sinbad the Sailor, Fitbad the Tailor, the Beautiful Persian, the one-eyed Calenders, Ali Baba and FortyRobbers on every block, and the Barber and his Six Brothers, and all theold Arabian gang easily. 

But let us revenue to our lamb chops. 

Old Tom Crowley was a caliph. He had $42, 000, 000 in preferred stocks andbonds with solid gold edges. In these times, to be called a caliph youmust have money. The old-style caliph business as conducted by Mr. Rashid is not safe. If you hold up a person nowadays in a bazaar or aTurkish bath or a side street, and inquire into his private and personalaffairs, the police court'll get you. 

Old Tom was tired of clubs, theatres, dinners, friends, music, moneyand everything. That's what makes a caliph--you must get to despiseeverything that money can buy, and then go out and try to want somethingthat you can't pay for. 

"I'll take a little trot around town all by myself, " thought old Tom, "and try if I can stir up anything new. Let's see--it seems I've readabout a king or a Cardiff giant or something in old times who used to goabout with false whiskers on, making Persian dates with folks he hadn'tbeen introduced to. That don't listen like a bad idea. I certainly havegot a case of humdrumness and fatigue on for the ones I do know. Thatold Cardiff used to pick up cases of trouble as he ran upon 'em and give'em gold--sequins, I think it was--and make 'em marry or got 'em goodGovernment jobs. Now, I'd like something of that sort. My money is asgood as his was even if the magazines do ask me every month where I gotit. Yes, I guess I'll do a little Cardiff business to-night, and see howit goes. "

Plainly dressed, old Tom Crowley left his Madison Avenue palace, andwalked westward and then south. As he stepped to the sidewalk, Fate, who holds the ends of the strings in the central offices of all theenchanted cities pulled a thread, and a young man twenty blocks awaylooked at a wall clock, and then put on his coat. 

James Turner worked in one of those little hat-cleaning establishmentson Sixth Avenue in which a fire alarm rings when you push the dooropen, and where they clean your hat while you wait--two days. Jamesstood all day at an electric machine that turned hats around faster thanthe best brands of champagne ever could have done. Overlooking your mildimpertinence in feeling a curiosity about the personal appearance of astranger, I will give you a modified description of him. Weight, 118;complexion, hair and brain, light; height, five feet six; age, abouttwenty-three; dressed in a $10 suit of greenish-blue serge; pocketscontaining two keys and sixty-three cents in change. 

But do not misconjecture because this description sounds like a GeneralAlarm that James was either lost or a dead one. 

_Allons!_

James stood all day at his work. His feet were tender and extremelysusceptible to impositions being put upon or below them. All day longthey burned and smarted, causing him much suffering and inconvenience. But he was earning twelve dollars per week, which he needed to supporthis feet whether his feet would support him or not. 

James Turner had his own conception of what happiness was, just as youand I have ours. Your delight is to gad about the world in yachts andmotor-cars and to hurl ducats at wild fowl. Mine is to smoke a pipe atevenfall and watch a badger, a rattlesnake, and an owl go into theircommon prairie home one by one. 

James Turner's idea of bliss was different; but it was his. He would godirectly to his boarding-house when his day's work was done. After hissupper of small steak, Bessemer potatoes, stooed (not stewed) apples andinfusion of chicory, he would ascend to his fifth-floor-back hall room. Then he would take off his shoes and socks, place the soles of hisburning feet against the cold bars of his iron bed, and read ClarkRussell's sea yarns. The delicious relief of the cool metal applied tohis smarting soles was his nightly joy. His favorite novels never palledupon him; the sea and the adventures of its navigators were his soleintellectual passion. No millionaire was ever happier than James Turnertaking his ease. 

When James left the hat-cleaning shop he walked three blocks out ofhis way home to look over the goods of a second-hand bookstall. On thesidewalk stands he had more than once picked up a paper-covered volumeof Clark Russell at half price. 

While he was bending with a scholarly stoop over the marked-downmiscellany of cast-off literature, old Tom the caliph sauntered by. Hisdiscerning eye, made keen by twenty years' experience in the manufactureof laundry soap (save the wrappers!) recognized instantly the poorand discerning scholar, a worthy object of his caliphanous mood. Hedescended the two shallow stone steps that led from the sidewalk, andaddressed without hesitation the object of his designed munificence. Hisfirst words were no worse than salutatory and tentative. 

James Turner looked up coldly, with "Sartor Resartus" in one hand and"A Mad Marriage" in the other. 

"Beat it, " said he. "I don't want to buy any coat hangers or town lotsin Hankipoo, New Jersey. Run along, now, and play with your Teddy bear. "

"Young man, " said the caliph, ignoring the flippancy of the hat cleaner, "I observe that you are of a studious disposition. Learning is one ofthe finest things in the world. I never had any of it worth mentioning, but I admire to see it in others. I come from the West, where we imaginenothing but facts. Maybe I couldn't understand the poetry and allusionsin them books you are picking over, but I like to see somebody else seemto know what they mean. I'm worth about $40, 000, 000, and I'm gettingricher every day. I made the height of it manufacturing Aunt Patty'sSilver Soap. I invented the art of making it. I experimented for threeyears before I got just the right quantity of chloride of sodiumsolution and caustic potash mixture to curdle properly. And after I hadtaken some $9, 000, 000 out of the soap business I made the rest in cornand wheat futures. Now, you seem to have the literary and scholarlyturn of character; and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay for youreducation at the finest college in the world. I'll pay the expense ofyour rummaging over Europe and the art galleries, and finally set you upin a good business. You needn't make it soap if you have any objections. I see by your clothes and frazzled necktie that you are mighty poor; andyou can't afford to turn down the offer. Well, when do you want tobegin?"

The hat cleaner turned upon old Tom the eye of the Big City, which is aneye expressive of cold and justifiable suspicion, of judgment suspendedas high as Haman was hung, of self-preservation, of challenge, curiosity, defiance, cynicism, and, strange as you may think it, of achildlike yearning for friendliness and fellowship that must be hiddenwhen one walks among the "stranger bands. " For in New Bagdad one, inorder to survive, must suspect whosoever sits, dwells, drinks, rides, walks or sleeps in the adjacent chair, house, booth, seat, path or room. 

"Say, Mike, " said James Turner, "what's your line, anyway--shoe laces?I'm not buying anything. You better put an egg in your shoe and beat itbefore incidents occur to you. You can't work off any fountain pens, gold spectacles you found on the street, or trust company certificatehouse clearings on me. Say, do I look like I'd climbed down one of themmissing fire-escapes at Helicon Hall? What's vitiating you, anyhow?"

"Son, " said the caliph, in his most Harunish tones, "as I said, I'mworth $40, 000, 000. I don't want to have it all put in my coffin when Idie. I want to do some good with it. I seen you handling over thesehere volumes of literature, and I thought I'd keep you. I've give themissionary societies $2, 000, 000, but what did I get out of it? Nothingbut a receipt from the secretary. Now, you are just the kind of youngman I'd like to take up and see what money could make of him. "

Volumes of Clark Russell were hard to find that evening at the OldBook Shop. And James Turner's smarting and aching feet did not tend toimprove his temper. Humble hat cleaner though he was, he had a spiritequal to any caliph's. 

"Say, you old faker, " he said, angrily, "be on your way. I don't knowwhat your game is, unless you want change for a bogus $40, 000, 000 bill. Well, I don't carry that much around with me. But I do carry a prettyfair left-handed punch that you'll get if you don't move on. "

"You are a blamed impudent little gutter pup, " said the caliph. 

Then James delivered his self-praised punch; old Tom seized him by thecollar and kicked him thrice; the hat cleaner rallied and clinched; twobookstands were overturned, and the books sent flying. A copy came up, took an arm of each, and marched them to the nearest station house. "Fighting and disorderly conduct, " said the cop to the sergeant. 

"Three hundred dollars bail, " said the sergeant at once, asseveratinglyand inquiringly. 

"Sixty-three cents, " said James Turner with a harsh laugh. 

The caliph searched his pockets and collected small bills and changeamounting to four dollars. 

"I am worth, " he said, "forty million dollars, but--"

"Lock 'em up, " ordered the sergeant. 

In his cell, James Turner laid himself on his cot, ruminating. "Maybehe's got the money, and maybe he ain't. But if he has or he ain't, whatdoes he want to go 'round butting into other folks's business for? Whena man knows what he wants, and can get it, it's the same as $40, 000, 000to him. "

Then an idea came to him that brought a pleased look to his face. 

He removed his socks, drew his cot close to the door, stretched himselfout luxuriously, and placed his tortured feet against the cold barsof the cell door. Something hard and bulky under the blankets of hiscot gave one shoulder discomfort. He reached under, and drew out apaper-covered volume by Clark Russell called "A Sailor's Sweetheart. "He gave a great sigh of contentment. 

Presently, to his cell came the doorman and said:

"Say, kid, that old gazabo that was pinched with you for scrapping seemsto have been the goods after all. He 'phoned to his friends, and he'sout at the desk now with a roll of yellowbacks as big as a Pullman carpillow. He wants to bail you, and for you to come out and see him. "

"Tell him I ain't in, " said James Turner.