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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underdog, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
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+
+Title: The Underdog
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9463]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 3, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNDERDOG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Cormode, Kevin Handy,
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: During the trip he sat in the far corner of the car.]
+
+THE UNDER DOG
+
+BY
+
+F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+1903
+
+
+
+_To my Readers_:
+
+In the strife of life some men lose place through physical weakness or
+lost opportunities or impaired abilities; struggle on as they may, they
+must always be the Under Dog in the fight.
+
+Others are misjudged--often by their fellows; sometimes by the law. If
+you are one of the fellows, you pass the man with a nod. If you are the
+law, you crush out his life with a sentence.
+
+Still others lose place from being misunderstood; from being out of
+touch with their surroundings; out of reach of those who, if they knew,
+would help; men with hearts chilled by neglect, whose smouldering
+coals--coals deep hidden in their nature--need only the warm breath of
+some other man's sympathy to be fanned back into life.
+
+Once in a while there can be met another kind, one whose poverty or
+uncouthness makes us shun him at sight; and yet one, if we did but know
+it, with a joyous melody in his heart, ofttimes in tune with our own
+harmonies. This kind is rare, and when found adds another ripple to our
+scanty stock of laughter.
+
+These Under Dogs--grave and gay--have always appealed to me. Their
+stories are printed here in the hope that they may also appeal to you.
+
+F.H.S.
+
+NEW YORK.
+
+CONTENTS
+
+_No Respecter of Persons
+  I. The Crime of Samanthy North
+  II. Bud Tilden, Mail-Thief
+  III. "Eleven Months and Ten Days"
+Cap'n Bob of the Screamer
+A Procession of Umbrellas
+"Doc" Shipman's Fee
+Plain Fin--Paper-Hanger
+Long Jim
+Compartment Number Four--Cologne to Paris
+Sammy
+Marny's Shadow
+Muffles--The Bar-Keep
+His Last Cent_
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+_During the trip he sat in the far corner of the car
+
+"I threw him in the bushes and got the letter"
+
+"I git so tired, so tired; please let me go"
+
+I saw the point of a tiny shoe
+
+Everybody was excited and everybody was mad
+
+I hardly knew him, he was so changed_
+
+
+
+NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS
+
+
+I
+
+THE CRIME OF SAMANTHY NORTH
+
+I have been requested to tell this story, and exactly as it happened.
+The moral any man may draw for himself. I only want to ask my readers
+the question I have been asking myself ever since I saw the girl: Why
+should such things be among us?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Marny's studio is over the Art Club.
+
+He was at work on a picture of a caņon with some Sioux Indians in the
+foreground, while I sat beside him, watching the play of his
+masterly brush.
+
+Dear old Aunt Chloe, in white apron and red bandanna, her round black
+face dimpled with smiles, was busying herself about the room,
+straightening the rugs, puffing up the cushions of the divan, pushing
+back the easels to get at the burnt ends of abandoned cigarettes, doing
+her best, indeed, to bring some kind of domestic order out of Marny's
+Bohemian chaos.
+
+Now and then she interpolated her efforts with such remarks as:
+
+"No, doan' move. De Colonel"--her sobriquet for Marny--"doan' keer whar
+he drap his seegars. But doan' you move, honey"--sobriquet for me. "I
+kin git 'em." Or "Clar to goodness, you pillows look like a passel o'
+hogs done tromple ye, yo're dat mussed." Critical remarks like these
+last were given in a low tone, and, although addressed to the offending
+articles themselves, accompanied by sundry cuffs of her big hand, were
+really intended to convey Aunt Chloe's private opinion of the habits of
+her master and his friends.
+
+The talk had drifted from men of the old frontier to border scouts, and
+then to the Kentucky mountaineers, whom Marny knows as thoroughly as he
+does the red men.
+
+"They are a great race, these mountaineers," he said to me, as he tossed
+the end of another cigarette on Aunt Chloe's now clean-swept floor.
+Marny spoke in crisp, detached sentences between the pats of his brush.
+"Big, strong, whalebone-and-steel kind of fellows; rather fight than
+eat. Quick as lightning with a gun; dead shots. Built just like our
+border men. See that scout astride of his horse?"--and he pointed with
+his mahl-stick to a sketch on the wall behind him--"looks like the real
+thing, don't he? Well, I painted him from an up-country moonshiner.
+Found him one morning across the river, leaning up against a telegraph
+pole, dead broke. Been arrested on a false charge of making whiskey
+without a license, and had just been discharged from the jail. Hadn't
+money enough to cross the bridge, and was half-starved. So I braced him
+up a little, and brought him here and painted him."
+
+We all know with what heartiness Marny can "brace." It doubtless took
+three cups of coffee, half a ham, and a loaf of bread to get him on his
+feet, Marny watching him with the utmost satisfaction until the process
+was complete.
+
+"You ought to look these fellows over; they're worth it. Savage lot,
+some of 'em. Remind me of the people who live about the foothills of the
+Balkans. Mountaineers are the same the world over, anyway. But you don't
+want to hunt for these Kentuckians in their own homes unless you send
+word you are coming, or you may run up against the end of a rifle before
+you know it. I don't blame them." Marny leaned back in his chair and
+turned toward me. "The Government is always hunting them as if they were
+wild beasts, instead of treating them as human beings. They can't
+understand why they shouldn't get the best prices they can for their
+corn. They work hard enough to get it to grow. Their theory is that the
+Illinois farmer feeds the corn to his hogs and sells the product as
+pork, while the mountaineer feeds it to his still and sells the product
+to his neighbors as whiskey. That a lot of Congressmen who never hoed a
+row of corn in their lives, nor ran a furrow, or knew what it was to
+starve on the proceeds, should make laws sending a man to jail because
+he wants to supply his friends with liquor, is what riles them, and I
+don't blame them for that, either."
+
+I arose from my chair and examined the sketch of the starving
+mountaineer. It was a careful study of a man with clear-cut features,
+slim and of wiry build, and was painted with that mastery of detail
+which distinguishes Marny's work over that of every other figure-painter
+of his time.
+
+The painter squeezed a tube of white on his palette, relit his
+cigarette, fumbled over his sheaf of brushes and continued:
+
+"The first of every month--just about now, by the way--they bring twenty
+or thirty of these poor devils down from the mountains and lock them up
+in Covington jail. They pass Aunt Chloe's house. Oh, Aunt Chloe!"--and
+he turned to the old woman--"did you see any of those 'wild people' the
+last two or three days?--that's what she calls 'em," and he laughed.
+
+"Dat I did, Colonel--hull drove on 'em. 'Nough to make a body sick to
+see 'em. Two on 'em was chained together. Dat ain't no way to treat
+people, if dey is ornery. I wouldn't treat a dog dat way."
+
+Aunt Chloe, sole dependence of the Art Club below-stairs: day or night
+nurse--every student in the place knows the touch of her hand when his
+head splits with fever or his bones ache with cold; provider of buttons,
+suspender loops and buckles; go-between in most secret and confidential
+affairs; mail-carrier--the dainty note wrapped up in her handkerchief so
+as not to "spile it!"--no, _she_ wouldn't treat a dog that way, nor
+anything else that lives and breathes or has feeling, human or brute.
+
+"If there's a new 'drove' of them, as Aunt Chloe says," remarked Marny,
+tossing aside his brushes, "let's take a look at them. They are worth
+your study. You may never have another chance."
+
+This was why it happened that within the hour Marny and I crossed the
+bridge and left his studio and the city behind us.
+
+The river below was alive with boats, the clouds of steam from their
+funnels wreathed about the spans. Street-cars blocked the roadway;
+tugging horses, sweating under the lash of their drivers' whips,
+strained under heavy loads. The air was heavy with coal-smoke. Through
+the gloom of the haze, close to the opposite bank, rose a grim, square
+building of granite and brick, its grimy windows blinking through iron
+bars. Behind these, shut out from summer clouds and winter snows, bereft
+of air and sunshine, deaf to the song of happy birds and the low hum of
+wandering bees, languished the outcast and the innocent, the vicious and
+the cruel. Hells like these are the infernos civilization builds in
+which to hide its mistakes.
+
+Marny turned toward me as we reached the prison. "Keep close," he
+whispered. "I know the Warden and can get in without a permit," and he
+mounted the steps and entered a big door opening into a cold, bare hall
+with a sanded floor. To the right of the hall swung another door
+labelled "Chief of Police." Behind this door was a high railing closed
+with a wooden gate. Over this scowled an officer in uniform.
+
+"My friend Sergeant Cram," said Marny, as he introduced us. The officer
+and I shook hands. The hand was thick and hard, the knotted knuckles
+leaving an unpleasant impression behind them as they fell from
+my fingers.
+
+A second door immediately behind this one was now reached, the Sergeant
+acting as guide. This door was of solid wood, with a square panel cut
+from its centre, the opening barred like a birdcage. Peering through
+these bars was the face of another attendant. This third door, at a
+mumbled word from the Sergeant, was opened wide enough to admit us into
+a room in which half a dozen deputies were seated at cards. In the
+opposite wall hung a fourth door, of steel and heavily barred, through
+which, level with the eyes, was cut a peep-hole concealed by a swinging
+steel disk.
+
+The Sergeant moved rapidly across the room, pushed aside the disk and
+brought to view the nose and eyes of a prison guard.
+
+As our guide shot back a bolt, a click like the cocking of a gun sounded
+through the room, followed by the jangle of a huge iron ring strung with
+keys. Selecting one from the number, he pushed it into the key-hole and
+threw his weight against the door. At its touch the mass of steel swung
+inward noiselessly as the door of a bank-vault. With the swinging of the
+door there reached us the hot, stuffy smell of unwashed bodies under
+steam-heat--the unmistakable odor that one sometimes meets in a
+court-room.
+
+Marny and I stepped inside. The Sergeant closed the slab of steel,
+locking us inside, and then, nodding to us through the peep-hole,
+returned to his post in the office.
+
+We stood now on the rim of the crater, looking straight into the
+inferno. By means of the dull light that struggled through the grimy,
+grated windows, I discovered that we were in a corridor having an iron
+floor that sprang up and down under our feet. This was flanked by a line
+of steel cages--huge beast-dens really--reaching to the ceiling. In each
+of these cages was a small, double-barred gate.
+
+These dens were filled with men and boys; some with faces thrust through
+the bars, some with hands and arms stretched out as if for air; one hung
+half-way up the bars, clinging with hands and feet apart, as if to get
+a better hold and better view. I had seen dens like these before: the
+man-eating Bengal tiger at the London Zoo lives in one of them.
+
+The Warden, who was standing immediately behind the attendant, stepped
+forward and shook Marny's hand. I discharged my obligations with a nod.
+I had never been in a place like this before, and the horror of its
+surroundings overcame me. I misjudged the Warden, no doubt. That this
+man might have a wife who loved him and little children who clung to his
+neck, and that underneath his hard, forbidding exterior a heart could
+beat with any tenderness, never occurred to me. As I looked him over
+with a half-shrinking glance, I became aware of a slash indenting his
+pock-marked cheek that might have been made by a sabre cut--was,
+probably, for it takes a brave man to be a warden; a massive head set on
+big shoulders; a square chin, the jaw hinged like a burglar's jimmy; and
+two keen, restless, elephant eyes.
+
+But it was his right ear that absorbed my attention--or rather, what was
+left of his right ear. Only the point of it stuck up; the rest was
+clipped as clean as a rat-terrier's. Some fight to a finish, I thought;
+some quick upper-cut of the razor of a frenzied negro writhing under the
+viselike grasp of this man-gorilla with arms and hands of steel; or some
+sudden whirl of a stiletto, perhaps, which had missed his heart and
+taken his ear. I did not ask then, and I do not know now. It was a badge
+of courage, whatever it was--a badge which thrilled and horrified me. As
+I looked at the terrible mutilation, I could but recall the hideous
+fascination that overcame Josiane, the heroine of Hugo's great novel,
+"The Man Who Laughs," when she first caught sight of Gwynplaine's
+mouth--slit from ear to ear by the Comprachicos. The outrage on the
+Warden was not so grotesque, but the effect was the same.
+
+I moved along the corridor and stood before the beasts. One, an old man
+in a long white beard, leathery, sun-tanned face and hooked nose,
+clasped the bars with both hands, gazing at us intently. I recognized
+his kind the moment I looked at him. He was like my Jonathan Gordon, my
+old fisherman who lived up in the Franconia Notch. His coarse, homespun
+clothes, dyed brown with walnut-shells, slouch hat crowning his shock of
+gray hair, and hickory shirt open at the throat, only heightened the
+resemblance; especially the hat canted over one eye. Why he wore the hat
+in such a place I could not understand, unless to be ready for departure
+when his summons came.
+
+There were eight other beasts besides this old man in the same cage, one
+a boy of twenty, who leaned against the iron wall with his hands in his
+pockets, his eyes following my every movement. I noticed a new blue
+patch on one of his knees, which his mother, doubtless, had sewn with
+her own hands, her big-rimmed spectacles on her nose, the tallow dip
+lighting the log cabin. I recognized the touch. And the boy. I used to
+go swimming with one just like him, forty years ago, in an old
+swimming-hole in the back pasture, and hunt for honey that the
+bumblebees had stored under the bank.
+
+The old man with the beard and the canting hat looked into my eyes
+keenly, but he did not speak. He had nothing to say, perhaps. Something
+human had moved before him, that was all; something that could come and
+go at its pleasure and break the monotony of endless hours.
+
+"How long have you been here?" I asked, lowering my voice and stepping
+closer to the bars.
+
+Somehow I did not want the others to hear. It was almost as though I
+were talking to Jonathan--my dear Jonathan--and he behind bars!
+
+"Eleven months and three days. Reckon I be the oldest"--and he looked
+about him as if for confirmation. "Yes, reckon I be."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Sellin'."
+
+The answer came without the slightest hesitation and without the
+slightest trace in his voice of anything that betokened either sorrow
+for his act or shame for the crime.
+
+"Eleven months and three days of this!" I repeated to myself.
+Instinctively my mind went back to all I had done, seen, and enjoyed in
+these eleven months and three days. Certain individual incidents more
+delightful than others stood out clear and distinct: that day under the
+trees at Cookham, the Thames slipping past, the white-sailed clouds
+above my tent of leaves; a morning at Dort, when Peter and I watched the
+Dutch luggers anchor off the quay, and the big storm came up; a night
+beyond San Giorgio, when Luigi steered the gondola in mid-air over a sea
+of mirrored stars and beneath a million incandescent lamps.
+
+I passed on to the next cage, Marny watching me but saying nothing. The
+scout was in this one, the "type" in Marny's sketch. There were three of
+them--tall, hickory-sapling sort of young fellows, with straight legs,
+flat stomachs, and thin necks, like that of a race-horse. One had the
+look of an eagle, with his beak-nose and deep-set, uncowed eyes. Another
+wore his yellow hair long on his neck, Custer-fashion. The third sat on
+the iron floor, his knees level with his chin, his head in his hand. He
+had a sweetheart, perhaps, who loved him, or an old mother who was
+wringing her hands at home. This one, I learned afterward, had come with
+the last batch and was not yet accustomed to his surroundings; the
+others had been awaiting trial for months. All of them wore homespun
+clothes--not the ready-made clothes sold at the stores, but those that
+some woman at home had cut, basted, and sewn.
+
+Marny asked them what they were up for. Their answers differed slightly
+from that of the old man, but the crime and its penalty were the same.
+
+"Makin'," they severally replied.
+
+There was no lowering of the eyelids when they confessed; no hangdog
+look about the mouth. They would do it again when they got out, and they
+intended to, only they would shoot the quicker next time. The earth was
+theirs and the fulness thereof, that part of it which they owned. Their
+grandfathers before them had turned their corn into whiskey and no man
+had said nay, and so would they. Not the corn that they had stolen, but
+the corn that they had ploughed and shucked. It was their corn, not the
+Government's. Men who live in the wilderness, and feed and clothe
+themselves on the things they raise with their own hands, have no
+fine-spun theories about the laws that provide revenue for a Government
+they never saw, don't want to see, and couldn't understand if they did.
+
+Marny and I stood before the grating, looking each man over separately.
+Strange to say, the artistic possibilities of my visit faded out of my
+mind. The picturesqueness of their attire, the browns and grays
+accentuated here and there by a dash of red around a hat-band or
+shirt-collar--all material for my own or my friend's brush--made not
+the slightest impression upon me. It was the close smell, the dim,
+horrible light, the quick gleam of a pair of eyes looking out from under
+shocks of matted hair--the eyes of a panther watching his prey; the dull
+stare of some boyish face with all hope crushed out of it; these were
+the things that possessed me.
+
+As I stood there absorbed in the terrors before me, I was startled by
+the click of the catch and the clink of keys, followed by the noiseless
+swing of the steel door as it closed again.
+
+I turned and looked down the corridor.
+
+Into the gloom of this inferno, this foul-smelling cavern, this
+assemblage of beasts, stepped a girl of twenty. A baby wrapped about
+with a coarse shawl lay in her arms.
+
+She passed me with eyes averted, and stood before the gate of the last
+steel cage--the woman's end of the prison--the turnkey following slowly.
+Cries of "Howdy, gal! What did ye git?" wore hurled after her, but she
+made no answer. The ominous sound of drawn bolts and the click of a key,
+and the girl and baby were inside the bars of the cage. These bars,
+foreshortened from where I stood, looked like a row of gun-barrels in an
+armory rack.
+
+"That girl a prisoner?" I asked the Warden.
+
+I didn't believe it. I knew, of course, that it couldn't be. I instantly
+divined that she had come to comfort some brother or father, or lover,
+perhaps, and had brought the baby with her because there was no place to
+leave it at home. I only asked the question of the Warden so he could
+deny it, and deny it, too, with some show of feeling--this man with the
+sliced ear and the gorilla hands.
+
+"Yes, she's been here some time. Judge suspended sentence a while ago.
+She's gone after her things."
+
+There was no joy over her release in his tones, nor pity for her
+condition.
+
+He spoke exactly, it seemed to me, as he would have done had he been in
+charge of the iron-barred gate of the Colosseum two thousand years ago.
+All that had saved the girl then from the jaws of his hungriest lion was
+the twist of Nero's thumb. All that saved her now was the nod of the
+Judge's head--both had the giving of life and death.
+
+A thin mist swam before my eyes, and a great lump started from my heart
+and stuck fast in my throat, but I did not answer him; it would have
+done no good--might have enraged him, in fact. I walked straight to the
+gate through which she had entered and peered in. I could see between
+the gun-barrels now.
+
+It was like the other cages, with barred walls and sheet-iron floors.
+Built in one corner of the far end was a strong box of steel, six feet
+by four by the height of the ceiling, fitted with a low door. This box
+was lined with a row of bunks, one above the other. From one was thrust
+a small foot covered with a stocking and part of a skirt; some woman
+prisoner was ill, perhaps. Against the wall of this main cage sat two
+negro women; one, I learned afterward, had stabbed a man the week
+before; the other was charged with theft. The older--the murderess--came
+forward when she caught sight of me, thrust out her hands between the
+bars, and begged for tobacco.
+
+In the corner of the same cage was another steel box. I saw the stooping
+figure of the young girl come out of it as a dog comes out of a kennel.
+She walked toward the centre of the cage--she still had the baby in her
+arms--laid the child on the sheet-iron floor, where the light from the
+grimy windows fell the clearer, and returned to the steel box. The child
+wore but one garment--a short red-flannel shirt that held the stomach
+tight and left the shrivelled legs and arms bare. It lay flat on its
+back, its eyes gazing up at the ceiling, its pinched face in high light
+against the dull background. Now and then it would fight the air with
+its little fists or kick its toes above its head.
+
+The girl took from the kennel a broken paper box and, returning with it,
+knelt beside the child and began arranging its wardrobe, the two
+negresses watching her listlessly. Not much of a wardrobe--only a
+ragged shawl, some socks, a worsted cap, a pair of tiny shoes, and a
+Canton-flannel wrapper, once white. This last had little arms and a
+short waist. The skirt was long enough to tuck around her baby's feet
+when she carried it.
+
+I steadied myself by one of the musket-barrels, watched her while she
+folded the few pitiful garments, waited until she had guided the
+shrunken arms into the sleeves of the soiled wrapper and had buttoned it
+over the baby's chest. Then, when the lump in my throat was about to
+stop my breathing, I said:
+
+"Will you come here, please, to the grating? I want to speak to you."
+
+She raised her head slowly, looked at me in a tired, hopeless way, laid
+her baby back on the sheet-iron floor, and walked toward me. As she came
+into the glow of the overhead light, I saw that she was even younger
+than I had first supposed--nearer seventeen than twenty--a girl with
+something of the curious look of a young heifer in a face drawn and
+lined but with anxiety. Parted over a low forehead, and tucked behind
+her ears, streamed two braids of straight yellow hair in two unkempt
+strands over her shoulders. Across her bosom and about her slender
+figure was hooked a yellow-brown dress made in one piece. The hooks and
+eyes showed wherever the strain came, disclosing the coarse chemise and
+the brown of the neck beneath. This strain, the strain of an
+ill-fitting garment, accentuated all the clearer, in the wrinkles about
+the shoulders and around the hips, the fulness of her delicately
+modelled lines; quite as would a jacket buttoned over the Milo. On the
+third finger of one hand was a flat silver ring, such as is sold by the
+country peddlers.
+
+She stood quite close to the bars, patiently awaiting my next question.
+She had obeyed my summons like a dog who remembered a former discipline.
+No curiosity, not the slightest interest; nothing but blind obedience.
+The tightened grasp of these four walls had taught her this.
+
+"Where do you come from?" I asked.
+
+I had to begin in some way.
+
+"From Pineyville." The voice was that of a child, with a hard, dry note
+in it.
+
+"How old is the baby?"
+
+"Three months and ten days." She had counted the child's age. She had
+thought enough for that.
+
+"How far is Pineyville?"
+
+"I doan' know. It took mos' all night to git here." There was no change
+in the listless monotone.
+
+"Are you going out now?"
+
+"Yes, soon's I kin git ready."
+
+"How are you going to get home?"
+
+"Walk, I reckon." There was no complaint in her tone, no sudden
+exhibition of any suffering. She was only stating facts.
+
+"Have you no money?"
+
+"No." Same bald statement, and in the same hopeless tone. She had not
+moved--not even to look at the child.
+
+"What's the fare?"
+
+"Six dollars and sixty-five cents." This was stated with great
+exactness. It was the amount of this appalling sum that had, no doubt,
+crushed out her last ray of hope.
+
+"Did you sell any whiskey?"
+
+"Yes, I tol' the Judge so." Still no break in her voice. It was only
+another statement.
+
+"Oh! you kept a saloon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How did you sell it, then?"
+
+"Jest out of a kag--in a cup."
+
+"Had you ever sold any before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why did you sell it, then?"
+
+She had been looking into my face all this time, one thin, begrimed
+hand--the one with the ring on it--tight around the steel bar of the
+gate that divided us. With the question, her eyes dropped until they
+seemed to rest on this hand. The answer came slowly:
+
+"The baby come, and the store wouldn't chalk nothin' for us no more."
+Then she added, quickly, as if in defence of the humiliating position,
+"Our corn-crib was sot afire last fall and we got behind."
+
+For a brief instant she leaned heavily against the bars as if for
+support, then her eyes sought her child. I waited until she had
+reassured herself of its safety, and continued my questions, my
+finger-nails sinking deeper all the time into the palms of my hands.
+
+"Did you make the whiskey?"
+
+"No, it was Martin Young's whiskey. My husband works for him. Martin
+sent the kag down one day, and I sold it to the men. I give the money
+all to Martin 'cept the dollar he was to gimme for sellin' it."
+
+"How came you to be arrested?"
+
+"One o' the men tol' on me 'cause I wouldn't trust him. Martin tol' me
+not to let 'em have it 'thout they paid."
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Three months next Tuesday."
+
+"That baby only two weeks old when they arrested you?" My blood ran hot
+and cold, and my collar seemed five sizes too small, but I still held on
+to myself.
+
+"Yes." The answer was given in the same monotonous, listless voice--not
+a trace of indignation over the outrage. Women with suckling babies had
+no rights that anybody was bound to respect--not up in Pineyville;
+certainly not the gentlemen with brass shields under the lapels of
+their coats and Uncle Sam's commissions in their pockets. It was the
+law of the land--why find fault with it?
+
+I leaned closer so that I could touch her hand if need be.
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Samanthy North."
+
+"What's your husband's name?"
+
+"His name's North." There was a trace of surprise now in the general
+monotone Then she added, as if to leave no doubt in my mind,
+"Leslie North."
+
+"Where is he?" I determined now to round up every fact.
+
+"He's home. We've got another child, and he's takin' care of it till I
+git back. He'd be to the railroad for me if he knowed I was coming; but
+I couldn't tell him when to start 'cause I didn't know how long
+they'd keep me."
+
+"Is your home near the railroad?"
+
+"No, it's thirty-six miles furder."
+
+"How will you get from the railroad?"
+
+"Ain't no way 'cept walkin'."
+
+I had it now, the whole damnable, pitiful story, every fact clear-cut to
+the bone. I could see it all: the look of terror when the deputy woke
+her from her sleep and laid his hand upon her; the parting with the
+other child; the fright of the helpless husband; the midnight ride, she
+hardly able to stand, the pitiful scrap of her own flesh and blood
+tight in her arms; the procession to the jail, the men in front chained
+together, she bringing up the rear, walking beside the last guard; the
+first horrible night in jail, the walls falling upon her, the darkness
+overwhelming her, the puny infant resting on her breast; the staring,
+brutal faces when the dawn came, followed by the coarse jest. No wonder
+that she hung limp and hopeless to the bars of her cage, all the spring
+and buoyancy, all the youth and lightness, crushed out of her.
+
+I put my hand through the bars and laid it on her wrist.
+
+"No, you won't walk; not if I can help it." This outburst got past the
+lump slowly, one word at a time, each syllable exploding hot like balls
+from a Roman candle. "You get your things together quick as you can, and
+wait here until I come back," and I turned abruptly and motioned to the
+turnkey to open the gate.
+
+In the office of the Chief of Police outside I found Marny talking to
+Sergeant Cram. He was waiting until I finished. It was all an old story
+with Marny--every month a new batch came to Covington jail.
+
+"What about that girl, Sergeant--the one with the baby?" I demanded, in
+a tone that made them both turn quickly.
+
+"Oh, she's all right. She told the Judge a straight story this morning,
+and he let her go on 'spended sentence. They tried to make her plead
+'Not guilty,' but she wouldn't lie about it, she said. She can go when
+she gets ready. What are you drivin' at? Are you goin' to put up for
+her?"--and a curious look overspread his face.
+
+"I'm going to get her a ticket and give her some money to get home.
+Locking up a seventeen-year-old girl, two hundred miles from home, in a
+den like that, with a baby two weeks old, may be justice, but I call it
+brutality! Our Government can pay its expenses without that kind of
+revenue." The whole bundle of Roman candles was popping now.
+Inconsequent, wholly illogical, utterly indefensible explosions. But
+only my heart was working.
+
+The Sergeant looked at Marny, relaxed the scowl about his eyebrows, and
+smiled; such "softies" seemed rare to him.
+
+"Well, if you're stuck on her--and I'm damned if I don't believe you
+are--let me give you a piece of advice. Don't give her no money till she
+gets on the train, and whatever you do, don't leave her here over night.
+There's a gang around here"--and he jerked his thumb in the direction of
+the door--"that might--" and he winked knowingly.
+
+"You don't mean--" A cold chill suddenly developed near the roots of my
+hair and trickled to my spine.
+
+"Well, she's too good-lookin' to be wanderin' round huntin' for a
+boardin'-house. You see her on the train, that's all. Starts at eight
+to-night. That's the one they all go by--those who git out and can raise
+the money. She ought to leave now, 'cordin' to the regulations, but as
+long as you're a friend of Mr. Marny's I'll keep her here in the office
+till I go home at seven o'clock. Then you'd better have someone to look
+after her. No, you needn't go back and see her"--this in answer to a
+movement I made toward the prison door. "I'll fix everything. Mr. Marny
+knows me."
+
+I thanked the Sergeant, and we started for the air outside--something we
+could breathe, something with a sky overhead and the dear earth
+underfoot, something the sun warmed and the free wind cooled.
+
+Only one thing troubled me now. I could not take the girl to the train
+myself, neither could Marny, for I had promised to lecture that same
+night for the Art Club at eight o'clock, and Marny was to introduce me.
+The railroad station was three miles away.
+
+"I've got it!" cried Marny, when we touched the sidewalk, elbowing our
+way among the crowd of loafers who always swarm about a place of this
+kind. (He was as much absorbed in the girl's future, when he heard her
+story, as I was.) "Aunt Chloe lives within two blocks of us--let's hunt
+her up. She ought to be at home by this time."
+
+The old woman was just entering her street door when she heard Marny's
+voice, her basket on her arm, a rabbit-skin tippet about her neck.
+
+"Dat I will, honey," she answered, positively, when the case was laid
+before her. "_Dat I will_; 'deed an' double I will."
+
+She stepped into the house, left her basket, joined us again on the
+sidewalk, and walked with us back to the Sheriff's office.
+
+"All right," said the Sergeant, when we brought her in. "Yes, I know the
+old woman; the gal will be ready for her when she comes, but I guess I'd
+better send one of my men along with 'em both far as the depot. Ain't no
+use takin' no chances."
+
+The dear old woman followed us again until we found a clerk in a branch
+ticket-office, who picked out a long green slip from a library of
+tickets, punched it with the greatest care with a pair of steel nippers,
+and slipped it into an official envelope labelled: "K.C. Pineyville,
+Ky. 8 P.M."
+
+With this tightly grasped in her wrinkled brown hand, together with
+another package of Marny's many times in excess of the stage fare of
+thirty-six miles and which she slipped into her capacious bosom, Aunt
+Chloe "made her manners" with the slightest dip of a courtesy and left
+us with the remark:
+
+"Sha'n't nothin' tech her, honey; gwinter stick right close to her till
+de steam-cars git to movin', I'll be over early in de mawnin' an' let ye
+know. Doan' worry, honey; ain't nothin' gwinter happen to her arter I
+gits my han's on her."
+
+When I came down to breakfast, Aunt Chloe was waiting for me in the
+hall. She looked like the old woman in the fairy-tale in her short black
+dress that came to her shoe-tops, snow-white apron and headkerchief,
+covered by a close-fitting nun-like hood--only the edge of the
+handkerchief showed--making her seem the old black saint that she was.
+It not being one of her cleaning-days, she had "kind o' spruced herself
+up a li'l mite," she said. She carried her basket, covered now with a
+white starched napkin instead of the red-and-yellow bandanna of
+work-days. No one ever knew what this basket contained. "Her luncheon,"
+some of the art-students said; but if it did, no one had ever seen her
+eat it. "Someone else's luncheon," Marny added; "some sick body whom she
+looks after. There are dozens of them."
+
+"Larrovers fur meddlins," Aunt Chloe invariably answered those whose
+curiosity got the better of their discretion--an explanation which only
+deepened the mystery, no one being able to translate it.
+
+"She's safe, honey!" Aunt Chloe cried, when she caught sight of me. "I
+toted de baby, an' she toted de box. Po' li'l chinkapin! Mos' break a
+body's heart to see it! 'Clar to goodness, dat chile's leg warn't
+bigger'n a drumstick picked to de bone. De man de Sheriff sent wid us
+didn't go no furder dan de gate, an' when he lef us dey all sneaked in
+an' did dere bes' ter git her from me. Wuss-lookin' harum-scarums you
+ever see. Kep' a-tellin' her de ticket was good for ten days an' dey'd
+go wid her back to town; an' dat if she'd stay dey'd take her 'cross de
+ribber to see de city. I seed she wanted ter git home to her husban',
+an' she tol' 'em so. Den dey tried to make her believe he was comin' for
+her, an' dey pestered her so an' got her so mixed up wid deir lies dat I
+was feared she was gwine to give in, arter all. She warn't nothin' but a
+po' weak thing noways. Den I riz up an' tol' 'em dat I'd call a
+pleeceman an' take dat ticket from her an' de money I gin her beside, if
+she didn't stay on dat car. I didn't give her de 'velope; I had dat in
+my han' to show de conductor when he come, so he could see whar she was
+ter git off. Here it is"--and she handed me the ticket-seller's
+envelope. "Warn't nothin' else saved me but _dat_. When dey see'd it,
+dey knowed den somebody was a-lookin' arter her an' dey give in. Po'
+critter! I reckon she's purty nigh home by dis time!"
+
+The story is told. It is all true, every sickening detail. Other stories
+just like it, some of them infinitely more pitiful, can be written daily
+by anyone who will peer into the cages of Covington jail. There is
+nothing to be done; nothing _can_ be done.
+
+It is the law of the land--the just, holy, beneficent law, which is no
+respecter of persons.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF
+
+"That's Bud Tilden, the worst of the bunch," said the jail Warden--the
+warden with the sliced ear and the gorilla hands. "Reminds me of a
+cat'mount I tried to tame once, only he's twice as ugly."
+
+As he spoke, he pointed to a prisoner in a slouch hat clinging half-way
+up the steel bars of his cage, his head thrust through as far as his
+cheeks would permit, his legs spread apart like the letter A.
+
+"What's he here for?" I asked.
+
+"Bobbin' the U-nited States mail."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Up in the Kentucky mountains, back o' Bug Holler. Laid for the carrier
+one night, held him up with a gun, pulled him off his horse, slashed the
+bottom out o' the mail-bag with his knife, took what letters he wanted,
+and lit off in the woods, cool as a chunk o' ice. Oh! I tell ye, he's no
+sardine; you kin see that without my tellin' ye. They'll railroad
+him, sure."
+
+"When was he arrested?"
+
+"Last month--come down in the November batch. The dep'ties had a circus
+'fore they got the irons on him. Caught him in a clearin' 'bout two
+miles back o' the Holler. He was up in a corn-crib with a Winchester
+when they opened on him. Nobody was hurted, but they would a-been if
+they'd showed the top o' their heads, for he's strong as a bull and kin
+scalp a squirrel at fifty yards. They never would a-got him if they
+hadn't waited till dark and smoked him out, so one on 'em told me."
+He spoke as if the prisoner had been a rattlesnake or a
+sheep-stealing wolf.
+
+The mail-thief evidently overheard, for he dropped, with a cat-like
+movement, to the steel floor and stood looking at us through the bars
+from under his knit eyebrows, his eyes watching our every movement.
+
+There was no question about his strength. As he stood in the glare of
+the overhead light I could trace the muscles through his rough
+homespun--for he was a mountaineer, pure and simple, and not a city-bred
+thief in ready-made clothes. I saw that the bulging muscles of his
+calves had driven the wrinkles of his butternut trousers close up under
+the knee-joint and that those of his thighs had rounded out the coarse
+cloth from the knee to the hip. The spread of his shoulders had
+performed a like service for his shirt, which was stretched out of shape
+over the chest and back. This was crossed by but one suspender, and was
+open at the throat--a tree-trunk of a throat, with all the cords
+supporting the head firmly planted in the shoulders. The arms were long
+and had the curved movement of the tentacles of a devil-fish. The hands
+were big and bony, the fingers knotted together with knuckles of iron.
+He wore no collar nor any coat; nor did he bring one with him, so the
+Warden said.
+
+I had begun my inventory at his feet as he stood gazing sullenly at us,
+his great red hands tightly clasped around the bars. When in my
+inspection I passed from his open collar up his tree-trunk of a throat
+to his chin, and then to his face, half-shaded by a big slouch hat,
+which rested on his flaring ears, and at last looked into his eyes, a
+slight shock of surprise went through me. I had been examining this wild
+beast with my judgment already warped by the Warden; that's why I began
+at his feet and worked up. If I had started in on an unknown subject,
+prepared to rely entirely upon my own judgment, I would have begun at
+his eyes and worked down. My shock of surprise was the result of this
+upward process of inspection. An awakening of this kind, the awakening
+to an injustice done a man we have half-understood, often comes after
+years of such prejudice and misunderstanding. With me this awakening
+came with my first glimpse of his eyes.
+
+There was nothing of the Warden's estimate in these eyes; nothing of
+cruelty nor deceit nor greed. Those I looked into were a light blue--a
+washed-out china blue; eyes that shone out of a good heart rather than
+out of a bad brain; not very deep eyes; not very expressive eyes; dull,
+perhaps, but kindly. The features were none the less attractive; the
+mouth was large, well-shaped, and filled with big white teeth, not one
+missing; the nose straight, with wide, well-turned nostrils; the brow
+low, but not cunning nor revengeful; the chin strong and well-modelled,
+the cheeks full and of good color. A boy of twenty I should have
+said--perhaps twenty-five; abnormally strong, a big animal with small
+brain-power, perfect digestion, and with every function of his body
+working like a clock. Photograph his head and come upon it suddenly in a
+collection of others, and you would have said: "A big country bumpkin
+who ploughs all day and milks the cows at night." He might be the
+bloodthirsty ruffian, the human wild beast, the Warden had described,
+but he certainly did not look it. I would like to have had just such a
+man on any one of my gangs with old Captain Joe over him. He would have
+fought the sea with the best of them and made the work of the surf-men
+twice as easy if he had taken a hand at the watch-tackles.
+
+I turned to the Warden again. My own summing up differed materially from
+his estimate, but I did not thrust mine upon him. He had had, of course,
+a much wider experience among criminals--I, in fact, had had none at
+all--and could not be deceived by outward appearances.
+
+"You say they are going to try him to-day?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, at two o'clock. Nearly that now," and he glanced at his watch.
+"All the witnesses are down, I hear. They claim there's something else
+mixed up in it besides robbing the mail, but I don't remember what. So
+many of these cases comin' and goin' all the time! His old father was in
+to see him yesterday, and a girl. Some o' the men said she was his
+sweetheart, but he don't look like that kind. You oughter seen his
+father, though. Greatest jay you ever see. Looked like a
+fly-up-the-creek. Girl warn't much better lookin'. They make 'em out o'
+brick-clay and ham fat up in them mountains. Ain't human, half on 'em.
+Better go over and see the trial."
+
+I waited in the Warden's office until the deputies came for the
+prisoner. When they had formed in line on the sidewalk I followed behind
+the posse, crossing the street with them to the Court-house. The
+prisoner walked ahead, handcuffed to a deputy who was a head shorter
+than he and half his size. A second officer walked behind; I kept close
+to this rear deputy and could see every movement he made. I noticed that
+his fingers never left his hip pocket and that his eye never wavered
+from the slouch hat on the prisoner's head. He evidently intended to
+take no chances with a man who could have made mince-meat of both of
+them had his hands been free.
+
+We parted at the main entrance, the prisoner, with head erect and a
+certain fearless, uncowed look on his boyish face, preceding the
+deputies down a short flight of stone steps, closely followed by
+the officer.
+
+The trial, I could see, had evidently excited unusual interest. When I
+mounted the main flight to the corridor opening into the trial chamber
+and entered the great hallway, it was crowded with mountaineers--wild,
+shaggy, unkempt-looking fellows, most of them. All were dressed in the
+garb of their locality: coarse, rawhide shoes, deerskin waistcoats,
+rough, butternut-dyed trousers and coats, and a coon-skin or army slouch
+hat worn over one eye. Many of them had their saddle-bags with them.
+There being no benches, those who were not standing were squatting on
+their haunches, their shoulders against the bare wall. Others were
+huddled close to the radiators. The smell of escaping steam from these
+radiators, mingling with the fumes of tobacco and the effluvia from so
+many closely packed human bodies, made the air stifling.
+
+I edged my way through the crowd and pushed through the court-room door.
+The Judge was just taking his seat--a dull, heavy-looking man with a
+bald head, a pair of flabby, clean-shaven cheeks, and two small eyes
+that looked from under white eyebrows. Half-way up his forehead rested a
+pair of gold spectacles. The jury had evidently been out for luncheon,
+for they were picking their teeth and settling themselves comfortably in
+their chairs.
+
+The court-room--a new one--outraged, as usual, in its construction every
+known law of proportion, the ceiling being twice too high for the walls,
+and the big, uncurtained windows (they were all on one side) letting in
+a glare of light that made silhouettes of every object seen against it.
+Only by the closest attention could one hear or see in a room like this.
+
+The seating of the Judge was the signal for the admission of the crowd
+in the corridor, who filed in through the door, some forgetting to
+remove their hats, others passing the doorkeeper in a defiant way. Each
+man, as soon as his eyes became accustomed to the glare from the
+windows, looked furtively toward the prisoners' box. Bud Tilden was
+already in his seat between the two deputies, his hands unshackled, his
+blue eyes searching the Judge's face, his big slouch hat on the floor at
+his feet. What was yet in store for him would drop from the lips of
+this face.
+
+The crier of the court, a young negro, made his announcements.
+
+I found a seat between the prisoner and the bench, so that I could hear
+and see the better. The Government prosecutor occupied a seat at a table
+to my right, between me and the three staring Gothic windows. When he
+rose from his chair his body came in silhouette against their light.
+With his goat-beard, beak-nose, heavy eyebrows, long, black hair
+resting on the back of his coat-collar, bent body, loose-jointed arms,
+his coat-tails swaying about his thin legs, he looked (I did not see him
+in any other light) like a hungry buzzard flapping his wings before
+taking flight.
+
+He opened the case with a statement of facts. He would prove, he said,
+that this mountain-ruffian was the terror of the neighborhood, in which
+life was none too safe; that although this was the first time he had
+been arrested, there were many other crimes which could be laid at his
+door, had his neighbors not been afraid to inform upon him.
+
+Warming up to the subject, flapping his arms aloft like a pair of wings,
+he recounted, with some dramatic fervor, what he called the "lonely ride
+of the tried servant of the Government over the rude passes of the
+mountains," recounting the risks which these faithful men ran; then he
+referred to the sanctity of the United States mails, reminding the jury
+and the audience--particularly the audience--of the chaos which would
+ensue if these sacred mail-bags were tampered with; "the stricken,
+tear-stained face of the mother," for instance, who had been waiting for
+days and weeks for news of her dying son, or "the anxious merchant
+brought to ruin for want of a remittance which was to tide him over some
+financial distress," neither of them knowing that at that very moment
+some highwayman like the prisoner "was fattening off the result of his
+theft." This last was uttered with a slapping of both hands on his
+thighs, his coat-tails swaying in unison. He then went on in a graver
+tone to recount the heavy penalties the Government imposed for
+violations of the laws made to protect this service and its agents, and
+wound up by assuring the jury of his entire confidence in their
+intelligence and integrity, knowing, as he did, how just would be their
+verdict, irrespective of the sympathy they might feel for one who had
+preferred "the hidden walks of crime to the broad open highway of an
+honest life." Altering his tone again and speaking in measured accents,
+he admitted that, although the Government's witnesses had not been able
+to identify the prisoner by his face, he having concealed himself in the
+bushes while the rifling of the pouch was in progress, yet so full a
+view was gotten of his enormous back and shoulders as to leave no doubt
+in his mind that the prisoner before them had committed the assault,
+since it would not be possible to find two such men, even in the
+mountains of Kentucky. As his first witness he would call the
+mail-carrier.
+
+Bud had sat perfectly stolid during the harangue. Once he reached down
+with one long arm and scratched his bare ankle with his forefinger, his
+eyes, with the gentle light in them that had first attracted me,
+glancing aimlessly about the room; then he settled back again in his
+chair, its back creaking to the strain of his shoulders. Whenever he
+looked at the speaker, which was seldom, a slight curl, expressing more
+contempt than anxiety, crept along his lips. He was, no doubt, comparing
+his own muscles to those of the buzzard and wondering what he would do
+to him if he ever caught him out alone. Men of enormous strength
+generally measure the abilities of others by their own standards.
+
+"Mr. Bowditch will take the chair!" cried the prosecutor.
+
+At the summons, a thin, wizen-faced, stubbly-bearded man of fifty, his
+shirt-front stained with tobacco-juice, rose from his seat and took the
+stand. The struggle for possession of the bag must have been a brief
+one, for he was but a dwarf compared to the prisoner. In a low,
+constrained voice--the awful hush of the court-room had evidently
+impressed him--and in plain, simple words, in strong contrast to the
+flowery opening of the prosecutor, he recounted the facts as he knew
+them. He told of the sudden command to halt; of the attack in the rear
+and the quick jerking of the mail-bags from beneath his saddle,
+upsetting him into the road; of the disappearance of the robber in the
+bushes, his head and shoulders only outlined against the dim light of
+the stars; of the flight of the robber, and of his finding the bag a few
+yards away from the place of assault with the bottom cut. None of the
+letters was found opened; which ones were missing tie couldn't say. Of
+one thing he was sure--none were left behind by him on the ground, when
+he refilled the bag.
+
+The bag, with a slash in the bottom as big as its mouth, was then passed
+around the jury-box, each juror in his inspection of the cut seeming to
+be more interested in the way in which the bag was manufactured (some of
+them, I should judge, had never examined one before) than in the way in
+which it was mutilated. The bag was then put in evidence and hung over
+the back of a chair, mouth down, the gash in its bottom in full view of
+the jury. This gash, from where I sat, looked like one inflicted on an
+old-fashioned rubber football by a high kicker.
+
+Hank Halliday, in a deerskin waistcoat and dust-stained slouch hat,
+which he crumpled up in his hand and held under his chin, was the
+next witness.
+
+In a jerky, strained voice he told of his mailing a letter, from a
+village within a short distance of Bug Hollow, to a girl friend of his
+on the afternoon of the night of the robbery. He swore positively that
+this letter was in this same mail-bag, because he had handed it to the
+carrier himself before he got on his horse, and added, with equal
+positiveness, that it had never reached its destination. The value or
+purpose of this last testimony, the non-receipt of the letter, was not
+clear to me, except upon the theory that the charge of robbery might
+fail if it could be proved by the defence that no letter was missing.
+
+Bud fastened his eyes on Halliday and smiled as he made this last
+statement about the undelivered letter, the first smile I had seen
+across his face, but gave no other sign indicating that Halliday's
+testimony affected his chances in any way.
+
+Then followed the usual bad-character witnesses--both friends of
+Halliday, I could see; two this time--one charging Bud with all the
+crimes in the decalogue, and the other, under the lead of the
+prosecutor, launching forth into an account of a turkey-shoot in which
+Bud had wrongfully claimed the turkey--an account which was at last cut
+short by the Judge in the midst of its most interesting part, as having
+no particular bearing on the case.
+
+Up to this time no one had appeared for the accused, nor had any
+objection been made to any part of the testimony except by the Judge.
+Neither had any one of the prosecutor's witnesses been asked a single
+question in rebuttal.
+
+With the resting of the Government's case a dead silence fell upon the
+room.
+
+The Judge waited a few moments, the tap of his lead-pencil sounding
+through the stillness, and then asked if the attorney for the defence
+was ready.
+
+No one answered. Again the Judge put the question, this time with some
+impatience.
+
+Then he addressed the prisoner.
+
+"Is your lawyer present?"
+
+Bud bent forward in his chair, put his hands on his knees, and answered
+slowly, without a tremor in his voice:
+
+"I ain't got none. One come yisterday to the jail, but he didn't like
+what I tol' him and he ain't showed up since."
+
+A spectator sitting by the door, between an old man and a young girl,
+both evidently from the mountains, rose to his feet and walked briskly
+to the open space before the Judge. He had sharp, restless eyes, wore
+gloves, and carried a silk hat in one hand.
+
+"In the absence of the prisoner's counsel, your Honor," he said, "I am
+willing to go on with this case. I was here when it opened and have
+heard all the testimony. I have also conferred with some of the
+witnesses for the defence."
+
+"Did I not appoint counsel in this case yesterday?" said the Judge,
+turning to the clerk.
+
+There was a hurried conference between the two, the Judge listening
+wearily, cupping his ear with his hand and the clerk rising on his toes
+so that he could reach his Honor's hearing the easier.
+
+"It seems," said the Judge, resuming his position, and addressing the
+room at large, "that the counsel already appointed has been called out
+of town on urgent business. If the prisoner has no objection, and if
+you, sir--" looking straight at the would-be attorney--"have heard all
+the testimony so far offered, the Court sees no objection to your
+acting in his place."
+
+The deputy on the right side of the prisoner leaned over, whispered
+something to Tilden, who stared at the Judge and shook his head. It was
+evident that Bud had no objection to this nor to anything else, for that
+matter. Of all the men in the room he seemed the least interested.
+
+I turned in my seat and touched the arm of my neighbor.
+
+"Who is that man who wants to go on with the case?"
+
+"Oh, that's Bill Cartwright, one of the cheap, shyster lawyers always
+hanging around here looking for a job. His boast is he never lost a
+suit. Guess the other fellow skipped because he thought he had a better
+scoop somewhere else. These poor devils from the mountains never have
+any money to pay a lawyer. Court appoints 'em."
+
+With the appointment of the prisoner's attorney the crowd in the
+court-room craned their necks in closer attention, one man standing on
+his chair for a better view until a deputy ordered him down. They knew
+what the charge was. It was the defence they all wanted to hear. That
+had been the topic of conversation around the tavern stoves of Bug
+Hollow for months past.
+
+Cartwright began by asking that the mail-carrier be recalled. The little
+man again took the stand.
+
+The methods of these police-court lawyers always interest me. They are
+gamblers in evidence, most of them. They take their chances as the cases
+go on; some of them know the jury--one or two is enough; some are
+learned in the law--more learned, often, than the prosecutor, who is a
+Government appointee with political backers, and now and then one of
+them knows the Judge, who is also a political appointee and occasionally
+has his party to care for. All are valuable in an election, and a few of
+them are honest. This one, my neighbor told me, had held office as a
+police justice and was a leader in his district.
+
+Cartwright drew his gloves carefully from his hands, laid his silk hat
+on a chair, dropped into it a package of legal papers tied with a red
+string, and, adjusting his glasses, fixed his eyes on the mail-carrier.
+The expression on his face was bland and seductive.
+
+"At what hour do you say the attempted robbery took place, Mr.
+Bowditch?"
+
+"About eleven o'clock."
+
+"Did you have a watch?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How do you know, then?" The question was asked in a mild way as if he
+intended to help the carrier's memory.
+
+"I don't know exactly; it may have been half-past ten or eleven."
+
+"You, of course, saw the man's face?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you heard him speak?" Same tone as if trying his best to encourage
+the witness in his statements.
+
+"No." This was said with some positiveness. The mail-carrier evidently
+intended to tell the truth.
+
+Cartwright turned quickly with a snarl like that of a dog suddenly
+goaded into a fight.
+
+"How can you swear, then, that the prisoner made the assault?"
+
+The little man changed color and stammered out in excuse:
+
+"He was as big as him, anyway, and there ain't no other like him nowhere
+in them parts."
+
+"Oh, he was as _big_ as him, was he?" This retort came with undisguised
+contempt. "And there are no others like him, eh? Do you know _everybody_
+in Bell County, Mr. Bowditch?"
+
+The mail-carrier did not answer.
+
+Cartwright waited until the discomfiture of the witness could be felt by
+the jury, dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and, looking over the
+room, beckoned to an old man seated by a girl--the same couple he had
+been talking to before his appointment by the Court--and said in a
+loud voice:
+
+"Will Mr. Perkins Tilden take-the stand?"
+
+At the mention of his father's name, Bud, who had maintained throughout
+his indifferent attitude, straightened himself erect in his chair with
+so quick a movement that the deputy edged a foot nearer and
+instinctively slid his hand to his hip-pocket.
+
+A lean, cadaverous, painfully thin old man in answer to his name rose to
+his feet and edged his way through the crowd to the witness-chair. He
+was an inch taller than his son, though only half his weight, and was
+dressed in a suit of cheap cloth of the fashion of long ago, the coat
+too small for him, even for his shrunken shoulders, and the sleeves
+reaching only to his wrists. As he took his seat, drawing in his long
+legs toward his chair, his knee-bones, under the strain, seemed to be on
+the point of coming through his trousers. His shoulders were bowed, the
+incurve of his thin stomach following the line of his back. As he
+settled back in his chair he passed his hand nervously over his mouth,
+as if his lips were dry.
+
+Cartwright's manner to this witness was the manner of a lackey who hangs
+on every syllable that falls from his master's lips.
+
+"At what time, Mr. Tilden, did your son Bud reach your house on the
+night of the robbery?"
+
+The old man cleared his throat and said, as if weighing each word:
+
+"At ten minutes past ten o'clock."
+
+"How do you fix the time?"
+
+"I had just wound the clock when Bud come in."
+
+"How, Mr. Tilden, how far is it to the cross-roads where the
+mail-carrier says he was robbed?"
+
+"About a mile and a half from my place."
+
+"And how long would it take an able-bodied man to walk it?"
+
+"'Bout fifteen minutes."
+
+"Not more?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The Government's attorney had no questions to ask, and said so with a
+certain assumed nonchalance.
+
+Cartwright bowed smilingly, dismissed Bud's father with a satisfied
+gesture of the hand, looked over the court-room with the air of a man
+who was unable at the moment to find what he wanted, and in a low voice
+called: "Jennetta Mooro!"
+
+The girl, who sat within three feet of Cartwright, having followed the
+old man almost to the witness-stand, rose timidly, drew her shawl closer
+about her shoulders, and took the seat vacated by Bud's father. She had
+that half-fed look in her face which one sometimes finds in the women of
+the mountain-districts. She was frightened and very pale. As she pushed
+her poke-bonnet back from her ears her unkempt brown hair fell about
+her neck.
+
+But Tilden, at mention of her name, half-started from his chair and
+would have risen to his feet had not the officer laid his hand upon him.
+
+He seemed on the point of making some protest which the action of the
+officer alone restrained.
+
+Cartwright, after the oath had been administered, began in a voice so
+low that the jury stretched their necks to listen:
+
+"Miss Moore, do you know the prisoner?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I know Bud." She had one end of the shawl between her fingers
+and was twisting it aimlessly. Every eye in the room was fastened
+upon her.
+
+"How long have you known him?"
+
+There was a pause, and then she said in a faint voice:
+
+"Ever since he and me growed up."
+
+"Ever since you and he grew up, eh?" This repetition was in a loud
+voice, so that any juryman dull of hearing might catch it. "Was he at
+your house on the night of the robbery?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"'Bout ten o'clock." This was again repeated.
+
+"How long did he stay?"
+
+"Not more'n ten minutes."
+
+"Where did he go then?"
+
+"He said he was goin' home."
+
+"How far is it to his home from your house?"
+
+"'Bout ten minutes' walk."
+
+"That will do, Miss Moore," said Cartwright, and took his seat.
+
+The Government prosecutor, who had sat with shoulders hunched up, his
+wings pulled in, rose to his feet with the aid of a chair-back,
+stretched his long arms above his head, and then, lowering one hand
+level with the girl's face, said, as he thrust one sharp, skinny finger
+toward her:
+
+"Did anybody else come to see you the next night after the robbery?"
+
+There was a pause, during which Cartwright busied himself with his
+papers. One of his methods was never to seem interested in the
+cross-examination of any one of his witnesses.
+
+The girl's face flushed, and she began to fumble the shawl nervously
+with her fingers.
+
+"Yes, Hank Halliday," she murmured, in a low voice.
+
+"Mr. Halliday, who has testified here?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What did he want?"
+
+"He wanted to know if I'd got a letter he'd writ me day before. And I
+tol' him I hadn't. Then he 'lowed he'd a-brought it to me himself if
+he'd knowed Bud was goin' to turn thief and hold up the mail-man. I
+hadn't heard nothin' 'bout it and nobody else had till he began to talk.
+I opened the door then and tol' him to walk out; that I wouldn't hear
+nobody speak that way 'bout Bud Tilden. That was 'fore they'd
+'rested Bud."
+
+"Have you got that letter now?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did you ever get it?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did you ever see it?"
+
+"No, and I don't think it was ever writ."
+
+"But he _has_ written you letters before?"
+
+"He used to; he don't now."
+
+"That will do."
+
+The girl took her place again behind the old man.
+
+Cartwright rose to his feet with great dignity, walked to the chair on
+which rested his hat, took from it the package of papers to serve as an
+orator's roll--he did not open it, and they evidently had no bearing on
+the case--and addressed the Judge, the package held aloft in his hand:
+
+"Your Honor, there's not been a particle of evidence so far produced in
+this court to convict this man of this crime. I have not conferred with
+him, and therefore do not know what answers he has to make to this
+infamous charge. I am convinced, however, that his own statement under
+oath will clear up at once any doubt remaining in the minds of this
+honorable jury of his innocence."
+
+This was said with a certain ill-concealed triumph in his voice. I saw
+now why he had taken the case, and saw, too, the drift of his
+defence--everything thus far pointed to the old hackneyed plea of an
+alibi. He had evidently determined on this course of action when he sat
+listening to the stories Bud's father and the girl had told him as he
+sat beside them on the bench near the door. Their testimony, taken in
+connection with the uncertain testimony of the Government's principal
+witness, the mail-carrier, as to the exact time of the assault, together
+with the prisoner's testimony stoutly denying the crime, would insure
+either an acquittal or a disagreement. The first would result in his
+fees being paid by the court, the second would add to this amount
+whatever Bud's friends could scrape together to induce him to go on with
+the second trial. In either case his masterly defence was good for an
+additional number of clients and perhaps--of votes. It is humiliating to
+think that any successor of Choate, Webster, or Evarts should earn his
+bread in this way, but it is true all the same.
+
+"The prisoner will take the stand!" cried Cartwright, in a firm voice.
+
+As the words left his mouth, the noise of shuffling feet and the
+shifting of positions for a bettor view of the prisoner became so loud
+that the Judge rapped for order, the clerk repeating it with the end of
+his ruler.
+
+Bud lifted himself to his feet slowly (his being called was evidently as
+much of a surprise to him as it was to the crowded room), looked about
+him carelessly, his glance resting first on the girl's face and then on
+the deputy beside him. He stepped clumsily down from the raised platform
+and shouldered his way to the witness-chair. The prosecuting attorney
+had evidently been amazed at the flank movement of his opponent, for he
+moved his position so he could look squarely in Bud's face. As the
+prisoner sank into his seat, the room became hushed in silence.
+
+Bud kissed the book mechanically, hooked his feet together and, clasping
+his big hands across his waist-line, settled his great body between the
+arms of the chair, with his chin resting on his shirt-front. Cartwright,
+in his most impressive manner, stepped a foot closer to Bud's chair.
+
+"Mr. Tilden, you have heard the testimony of the mail-carrier; now be
+good enough to tell the jury where you were on the night of the
+robbery--how many miles from this _mail-sack_?" and he waved his hand
+contemptuously toward the bag. It was probably the first time in all his
+life that Bud had heard any man dignify his personality with any
+such title.
+
+In recognition of the compliment, Bud raised his chin slightly and fixed
+his eyes more intently on his questioner. Up to this time he had not
+taken the slightest notice of him.
+
+"'Bout as close's I could git to it--'bout three feet, I should
+say--maybe less."
+
+Cartwright gave a slight start and bit his lip. Evidently the prisoner
+had misunderstood him. The silence continued.
+
+"I don't mean _here_, Mr. Tilden;" and he pointed to the bag. "I mean
+the night of the so-called robbery."
+
+"That's what I said; 'bout as close's I could git."
+
+"Well, did you rob the mail?" This was asked uneasily, but with a
+half-concealed laugh in his voice as if the joke would appear in
+a minute.
+
+"No."
+
+"No, of course not." The tone of relief was apparent.
+
+"Well, do you know anything about the cutting of the bag?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+"Me."
+
+"_You?"_ The surprise was now an angry one.
+
+"Yes, me."
+
+At this unexpected reply the Judge pushed his glasses high up on his
+forehead with a quick motion and leaned over his bench, his eyes on the
+prisoner. The jury looked at each other with amazement; such scenes were
+rare in their experience. The prosecuting attorney smiled grimly.
+Cartwright looked as if someone had struck him a sudden blow in
+the face.
+
+"What for?" he stammered. It was evidently the only question left for
+him to ask. All his self-control was gone now, his face livid, an angry
+look in his eyes. That any man with State's prison yawning before him
+could make such a fool of himself seemed to astound him.
+
+Bud turned slowly and, pointing his finger at Halliday, said between
+his closed teeth:
+
+"Ask Hank Halliday; he knows."
+
+The buzzard sprang to his feet. There was the scent of carrion in the
+air now; I saw it in his eyes.
+
+"We don't want to ask Mr. Halliday; we want to ask you. Mr. Halliday is
+not on trial, and we want the truth if you can tell it."
+
+The irregularity of the proceeding was unnoticed in the tense
+excitement.
+
+Bud looked at him as a big mastiff looks at a snarling cur with a look
+more of pity than contempt. Then he said slowly, accentuating each word:
+
+"Keep yer shirt on. You'll git the truth--git the whole of it. Git what
+you ain't lookin' for. There ain't no liars up in our mountains 'cept
+them skunks in Gov'ment pay you fellers send up to us, and things like
+Hank Halliday. He's wuss nor any skunk. A skunk's a varmint that don't
+stink tell ye meddle with him, but Hank Halliday stinks all the time.
+He's one o' them fellers that goes 'round with books in their pockets
+with picters in 'em that no girl oughter see and no white man oughter
+read. He gits 'em down to Louisville. There ain't a man in Pondville
+won't tell ye it's true. He shoved one in my outside pocket over to
+Pondville when I warn't lookin', the day 'fore I held up this man
+Bowditch, and went and told the fellers 'round the tavern that I had
+it. They come and pulled it out and had the laugh on me, and then he
+began to talk and said he'd write to Jennetta and send her one o' the
+picters by mail and tell her he'd got it out o' my coat, and he did. Sam
+Kellers seen Halliday with the letter and told me after Bowditch had got
+it in his bag. I laid for Bowditch at Pondville Corners, but he got past
+somehow, and I struck in behind Bill Somers's mill, and crossed the
+mountain and caught up with him as he was ridin' through the piece o'
+woods near the clearin'. I didn't know but he'd try to shoot, and I
+didn't want to hurt him, so I crep' up behind and threw him in the
+bushes, cut a hole in the bag, and got the letter. That's the only one I
+wanted and that's the only one I took. I didn't rob no mail, but I
+warn't goin' to hev an honest, decent girl like Jennetta git that
+letter, and there warn't no other way."
+
+The stillness that followed was broken only by the Judge's voice.
+
+"What became of that letter?"
+
+"I got it. Want to see it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Bud felt in his pockets as if looking for something, and then, with an
+expression as if he had suddenly remembered, remarked:
+
+"No, I ain't got none. They stole my knife when they 'rested me." Then
+facing the courtroom, he added: "Somebody lend me a knife, and pass me
+my hat over there 'longside them sheriffs."
+
+[Illustration: "I threw him in the bushes and got the letter."]
+
+The court-crier took the hat from one of the deputies, and the clerk, in
+answer to a nod of assent from the Judge, passed Bud an ink-eraser with
+a steel blade in one end.
+
+The audience now had the appearance of one watching a juggler perform a
+trick. Bud grasped the hat in one hand, turned back the brim, inserted
+the point of the knife between the hat lining and the hat itself and
+drew out a yellow envelope stained with dirt and perspiration.
+
+"Here it is. I ain't opened it, and what's more, they didn't find it
+when they searched me;" and he looked again toward the deputies.
+
+The Judge leaned forward in his seat and said:
+
+"Hand me the letter."
+
+The letter was passed up by the court-crier, every eye following it. His
+Honor examined the envelope, and, beckoning to Halliday, said:
+
+"Is this your letter?"
+
+Halliday stepped to the side of the Judge, fingered the letter closely,
+and said: "Looks like my writin'."
+
+"Open it and see."
+
+Halliday broke the seal with his thumb-nail, and took out half a sheet
+of note-paper closely written on one side, wrapped about a small
+picture-card.
+
+"Yes, it's my letter;" and he glanced sheepishly around the room and
+hung his head, his face scarlet.
+
+The Judge leaned back in his chair, raised his hand impressively, and
+said gravely:
+
+"This case is adjourned until ten o'clock tomorrow."
+
+Two days later I again met the Warden as he was entering the main door
+of the jail. He had been over to the Court-house, he said, helping the
+deputy along with a new "batch of moonshiners."
+
+"What became of Bud Tilden?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, he got it in the neck for robbin' the mails, just's I told you he
+would. Peached on himself like a d---- fool and give everything dead
+away. He left for Kansas this morning. Judge give him twenty years."
+
+He is still in the lock-step at Leavenworth prison. He has kept it up
+now for two years. His hair is short, his figure bent, his step
+sluggish. The law is slowly making an animal of him--that wise,
+righteous law which is no respecter of persons.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS"
+
+It was a feeble old man of seventy-two this time who sat facing the
+jury, an old man with bent back, scant gray hair, and wistful,
+pleading eyes.
+
+He had been arrested in the mountains of Kentucky and had been brought
+to Covington for trial, chained to another outlaw, one of those
+"moonshiners" who rob the great distilleries of part of their profits
+and the richest and most humane Government on earth of part of
+its revenue.
+
+For eleven months and ten days he had been penned up in one of the steel
+cages of Covington jail.
+
+I recognized him the moment I saw him.
+
+He was the old fellow who spoke to me from between the bars of his den
+on my visit the week before to the inferno--the day I found Samanthy
+North and her baby--and who told me then he was charged with "sellin'"
+and that he "reckoned" he was the oldest of all the prisoners about him.
+He had on the same suit of coarse, homespun clothes--the trousers hiked
+up toward one shoulder from the strain of a single suspender; the
+waistcoat held by one button; the shirt open at the neck, showing the
+wrinkled throat, wrinkled as an old saddle-bag, and brown, hairy chest.
+
+Pie still carried his big slouch hat, dust-begrimed and frayed at the
+edges. It hung over one knee now, a red cotton handkerchief tucked under
+its brim. He was superstitious about it, no doubt; he would wear it when
+he walked out a free man, and wanted it always within reach. Hooked in
+its band was a trout-fly, a red ibis, some souvenir, perhaps, of the
+cool woods that he loved, and which brought back to him the clearer the
+happy, careless days which might never be his again.
+
+The trout-fly settled all doubts in my mind as to his origin and his
+identity. He was not a "moonshiner"; he was my old trout fisherman,
+Jonathan Gordon, come back to life, even to his streaming, unkempt
+beard, leathery skin, thin, peaked nose, and deep, searching eyes. That
+the daisies which Jonathan loved were at that very moment blooming over
+his grave up in his New Hampshire hills, and had been for years back,
+made no difference to me. I could not be mistaken. The feeble old man
+sitting within ten feet of me, fidgeting about in his chair, the glare
+of the big windows flooding his face with light, his long legs tucked
+under him, his bony hands clasped together, the scanty gray hair adrift
+over his forehead, his slouch hat hooked over his knee, was my own
+Jonathan come back to life. His dog, George, too, was somewhere within
+reach, and so were his fishing-pole and creel, with its leather
+shoulder-band polished like a razor-strop. You who read this never saw
+Jonathan, perhaps, but you can easily carry his picture in your mind by
+remembering some one of the other old fellows you used to see on Sunday
+mornings hitching their horses to the fence outside of the country
+church, or sauntering through the woods with a fish-pole over their
+shoulders and a creel by their sides, or with their heads together on
+the porch of some cross-roads store, bartering eggs and butter for
+cotton cloth and brown sugar. All these simple-minded, open-aired,
+out-of-doors old fellows, with the bark on them, are very much alike.
+
+The only difference between the two men lay in the expression of the two
+faces. Jonathan always looked straight at you when he talked, so that
+you could fathom his eyes as you would fathom a deep pool that mirrored
+the stars. This old man's eyes wavered from one to another, lighting
+first on the jury, then on the buzzard of a District Attorney, and then
+on the Judge, with whom rested the freedom which meant life or which
+meant imprisonment: at his age--death. This wavering look was the look
+of a dog who had been an outcast for weeks, or who had been shut up with
+a chain about his throat; one who had received only kicks and cuffs for
+pats of tenderness--a cringing, pleading look ready to crouch beneath
+some fresh cruelty.
+
+This look, as the trial went on and the buzzard of an attorney flapped
+out his denunciations, deepened to an expression of abject fear. In
+trying to answer the questions hurled at him, he would stroke his
+parched throat mechanically with his long fingers as if to help the
+syllables free themselves. In listening to the witnesses he would curve
+his body forward, one skinny hand cupped behind his ear, his jaw
+dropping slowly, revealing the white line of the lips above the
+straggling beard. Now and then as he searched the eyes of the jury there
+would flash out from his own the same baffled, anxious look that comes
+into dear old Joe Jefferson's face when he stops half-way up the
+mountain and peers anxiously into the eyes of the gnomes who have stolen
+out of the darkness and are grouping themselves silently about him--a
+look expressing one moment his desire to please and the next his anxiety
+to escape.
+
+There was no doubt about the old man's crime, not the slightest. It had
+been only the tweedledum and tweedledee of the law that had saved him
+the first time. They would not serve him now. The evidence was too
+conclusive, the facts too plain. The "deadwood," as such evidence is
+called by the initiated, lay in heaps--more than enough to send him to
+State prison for the balance of his natural life. The buzzard of a
+District Attorney who had first scented out his body with an indictment,
+and who all these eleven months and ten days had sat with folded wings
+and hunched-up shoulders, waiting for his final meal--I had begun to
+dislike him in the Bud Tilden trial, but I hated him now (a foolish,
+illogical prejudice, for he was only doing his duty as he saw it)--had
+full control of all the "deadwood"; had it with him, in fact. There were
+not only some teaspoonfuls of the identical whiskey which this
+law-breaker had sold, all in an eight-ounce vial properly corked and
+labelled, but there was also the identical silver dime which had been
+paid for it. One of the jury was smelling this whiskey when I entered
+the court-room; another was fingering the dime. It was a good dime, and
+bore the stamp of the best and greatest nation on the earth. On one side
+was the head of the Goddess of Liberty and on the other was the wreath
+of plenty: some stalks of corn and the bursting heads of wheat, with one
+or two ivy leaves twisted together, suggesting honor and glory and
+achievement. The "deadwood"--the evidence--was all right. All that
+remained was for the buzzard to flap his wings once or twice in a
+speech; then the jury would hold a short consultation, a few words would
+follow from the presiding Judge, and the carcass would be ready for the
+official undertaker, the prison Warden.
+
+How wonderful the system, how mighty the results!
+
+One is often filled with admiration and astonishment at the perfect
+working of this mighty engine, the law. Properly adjusted, it rests on
+the bedplate of equal rights to all men; is set in motion by the hot
+breath of the people--superheated often by popular clamor; is kept safe
+by the valve of a grand jury; is governed in its speed by the wise and
+prudent Judge, and regulated in its output by a jury of twelve men.
+
+Sometimes in the application of its force this machine, being man-made,
+like all machines, and thus without a soul, gets out of order, loosens a
+cog or bolt perhaps, throwing the mechanism "out of gear," as it is
+called. When this happens, the engine resting on its bed-plate still
+keeps its foundation, but some lesser part, the loom or lathe or
+driving-wheel, which is another way of saying the arrest, the trial or
+the conviction, goes awry. Sometimes the power-belt is purposely thrown
+off, the machinery stopped, and a consultation takes place, resulting in
+a disagreement or a new trial. When the machine is started again, it is
+started more carefully, with the first experience remembered. Sometimes
+the rightful material--the criminal, or the material from which the
+criminal is made--to feed this loom or lathe or driving-wheel, is
+replaced by some unsuitable material like the girl whose hair became
+entangled in a flying-belt and whose body was snatched up and whirled
+mercilessly about. Only then is the engine working on its bed-plate
+brought to a standstill. The steam of the boiler, the breath of the
+people, keeps up, but it is withheld from the engine until the mistake
+can be rectified and the girl rescued. The law of mercy, the divine law,
+now asserts itself. This law, being the law of God, is higher than the
+law of man. Some of those who believe in the man-law and who stand over
+the mangled body of the victim, or who sit beside her bed, bringing her
+slowly back to life, affirm that the girl was careless and deserved her
+fate. Others, who believe in the God-law, maintain that the engine is
+run not to kill but to protect, not to maim but to educate, and that the
+fault lies in the wrong application of the force, not in the
+force itself.
+
+So it was with this old man. Eleven months and ten days before this day
+of his second trial (eleven months and three days when I first saw him),
+a flying-belt set in motion up in his own mountain-home had caught and
+crushed him. To-day he was still in the maw of the machinery, his
+courage gone, his spirit broken, his heart torn. The group about his
+body, not being a sympathetic group, were insisting that the engine
+could do no wrong; that the victim was not a victim at all, but lawful
+material to be ground up. This theory was sustained by the District
+Attorney. Every day he must have fresh materials. The engine must run.
+The machinery must be fed.
+
+And his record?
+
+Ah, how often is this so in the law!--his record must be kept good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the whiskey had been held up to the light and the dime fingered,
+the old man's attorney--a young lawyer from the old man's own town, a
+smooth-faced young fellow who had the gentle look of a hospital nurse
+and who was doing his best to bring the broken body back to life and
+freedom--put the victim on the stand.
+
+"Tell the jury exactly how it all happened," he said, "and in your own
+way, just as you told it to me."
+
+"I'll try, sir; I'll do my best." It was Rip's voice, only fainter. He
+tugged at his collar as if to breathe the easier, cleared his throat and
+began again. "I ain't never been in a place like this but once before,
+and I hope you'll forgive me if I make any mistakes," and he looked
+about the room, a flickering, half-burnt-out smile trembling on
+his lips.
+
+"Well, I got a piece of land 'bout two miles back of my place that
+belongs to my wife, and I ain't never fenced it in, for I ain't never
+had no time somehow to cut the timber to do it, she's been so sickly
+lately. 'Bout a year ago I was goin' 'long toward Hi Stephens's mill
+a-lookin' for muskrats when I heard some feller's axe a-workin' away,
+and I says to Hi, 'Hi, ain't that choppin' goin' on on the wife's land?'
+and he said it was, and that Luke Shanders and his boys had been
+drawin' out cross-ties for the new railroad; thought I knowed it.
+
+"Well, I kep' 'long up and come on Luke jes's he was throwin' the las'
+stick onto his wagon. He kinder started when he see me, jumped on and
+begin to drive off. I says to him, 'Luke,' I says, 'I ain't got no
+objection to you havin' a load of wood; there's plenty of it; but it
+don't seem right for you to take it 'thout askin', 'specially since the
+wife's kind o' peaked and it's her land and not yourn.' He hauled the
+team back on their hind legs, and he says:
+
+"'When I see fit to ask you or your old woman's leave to cut timber on
+my own land, I will. Me and Lawyer Fillmore has been a-lookin' into them
+deeds, and this timber is mine;' and he driv off.
+
+"I come along home and studied 'bout it a bit, and me and the wife
+talked it over. We didn't want to make no fuss, but we knowed he was
+alyin', but that ain't no unusual thing for Luke Shanders.
+
+"Well, the nex' mornin' I got into Pondville 'bout eight o'clock and set
+a-waitin' till Lawyer Fillmore come in. He looked kind o' shamefaced
+when he see me, and I says, 'What's this Luke Shanders's been a-tellin'
+me 'bout your sayin' my wife's timberland is hisn?'
+
+"Then he began 'splainin' that the 'riginal lines was drawed wrong and
+that old man Shanders's land, Luke's father, run to the brook and took
+in all the white oak on the wife's lot and----"
+
+The buzzard sprang to his feet and shrieked out:
+
+"Your Honor, I object to this rigmarole. Tell the jury right away"--and
+he faced the prisoner--"what you know about this glass of whiskey. Get
+right down to the facts; we're not cutting cross-ties in this court."
+
+The old man caught his breath, placed his fingers suddenly to his lips
+as if to choke back the forbidden words, and, in an apologetic
+voice, murmured:
+
+"I'm gettin' there's fast's I kin, sir, 'deed I am; I ain't hidin'
+nothin'."
+
+He wasn't. Anyone could see it in his face.
+
+"Better let him go on in his own way," remarked the Judge,
+indifferently. His Honor was looking over some papers, and the
+monotonous tones of the witness diverted attention. Most of the jury,
+too, had already lost interest in the story. One of the younger members
+had settled himself in his chair, thrust his hands into his pockets,
+stretched out his legs, and had shut his eyes as if to take a nap.
+Nothing so far had implicated either the whiskey or the dime; when it
+did he would wake up.
+
+The old man turned a grateful glance toward the Judge, leaned forward in
+his chair, and with bent head looked about him on the floor as if trying
+to pick up the lost end of his story. The young attorney, in an
+encouraging tone, helped him find it with a question:
+
+"When did you next see Mr. Fillmore and Luke Shanders?"
+
+"When the trial come off," answered the old man, raising his head again.
+"Course we couldn't lose the land. 'Twarn't worth much till the new
+railroad come through; then the oak come handy for cross-ties. That's
+what set Fillmore and Luke Shanders onto it.
+
+"When the case was tried, the Judge seed they couldn't bring no 'riginal
+deed 'cept one showin' that Luke Shanders and Fillmore was partners in
+the steal, and the Judge 'lowed they'd have to pay for the timber they
+cut and hauled away.
+
+"They went round then a-sayin' they'd get even, though wife and I 'lowed
+we'd take anything reasonable for what hurt they done us. And that went
+on till one day 'bout a year ago Luke come into my place and said he and
+Lawyer Fillmore would he over the next day; that they was tired o'
+fightin', and that if I was willin' to settle they was.
+
+"One o' the new Gov'ment dep'ties was sittin' in my room at the time. He
+was goin' 'long up to town-court, he said, and had jest drapped in to
+pass the time o' day. There he is sittin' over there," and he pointed to
+his captor.
+
+"I hadn't never seen him before, though I know a good many of 'em, but
+he showed me his badge, and I knowed who he was.
+
+"The nex' mornin' Lawyer Fillmore and Luke stopped outside and hollered
+for me to come out. I wanted 'em to come in. Wife had baked some biscuit
+and we was determined to be sociable-like, now that they was willin' to
+do what was fair, and I 'lowed they must drive up and git out. They said
+that that's what they come for, only that they had to go a piece down
+the road, and they'd be back agin in a half-hour with the money.
+
+"Then Luke Shanders 'lowed he was cold, and asked if I had a drap o'
+whiskey."
+
+At mention of the all-important word a visible stir took place in the
+court-room. The young man with the closed eyes opened them and sat up in
+his chair. The jury ceased whispering to one another; the Judge pushed
+his spectacles back on his forehead and moved his papers aside; the
+buzzard stretched his long neck an inch farther out of his shirt-collar
+and lowered his head in attention. The spigot, which up to this time had
+run only "emptyings," was now giving out the clear juice of the
+wine-vat. Each man bent his tin cup of an ear to catch it. The old man
+noticed the movement and looked about him anxiously, as if dreading
+another rebuff. He started to speak, cleared his throat, pulled
+nervously at his beard for a moment, glancing furtively about the room,
+and in a lower tone repeated the words:
+
+"Asked if I had a drap o' whiskey. Well, I always take a dram when I
+want it, and I had some prime stuff my son Ned had sent me over from
+Frankfort, so I went hack and poured out 'bout four fingers in a glass,
+and took it out to him.
+
+"After he drunk it he handed me back the glass and driv off, sayin' he'd
+be round later. I took the glass into the house agin and sot it
+'longside the bottle on the mantel, and when I turned round there sot
+the Gov'ment dep'ty. He'd come in, wife said, while I was talkin' with
+Luke in the road. When he see the glass he asked if I had a license, and
+I told him I didn't sell no liquor, and he asked me what that was, and I
+told him it was whiskey, and then he got the bottle and took a smell of
+it, and then he held up the glass and turned it upside down and out
+drapped a ten-cent piece. Then he 'rested me!"
+
+The jury was all attention now; the several exhibits were coming into
+view. One fat, red-faced juror, who had a dyed mustache and looked like
+a sporting man, would have laughed outright had not the Judge checked
+him with a stern look.
+
+"You didn't put the dime there, did you?" the young attorney asked, in a
+tone that implied a negative answer.
+
+"No, sir; I don't take no money for what I give a man." This came with a
+slight touch of indignation.
+
+"Do you know who put it there?"
+
+"Well, there warn't nobody but Luke Shanders could 'a' done it, 'cause
+nobody had the glass but him. I heard since that it was all a put-up
+job, that they had swore I kep' a roadside, and they had sot the dep'ty
+onto me; but I don't like to think men kin be so mean, and I ain't
+a-sayin' it now. If they knew what I've suffered for what they done to
+me, they couldn't help but feel sorry for me if they're human."
+
+He stopped and passed his hands wearily over his forehead. The jury sat
+still, their eyes riveted on the speaker. Even the red-faced man was
+listening now.
+
+For an instant there was a pause. Then the old man reached forward in
+his seat, his elbows on his knees, his hands held out as if in appeal,
+and in a low, pleading tone addressed the jury. Strange to say, neither
+the buzzard nor the Judge interrupted the unusual proceeding:
+
+"Men, I hope you will let me go home now; won't you, please? I ain't
+never been 'customed all my life to bein' shut up, and it comes purty
+hard, not bein' so young as I was. I ain't findin' no fault, but it
+don't seem to me I ever done anythin' to deserve all that's come to me
+lately. I got 'long best way I could over there"--and he pointed in
+the direction of the steel cages--"till las' week, when Sam Jelliff come
+down to see his boy and told me the wife was took sick bad, worse than
+she's been yet. She ain't used to bein' alone; you'd know that if you
+could see her. The neighbors is purty good to her, I hear, but nobody
+don't understand her like me, she and me bein' so long together--mos'
+fifty years now. You'll let me go home, won't you, men? I git so tired,
+so tired; please let me go."
+
+[Illustration: "I git so tired, so tired; please let me go."]
+
+The buzzard was on his feet now, his arms sawing the air, his strident
+voice filling the courtroom.
+
+He pleaded for the machine--for the safety of the community, for the
+majesty of the law. He demanded instant conviction for this trickster,
+this Fagin among men, this hoary-headed old scoundrel who had insulted
+the intelligence of twelve of the most upright men he had ever seen in a
+jury-box, insulted them with a tale that even a child would laugh at.
+When at last he folded his wings, hunched up his shoulders and sat down,
+and the echoes of his harsh voice had died away, it seemed to me that I
+could hear vibrating through the room, as one hears the murmur of a
+brook after a storm, the tender tones of the old man pleading as if
+for his life.
+
+The jury had listened to the buzzard's harangue, with their eyes, not
+with their ears. Down in their hearts there still rang the piteous
+words. The man-made machine was breaking down; its mechanism out of
+"gear"; the law that governed it defective. The God-law, the law of
+mercy, was being set in motion.
+
+The voice of the Judge trembled a little as he delivered his charge, as
+if somehow a stray tear had clogged the passage from his heart to his
+lips. In low, earnest tones that every man strained his ear to catch, he
+reviewed the testimony of the witnesses, those I had not heard; took up
+the uncontradicted statement of the Deputy Marshal as evidenced by the
+exhibits before them; passed to the motive behind the alleged
+conspiracy; dwelt for a moment on the age and long confinement of the
+accused, and ended with the remark that if they believed his story to be
+an explanation of the facts, they must acquit him.
+
+They never left their seats. Even the red-faced man voted out of turn in
+his eagerness. The God-law had triumphed! The old man was free.
+
+The throng in the court-room rose and made their way to the doors, the
+old man going first, escorted by an officer to see him safely outside.
+The Judge disappeared through a door; the clerk lifted the lid of his
+desk and stowed beneath it the greasy, ragged Bible, stained with the
+lies of a thousand lips. The buzzard crammed his hat over his eyes,
+turned, and without a word to anyone, stalked out of the room.
+
+I mingled with the motley throng, my ears alert for any spoken opinions.
+I had seen the flying-belt thrown from the machine and the stoppage of
+the engine. I wanted now to learn something of the hot breath of the
+people who had set it in motion eleven months and ten days before.
+
+"Reckon he'll cut a blue streak for home now," muttered a court-lounger,
+buttoning up his coat; "that is, if he's got one. You'll never catch him
+sellin' any more moonshine."
+
+"Been me, I'd soaked him," blurted out a corner-loafer. "If you can't
+convict one of these clay-eaters when you've got him dead to rights,
+ain't no use havin' no justice."
+
+"I thought Tom [the buzzard] would land him," said a stout,
+gray-whiskered lawyer who was gathering up his papers. "First case Tom's
+lost this week. Goes pretty hard with him, you know, when he loses
+a case."
+
+"It would have been an outrage, sir, if he had won it," broke in a
+stranger. "The arrest of an old man like that on such a charge, and his
+confinement for nearly a year in a hole like that one across the street,
+is a disgrace. Something is rotten in the way the laws are administered
+in the mountains of Kentucky, or outrages like this couldn't occur."
+
+"He wouldn't thank you, sir, for interfering," remarked a bystander.
+"Being shut up isn't to him what it is to you and me. He's been taken
+care of for a year, hasn't he? Warmed and fed, and got his three meals a
+day. That's a blamed sight more than he gets at home. They're only
+half-human, these mountaineers, anyway. Don't worry; he's all right."
+
+"You've struck it first time," retorted the Deputy Marshal who had
+smelled the whiskey, found the dime, and slipped the handcuffs on the
+old man's withered wrists. "Go slow, will you?" and he faced the
+stranger. "We got to do our duty, ain't we? That's the law, and there
+ain't no way gittin' round it. And if we make mistakes, what of it?
+We've got to make mistakes sometimes, or we wouldn't catch half of 'em.
+The old skeesiks ought to be glad to git free. See?"
+
+Suddenly there came to my mind the realization of the days that were to
+follow and all that they would bring to him of shame. I thought of the
+cold glance of his neighbors, the frightened stare of the children ready
+to run at the approach of the old jail-bird, the coarse familiarity of
+the tavern lounger. Then the cruelty of it all rose before me. Who would
+recompense him for the indignities he had suffered--the deadly chill of
+the steel clamps; the long days of suspense; the bitterness of the first
+disagreement; the foul air of the inferno, made doubly foul by close
+crowding of filthy bodies, inexpressibly horrible to one who had
+breathed all his life the cool, pure air of the open with only the big
+clean trees for his comrades?
+
+And if at last his neighbors should take pity upon him and drive out the
+men who had wrecked his old age, and he should wander once more up the
+brook with his rod over his shoulder, the faithful dog at his heels, and
+a line of the old song still alive in his heart, what about those eleven
+months and ten days of which the man-law had robbed him?
+
+O mighty machine! O benign, munificent law! Law of a people who boast of
+mercy and truth and equal rights and justice to all. Law of a land with
+rivers of gold and mountains of silver, the sum of its wealth astounding
+the world.
+
+What's to be done about it?
+
+Nothing.
+
+Better drag a dozen helpless Samanthy Norths from their homes, their
+suckling babes in their arms, and any number of gray-haired old men from
+their cabins, than waive one jot or tittle of so just a code; and
+lose--the tax on whiskey.
+
+
+
+CAP'N BOB OF THE SCREAMER
+
+Captain Bob Brandt dropped in to-day, looking brown and ruddy, and
+filling my office with, a breeze and freshness that seemed to have
+followed him all the way in from the sea.
+
+"Just in, Captain?" I cried, springing to my feet, my fingers closing
+round his--no more welcome visitor than Captain Bob ever pushes open my
+office door.
+
+"Yes--Teutonic."
+
+"Where did you pick her up--Fire Island?"
+
+"No; 'bout hundred miles off Montauk."
+
+Captain Bob has been a Sandy Hook pilot for some years back.
+
+"How was the weather?" I had a chair ready for him now and was lifting
+the lid of my desk in search of a box of cigars.
+
+"Pretty dirty. Nasty swell on, and so thick you could hack holes in it.
+Come pretty nigh missin' her"--and the Captain opened his big
+storm-coat, hooked his cloth cap with its ear-tabs on one prong of the
+back of one office-chair, stretched his length in another, and, bending
+forward, reached out his long, brawny arm for the cigar I was extending
+toward him.
+
+I have described this sea-dog before--as a younger sea-dog--twenty
+years younger, in fact, he was in my employ then--he and his sloop
+Screamer. Every big foundation stone that Caleb set in Shark Ledge
+Light--the one off Keyport harbor--can tell you about them both.
+
+In those light-house days this Captain Bob was "a tall, straight,
+blue-eyed young fellow of twenty-two, with a face like an open book--one
+of those perfectly simple, absolutely fearless, alert men found so often
+on the New England coast, with legs and arms of steel, body of hickory,
+and hands of whalebone; cabin boy at twelve, common sailor at sixteen,
+first mate at twenty, and full captain the year he voted."
+
+He is precisely the same kind of man to-day, plus twenty years of
+experience. The figure is still the figure of his youth, the hickory a
+little better seasoned, perhaps, and the steel and whalebone a little
+harder, but they have lost none of their spring and vitality. The ratio
+of promotion has also been kept up. That he should now rank as the most
+expert pilot on the station was quite to be expected. He could have
+filled as well a commander's place on the bridge, had he chosen to work
+along those lines.
+
+And the modesty of the man!
+
+Nothing that he has done, or can still do, has ever stretched his hat
+measure or swelled any part of his thinking apparatus. The old pilot-cap
+is still number seven, and the sensible head beneath it number seven,
+too. It could be number eight, or nine, or even ten, if it had expanded
+in proportion to the heroic quality of many of his deeds. During the
+light-house days, for instance, when some sudden, shift of wind would
+churn the long rollers into bobbles and then into frenzied seas that
+smothered the Ledge in white suds, if a life-boat was to be launched in
+the boiling surf, the last man to jump aboard, after a mighty push with
+his long hindmost leg, was sure to be this same bundle of whalebone and
+hickory. And should this boat, a few minutes later, go whirling along in
+the "Race," bottom side up, with every worker safe astride her keel,
+principally because of Captain Bob's coolness and skill in hauling them
+out of the water, again the last man to crawl beside the rescued crew
+would be this same long-legged, long armed skipper.
+
+Or should a guy-rope snap with a sound like a pistol-shot, and a great
+stone swung to a boom and weighing tons should begin running amuck
+through piles of cement, machinery, and men, and some one of the working
+gang, seeing the danger, should, with the quickness and sureness of a
+mountain-goat, spring straight for the stone, clutching the end of the
+guy and bounding off again, twisting the bight round some improvised
+snubbing-post thus checking its mad career, you would not have had to
+ask his name twice.
+
+"Cap'n Bob stopped it, sir," was sure to have been the proffered reply.
+
+So, too, in his present occupation of pilot. It was only a few years ago
+that I stood on the deck of an incoming steamer, straining my eyes
+across a heaving sea, the horizon lost in the dull haze of countless
+froth-caps; we had slowed for a pilot, so the word came down the deck.
+Suddenly, against the murky sky-line, with mainsail double-reefed and
+jib close-hauled, loomed a light craft plunging bows under at every
+lurch. Then a chip the size of your hand broke away from the frail
+vessel, and a big wave lying around for such prey, sprang upon it with
+wide-open mouth. The tiny bit dodged and slipped out of sight into a
+mighty ravine, then mounted high in air, upborne in the teeth of another
+great monster, and again was lost to view. Soon the chip became a bit of
+driftwood manned by two toy men working two toy oars like mad and
+bearing at one end a yellow dot.
+
+Then the first officer walked down the deck to where I stood, followed
+by a huddle of seamen who began unrolling a rope ladder.
+
+"You're right," I heard an officer answer a passenger. "It's no fit
+weather to take a pilot. Captain wouldn't have stopped for any other
+boat but No. 11. But those fellows out there don't know what
+weather is."
+
+The bit of driftwood now developed into a yawl. The yellow dot broadened
+and lengthened to the semblance of a man standing erect and unbuttoning
+his oil-skins as he looked straight at the steamer rolling port-holes
+under, the rope ladder flopping against her side. Then came a quick
+twist of the oars, a sudden lull as the yawl shot within a boat's length
+of the rope ladder, and with the spring of a cat the man in oil-skins
+landed with both feet on its lower rung, and the next instant he was
+over the steamer's rail and on her deck beside me.
+
+I thought I knew that spring, even before I saw his face or got hold of
+his hand.
+
+It was Captain Bob.
+
+As I look at him now, sitting in my office-chair, the smoke of the cigar
+curling about his bronzed, weather-tanned face, my eye taking in his
+slim waist, slender thighs, and long, sinewy arms and hands that have
+served him so well all his life, I can hardly believe that twenty years
+have passed over his head since we worked together on Shark Ledge. But
+for the marks chalked on his temples by the Old Man with the Hour-glass
+and the few tally-scores of hard work crossing the corners of his mouth
+and eyes, he has the same external appearance as in the old days. Even
+these indexes of advancing years are lost when he throws his head up and
+laughs one of his spontaneous, ringing laughs that fills my office full
+of sunshine, illumining it for hours after he has gone.
+
+"This pilotin' 's pretty rough sometimes," Captain Bob continued between
+the puffs of smoke, "but it ain't nothin' to the old days. When I look
+back on it all, seems to me as if we was out o' our heads most o' the
+time. I didn't know it then, but 'twas true all the same. Think now o'
+layin' the Screamer broadside on that stone pile at Shark Ledge,
+unloadin' them stone with nothin' but a couple o' spar buoys to keep 'er
+off. Wonder I didn't leave 'er bones there. Would if I hadn't knowed
+every stick o' timber in 'er and jest what she could stagger under."
+
+"But she was a good sea-boat," I interpolated. "The Screamer was always
+the pride of the work."
+
+"None better. You'd a-thought so if you'd been with us that night off
+Hatteras; we layin' to, hatches battened down. I never see it blow wuss.
+It came out o' the nor'west 'bout dark, and 'fore mornin' I tell ye it
+was a-humpin' things. We started with a pretty decent set o' sails, new
+eyelets rove in and new clew lines, but, Lord love ye, we hadn't taken
+old Hatteras into consideration. Bill Nevins, my engineer, and a
+landsman who was to work the h'istin' engine, looked kind 'er peaked
+when what was left of the jib come rattlin' down on his fo'c's'le hatch,
+but I says to him, 'the Screamer's all right, Billy, so she don't strike
+nothin' and so long's we can keep the water out 'er. Can't sink 'er any
+more'n an empty five-gallon ker'sene can with the cork in. We'll lay
+'round here till mornin' and then set a signal. Something'll come along
+pretty soon.' Sure 'nough, 'long come a coaler bound for Charleston.
+She see us a-wallowin' in the trough and our mast thrashin' for all it
+was worth.
+
+"'What d'ye want?' the skipper says, when he got within hail.
+
+"'Some sail-needles and a ball o' twine,' I hollered back; 'we got
+everything else.' You should just a-heard him cuss--" and one of Captain
+Bob's laughs rang through the room. "Them's two things I'd
+forgot--didn't think o' them in fact till the mainsheet give 'way.
+
+"Well, he chucked 'em aboard with another cuss. I hadn't no money to pay
+no salvage. All we wanted was them needles and a little elbow-grease and
+gumption. So we started in, and 'fore night, she still a-thrashin', I'd
+fixed up the sails, patched the eyelets with a pair o' boot-legs, and
+was off again."
+
+"What were you doing off Hatteras, Captain Bob?" I asked. I was leading
+him on, professing ignorance of minor details, so that I could again
+enjoy the delight of hearing him tell it.
+
+"Oh, that was another one o' them crazy jobs I used to take when I
+didn't know no better. Why, I guess you remember 'bout that wreckin' job
+off Hamilton, Bermuda?"
+
+He was settled in his chair now, his legs crossed, his head down between
+his shoulders.
+
+"You see, after I quit work on the 'ledge,' I was put to 't for a job,
+and there come along a feller by the name of Lamson--the agent of an
+insurance company, who wanted me to go to Bermuda and git up some
+forty-two pieces o' white I-talian marble that had been wrecked three
+years before off the harbor of Hamilton. They ran from three to
+twenty-one tons each, he said. So off I started with the Screamer. He
+didn't say, though, that the wreck lay on a coral reef eight miles from
+land, or I'd stayed to home in New Bedford.
+
+"When I got to where the wreck lay you couldn't see a thing 'bove water.
+So I got into an old divin' dress we had aboard--one we used on the
+Ledge--oiled up the pump and went down to look her over, and by Jimmy
+Criminy, not a scrap o' that wreck was left 'cept the rusty iron work
+and that part o' the bottom plankin' of the vessel that lay under the
+stones! Everything else was eaten up with the worms! Funniest-lookin'
+place you ever see. The water was just as clear as air, and I could see
+every one o' them stone plain as daylight--looked like so many big lumps
+o' white sugar scattered 'round--and they _were_ big! One of 'em weighed
+twenty-one tons, and none on 'em weighed less'n five. Of course I knew
+how big they were 'fore I started, and I'd fitted up the Screamer
+special to h'ist 'em, but I didn't know I'd have to handle 'em twice;
+once from where they laid on that coral reef in twenty-eight feet o'
+water and then unload 'em on the Navy Yard dock, above Hamilton, and
+then pick 'em up agin, load 'em 'board the Screamer, and unload 'em
+once more 'board a Boston brig they'd sent down for 'em--one o' them
+high-waisted things 'bout sixteen feet from the water-line to the rail.
+That was the wust part of it."
+
+Captain Bob stopped, felt in his pocket for a match, found it empty,
+rose from his chair, picked one from a match-safe on my desk, lighted
+his cigar, and resumed his seat again. I have found it wisest to let him
+have his own way in times like these. If I interrupt the flow of his
+talk it may stop for the day, and I lose the best part of the enjoyment
+of having him with me.
+
+"Pretty decent chaps, them Englishmen"--puff-puff--the volume of smoke
+was all right once more. "One Monday morning I ran out of the Navy Yard
+dock within sight of the wreck. I had been layin' up over Sunday to get
+out of the way of a norther, when I luffed a little too soon, and bang
+went my bowsprit and scraped off about three feet of red paint from the
+end of the dock. One of the watchmen was on the string-piece, and saw
+the whole thing. 'Come ashore,' he says, 'and go and see the Admiral;
+you can't scrape no paint off this dock with _my_ permission.'
+
+"Well, I waited four hours for his nibs. When he come to his office
+quarters he was 'bout up to my arms, red as a can-buoy, and white hair
+stickin' up straight as a shoe-brush on his head. He looked cross enough
+to bite a tenpenny nail in two.
+
+"'Ran into the dock, did ye--ran into Her Majesty's dock, and ye had
+room enough to turn a fleet in! Do you think we paint these docks for
+the fun of havin' you lubbers scrape it off? You'll pay for paintin' it
+over, sir--that's what you'll do, or I'll libel your boat, and send a
+file of marines down and tie her up,' and away he went up the dock to
+his office again.
+
+"'Gosh!' I said to myself. 'Guess I'm in a fix,' The boys stood around
+and heard every word, and I tell ye it warn't no joke. As to money,
+there warn't a ten-dollar bill in the crew. I'd spent every cent I could
+rake and scrape to fit the Screamer out, and the boys were workin' on
+shares, and nobody was to get any money until the last stone--that big
+twenty-one-ton feller--was 'board the brig. Then I could go to the
+agents in Hamilton and draw two-thirds of my contract. That
+twenty-one-ton chunk, I forgot to tell ye, I had picked up the day
+before, and it was then aboard the Screamer, and we was on our way down
+to Hamilton, where the brig lay, when her nose scraped off the
+Admiral's paint.
+
+"It did look kind o' nasty for us, and no mistake. One day more, and
+we'd 'a' been through and had our money.
+
+"'Go up and see him,' said the watchman. 'He gits cool sometimes as
+sudden as he gits hot.' So Bill Nevins, my engineer, who was workin' the
+h'ister, and I went up. The old feller was sittin' on the piazza in a
+big rattan chair.
+
+"'Come aboard,' he hollered, soon's he see Bill and me a-standin' in
+the garden-path with our hats off, lookin' like two jailbirds about to
+be sentenced. Well, we got up on the porch, and he looked us all
+over, and said:
+
+"'Have you got that money with you?' 'No,' I said, 'I haven't,' and I
+ups and tells him just how we was fixed, and how we had worked, and how
+short we was of grub and clothes and money, and then I said, 'an' now I
+come to tell ye that I hit the dock fair and square, and it was all my
+fault, and that I'll pay whatever you say is right when I put this stone
+'board and get my pay.'
+
+"He looked me all over--I tell you I was pretty ragged; nothin' but a
+shirt and pants on, and they was almighty tore up, especially where most
+everybody wants to be covered--and Bill was no better. We'd 'bout used
+up our clo'es so that sail-needles nor nothin' else wouldn't a-done us
+no good, and we had no time nor no spare cash to go ashore and
+get others.
+
+"While I was a-talkin', the old feller's eyes was a-borin' into
+mine--then he roared out, 'No, sir; you won't!--you won't pay one d--d
+shillin', sir. You'll go back to your work, and if there's anything you
+want in the way of grub or supplies send here for it and you shall have
+it. Good-day.' I tell ye he was a rum one."
+
+"Was that the last time you saw him?" I asked.
+
+"Not much. When we got 'longside the brig the next day, her Cap'n see
+that twenty-one-ton stone settin' up on the deck of the Screamer,
+lookin' like a big white church, and he got so scared he went ashore and
+started a yarn that we couldn't lift that stone sixteen feet in the air,
+and over her rail and down into the hold, and that we'd smash his brig,
+and it got to the Admiral's ears, and down come two English engineers,
+in cork helmets and white jackets and gold buttons, spic' an' span as if
+they'd stepped out of the chart-room of a yacht. One was a colonel and
+the other was a major. They were both just back from India, and
+natty-lookin' chaps as you ever saw. And clear stuff all the way
+through--you could tell that before they opened their mouths.
+
+"I was on the deck of the Screamer, overhaulin' the fall, surrounded by
+most of the crew, gettin' ready to h'ist the stone, when I first saw
+'em. They and the Cap'n were away up above me, leanin' over the rail,
+lookin' at the stone church that some o' the boys was puttin' the chains
+'round. Bill Nevins was down in the fo'c's'le, firin' up, with the
+safety-valve set at 125 pounds. He had half a keg o' rosin and a can o'
+kerosene to help out with in case we wanted a few pounds extry in the
+middle of the tea-party. Pretty soon I heard one of 'em holler:
+
+"'Ahoy! Is the Captain aboard?'
+
+"'He is,' I said, steppin' out. 'Who wants him?'
+
+"'Colonel Throckmorton,' he says, 'and Major Severn.'
+
+"'Come aboard, gentlemen,' I says.
+
+"So down they come, the Colonel first, one foot at a time touchin' the
+ladder, the Major following. When he reached the deck and wheeled around
+to look at me you just ought to have seen his face.
+
+"'Are you the Captain?' he says, and he looked me over 'bout as the
+admiral had done.
+
+"'I be,' I said, 'Captain Robert Brandt, of Pigeon Cove, Cape Ann,
+master and owner of the sloop Screamer, at your service'--I kep' front
+side to him. 'What can I do for you?'
+
+"'Well, Captain,' he began, 'perhaps it is none of our business, but the
+Captain of the brig here,' and he pointed up above him, 'has asked us to
+look over your tackle and see whether it is safe enough to lift this
+stone. He's afraid you'll drop it and smash his deck in. Since I've seen
+it, and what you propose to lift it with, I've told him there's no
+danger, for you'll never get it off the deck. We are both officers of
+the Engineering Corps, and it is our business to know about
+such things.'
+
+"'What makes you think the Screamer won't lift it?' I asked.
+
+"'Well,' says the Colonel, looking aloft, 'her boom ain't big enough,
+and that Manila rope is too light. I should think it wasn't over three
+and three-quarter-inch rope. We all know fifteen tons is enough weight
+for that size rope, even with a fourfold purchase, and we understand
+you say this stone weighs twenty-one.'
+
+"'I'm sorry, gentlemen,' I said, 'and if you are worried about it you'd
+better go 'board the brig, for I'm about ready to pick the stone up and
+land her.'
+
+"Well, the Major said he guessed he would, if I was determined to pull
+the mast out of my sloop, but the Colonel said he'd stay by and see
+it out.
+
+"Just then Bill Nevins stuck his head out of the fo'c's'le. He was
+blacker than I was; all smeared with grease and stripped to his waist.
+It was hot enough anywhere, but it was sizzlin' down where he was.
+
+"'All ready, Cap'n,' he says. 'She's got every pound she can carry.'
+
+"I looked everything over--saw the butt of the boom was playin' free in
+the wooden socket, chucked in a lot of tallow so it could move easy,
+give an extra twist to the end of the guy, and hollered to Bill to go
+ahead. She went chuckety-chuck, chuckety-chuck for half a dozen turns;
+then she slowed down soon as she struck the full weight, and began to
+pant like an old horse climbin' a hill. All this time the Colonel was
+callin' out from where he stood near the tiller: 'She'll never lift it,
+Captain--she'll never lift it.'
+
+"Next come a scrapin' 'long the deck, and the big stone swung clear with
+a foot o' daylight 'tween it and the deck. Then up she went, crawlin'
+slowly inch by inch, till she reached the height of the brig's rail.
+
+"Now come the wust part. I knew that when I gave orders to slack away
+the guy-rope so as to swing the stone aboard the brig, the Screamer
+would list over and dip her rail in the water. So I made a jump for the
+rope ladder and shinned up the brig's side so as to take a hand in
+landin' the stone properly on the brig's deck so as to save her beams
+and break the jar when I lowered the stone down. I had one eye now on
+the stone and the other on the water, which was curling over the
+Screamer's rail and makin' for the fo'c's'le hatch. Should the water
+pour down this hatch, out would go my fires and maybe up would come
+her b'iler.
+
+"'Ease away on that guy and lower away easy,' I hollered to Bill. The
+stone dropped to within two feet of the brig's deck and swung back and
+for'ards. Then I heard Bill yell. I was expectin' it.
+
+"'Water's comin' in!'
+
+"I leaned over the brig's rail and could see the slop of the sea combin'
+over the Screamer's fo'c's'le hatch. Bill's fires _would_ be out the
+next minute. There was just two feet now 'tween the stone and the deck
+where I stood--too much to drop; but there was nothing else to do, and
+I hollered:
+
+"'All gone.'
+
+"Down she come with a run, struck the big timbers on the deck, and by
+Jiminy! ye could a-heard that old brig groan from stem to stern.
+
+"I jumped on top of the stone and threw off the shackles, and the
+Screamer came up on an even keel as easy as a duck ridin' the water.
+
+"You just oughter seen the Colonel when the old boat righted herself,
+and he had climbed up and stood 'longside the Major a-talkin' it over.
+
+"Pretty soon he came up to where I was a-gettin' the tackle ready to
+lower the stone in the hold, and he says:
+
+"'Well, you made your word good, Cap'n, but I want to tell you that
+nobody but an American could a-done it. It would cost me my commission
+if I should try to do what you have done.'
+
+"'Well, gentlemen,' I says, 'what was wrong about it? What's the matter
+with the Screamer's rig?'
+
+"'Well, the size of the rope for one thing,' says the Colonel, 'and the
+boom.'
+
+"'Well, p'haps you ain't looked it over,' I says, and I began
+unravelling an end that stuck out near the shackle. 'If you'll look
+close here'--and I held the end of the rope up--'you'll see that every
+stran' of that rope is made of the best Manila yarn, and laid as smooth
+as silk. I stood over that rope myself when it was put together. Old Sam
+Hanson of New Bedford laid up that rope, and there ain't no better
+nowhere. I knew what it had to do, and I warn't goin' to take no chances
+of its not doin' it right. As to that boom, I want to tell ye that I
+picked that boom out o' about two hundred sticks in Tom Carlin's
+shipyard, in Stonington, and had it scraped and ironed just to please
+me. There ain't a rotten knot in it from butt to finish, and mighty few
+of any other kind. That stick's _growed right_--that's what's the matter
+with it; and it bellies out in the middle, just where it ought to be
+thickest.'
+
+"Well, they didn't say nothin' for a while, 'cept to walk round the
+stone once or twice and slap it with their hands, as if they wanted to
+make sure it was all there. My men were all over it now, and we was
+gettin' things in shape to finish up. I tell ye the boys were mighty
+glad, and so was I. It had been a long pull of six months' work, and we
+were out of most everything, and as soon as the big stone was down in
+the brig's hold, and warped back and stowed with the others--and that
+wouldn't take but a day or two more--we would clean up, get our money,
+and light out for home.
+
+"All this time the Colonel and the Major were buzzin' each other off by
+the other rail. Pretty soon they both come over to where I stood, and
+the Colonel reached out his hand.
+
+"'Cap'n Brandt,' he says--and he had a look in his face as if he meant
+it--and he did, every word of it--'it would give Major Severn and myself
+great pleasure if you would dine with us to-night at the Canteen. The
+Admiral is coming, and some brother officers who would be pleased to
+know you.'
+
+"Well, I was struck all of a heap for a minute, knowing what kind of
+clo'es I had to go in, and so I says:
+
+"'Well, gentlemen, that's very nice of you, and I see you mean it, and
+if I had anything fittin' to wear there's nothin' I would like better;
+but ye see how I'm fixed,' and I lifted my arms so he could see a few
+holes that he might a-missed before, and I motioned to some other parts
+of my get-up that needed repairs.
+
+"'That don't make no difference, Cap'n, what kind of clo'es you come in.
+We dine at eight o'clock.'
+
+"Of course I knew I couldn't go, and I didn't want 'em to think I
+intended to go when I didn't, so I says, rather positive-like:
+
+"'Very much obliged, gentlemen, but I guess I'll have to get you to
+count me out this time.' I knowed I warn't fittin' to sit at anybody's
+table, especially if that old Admiral was comin'.
+
+"The Colonel see I was in earnest, and he stepped up, quick-like, and
+laid his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"'Captain Brandt,' he says, 'we ain't worryin' 'bout your clo'es, and
+don't you worry. You can come in your shirt, you can come in your socks,
+or you can come without one damned rag--only come!'"
+
+The Captain stopped, shook the ashes from his cigar, slowly raised
+himself to his feet, and reached for his hat.
+
+"Did you go, Captain?" I asked.
+
+The Captain looked at me for a moment with one of those quizzical
+glances which so often light up his face when something amuses him, and
+said, as he blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling:
+
+"Well, I didn't forget my manners. When it got dark--dark, mind ye--I
+went up and sat on the piazza and had a smoke with 'em--Admiral and all.
+But I didn't go to dinner--not in them pants."
+
+
+
+A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS
+
+
+I
+
+This all happened on the banks of the Seine, above St. Cloud--above
+Suresne, in fact, or rather its bridge--the new one that has pieced out
+the old one with the quaint stone arches that we love.
+
+A silver-gray haze, a pure French gray, hung over the river, softening
+the sky-line of the near-by hills, and making ghosts of a row of
+gendarme poplars guarding the opposite bank.
+
+On my side of the stream wandered a path close to the water's edge--so
+close that I could fill my water-cups without leaving my
+sketching-stool. Over this path, striped with shadows, big trees
+towered, their gnarled branches interlaced above my head. On my right,
+rising out of a green sward cleared of all underbrush, towered other
+trees, their black trunks sharp-cut against the haze. In the distance,
+side by side with the path, wound the river, still asleep, save where it
+flashed into waves of silver laughter at the touch of some frolicsome
+puff of wind. Elsewhere, although the sun was now hours high, it dozed
+away, nestling under the overhanging branches making their morning
+toilet in its depths. But for these long, straight flashes of silver
+light glinting between the tree-trunks, one could not tell where the
+haze ended and the river began.
+
+As I worked on, my white umbrella tilted at the exact angle so that my
+palette, hand, and canvas would be hidden from the inquisitive sun, a
+group of figures emerged from a clump of low trees, and made their way
+across the green sward--the man in an ivory-black coat, evidently a
+priest, even at that distance; the woman in a burnt-umber dress with a
+dot of Chinese white for a head--probably a cap; and the third, a girl
+of six or eight in a brown madder dress and yellow-ochre hat.
+
+An out-door painter, while at work, tumbles everything that crosses his
+path or comes within range of his vision into the crucible of his
+palette. The most majestic of mountains and the softest of summer clouds
+are to him but flat washes of cobalt, and the loveliest of dimples on
+the fairest of cheeks but a shadow-tone, and a high light made real by
+pats of indigo and vermilion.
+
+So in the three figures went among my trees, the priest in the
+background against a mass of yellow light--black against yellow is
+always a safe contrast; the burnt-umber woman breaking the straight line
+of a trunk, and the child--red on green--intensifying a slash of zinober
+that illumined my own grassy sward.
+
+Then my interest in the group ceased. The priest, no doubt, was taking
+his sister, or his aunt, or his mother, with their own or somebody
+else's little girl, out for an airing, and they had come at the precise
+moment when I had begun to long for just such a collection of people;
+and now they could take themselves off and out of my perspective,
+particularly the reddish-brown girl who kept on dancing in the sunniest
+places, running ahead of the priest and the woman, lighting up and
+accentuating half a dozen other corners of the wood interior before me
+in as many minutes, and making me regret before the paint was half dry
+on her own little figure that I had not waited for a better composition.
+
+Then she caught sight of my umbrella.
+
+She came straight toward me with that slowing of pace as she approached
+the nearer, her curiosity getting the better of her timidity--quite as a
+fawn or a little calf would have done, attracted by some bit of color or
+movement which was new to it. The brown madder dress I now saw was
+dotted with little spots of red, like sprays of berries; the
+yellow-ochre hat was wound with a blue ribbon, and tied with a bow on
+one side. I could see, too, that she wore slippers, and that her hair
+was platted in two pig-tails, and hung down her back, the ends fastened
+with a ribbon that matched the one on her hat.
+
+She stood quite still, her face perfectly impassive, her little hands
+clasped together, the brim of her hat shading her eyes, which looked
+straight at my canvas.
+
+I gave no sign of her presence. It is dangerous to break down the
+reserve of silence, which is often the only barrier between an out-door
+painter and the crowds that surround him. Persisted in, it not only
+compels their respect, even to the lowering of their voices and the
+tip-toeing in and out of the circle about you, but shortens the time of
+their visits, a consummation devoutly to be wished. So I worked on in
+silence, never turning toward this embodiment of one of Boutet do
+Monvel's drawings, whose absorbed face I could see out of one corner
+of my eye.
+
+Then a ripple of laughter broke the stillness, and a little finger was
+thrust out, stopping within a hair's-breadth of the dot of Chinese
+white, still wet, which topped my burnt-umber figure.
+
+"Trčs drôle, Monsieur!"
+
+The voice was sweeter than the laugh. One of those flute-like,
+bird-throated voices that children often have who live in the open all
+their lives, chasing butterflies or gathering wild flowers.
+
+Then came a halloo from the greensward. The priest was coming toward us,
+calling out, as he walked:
+
+"Susette! Susette!"
+
+He, too, underwent a change. The long, ivory-black cassock, so
+unmistakable in the atmospheric perspective, became an ordinary
+frock-coat; the white band of a collar developed into the regulation
+secular pattern, and the silk hat, although of last year's shape,
+conformed less closely in its lines to one belonging exclusively to the
+clergy. The face, though, as I could see in my hurried glance, and even
+at that distance, was the smooth, clean-shaven face of a priest--the
+face of a man of fifty, I should think, who had spent all his life in
+the service of others.
+
+Again came the voice, this time quite near.
+
+"Susette! Susette!"
+
+The child, without turning her head, waved her hand in reply, looked
+earnestly into my face, and with a quick bending of one knee in
+courtesy, and a "Merci, M'sieu; merci," ran with all her speed toward
+the priest, who stretched wide his arms, half-lifting her from the
+ground in the embrace. Then a smile broke over his face, so joyous, so
+full of love and tenderness, so much the unconscious index of the heart
+that prompted it, that I laid down my palette to watch them.
+
+I have known many priests in my time, and I have never ceased to marvel
+at the beauty of the tie which binds them to the little ones of their
+flocks. I have never been in a land where priests and children were not
+companions. These long-frocked guardians sit beside their playgrounds,
+with noses in their breviaries, or they head processions of boys and
+girls on the way to chapel, or they follow, two by two, behind a long
+string of blue-checked aprons and severe felt hats, the uniform of the
+motherless; or they teach the little vagrants by the hour--often it is
+the only schooling that these children get.
+
+But I never remember one of them carrying such a waif about in his arms,
+nor one irradiated by such a flash of heavenly joy when some child, in a
+mad frolic, saw fit to scrape her muddy shoes down the front of his
+clean, black cassock.
+
+The beatific smile itself was not altogether new to me. Anyone else can
+see it who wanders into the Gallery of the Prado. It irradiates the face
+of an old saint by Ribera--a study for one of his large canvases, and is
+hung above the line. I used to stand before it for hours, studying the
+technique. The high lights on the face are cracked in places, and the
+shadows are blackened by time, but the expression is that of one who
+looks straight up into heaven. And there is another--a Correggio, in
+the Hermitage, a St. Simon or St. Timothy, or some other old
+fellow--whose eyes run tears of joy, and whose upturned face reflects
+the light of the sun. Yet there was something in the face of the priest
+before me that neither of the others had--a peculiar human quality,
+which shone out of his eyes, as he stood bareheaded in the sunshine, the
+little girl in his arms. If the child had been his daughter--his very
+own and all he had, and if he had caught her safe from some danger that
+threatened her life, it could not have expressed more clearly the
+joyousness of gratitude or the bliss inspired by the sense of possessing
+something so priceless that every other emotion was absorbed.
+
+It was all over in a moment. He did not continue to beam irradiating
+beatitudes, as the old Ribera and the older Correggio have done for
+hundreds of years. He simply touched his hat to me, tucked the child's
+hand into his own, and led her off to her mother.
+
+I kept at my work. For me the incident, delightful as it was, was
+closed. All I remembered, as I squeezed the contents of another tube on
+to my palette, was the smile on the face of the priest.
+
+The weather now began to take part in the general agitation. The lazy
+haze, roused by the joyous sun, had gathered its skirts together and had
+slipped over the hills. The sun in its turn had been effaced by a big
+cloud with scalloped edges which had overspread the distant line of the
+river, blotting out the flashes of silver laughter, and so frightening
+the little waves that they scurried off to the banks, some even trying
+to climb up the stone coping out of the way of the rising wind. A cool
+gust of air, out on a lark, now swept down the path, and, with lance in
+rest, toppled over my white umbrella. Big drops of rain fell about me,
+spitting the dust like spent balls. Growls of thunder were heard
+overhead. One of those rollicking, two-faced thunder-squalls, with the
+sun on one side and the blackness of the night on the other, was
+approaching.
+
+The priest had seen it, for he had the child pickaback and was running
+across the sward. The woman had seen it, too, for she was already
+collecting her baskets, preparing to follow, and I was not far behind.
+Before she had reached the edge of the woods I had overtaken her, my
+traps under my arm, my white umbrella over my head.
+
+"The Châlet Cycle is the nearest," she volunteered, grasping the
+situation, and pointing to a path opening to the right as she spoke.
+
+"Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, hurriedly.
+
+"No, Monsieur--Susette has gone home. It is only a little way."
+
+I plunged on through the wet grass, my eyes on the opening through the
+trees, the rain pouring from my umbrella. Before I had reached the end
+of the path the rain ceased and the sun broke through, flooding the wet
+leaves with dazzling light.
+
+These two, the clouds and the sun, were evidently bent on mischief,
+frightening little waves and painters and bright-eyed children and good
+priests who loved them!
+
+
+
+A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS
+
+
+II
+
+Do you happen to know the Châlet Cycle?
+
+If you are a staid old painter who takes life as he finds it, and who
+loves to watch the procession from the sidewalk without any desire to
+carry one of the banners or to blow one of the horns--one of your
+three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to-bed-at-ten-o'clock kind of a
+man, then make a note of the Cycle. The melons are excellent; the
+omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if
+you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and both ends of the
+sling in your hand, and if this is your first real outing since your
+college days, it would be just as well for you to pass it by and take
+your coffee and rolls at the little restaurant over the bridge, or the
+one farther down the street.
+
+Believe me, a most seductive place is this Châlet Cycle, with its tables
+set out under the trees!
+
+A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on
+_tęte-ā-tęte_ tables, and close-drawn curtains about the kiosks. A
+place, by day, where you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, with
+seats for two, and these half-hidden by Japanese screens, so high that
+even the waiters cannot look over. A place with a great music-stand
+smothered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, out of sight of
+anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and blind waiters. A place with a big
+open gateway where everybody can enter and--ah! there is where the
+danger lies--a little by-path all hedged about with lilac bushes, where
+anybody can escape to the woods by the river--an ever-present refuge in
+time of trouble and in constant use--more's the pity--for it is the
+_unexpected_ that always happens at the Châlet Cycle.
+
+The prettiest girls in Paris, in bewitching bicycle costumes, linger
+about the music-stand, losing themselves in the arbors and shrubberies.
+The kiosks are almost all occupied: charming little Chinese pagodas
+these--eight-sided, with lattice screens on all sides--screens so
+tightly woven that no curious idler can see in, and yet so loosely put
+together that each hidden inmate can see out. Even the trees overhead
+have a hand in the villany, spreading their leaves thickly, so that the
+sun itself has a hard time to find out what is going on beneath their
+branches. All this you become aware of as you enter the big, wide gate.
+
+Of course, being quite alone, with only my battered old umbrella for
+company, I did not want a whole kiosk to myself, or even half of a giant
+umbrella. Any quiet corner would do for me, I told the Maître d'Hôtel,
+who relieved me of my sketch-trap--anywhere out of the rain when it
+should again break loose, which it was evidently about to do, judging
+from the appearance of the clouds--anywhere, in fact, where I could eat
+a filet smothered in mushrooms, and drink a pint of _vin ordinaire_
+in peace.
+
+"No, I expected no one." This in answer to a peculiar lifting of the
+eyebrows and slight wave of his hand as he drew out a chair in an
+unoccupied kiosk commanding a view of the grounds. Then, in rather a
+positive tone, I added:
+
+"Send me a waiter to take my order--orders for _one_, remember." I
+wanted to put a stop to his insinuations at once. Nothing is so annoying
+when one's hair is growing gray as being misunderstood--especially
+by a waiter.
+
+Affairs overhead now took a serious turn. The clouds evidently
+disapproving of the hilarious goings-on of the sun--poking its head out
+just as the cloud was raining its prettiest--had, in retaliation,
+stopped up all the holes the sun could peer through, and had started in
+to rain harder than ever. The waiters caught the angry frown on the
+cloud's face, and took it at its spoken word--it had begun to thunder
+again--and began piling up the chairs to protect their seats, covering
+up the serving-tables, and getting every perishable article under
+shelter. The huge mushroom-umbrellas were collapsed and rushed into the
+kiosks--some of them into the one where I sat, it being the largest;
+small tables were turned upside down, and tilted against the
+tree-trunks, and the storm-curtains of all the little kiosks let down
+and buttoned tight to the frames. Waiters ran hither and thither, with
+napkins and aprons over their heads, carrying fresh courses for the
+several tables or escaping with their empty dishes.
+
+In the midst of this męlée a cab dashed up to the next kiosk to mine,
+the wheels cutting into the soft gravel; the curtains were quickly drawn
+wide by a half-drowned waiter, and a young man with jet-black hair and
+an Oriental type of face slipped in between them.
+
+Another carriage now dashed up, following the grooves of the first
+wheels--not a cab this time, but a perfectly appointed coupé, with two
+men in livery on the box, and the front windows banked with white
+chrysanthemums. I could not see her face from where I sat--she was too
+quick for that--but I saw the point of a tiny shoe as it rested for an
+instant on the carriage-step and a whirl of lace about a silk stocking.
+I caught also the movement of four hands--two outstretched from the
+curtains of the kiosk and two from the door of the coupé.
+
+Of course, if I had been a very inquisitive and very censorious old
+painter, with a tendency to poke my nose into and criticise other
+people's business, I would at once have put two and two together and
+asked myself innumerable questions. Why, for instance, the charming
+couple did not arrive at the same moment, and in the same cab? or why
+they came all the way out to Suresne in the rain, when there were so
+many cosey little tables at Laurent's or at the Voisin, on the Rue
+Cambon, or in the Café Anglais on the Boulevard. Whether, too, either
+one were married, and if so which one, and if so again, what the other
+fellow and the other woman would do if he or she found it all out; and
+whether, after all, it was worth the candle when it did all come out,
+which it was bound to do some day sooner or later. Or I could have
+indulged in the customary homilies, and decried the tendencies of the
+times, and said to myself how the world was going to the dogs because of
+such goings-on; quite forgetting the days when I, too, had the world in
+a sling, and was whirling it around my head with all the impetuosity and
+abandon of youth.
+
+[Illustration: I saw the point of a tiny shoe.]
+
+But I did none of these things--that is, nothing Paul Pryish or
+presuming. I merely beckoned to the Maître d'Hôtel, as he stood poised
+on the edge of the couple's kiosk, with the order for their breakfast in
+his hands, and, when he had reached my half-way station on his way
+across the garden to the kitchen, stopped him with a question. Not with
+my lips--that is quite unnecessary with an old-time Maître d'Hôtel--but
+with my two eyebrows, one thumb, and a part of one shoulder.
+
+"The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur--" he answered, instantly.
+
+"And the lady?"
+
+"Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud of the Variété. She comes
+quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season."
+
+He evidently took me for an old _habitué_. There are some
+compensations, after all, in the life of a staid old painter.
+
+With these solid facts in my possession I breathed a little easier.
+Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud, from the little I had seen of her, was
+quite capable of managing her own affairs without my own or anybody
+else's advice, even if I had been disposed to give it. She no doubt
+loved the lambent-eyed gentleman to distraction; the kiosk was their
+only refuge, and the whole affair was being so discreetly managed that
+neither the lambent-eyed gentleman nor his houri would be obliged to
+escape by means of the lilac-bordered path in the rear on this or any
+other morning.
+
+And if they should, what did it matter to me? The little row in the
+cloud overhead would soon end in further torrents of tears, as all such
+rows do; the sun would have its way after all and dry every one of them
+up; the hungry part of me would have its filet and pint of St. Julien,
+and the painter part of me would go back to the little path by the river
+and finish its sketch.
+
+Again I tried to signal the Maître d'Hôtel as he dashed past on his way
+to the kiosk. This time he was under one of the huge umbrellas which an
+"omnibus" was holding over him, Rajah-fashion. He had a plump melon,
+half-smothered in ice, in his hands, to protect it from the downpour,
+the rain making gargoyles of the points of the ribs of the umbrella.
+Evidently the breakfast was too important and the expected fee too large
+to intrust it to an underling. He must serve it himself.
+
+Up to this Moment no portion of my order had materialized. No cover for
+one, nor filet, nor _vin ordinaire_, nor waiter had appeared. The
+painter was growing impatient. The man inside was becoming hungry.
+
+I waited until he emerged with an empty dish, watched him grasp the
+giant umbrella, teeter on the edge of the kiosk for a moment, and plunge
+through the gravel, now rivers of water, toward my kiosk, the "omnibus"
+following as best he could.
+
+"A thousand pardons, Monsieur--" he cried from beneath his shelter, as
+he read my face. "It will not be long now. It is coming--here, you can
+see for yourself--" and he pointed across the garden, and tramped on,
+the water spattering his ankles.
+
+I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge umbrellas, the ones used
+over the _tęte-ā-tęte_ tables beneath the trees, slowly wending its way
+toward where I sat, with all the measured movement and dignity of a file
+of Eastern potentates out for an airing.
+
+Under each umbrella were two waiters, one carrying the umbrella and the
+other a portion of my breakfast. The potentate under the first umbrella,
+who carried the wine, proved to be a waiter-in-chief; the others
+bearing the filet, plates, dishes, and glasses were ordinary
+"omnibuses," pressed into service as palanquin-bearers by reason of
+the storm.
+
+The waiter-in-chief, with the bottle, dodged from under his bungalow,
+leaving it outside and still open, like a stranded circus-tent, stepped
+into my kiosk, mopped the rain from his coat-sleeves and hands with a
+napkin, and, bowing solemnly, pointed to the label on the bottle. This
+meeting my approval, he relieved the rear-guard of the dishes, arranged
+the table, drew the cork of the St. Julien, filled my glass, dismissed
+the assistants and took his place behind my chair.
+
+The closeness of the quarters, the protection it afforded from the
+raging elements, the perils my companion had gone through to serve me,
+made possible a common level on which we could stand. We discussed the
+storm, the prospect of its clearing, the number of unfortunates in the
+adjacent Bois who were soaked to the skin, especially the poor little
+bicycle-girls in their cotton bloomers, now collapsed and bedraggled. We
+talked of the great six-day cross-country bicycle-race, and how the
+winner, tired out, had wabbled over the Bridge that same morning, with
+the whole pack behind him, having won by less than five minutes. We
+talked of the people who came and went, and who they were, and how often
+they dined, and what they spent, and ate and drank, and of the rich
+American who had given the waiter a gold Louis for a silver franc, and
+who was too proud to take it back when his attention was called to the
+mistake (which my companion could not but admit was quite foolish of
+him); and, finally, of the dark-skinned Oriental with the lambent eyes,
+and the adorable Ernestine with the pointed shoes and open-work silk
+stockings and fluffy skirts, who occupied the kiosk within ten feet of
+where I sat and he stood.
+
+During the conversation I was busy with my knife and fork, my eyes at
+intervals taking in the scene before me; the comings and goings of the
+huge umbrellas--one, two, or three, as the serving of the dishes
+demanded, the rain streaming from their sides; now the fish, now the
+salad, now a second bottle of wine in a cooler, and now the last course
+of all on an empty plate, which my companion said was the bill, and
+which he characterized as the most important part of the procession,
+except the _pour boire_. Each time the procession came to a full stop
+outside the kiosk until the sentinel waiter relieved them of their
+burdens. My sympathies constantly went out to this man. There was no
+room for him inside, and certainly no wish for his company, and so he
+must, perforce, balance himself under his umbrella, first on one leg and
+then on the other, in his effort to escape the spatter which now reached
+his knees, quite as would a wet chicken seeking shelter under a
+cart-body.
+
+I say my companion and I "talked" of these several sights and incidents
+as I ate my luncheon. And yet, really, up to this time I had not once
+looked into his face, quite a necessary thing in conducting a
+conversation of any duration. But then one rarely does in talking to a
+waiter when he is serving you. My remarks had generally been addressed
+to the dish in front of me, or to the door opposite, through which I
+looked, and his rejoinders to the back of my shirt-collar. If he had sat
+opposite, or had moved into the perspective, I might once in a while
+have caught a glimpse, over my glass or spoon, of his smileless,
+mask-like face, a thing impossible, of course, with him constantly
+behind my chair.
+
+When, however, in the course of his monotone, he mentioned the name of
+Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud and that of the distinguished kinsman of
+His Serene Highness, the Grand Pan-Jam of the Orient, I turned my head
+in his direction.
+
+"You know the Mademoiselle, then?"
+
+My waiter shrugged his shoulders, his face still impenetrable.
+
+"Monsieur, I know everybody in Paris. Why not? Twenty-three years a
+waiter. Twenty years at the Café de la Paix in Paris, and three years
+here. Do you wonder?"
+
+There are in my experience but four kinds of waiters the world over.
+First, the thin, nervous waiter, with a set smile, who is always
+brushing away imaginary crumbs, adjusting the glasses--an inch this way,
+an inch that way, and then back again to their first position, talking
+all the time, whether spoken to or not, and losing interest the moment
+you pay him his fee. Then the stolid, half-asleep waiter, fat and
+perpetually moist, who considers his duties over when he has placed your
+order on the cloth and moved the wine within reach of your hand. Next
+the apprentice waiter, promoted from assistant cook or scullion-boy, who
+carries on a conversation in signs behind your back with the waiter
+opposite him, smothering his laughter at intervals in the same napkin
+with which he wipes your plate, and who, when he changes a course,
+slants the dishes up his sleeve, keeping the top one in place with his
+chin, replacing the plates again with a wavy motion, as if they were so
+many quoits, each one circling into its place--a trick of which he is
+immensely proud.
+
+And last--and this is by no means a large class--the grave, dignified,
+self-possessed, well-mannered waiter; smooth-shaven, spotlessly clean,
+noiseless, smug and attentive. He generally walks with a slight limp, an
+infirmity due to his sedentary habits and his long acquaintance with his
+several employers' decanters. He is never under fifty, is round of form,
+short in the legs, broad of shoulder, and wears his gray hair cut close.
+He has had a long and varied experience; he has been buttons, valet,
+second man, first man, lord high butler, and then down the scale again
+to plain waiter. This has not been his fault but his misfortune--the
+settling of an estate, it may be, or the death of a master. He has, with
+unerring judgment, summed you up in his mind before you have taken your
+seat, and has gauged your intelligence and breeding with the first dish
+you ordered. Intimate knowledge of the world and of men and of
+women--especially the last--has developed in him a distrust of all
+things human. He alone has seen the pressure of the jewelled hands as
+they lay on the cloth or under it, the lawful partner opposite. He alone
+has caught the last whispered word as the opera-cloak fell about her
+shoulders, and knows just where they dined the next day, and who paid
+for it and why. Being looked upon as part of the appointments of the
+place, like the chandeliers or the mirrors or the electric bell that
+answers when spoken to but never talks back, he has, unconsciously to
+those he serves, become the custodian of their closest secrets. These he
+keeps to himself. Were he to open his mouth he could not only break up a
+score or more of highly respectable families, but might possibly upset
+a ministry.
+
+My waiter belonged to this last group.
+
+I saw it in every deferential gesture of his body, and every modulated
+tone of his voice. Whether his moral nature had become warped and
+cracked and twisted out of all shape by constant daily and nightly
+contact--especially the last--with the sort of life he had led, or
+whether some of the old-time refinement of his better days still clung
+to him, was a question I could not decide from the exhibits before
+me--certainly not from the calm eyes which never wavered, nor the set
+mouth which never for a moment relaxed, the only important features in
+the face so far as character-reading is concerned.
+
+I determined to draw him out; not that he interested me in any way, but
+simply because such studies are instructive. Then, again, his account of
+his experiences might be still more instructive. When should I have a
+better opportunity? Here was a man steeped in the life of Paris up to
+his very eyelids, one thoroughly conversant with the peccadilloes of
+innumerable _viveurs_--peccadilloes interesting even to staid old
+painters, simply as object-lessons, especially those committed by the
+other gay Lothario: the fellow, for instance, who did not know she was
+dangerous until his letter of credit collapsed; or the peccadilloes of
+the beautiful moth who believed the candle lighting her path to be an
+incandescent bulb of joy, until her scorched wings hung about her bare
+shoulders: That kind of peccadillo.
+
+So I pushed back my chair, opened my cigar-case, and proceeded to adjust
+the end of my mental probe. There was really nothing better to do, even
+if I had no such surgical operation in view. It was still raining, and
+neither I nor the waiter could leave our Chinese-junk of an island until
+the downpour ceased or we were rescued by a lifeboat or an umbrella.
+
+"And this nephew of the Sultan," I began again between puffs, addressing
+my remark to the match in my companion's hand, which was now burning
+itself out at the extreme end of my cigar. "Is he a new admirer?"
+
+"Quite new--only ten days or so, I think."
+
+"And the one before--the old one--what does he think?" I asked this
+question with one of those cold, hollow, heartless laughs, such as
+croupiers are supposed to indulge in when they toss a five-franc piece
+back to a poor devil who has just lost his last hundred Napoleons at
+baccarat--I have never seen this done and have never heard the laugh,
+but that is the way the storybooks put it--particularly the
+blood-curdling part of the laugh.
+
+"You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Monsieur?"
+
+I had, of course, never heard of Pierre Channet, the painter, in my
+life, but I nodded as knowingly as if I had been on the most intimate
+relations with him for years. Then, again, this was my only way of
+getting down to his personal level, the only way I could draw him out
+and get at his real character. By taking his side of the question, he
+would unbosom himself the more freely, and, perhaps, incidentally, some
+of the peccadilloes--some of the most wicked.
+
+"He will _not think_, Monsieur. They pulled him out of the river last
+month."
+
+"Drowned?"
+
+His answer gave me a little start, but I did not betray myself.
+
+"So they said. The water trickled along his nose for two days as he lay
+on the slab, before they found out who he was."
+
+"In the morgue?" I inquired in a tone of surprise. I spoke as if this
+part of the story had not reached me.
+
+"In the morgue, Monsieur."
+
+The repeated words came as cold and merciless as the drops of water that
+fell on poor Channet as he lay under the gas-jets.
+
+"Drowned himself for love of Mademoiselle Béraud, you say?"
+
+"Quite true, Monsieur. He is not the only one. I know four."
+
+"And she began to love another in a week?" My indignation nearly got the
+better of me this time, but I do not think he noticed it.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur? One must live."
+
+As he spoke he moved an ash-tray deliberately within reach of my hand,
+and poured the balance of the St. Julien into my glass without a quiver.
+
+I smoked on in silence. Every spark of human feeling had evidently been
+stifled in him. The Juggernaut of Paris, in rolling over him, had broken
+every generous impulse, flattening him into a pulp of brutal
+selfishness. That is why his face was so smooth and cold, his eyes so
+dull and his voice so monotonous. I understood it all now. I changed the
+subject. I did not know where it would lead if I kept on. Drowned lovers
+were not what I was looking for.
+
+"You say you have only been two years in Suresne?" I resumed,
+carelessly, flicking the ashes from my cigar.
+
+"But two years, Monsieur."
+
+"Why did you leave Paris?"
+
+"Ah, when one is over fifty it is quite done. Is it not so,
+Monsieur?"--this made with a little deferential wave of his hand. I
+noted the tribute to the staid painter, and nodded approvingly. He was
+evidently climbing up to my level. Perhaps this plank, slender as it
+was, might take him out of the slough and land him on higher and
+better ground.
+
+"Yes, you are right. And so you came to Suresne to be quiet."
+
+"Not altogether, Monsieur. I came to be near--Well! we are never too old
+for that--Is it not so?" He said it quite simply, quite as a matter of
+course, the tones of his voice as monotonous as any he had yet
+used--just as he had spoken of poor Channet in the morgue with the
+water trickling over his dead face.
+
+"Oh, then, even at fifty you have a sweetheart!" I blurted out with a
+sudden twist of my probe. I felt now that I might as well follow the
+iniquity to the end.
+
+"It is true, Monsieur."
+
+"Is she pretty?" As long as I was dissecting I might at least discover
+the root of the disease. This remark, however, was not addressed to his
+face, but to a crumb of ashes on the cloth, which I was trying to remove
+with the point of a knife. He might not have answered, or liked it, had
+I fired the question at him point-blank.
+
+"Very pretty--" still the same monotone.
+
+"And you love her!" It was up to the hilt now.
+
+"She is the only thing I have left to love, Monsieur," he answered,
+calmly.
+
+Then, bending over me, he added:
+
+"Monsieur, I do not think I am mistaken. Were you not painting along the
+river this morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And a little child stood beside you while you worked?" Something in his
+voice as he spoke made me raise my head. To my intense amazement the
+listless eyes were alight with a tenderness that seemed to permeate his
+whole being, and a smile of infinite sweetness was playing about his
+mouth--the smile of the old saint--the Ribera of the Prado!
+
+"Yes, of course; the one playing with the priest," I answered, quickly.
+"But--"
+
+"No; that was me, Monsieur. I have often been taken for a priest,
+especially when I am off duty. It is the smooth face that misled you--"
+and he passed his hand over his cheeks and chin.
+
+"You the priest!" This came as a distinct surprise. "Ah, yes, I do see
+the resemblance now. And so your sweetheart is the woman in the white
+cap." At last I had reached his tender spot.
+
+"No, you are wrong again, Monsieur. The woman in the white cap is my
+sister. My sweetheart is the little girl--my granddaughter, Susette."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I raised my own white umbrella over my head, picked up my sketch-trap,
+and took the path back to the river. The rain had ceased, the sun was
+shining--brilliant, radiant sunshine; all the leaves studded with
+diamonds; all the grasses strung with opals, every stone beneath my
+feet a gem.
+
+I didn't know when I left what became of Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud,
+with her last lover under the sod, and the new one shut up in the kiosk,
+and I didn't care. I saw only a little girl--a little girl in a
+brown-madder dress and yellow-ochre hat; with big, blue eyes, a tiny
+pug-nose, a wee, kissable mouth, and two long pig-tails down her back.
+Looking down into her bonny face from its place, high up on the walls of
+the Prado, was an old cracked saint, his human eyes aglow with a light
+that came straight from heaven.
+
+
+
+"DOC" SHIPMAN'S FEE
+
+It was in the Doctor's own office that he told me this story. He has
+told me a dozen more, all pulled from the rag-bag of his experience,
+like strands of worsted from an old-fashioned reticule. Some were
+bright-colored, some were gray and dull--some black; most of them, in
+fact, sombre in tone, for the Doctor has spent much of his life climbing
+up the rickety stairs of gloomy tenements. Now and then there comes out
+a thread of gold which he weaves into the mesh of his talk--some gleam
+of pathos or heroism or unselfishness, lightening the whole fabric. This
+kind of story he loves best to tell.
+
+The Doctor is not one of your new-fashioned doctors quartered in a
+brownstone house off the Avenue, with a butler opening the door; a pair
+of bob-tailed grays; a coupé with a note-book tucked away in its pocket
+bearing the names of various millionnaires; an office panelled in oak; a
+waiting-room lined with patients reading last month's magazines until he
+should send for them. He has no such abode nor belongings. He lives all
+alone by himself in an old-fashioned house on Bedford Place--oh, Such a
+queer, hunched-up old house and such a quaint old neighborhood poked
+away behind Jefferson Market--and he opens the door himself and sees
+everybody who comes--there are not a great many of them nowadays,
+more's the pity.
+
+There are only a few such houses left up the queer old-fashioned street
+where he lives. The others were pulled down long ago, or pushed out to
+the line of the sidewalk and three or four stories piled on top of them.
+Some of these modern ones have big, carved marble porticos, made of
+painted zinc and fastened to the new brickwork. Inside these portals are
+a row of bronze bells and a line of speaking tubes with cards below
+bearing the names of those who dwell above.
+
+The Doctor's house is not like one of these. It would have been had it
+not belonged to his old mother, who died long ago and who begged him
+never to sell it while he lived. He was thirty years younger then, but
+he is still there and so is the old house. It looks a little ashamed of
+its shabbiness when you come upon it suddenly hiding behind its pushing
+neighbors. First comes an iron fence with a gate never shut, and then a
+flagged path dividing a grass-plot, and then an old-fashioned wooden
+stoop with two steps, guarded by a wooden railing (many a day since
+these were painted); and over these railings and up the supports which
+carry the roof of the portico straggles a honeysuckle that does its best
+to hide the shabbiness of the shingles and the old waterspout and
+sagging gutter, and fails miserably when it gets to the farther cornice,
+which has rotted away, showing under its dismal paint the black and
+brown rust of decaying wood.
+
+Then way in under the portico comes the door with the name-plate, and
+next to it, level with the floor of the piazza or portico--either you
+please, for it is a combination of both--are two long French windows,
+always open in summer evenings and a-light on winter nights with the
+reflection of the Doctor's soft-coal fire, telling of the warmth and
+cheer within.
+
+For it is a cheery place. It doesn't look like a doctor's office. There
+are dingy haircloth sofas, it is true, and a row of shelves with
+bottles, and funny-looking boxes on the mantel--one an electric
+battery--and rows and rows of books on the walls. But there are no
+dreadful instruments about. If there are, you don't see them.
+
+The big chair he sits in would swallow up a smaller man. It is covered
+with Turkey red and has a roll cushion for his head. There are two of
+these chairs--one for you, or me; this last has big arms that come out
+and catch you under the elbows, a mighty help to a man when he has just
+learned that his liver or lungs or heart or some other part of him has
+gone wrong and needs overhauling.
+
+Then there is a canary that sings all the time, and a small dog--oh,
+such a low-down, ill-bred, tousled dog; kind of a dog that might have
+been raised around a lumber-yard--was, probably--one ear gone, half of
+his tail missing; and there are some pots of flowers, and on the wall
+near the window where everybody can see is a case of butterflies impaled
+on pins and covered by a glass. No, you wouldn't think the Doctor's
+office a grewsome place, and you certainly wouldn't think the Doctor was
+a grewsome person--not when you come to know him.
+
+If you met him out on Sunday afternoon in his black clothes, white
+neck-cloth, and well-brushed hat, his gray hair straggling over his
+coat-collar, pounding his cane on the pavement as he walked, you would
+say he had a Sunday-school class somewhere. If you should come upon him
+suddenly, seated before his fire, his gold spectacles clinging to his
+finely chiselled nose, his thoughtful face bending over his book, you
+would conclude that you had interrupted some savant, and bow
+yourself out.
+
+But you must ring his bell at night--say two o'clock A.M.; catch his
+cheery voice calling through the tube from his bedroom in the
+rear--"Yes; coming right away--be there soon as I get my clothes
+on"--feel the strength and sympathy and readiness to help in the man,
+and try to keep step with him as he hurries on, and then watch him when
+he enters the sick-room, diffusing hope and cheer and confidence, and
+listen to the soft, soothing tones of his voice, before you really get
+at the inside lining of "Doc" Shipman.
+
+All this brings me to the story. Of course, I could have told you the
+bare facts without giving you an idea of the man and his surroundings,
+but that wouldn't be fair to you, for you would have missed knowing the
+Doctor, and I the opportunity of introducing him to you.
+
+We were sitting in the old-fashioned office, then, one snowy night in
+January, the Doctor leaning back in his chair, his meerschaum pipe in
+his mouth--the one with the gold cap that a long-ago patient gave
+him--when he straightened his back and tugged at his fob, bringing to
+the surface a small gold watch--one I had not seen before.
+
+"Where's the silver one?" I asked, referring to an old silver-backed
+watch I had seen him wear.
+
+The Doctor looked up and smiled.
+
+"That's in the drawer. I don't wear it any more--not since I got this
+one back."
+
+"What happened? Was it broken?"
+
+"No, stolen."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh, some time ago. Help yourself to a cigar and I'll tell you about it.
+
+"One night last summer I came in late, took off my coat and vest, hung
+them on a chair by the window and went to bed, leaving the sashes ajar,
+for it was terribly hot and I wanted a draught of air through from
+my bedroom."
+
+(I must tell my reader here that the Doctor is a born story-teller and
+something of an actor as well. He seldom explains his characters or
+situations as he goes on by putting in "I said" and "he said" and
+similar expressions. You know by the tones of his voice who is speaking,
+and his gestures supply the rest.)
+
+"I always carried this watch in my vest-pocket. I carry it now inside my
+waistband so they will have to pull me to pieces to get it.
+
+"Well, about three o'clock in the morning--I had just heard the old
+clock in the tower strike, and was dozing off to sleep again--a footstep
+awoke me to consciousness. I looked through these doors"--here the
+Doctor was pointing to the folding doors of the office where we
+sat--"and through my bedroom saw the dim outline of a man moving about
+this room. He had my vest and trousers over his arm. I sprang up, but he
+was too quick for me, and before I could reach him he had slipped
+through the windows out on to the porch, down the yard, through the
+gate, and was gone.
+
+"With him went my mother's watch, which was in the upper vest-pocket,
+and some fifty dollars in money. I didn't mind the money, but I did the
+watch. It was my mother's, a present from my father when they were first
+married, and had the initials '_E.M.S. from J.H.S_.' engraved on the
+under side of the case. When she died I pasted the dear old lady's
+photograph inside the upper lid. I know almost everybody around here,
+and they all know me; they come in here with broken heads for me to sew
+up, and stab wounds, and such-like misfortunes, and when they heard what
+had happened to me they all did what they could.
+
+"The Captain of the precinct came around, and everybody was very sorry,
+and they hunted the pawnshops, and I offered a reward--in fact, did all
+the foolish things you do when you have lost something you think a heap
+of. But no trace of the watch could be found, and so I gave it up and
+tried to forget it and couldn't. That's why I bought that cheap silver
+one. My only clew to the thief was the glimpse I had of a scar on his
+cheek and a slight dragging of his foot as he stepped about my room.
+
+"One night last autumn there came a ring at the bell, and I let in a man
+with a slouch hat pulled over his eyes and the collar of his coat turned
+up. He was soaking wet, the water oozing from his shoes and slopping the
+oilcloth in the hall where he stood. I had never seen him before.
+
+"'Doc,' he said, 'I want you.' They all call me 'Doc' around
+here--especially this kind of a man--and I saw right away where
+he belonged.
+
+"'What for?'
+
+"'My pal's sick.'
+
+"'What's the matter with him?'
+
+"'Well, he's sick--took bad. He'll die if he don't git help.'
+
+"'Where is he?'
+
+"'Down in Washington Street.'
+
+"'Queer,' I said to myself, 'his wanting me to go two miles from here,
+when there are plenty of doctors nearer by,' and so I said to him:
+
+"'You can get a doctor nearer than me. I'm waiting for a woman case and
+may be sent for any minute. Try the Dispensary on Canal Street; they've
+always a doctor there.'
+
+"'No--we don't want no Dispensary sharp. We want you. Pal's sent me for
+you--he knows you, but you mightn't remember him.'
+
+"'I'll go.' These are the people I can never refuse. They are on the
+hunted side of life and don't have many friends. I slipped on my rubbers
+and coat, picked up my umbrella and my bag with my instruments in it;
+hung a card in the window so the hall-light would strike it, marked
+'Back in an hour'--in case the woman sent for me; locked my door and
+started after him.
+
+"It was an awful night. The streets were running rivers, the wind
+rattling the shutters and flattening the umbrellas of everybody who
+tried to carry one--one of those storms that drives straight at the
+front of the house, drenching it from chimney to sidewalk. We waited
+under the gas-lamp, boarded a Sixth Avenue car, and got out at a signal
+from my companion. During the trip he sat in the far corner of the car,
+his hat slouched over his eyes, his coat-collar covering his ears. He
+evidently did not want to be recognized.
+
+"If you know the neighborhood about Washington Street you know it's the
+last resort of the hunted. When they want to hide, they burrow under one
+of these rookeries. That's where the police look for them, only they've
+got so many holes they can't stop them all. Captain Packett of the Ninth
+Precinct told me the other day that he'd rather hunt a rattlesnake in a
+tiger's cage than go open-handed into some of the rookeries around
+Washington Street. I am never afraid in these places; a doctor's like a
+Sister of Charity or a hospital nurse--they're safe anywhere. I don't
+believe that other fellow would have stolen my watch if he had known I
+was a doctor.
+
+"When we left the car at Canal Street, my companion whispered to me to
+follow him, no matter where he went. We kept along close to the houses,
+past the dives--the streets, even here, were almost deserted; then I saw
+him drop down a cellarway. I followed, through long passages, up a
+creaking pair of stairs, along a deserted corridor--only one gas-jet
+burning--up a second flight of stairs and into an empty room, the door
+of which he opened with a key which he held in his hand. He waited until
+I passed in, locked the door behind us, felt his way to a window, the
+glow of some lights in the tenements opposite giving the only light in
+the room, and raised the sash. Then down a fire-escape, across a wooden
+bridge, which was evidently used to connect the two buildings; through
+an open door, and up another stairs. At the end of this last corridor my
+companion pushed open a door.
+
+"'Here's the "Doc,"' I heard him say.
+
+"I looked into a room about as big as this we sit in. It was filled with
+men, most of them on the floor with their backs to the wall. There was a
+cot in one corner, and a pine table on which stood a cheap kerosene
+lamp, and one or two chairs. The only other furniture were a
+flour-barrel and a dry-goods box. On top of the barrel was a tin
+coffeepot, a china cup, and half a loaf of bread. Against the
+window--there was but one--was tacked a ragged calico quilt, shutting
+out air and light. Flat on the floor, where the light of the lamp fell
+on his face, lay a man dressed only in his trousers and undershirt. The
+shirt was clotted with blood; so were the mattress under him and
+the floor.
+
+"'Shot?' I asked of the man nearest me.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"I knelt down on the floor beside him and opened his shirt. The wound
+was just above the heart; the bullet had struck a rib, missed the lungs,
+and gone out at the back. Dangerows, but not necessarily fatal.
+
+"The man turned his head and opened his eyes. He was a stockily built
+fellow of thirty with a clean-shaven face.
+
+"'Is that you, "Doc"?'
+
+"'Yes, where does it hurt?'
+
+"'"Doc" Shipman--who used to be at Bellevue five or six years ago?'
+
+"'Yes--now tell me where the pain is.'
+
+"'Let me look at you. Yes--that's him. That's the "Doc," boys. Where
+does it hurt?--Oh, all around here--back worst'--and he passed his hand
+over his side.
+
+"I looked him over again, put in a few stitches, and fixed him up for
+the night. When I had finished he said:
+
+"'Come closer, "Doc"; am I going to die?'
+
+"'No, not this time; you'll pull through. Close shave, but you'll
+weather it. But you want some air. Here, you fellows'--and I motioned
+to two men leaning against the quilt tacked over the window--'rip that
+off and open that window. He's got to breathe--too many of you in
+here, anyway,'
+
+"One of the men moved the lidless dry-goods box against the wall, picked
+up the kerosene lamp and placed it inside, smothering its light; the
+other tore the lower end of the quilt from the sash, letting in the
+fresh, wet night-air.
+
+"I turned to the wounded man again.
+
+"'You say you've seen me before?'
+
+"'Yes, once. You sewed this up'--and he held up his arm showing a
+healed scar. 'You've forgot it, but I haven't.'
+
+"'Where?'
+
+"'Bellevue. They took me in there. You treated me white. That's why my
+pal hunted you up. Say, Bill'--and he called to my companion with the
+slouch hat--'pay the "Doc."'
+
+"Half a dozen men dove instantly into their pockets, but my companion
+already had his roll of bills in his hand. He bent over so that the glow
+of the half-smothered lamp could fall upon his hand, unrolled a
+twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me.
+
+"I passed it back to him. 'I don't want this. Five dollars is my fee. If
+you haven't anything smaller, wait till I come to-morrow, then you can
+give me a ten. I'm ready to go now; lead the way out.'
+
+"Next morning I went to see him again. Bill, by arrangement, met me at
+the corner of the street and took me to the wounded man's room, in and
+out, by the same route we had taken the night before. I found he had
+passed a good night, had no fever, and was all right. I left some
+medicine and directions, got my ten dollars, and never went again.
+
+"Last month, some two days before Christmas, I was sitting here
+reading--it was after twelve o'clock--when I heard a tap on the
+window-pane. I pushed aside the shade and looked out a thick-set man
+motioned me to open the door. When he got inside the hall he said:
+
+"'Ain't forgot me again, have you, "Doc"!'
+
+"'No, you're the man I fixed up in Washington Street last fall.'
+
+"'Yea, that's right, "Doc"; that's me. Can I come in? I got something
+for you.'
+
+"I brought him in and he sat down on that sofa. Then he pulled out a
+package from his inside pocket.
+
+"'"Doc,"' he began, 'I was thinking to-night of what you done for me and
+how you did it, and how decent you've been about it always, and I
+thought maybe you wouldn't feel offended if I brought you this bunch of
+scarfpins to take your pick from'--and he unwrapped the bundle. 'There's
+a pearl one--that might please you--and here's another that
+sparkles--take your pick, "Doc." It would please me a heap if you
+would'--and he handed me half a dozen scarfpins stuck in a flannel
+rag--some of them of great value.
+
+"I didn't know what to say at first. I couldn't get mad. I saw he was in
+dead earnest, and I saw, too, that it was pure gratitude on his part
+that prompted him to do it. That's a kind of human feeling you don't
+want to crush out in a man. When he's got that, no matter what else he
+lacks, you've got something to build on. I pulled out the pearl pin from
+the others. I wanted to get time to make up my mind as to what I really
+ought to do.
+
+"'Very nice pin,' I said.
+
+"'Yes, I thought so. I got it on a Sixth Avenue car. Maybe you'll like
+the gold one better; take your pick, it's all the same to me. That one
+you've got in your hand is a good one.' I was slowly looking them over,
+making up my mind how I would refuse them and not hurt his feelings.
+
+"'How did you get this one?' I asked, holding up the pearl pin.
+
+"'I picked it up outside Cooper Union.'
+
+"'On the sidewalk?'
+
+"'No, from a feller's scarf. I held the cab door for him.' He spoke
+exactly as if he had been a collector who had been roaming the world for
+curios. 'Take 'em both, "Doc"--or all of 'em--I mean it.'
+
+"I laid the bundle on the table and said: 'Well, that's very kind of you
+and I don't want you to think I don't appreciate it--but you see I don't
+wear scarfpins, and if I did I don't think I ought to take these. You
+see we have two different professions--you've got yours and I've got
+mine. I saw off men's legs, or I help them through a spell of sickness.
+They pay me for it in money. You've got another way of making your
+living. Your patients are whoever you happen to meet. I mightn't like
+your way of doing, and you mightn't like mine. That's a matter of
+opinion, or, perhaps, of education. You've got your risks to run, and
+I've got mine. If I cut too deep and kill a man they can shut me
+up--just as they can if you get into trouble. But I don't think we ought
+to mix up the proceeds. You wouldn't want me to give you this
+five-dollar Bill--and I held up a note a patient had just paid me--'and
+therefore I don't see how I ought to take one of your pins. I may not
+have made it plain to you--but it strikes me that way.'
+
+"'Then you ain't mad 'cause I brought 'em?'--and he looked at me
+searchingly from under his dark eyebrows, his lips firmly set.
+
+"'No, I'm very grateful to you for wanting to give them to me--only I
+don't see my way clear to take them.'
+
+"He settled back on the sofa and began twirling his hat with his hand.
+Then he rose from his seat, a shade of disappointment on his face, and
+said, slowly:
+
+"'Well, "Doc," ain't there something else I can do for you? Man like you
+must have _something_ you want--something you can't get without
+somebody's help. Think now--you mightn't see me again.'
+
+"Instantly I thought of my mother's watch.
+
+"'Yes, there is. Somebody came along one night when I was asleep and
+borrowed my vest hanging over that chair by the window, and my
+trousers, and my mother's watch was in the vest pocket. If you could
+help me get that back you would do me a real service--one I
+wouldn't forget.'
+
+"'What kind of a watch?'
+
+"I described it closely, its inscription, the portrait of my mother in
+the case, and showed him a copy of her photograph--like the one here.
+Then I gave him as close a description of the man as I could.
+
+"When I had described the scar on his face he looked at me in surprise.
+When I added that he had a slight limp, he said, quickly:
+
+"'Short man--with close-cropped hair--and a swipe across his chin. Lost
+a toe, and stumbles when he walks. I'll see what I can do. He ain't one
+of our men. He comes from Chicago. He never stays more'n a day or two in
+any town. Don't none of 'em know him round here. Leave it to me; may
+take some time--see you in a day or two'--and he went out.
+
+"I didn't see him for a month--not until two nights ago. He didn't ring
+the bell this time. He came in through the window. I thought the catch
+was down, but it wasn't. Funny how quick these fellows can see a thing.
+As soon as he shut the glass sash behind him he drew the curtains close;
+then he turned down the gas. All this, mind you, before he had opened
+his mouth. Then he said:
+
+"'Anybody here but you?'
+
+"'No.'
+
+"'Sure?'
+
+"'Yee, very sure.'
+
+"He spoke in a husky, rasping voice, like a man who had caught his
+breath again after a long run.
+
+"He turned his back to the window, slipped his hand in his hip-pocket
+and pulled out my mother's watch.
+
+"'Is that it, "Doc"?'
+
+"The light was pretty low, but I'd have known it in the dark.
+
+"'Yes, of course it is--' and I opened the lid in search of the old
+lady's photo. 'Where did you get it?'
+
+"'Look again. There ain't no likeness.'
+
+"'No, but here are the marks where they scraped it off'--and I held it
+close to his eyes. 'Where did you get it?'
+
+"'Don't ask no questions, "Doc." I had some trouble gittin' next the
+goods, and maybe it ain't over yet. I'll know in the morning. If anybody
+asks you anything about it, you ain't lost no watch--see? Last time you
+seen me I was goin' West, see--don't forget that. That's all, "Doc." If
+you're pleased, I'm satisfied.'
+
+"He held out his hand to say good-by, but I wouldn't take it. His
+appearance, the tone of his voice, and his hunted look made me a
+little nervous.
+
+"'Sit down. You'll let me pay you for it, won't you? Wait until I go
+back in my bedroom for some money.'
+
+"'No, "Doc," you can't pay me a cent. I'm sorry they got the mother's
+picture, but I couldn't catch up with the goods before. That would have
+been the best part of it for me. Mothers is scarce now--kind you and me
+had--dead or alive. You won't mind if I turn out the gas while I slip
+out, do you, and you won't mind either if I ask you to sit still here.
+Somebody might see you--' and he shook my hand and started for the
+window. As his hand neared the latch I could see in the dim light that
+his movements were unsteady. Once he stumbled and clutched at the
+bookcase for support----
+
+"'Hold on,' I said--and I walked rapidly toward him--'don't go yet--you
+are not well.'
+
+"He leaned against the bookcase and put his hand to his side.
+
+"I was alongside of him now, my arm under his, guiding him into a chair.
+
+"'Are you faint?'
+
+"'Yes--got a drop of anything, "Doc"? That's all I want. It ain't
+nothing.'
+
+"I opened my closet, took out a bottle of brandy and poured some into a
+measuring-glass. He drank it, leaned his head for an instant against my
+arm and, with the help of my hand slipped under his armpit, again
+struggled to his feet.
+
+"When I withdrew my hand it was covered with blood. It was too dark to
+see the color, but I knew from the sticky feeling of it just what
+it was.
+
+"'My God! man,' I cried; 'you are hurt, your shirt's all bloody. Come
+back here until I can see what's the matter.'
+
+"'No, "Doc"--_no!_ I tell you. It's stopped bleeding now. It would be
+tough for you if they pinched me here. Keep away, I tell you--I ain't
+got a minute to lose. I didn't want to hurt him even after he gave me
+this one in my back, but his girl was wearing it and there warn't no
+other way. Git behind them curtains, "Doc." So! Good-by.'
+
+"And he was gone."
+
+
+
+PLAIN FIN--PAPER-HANGER
+
+
+I
+
+The man was a little sawed-off, red-headed Irishman, with twinkling,
+gimlet eyes, two up-curved lips always in a broad smile, and a pair of
+thin, caliper-shaped legs.
+
+His name was as brief as his stature.
+
+"Fin, your honor, by the grace of God. F-i-n, Fin. There was a 'Mac' in
+front of it once, and an 'n' to the tail of it in the old times, so me
+mother says, but some of me ancisters--bad cess to 'em!--wiped 'em out.
+Plain Fin, if you plase, sor."
+
+The punt was the ordinary Thames boat: a long, narrow, flat-bottomed,
+shallow craft with tapering ends decked over to serve as seats, the
+whole propelled by a pole the size of a tight-rope dancer's and about as
+difficult to handle.
+
+Chartering the punt had been easy. All I had had to do was to stroll
+down the path bordering the river, run my eye over a group of boats
+lying side by side like a school of trout with their noses up-stream,
+pick out the widest, flattest, and least upsettable craft in the fleet,
+decorate it with a pair of Turkey-red cushions from a pile in the
+boathouse, and a short mattress, also Turkey-red--a good thing at
+luncheon-hour for a tired back is a mattress--slip the key of the
+padlock of the mooring-chain in my pocket and stroll back again.
+
+The hiring of the man for days after my arrival at Sonning-on-Thames,
+was more difficult, well-nigh impossible, except at a price per diem
+which no staid old painter--they are all an impecunious lot--could
+afford. There were boys, of course, for the asking; sunburnt,
+freckle-faced, tousle-headed, barefooted little devils who, when my back
+was turned, would do handsprings over my cushions, landing on the
+mattress, or break the pole the first day out, leaving me high and dry
+on some island out of calling distance; but full-grown, sober-minded,
+steady men, who could pole all day or sit beside me patiently while I
+worked, hand me the right brush or tube of color, or palette, or open a
+bottle of soda without spilling half of it--that kind of man was scarce.
+
+Landlord Hull, of the White Hart Inn--what an ideal Boniface is this
+same Hull, and what an ideal inn--promised a boatman to pole the punt
+and look after my traps when the Henley regatta was over; and the owner
+of my own craft, and of fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say
+that he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or-Other left for the
+Continent, when His Lordship's waterman would be free, adding,
+meaningly:
+
+"Just at present, zur, when we do be 'avin' sich a mob lot from Lunnon,
+'specially at week's-end, zur, we ain't got men enough to do our own
+polin'. It's the war, zur, as has took 'em off. Maybe for a few day,
+zur, ye might take a 'and yerself if ye didn't mind."
+
+I waved the hand referred to--the forefinger part of it--in a
+deprecating manner. I couldn't pole the lightest and most tractable punt
+ten yards in a straight line to save my own or anybody else's life. Then
+again, if I should impair the precision of my five fingers by any such
+violent exercise, my brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas as a
+recording needle across a steam-gauge. Poling a rudderless, keelless
+skiff up a crooked stream by means of a fifteen-foot balancing pole is
+an art only to be classed with that of rowing a gondola. Gondoliers and
+punters, like poets, are born, not made. My own Luigi comes of a race of
+gondoliers dating back two hundred years, and punters must spring from
+just such ancestors. No, if I had to do the poling myself, I should
+rather get out and walk.
+
+Fin solved the problem--not from any special training (rowing in
+regattas and the like), but rather from that universal adaptability of
+the Irishman which fits him for filling any situation in life, from a
+seat on a dirt-cart to a chair in an aldermanic chamber.
+
+"I am a paper-hanger by trade, sor," he began, "but I was brought up on
+the river and can put a punt wid the best. Try me, sor, at four bob a
+day; I'm out of a job."
+
+I looked him over, from his illuminated head down to his parenthetical
+legs, caught the merry twinkle in his eyes, and a sigh of relief escaped
+me. Here was not only a seafaring man, accustomed to battling with the
+elements, skilled in the handling of poles, and acquainted with swift
+and ofttimes dangerous currents, but a brother brush, a man conversant
+with design and pigments; an artist, keenly sensitive to straight lines,
+harmony of tints, and delicate manipulation of surfaces.
+
+I handed him the key at once. Thenceforward I was simply a passenger
+depending on his strong right arm for guidance, and at luncheon-hour
+upon his alert and nimble, though slightly incurved, legs for
+sustenance, the inn being often a mile away from my subject.
+
+And the inns!--or rather my own particular inn--the White Hart at
+Sonning.
+
+There are others, of course--the Red Lion at Henley; the old Warboys
+hostelry at Cookham; the Angler at Marlowe; the French Horn across the
+black water and within rifle-shot of the White Hart--a most pretentious
+place, designed for millionnaires and spendthrifts, where even chops and
+tomato-sauce, English pickles, chowchow and the like, ales in the wood
+and other like commodities and comforts, are dispensed at prices that
+compel all impecunious, staid painters like myself to content themselves
+with a sandwich and a pint of bitter--and a hundred other inns along the
+river, good, bad, and indifferent. But yet with all their charms I am
+still loyal to my own White Hart.
+
+Mine is an inn that sets back from the river with a rose-garden in front
+the like of which you never saw nor smelt of: millions of roses in a
+never-ending bloom. An inn with low ceilings, a cubby-hole of a bar next
+the side entrance on the village street; two barmaids--three on
+holidays; old furniture; a big fireplace in the hall; red-shaded lamps
+at night; plenty of easy-chairs and cushions. An inn all dimity and
+cretonne and brass bedsteads upstairs and unlimited tubs--one fastened
+to the wall painted white, and about eight feet long, to fit the largest
+pattern of Englishman. Out under the portico facing the rose-garden and
+the river stand tables for two or four, with snow-white cloths made gay
+with field-flowers, and the whole shaded by big, movable Japanese
+umbrellas, regular circus-tent umbrellas, their staffs stuck in the
+ground wherever they are needed. Along the sides of this garden on the
+gravel-walk loll go-to-sleep straw chairs, with little wicker tables
+within reach of your hand for B.& S., or tea and toast, or a pint in a
+mug, and down at the water's edge seafaring men like Fin and me find a
+boathouse with half a score of punts, skiffs, and rowboats, together
+with a steam-launch with fires banked ready for instant service.
+
+And the people in and about this White Hart inn!
+
+There are a bride and groom, of course. No well-regulated Thames inn can
+exist a week without a bride and groom. He is a handsome, well-knit,
+brown-skinned young fellow, who wears white flannel trousers, chalked
+shoes, a shrimp-colored flannel jacket and a shrimp-colored cap
+(Leander's colors) during the day, and a faultlessly cut dress-suit
+at night.
+
+She has a collection of hats, some as big as small tea-tables; fluffy
+gowns for mornings; short frocks for boating; and a gold belt, two
+shoulder-straps, and a bunch of roses for dinner. They have three dogs
+between them--one four inches long--well, perhaps six, to be
+exact--another a bull terrier, and a third a St. Bernard as big as a
+Spanish burro. They have also a maid, a valet, and a dog-cart, besides
+no end of blankets, whips, rugs, canes, umbrellas, golf-sticks, and
+tennis-bats. They have stolen up here, no doubt, to get away from their
+friends, and they are having the happiest hours of their lives.
+
+"Them two, sor," volunteers Fin, as we pass them lying under the willows
+near my morning subject, "is as chuck-full of happiness as a hive's full
+of bees. They was out in their boat yisterday, sor, in all that pour,
+and it rolled off 'em same as a duck sheds water, and they laughin' so
+ye'd think they'd split. What's dresses to them, sor, and her father?
+Why, sor, he could buy and sell half Sonnin'. He's jist home from Africa
+that chap is--or he was the week he was married--wid more lead inside
+him than would sink a corpse. You kin see for yerself that he's made for
+fightin'. Look at the eye on him!"
+
+Then there is the solitary Englishman, who breakfasts by himself, and
+has the morning paper laid beside his plate the moment the post-cart
+arrives. Fin and I find him half the time on a bench in a cool place on
+the path to the Lock, his nose in his book, his tightly furled umbrella
+by his side. No dogs nor punts nor spins up the river for him. He is
+taking his holiday and doesn't want to be meddled with or spoken to.
+
+There are, too, the customary maiden sisters--the unattended and
+forlorn--up for a week; and the young fellow down from London, all
+flannels and fishing-rods--three or four of them in fact, who sit round
+in front of the little sliding wicket facing the row of bottles and
+pump-handles--divining-rods for the beer below, these
+pump-handles--chaffing the barmaids and getting as good as they send;
+and always, at night, one or more of the country gentry in for their
+papers, and who can be found in the cosey hall discussing the crops, the
+coming regatta, the chance of Leander's winning the race, or the latest
+reports of yesterday's cricket-match.
+
+Now and then the village doctor or miller--quite an important man is the
+miller--you would think so if you could see the mill--drops in, draws up
+a chair, and ventures an opinion on the price of wheat in the States or
+the coal strike or some kindred topic, the coming country fair, or
+perhaps the sermon of the previous Sunday.
+
+"I hope you 'eard our Vicar, sir--No? Sorry you didn't, sir. I tell yer
+'e's a nailer."
+
+And so much for the company at the White Hart Inn.
+
+
+II
+
+You perhaps think that you know the Thames. You have been at Henley, no
+doubt, during regatta week, when both banks were flower-beds of
+blossoming parasols and full-blown picture-hats, the river a stretch of
+silver, crowded with boats, their occupants cheering like mad. Or you
+know Marlowe with its wide stream bordered with stately trees and
+statelier mansions, and Oxford with its grim buildings, and Windsor
+dominated by its huge pile of stone, the flag of the Empires floating
+from its top; and Maidenhead with its boats and launches, and lovely
+Cookham with its back water and quaint mill and quainter lock. You have
+rowed down beside them all in a shell, or have had glimpses of them
+from the train, or sat under the awnings of the launch or regular packet
+and watched the procession go by. All very charming and interesting,
+and, if you had but forty-eight hours in which to see all England, a
+profitable way of spending eight of them. And yet you have only skimmed
+the beautiful river's surface as a swallow skims a lake.
+
+Try a punt once.
+
+Pole in and out of the little back waters, lying away from the river,
+smothered in trees; float over the shallows dotted with pond-lilies;
+creep under drooping branches swaying with the current; stop at any one
+of a hundred landings, draw your boat up on the gravel, spring out and
+plunge into the thickets, flushing the blackbirds from their nests, or
+unpack your luncheon, spread your mattress, and watch the clouds sail
+over your head. Don't be in a hurry. Keep up this idling day in and day
+out, up and down, over and across, for a month or more, and you will get
+some faint idea of how picturesque, how lovely, and how restful this
+rarest of all the sylvan streams of England can be.
+
+If, like me, you can't pole a punt its length without running into a
+mud-bank or afoul of the bushes, then send for Fin. If he isn't at
+Sonning you will hear of him at Cookham or Marlowe or London--but find
+him wherever he is. He will prolong your life and loosen every button on
+your waistcoat. Fin is the unexpected, the ever-bubbling, and the
+ever-joyous; restless as a school-boy ten minutes before recess, quick
+as a grasshopper and lively as a cricket. He is, besides, brimful and
+spilling over with a quality of fun that is geyserlike in its
+spontaneity and intermittent flow. When he laughs, which he does every
+other minute, the man ploughing across the river, or the boy fishing, or
+the girl driving the cow, turn their heads and smile. They can't help
+it. In this respect he is better than a dozen farmers each with his two
+blades of grass. Fin plants a whole acre of laughs at once.
+
+On one of my joyous days--they were all joyous days, this one most of
+all--I was up the backwater, the "Mud Lark" (Fin's name for the punt)
+anchored in her element by two poles, one at each end, to keep her
+steady, when Fin broke through a new aperture and became reminiscent.
+
+I had dotted in the outlines of the old footpath with the meadows
+beyond, the cotton-wool clouds sailing overhead--only in England do I
+find these clouds--and was calling to the restless Irishman to sit still
+or I would send him ashore ... wet, when he answered with one of his
+bubbling outbreaks:
+
+"I don't wonder yer hot, sor, but I git that fidgety. I been so long
+doin' nothin'; two months now, sor, since I been on a box."
+
+I worked on for a minute without answering. Hanging wall-paper by
+standing on a box was probably the way they did it in the country, the
+ceilings being low.
+
+"No work?" I said, aimlessly. As long as he kept still I didn't care
+what he talked or laughed about.
+
+"Plinty, sor--an' summer's the time to do it. So many strangers comin'
+an' goin', but they won't let me at it. I'm laid off for a month yet;
+that's why your job come in handy, sor."
+
+"Row with your Union?" I remarked, listlessly, my mind still intent on
+watching a sky tint above the foreground trees.
+
+"No--wid the perlice. A little bit of a scrimmage wan night in Trafalgar
+Square. It was me own fault, sor, for I oughter a-knowed better. It was
+about three o'clock in the mornin', sor, and I was outside one o' them
+clubs just below Piccadilly, when one o' them young chaps come out wid
+three or four others, all b'ilin' drunk--one was Lord Bentig--jumps into
+a four-wheeler standin' by the steps an' hollers out to the rest of us:
+'A guinea to the man that gits to Trafalgar Square fust; three minutes'
+start,' and off he wint and we after him, leavin' wan of the others
+behind wid his watch in his hand."
+
+I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper-hanging evidently had its
+lively side.
+
+"Afoot?"
+
+"All four of 'em, sor--lickety-split and hell's loose. I come near
+runnin' over a bobbie as I turned into Pall Mall, but I dodged him and
+kep' on and landed second, with the mare doubled up in a heap and the
+rig a-top of her and one shaft broke. Lord Bentig and the other chaps
+that was wid him was standin' waitin', and when we all fell in a heap he
+nigh bu'st himself a-laughin'. He went bail for us, of course, and give
+the three of us ten bob apiece, but I got laid off for three months, and
+come up here, where me old mother lives and I kin pick up a job."
+
+"Hanging paper?" I suggested with a smile.
+
+"Yes, or anything else. Ye see, sor, I'm handy carpenterin', or puttin'
+on locks, or the likes o' that, or paintin', or paper-hangin', or
+mendin' stoves or tinware. So when they told me a painter chap wanted
+me, I looked over me perfessions and picked out the wan I tho't would
+suit him best. But it's drivin' a cab I'm good at; been on the box
+fourteen year come next Christmas. Ye don't mind, do ye, sor, my not
+tellin' ye before? Lord Bentig'll tell ye all about me next time ye see
+him in Lunnon." This touch was truly Finian. "He's cousin, ye know, sor,
+to this young chap what's here at the inn wid his bride. They wouldn't
+know me, sor, nor don't, but I've driv her father many a time. My rank
+used to be near his house on Bolton Terrace. I had a thing happen there
+one night that--more water? Yes, sor--and the other brush--the big one?
+Yes, sor--thank ye, sor. I don't shake, do I, sor?"
+
+"No, Fin; go on."
+
+"Well, I was tellin' ye about the night Sir Henry's man--that's the
+lady's father, sor--come to the rank where I sat on me box. It was about
+ten o'clock--rainin' hard and bad goin', it was that slippery.
+
+"'His Lordship wants ye in a hurry, Fin,' and he jumped inside.
+
+"When I got there I see something was goin' on--a party or
+something--the lights was lit clear up to the roof.
+
+"'His Lordship's waitin' in the hall for ye,' said his man, and I jumped
+off me box and wint inside.
+
+"'Fin,' said His Lordship, speakin' low, 'there's a lady dinin' wid me
+and the wine's gone to her head, and she's that full that if she waits
+until her own carriage comes for her she won't git home at all! Go back
+and get on yer cab wid yer fingers to yer hat, and I'll bring her out
+and put her in meself. It's dark and she won't know the difference. Take
+her down to Cadogan Square--I don't know the number, but ye can't miss
+it, for it's the fust white house wid geraniums in the winders. When ye
+git there ye're to git down, help her up the steps, keepin' yer mouth
+shut, unlock the door, and set her down on the sofa. You'll find the
+sofa in the parlor on the right, and can't miss it. Then lay the key on
+the mantel--here it is. After she's down, step out softly, close the
+door behind ye, ring the bell, and some of her servants will come and
+put her to bed. She's often took that way and they know what to do.'
+Then he says, lookin' at me straight, 'I sent for you, Fin, for I know I
+kin trust ye. Come here tomorrow and let me know how she got through and
+I'll give ye five bob.'
+
+"Well, sor, in a few minutes out she come, leanin' on His Lordship's
+arm, steppin' loike she had spring-halt, and takin' half the sidewalk
+to turn in.
+
+"'Good-night, Your Ladyship,' says His Lordship.
+
+"'Good-night, Sir Henry,' she called back, her head out of the winder,
+and off I driv.
+
+"I turned into the Square, found the white house wid the geraniums,
+helps her out of me cab and steadied her up the steps, pulled the key
+out, and was just goin' to put it in the lock when she fell up agin the
+door and open it went. The gas was turned low in the hall, so that she
+wouldn't know me if she looked at me.
+
+"I found the parlor, but the lights were out; so widout lookin' for the
+sofa--I was afraid somebody'd come and catch me--I slid her into a
+rockin'-chair, laid the key on the hall-table, shut the door softlike,
+rang the bell as if there was a fire next door, jumped on me box,
+and driv off.
+
+"The next mornin' I went to see His Lordship.
+
+"'Did ye land her all right, Fin?'
+
+"'I did, sor,' I says.
+
+"'Had ye any trouble wid the key?'
+
+"'No, sor,' I says, 'the door was open.'
+
+"'That's queer,' he says; 'maybe her husband came in earlier and forgot
+to shut it. And ye put her on the sofa----'
+
+"'No, sor, in a big chair.'
+
+"'In the parlor on the right?'
+
+"'No, sor, in a little room on the left--down one step----'
+
+"He stopped and looked at me.
+
+"'Te're sure ye put her in the fust white house?'
+
+"'I am, sor.'
+
+"'Wid geraniums in the winder?'
+
+"'Yes, sor.'
+
+"'Red?' he says.
+
+"'No, white,' I says.
+
+"'On the north side of the Square?
+
+"'No,' I says, 'on the south.'
+
+"'My God! Fin,' he says, 'ye left her in the wrong house!'"
+
+It was I who shook the boat this time.
+
+"Oh, ye needn't laugh, sor; it was no laughin' matter. I got me five
+bob, but I lost His Lordship's custom, and I didn't dare go near Cadogan
+Square for a month."
+
+These disclosures opened up a new and wider horizon. Heretofore I had
+associated Fin with simple country life--as a cheery craftsman--a
+Jack-of-all-trades: one day attired in overalls, with paste-pot, shears,
+and ladder, brightening the walls of the humble cottagers, and the next
+in polo cap and ragged white sweater, the gift of some summer visitor
+(his invariable costume with me), adapting himself to the peaceful needs
+of the river. Here, on the contrary and to my great surprise, was a
+cosmopolitan; a man versed in the dark and devious ways of a great city;
+familiar with life in its widest sense; one who had touched on many
+sides and who knew the cafés, the rear entrances to the theatres, and
+the short cut to St. John's Wood with the best and worst of them. These
+discoveries came with a certain shock, but they did not impair my
+interest in my companion. They really endeared him to me all the more.
+
+After this I was no longer content with listening to his rambling
+dissertations on whatever happened to rise in his memory and throat. I
+began to direct the output. It was not a difficult task; any incident or
+object, however small, served my purpose.
+
+The four-inch dog acted as valve this morning.
+
+Somebody had trodden on His Dogship; some unfortunate biped born to
+ill-luck. In and about Sonning to tread on a dog or to cause any animal
+unnecessary pain is looked upon as an unforgiveable crime. Dogs are made
+to be hugged and coddled and given the best cushion in the boat. "A
+man, a girl, and a dog" is as common as "a man, a punt, and an inn."
+
+Instantly the four-inch morsel--four inches, now that I think of it, is
+about right; six inches is too long--this morsel, I say, gave a yell as
+shrill as a launch-whistle and as fetching as a baby's cry. Instantly
+three chambermaids, two barmaids, the two maiden sisters who were
+breakfasting on the shady side of the inn gable, and the dog's owner,
+who, in a ravishing gown, was taking her coffee under one of the
+Japanese umbrellas, came rushing out of their respective hiding-places,
+impelled by an energy and accompanied by an impetuousness rarely seen
+except perhaps in some heroic attempt to save a drowning child sinking
+for the last time.
+
+"The darlin'"--this from Katy the barmaid, who reached him first--"who's
+stomped on him?"
+
+"How outrageous to be so cruel!"--this from the two maiden sisters.
+
+"Give him to me, Katy--oh, the brute of a man!"--this from the fair
+owner.
+
+The solitary Englishman with his book and his furled umbrella, who in
+his absorption had committed the crime, strode on without even raising
+his hat in apology.
+
+"D----d little beast!" I heard him mutter as he neared the boat-house
+where Fin and I were stowing cargo. "Ought to be worn on a watch-chain
+or in her buttonhole."
+
+Fin had his hand on his lips keeping his laughing apparatus in order
+until the solitary disappeared down the path to the trees, then he
+leaned my way.
+
+"I know him, sor," he whispered. "He's a barrister down in Temple Bar.
+He don't remember me, sor, but I know him. He's always treadin' on
+something--something alive--always, sor, and wid both feet! He trod on
+me once. I thought it was him when I see him fust--but I wasn't sure
+till I asked Landlord Hull about him."
+
+"How came you to know him?"
+
+"Well, sor, he had an old lady on his list two years ago that was always
+disputin' distances and goin' to law about her cab-fares. I picked her
+up one day in St. James Street and druv her to Kensington Gardens and
+charged her the rates, and she kicked and had me up before the
+magistrate, and this old ink-bottle appeared for her. She's rich and
+always in hot water. Well, we had it measured and I was right, and it
+cost her me fare and fifteen bob besides. When it was figured up she
+owed me sixpence more measurement I hadn't charged her for the first
+time, and I summoned her and made her pay it and twelve bob more to
+teach her manners. What pay he got I don't know, but I got me sixpence.
+He was born back here about a mile--that's why he comes here for
+his holiday."
+
+Fin stopped stowing cargo--two bottles of soda, a piece of ice in a
+bucket, two canvases, my big easel and a lunch-basket--and moving his
+cap back from his freckled forehead said, with as much gravity as he
+could maintain:
+
+"I ought to have been a barrister, sor; I started as one."
+
+The statement did not surprise me. Had he added that he had coached the
+winning crew of the regatta the year before, laid the marquetry floors
+of Cliveden (not far away), or led the band at the late Lord Mayor's
+show, I should have received his statements with equal equanimity. So I
+simply remarked, "When was that, Fin"? quite as I should had I been
+gathering details for his biography--my only anxiety being to get the
+facts chronologically correct.
+
+"When I was a gossoon of twenty, sor--maybe eighteen--I'm fifty now, so
+it's far back enough, God knows. And it all happened, too, not far from
+that old ink-bottle's place in Temple Bar. I was lookin' at it wan day
+last winter when I had a fare down there that I took up in old Bond
+Street. I did the sweepin' out and startin' fires. Wan day wan of the
+clerks got fired because he couldn't serve a writ on another barrister
+chap who owed a bill that me boss was tryin' to collect. Nobody could
+git into his rooms, try every way they could. He had nigh broke the head
+o' wan o' the young fellers in the office who tried it the day before.
+He niver come out, but had his grub sent him. This had been goin' on
+for a month. All kinds o' games had been put up on him and he beat
+'em all.
+
+"'I'll do it,' I says, 'in a week's time or less.' The manager was goin'
+through the office and heard the laugh they give me. 'What's this?' he
+says, cross like. 'Fin says he kin serve the writ,' the clerk says. 'I
+kin,' I says, startin' up, 'or I'll throw up me job.'
+
+"'Give him the writ,' he says, 'and give him two days off. It kin do no
+harm for him to try.'
+
+"Well, I found the street, and went up the stairs and read the name on
+the door and heard somebody walkin' around, and knew he was in. Then I
+lay around on the other side o' the street to see what I could pick up
+in the way o' the habits o' the rat. I knew he couldn't starve for a
+week at a time, and that something must be goin' in, and maybe I could
+follow up and git me foot in the door before he could close it; but I
+soon found that wouldn't work. Pretty soon a can o' milk come and went
+up in a basket that he let down from his winder. As he leaned out I saw
+his head, and it was a worse carrot than me own. Then along come a man
+with a bag o' coal on his back and a bit o' card in his hand with the
+coal-yard on it and the rat's name underneath, a-lookin' up at the house
+and scratchin' his head as to where he was goin'.
+
+"I crossed over and says, 'Who are ye lookin' for'? And he hands me the
+card. 'I'm his man,' I says, 'and I been waitin' for ye--me master's
+sick and don't want no noise, and if ye make any I'll lose me place.
+I'll carry the bag up and dump it and bring ye the bag back and,
+shillin' for yer trouble. Wait here. Hold on,' I says; 'take me hat and
+let me have yours, for I don't git a good hat every day, and the bag's
+that dirty it'll spile it.'
+
+"'Go on,' he says; 'I've carried it all the way from the yard and me
+back's broke.' Well, I pulled his hat ever me eyes and started up the
+stairs wid the bag on me shoulder. When I got to the fust landin' I run
+me hands over the bag, gittin' 'em good and black, then I smeared me
+face, and up I went another flight.
+
+"'Who's there?' he says, when I knocked.
+
+"'Coals,' I says.
+
+"'Where from?' he says.
+
+"I told him the name on the card. He opened the door an inch and I could
+see a chain between the crack.
+
+"'Let me see yer face,' he says. I twisted it out from under the edge of
+the bag. 'All right,' he says, and he slipped back the chain and in I
+went, stoopin' down as if it weighed a ton.
+
+"'Where'll I put it?' I says.
+
+"'In the box,' he says, walkin' toward the grate. 'Have ye brought the
+bill?'
+
+"'I have,' I says, still keepin' me head down. 'It's in me side pocket.
+Pull it out, please, me hand's that dirty'--and out come the writ!
+
+"Ye ought to have seen his face when he read it. He made a jump for the
+door, but I got there fust and downstairs in a tumble, and fell in a
+heap at the foot with everything he could lay his hands on comin' after
+me--tongs, shovel, and poker.
+
+"I got a raise of five bob when I went back and ten bob besides from the
+boss.
+
+"I ought to have stayed at the law, sor; I'd be a magistrate by now
+a-sittin' on a sheepskin instead of ------
+
+"Where'll I put this big canvas, sor--up agin the bow or laid flat? The
+last coat ain't dry yet," he muttered to himself, touching my picture
+with his finger in true paper-hanger style. "Oh, yes, I see--all ready,
+sor, ye kin step in. Same place we painted yesterday, sor?--up near the
+mill? All right, sor." And we pushed out into the stream.
+
+These talks with Fin are like telephone messages from the great city
+hardly an hour away. They always take place in the open, while I am
+floating among pond-lilies or drifting under wide-spreading trees, their
+drooping leaves dabbling in the silent current like children's fingers,
+or while I am sitting under skies as blue as any that bend above my
+Beloved City by the Sea; often, too, when the delicious silence about
+me is broken only by the lapping of the water around my punt, the
+sharpening of a bit of charcoal, or the splash of a fish. That his
+stories are out of key with my surroundings, often reminding me of
+things I have come miles over the sea to forget, somehow adds to
+their charm.
+
+There is no warning given. Suddenly, and apparently without anything
+that leads up to the subject in mind, this irrepressible Irishman breaks
+out, and before I am aware of the change, the glory of the morning and
+all that it holds for me of beauty has faded out of the slide of my
+mental camera and another has taken its place. Again I am following
+Fin's cab through the mazes of smoky, seething London, now waiting
+outside a concert-hall for some young blood, or shopping along Regent
+Street, or at full tilt to catch a Channel train at Charing Cross--each
+picture enriched by a running account of personal adventure that makes
+them doubly interesting.
+
+"You wouldn't mind, sor," he begins, "if I tell ye of a party of three I
+took home from a grand ball--one of the toppy balls of the winter, in
+one o' them big halls on the Strand? Two o' them Was dressed like the
+Royal family in satins that stuck out like a haystack and covered with
+diamonds that would hurt your eyes to look at 'em--" And then in his
+inimitable dialect--impossible to reproduce by any combination of vowels
+at my command, and punctured every few minutes by ringing laughs that
+can be heard half a mile away--follows a description of how one of his
+fares, Ikey by name, the son of the stoutest of the women, by a sudden
+lurch of his cab--Ikey rode outside--while rounding into a side street,
+was landed in the mud.
+
+"Oh, that was a great night, sor," he rattles on. "Ye ought to 'a' seen
+him when I picked him up. he looked as if they'd been a-swobbin' the
+cobbles wid him. 'Oh, me son! me son! it's kilt ye are!' she hollered
+out, clawin' him wid both hands, and up they hauled him all over them
+satin dresses! And where do ye think I took 'em, sor? To Hanover Square,
+or out by St. James Park? No, sor, not a bit of it! Down in an alley in
+Whitechapel, sor, that ye'd be afraid to walk through after sundown, and
+into a shop wid three balls over it. What do ye think o' that, sor?"
+
+Or he launches forth into an account of how he helped to rescue a
+woman's child from the clutches of her brutal husband; and of the race
+out King's Road followed by the husband in a hansom, and of the watchful
+bobbie who, to relieve a threatened block in the street, held up the
+pursuing hansom at the critical moment, thus saving the escaping child,
+half-smothered in a blanket, tight locked in its mother's arms, and
+earning for Fin the biggest fare he ever got in his life.
+
+"Think of it, sor! Fifteen bob for goin' a mile, she a-hollerin' all
+the time that she'd double the fare if I kep' ahead. But, Lord love ye,
+sor, she needn't 'a' worried; me old plug had run in the Derby wance,
+and for a short spurt like that he was game back to the stump of
+his tail."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the last morning of his enforced exile arrived and Fin, before I
+was half-dressed, presented himself outside my bedroom door, an open
+letter in his hand, not a trace of the punt-poling Irishman was visible
+in his make-up!
+
+He wore a glazed white tile, a yellow-brown coat with three capes, cut
+pen-wiper fashion, and a pair of corduroy trousers whose fulness
+concealed in part the ellipse of his legs.
+
+"Here's a letter from me boss, sor," he blurted out, holding it toward
+me. "He says I kin go to work in the mornin'. Ye don't mind, do
+ye, sor?"
+
+"Of course I mind, Fin; I'll have trouble to fill your place. Are you
+sorry to leave?"
+
+"Am I sorry, sor? No!--savin' yer presence, I'm glad. What's the good of
+the country, anyhow, sor, except to make picters in? Of course, it's
+different wid you, sor, not knowin' the city, but for me--why God rest
+yer soul, sor, I wouldn't give one cobble of the Strand no bigger'n me
+fist for the best farm in Surrey.
+
+"Call me, sor, next time ye're passin' my rank--any time after twelve
+at night, and I'll show ye fun enough to last ye yer life."
+
+Something dropped out of the landscape that day--something of its
+brilliancy, color, and charm. The water seemed sluggish, the sky-tones
+dull, the meadows flat and commonplace.
+
+It must have been Fin's laugh!
+
+
+LONG JIM
+
+Jim met me at the station. I knew it was Jim when I caught sight of him
+loping along the platform, craning his neck, his head on one side as if
+in search of someone. He had the same stoop in his shoulders; the same
+long, disjointed, shambling body--six feet and more of it--that had
+earned him his soubriquet.
+
+"Guess you be him," he said, recognizing me as easily, his face breaking
+suddenly into a broad smile as I stepped on to the platform. "Old man
+'lowed I'd know ye right away, but I kind o' mistrusted till I see ye
+stop and look 'raound same's if ye'd lost the trail. I'll take them
+traps and that bag if ye don't mind," and he relieved me of my
+sketch-kit and bag. "Buck-board's right out here behind the freight
+shed," and he pointed across the track. "Old mare's kinder skeery o' the
+engine, so I tied her a piece off."
+
+He was precisely the man I had expected to find--even to his shaggy gray
+hair matted close about his ears, wrinkled, leathery face, and long,
+scrawny neck. He wore the same rough, cowhide boots and the very hat I
+had seen so often reproduced--such a picturesque slouch of a hat with
+that certain cant to the rim which betokens long usage and not a little
+comfort, especially on balsam boughs with the sky for a covering, and
+only the stars to light one to bed.
+
+I had heard all these several details and appointments described ever so
+minutely by an enthusiastic brother brush who had spent the preceding
+summer with old man Marvin--Jim's employer--but he had forgotten to
+mention, or had failed to notice, the peculiar softness of Jim's voice
+and his timid, shrinking eyes--the eyes of a dog rather than those of a
+man--not cowardly eyes, nor sneaking eyes--more the eyes of one who had
+suffered constantly from sudden, unexpected blows, and who shrank from
+your gaze and dodged it as does a hound that misunderstands a gesture.
+
+"Old man's been 'spectin' ye for a week," Jim rambled on as he led the
+way to the shed, hitching up his one leather suspender that kept the
+brown overalls snug up under his armpits. "P'raps ye expected him to
+meet ye," he continued, "but ye don't know him. He ain't that kind. He
+won't go even for Ruby."
+
+"Who's Ruby?" The brother brush had not mentioned him. "Mr. Marvin's
+son?"
+
+"No, she's Mother Marvin's girl. She's away to Plymouth to school.
+Stand here a minute till I back up the buck-board."
+
+The buck-board is the only vehicle possible over these mountain-roads.
+It is the _volante_ of the Franconia range, and rides over everything
+from a bowlder to a wind-slash. This particular example differed only in
+being a trifle more rickety and mud-bespattered than any I had seen; and
+the mare had evidently been foaled to draw it--a fur-coated,
+moth-eaten, wisp-tailed beast, tied to the shafts with clothes-lines and
+scraps of deerhide--a quadruped that only an earthquake could have
+shaken into nervousness. And yet Jim backed her into position as
+carefully as if she had felt her harness for the first time, handing me
+the reins until he strapped my belongings to the hind axle, calling
+"Whoa, Bess!" every time she rested a tired muscle. Then he lifted one
+long leg over the dash-board and took the seat beside me.
+
+It was my first draught of a long holiday; my breathing-spell; my time
+for loose neckties and flannel shirts and a kit slung over my shoulder
+crammed with brushes and color-tubes; my time for loafing and inviting
+my soul. It felt inexpressibly delightful to be once more out in the
+open--out under the wide sweep of the sky; rid of the choke of narrow
+streets; exempt of bens, mails, and telegrams, and free of him who
+knocks, enters, and sits--and sits--and sits. And it was the Indian
+summer of the year; when the air is spicy with the smoke of burning
+leaves and the mountains are lost in the haze; when the unshaven
+cornfields are dotted with yellow pumpkins and under low-branched trees
+the apples lie in heaps; when the leaves are aflame and the round sun
+shines pink through opalescent clouds.
+
+"Ain't it a hummer of a day?" Jim exclaimed, suddenly, looking toward
+the valley swimming in a silver mist below us. "By Jiminy! it makes a
+man feel like livin', don't it?"
+
+I turned to look at him. He, too, seemed to have caught the infection.
+His shoulders had straightened, his nostrils were dilated like a deer's
+that sniffs some distant scent; his face was aglow. I began to wonder
+if, with my usual luck, I had not found the companion I always looked
+for in my outings--that rare other fellow of the right kind, who
+responds to your slightest wish with all the enthusiasm and gusto of a
+boy, and so vagabondish in his tendencies that he is delighted to have
+you think for him and to follow your lead.
+
+I had not long to wait. Before we had gone a mile into the forest Jim
+jerked the mare back upon her haunches and, pointing to a great hemlock
+standing sentinel over us, cried out with boyish enthusiasm:
+
+"Take a look at him once. Ain't he a ring-tailed roarer? Seems to me a
+tree big as him must be awful proud just o' bein' a tree. Ain't nothin'
+'raound here kin see's fur as he kin, anyways." "My luck again," I
+thought to myself. I knew I could not be mistaken in the outward signs.
+
+"You like trees, then?" I asked, watching the glow on his face.
+
+"Like 'em! Well, wouldn't you if ye'd lived 'mong 'em long's I have?
+Trees don't never go back on ye, and that's what ye can't say o'
+everything." The analogy was obscure, but I attributed it to Jim's
+slender stock of phrases. "I've knowed that hemlock ever since I come
+here, and he's just the same to me as the fust day I see him. Ain't
+never no change in trees; once they're good to ye they're allus good to
+ye. Birds is different--so is cattle--but trees and dogs ye kin tie to.
+Don't the woods smell nice? Do ye catch on to them spruces dead ahead of
+us? Maybe ye can't smell 'em till ye git yer nose cleared out o' them
+city nosegays," he continued, with a kindly interest in his voice. "But
+ye will when ye've been here a spell. Folks that live in cities think
+there ain't nothin' smells sweet but flowers and cologne. They ain't
+never slep' on balsam-boughs nor got a whiff o' a birchbark fire, nor
+tramped a bed o' ferns at night. There's a cool, fresh smell for ye! I
+tell ye there's a heap o' perfumes 'raound that ye can't buy at a
+flower-store and cork up in a bottle. Well, I guess--Git up, Bess!" and
+he flopped the reins once more along the ridges and hollows of the
+mare's back while he encouraged her to renewed efforts with that
+peculiar clucking sound heeded only by certain beasts of burden.
+
+At the end of the tenth mile he stopped the mare suddenly.
+
+"Hold on," he cried, excitedly, "there's that scraggy-tail. I missed him
+when I come down. See! there he is on that green log. I was feared he'd
+passed in his chips." I looked and saw a huge gray squirrel with a tail
+like a rabbit. "That's him. Durn mean on his tail, warn't it? And one
+paw gone, too. The dog catched him one day last year and left him tore
+up that way. I found him limping along when I was a-sugaring here in the
+spring and kinder fixed him up, and he's sorter on the lookout for me
+when I come along. He's got a hole 'round here somewheres."
+
+Jim sprang out of the buck-board. Fumbling under the seat he brought out
+a bag of nuts. The squirrel took them from his hand, stuffing his mouth
+full, five at a time, limping away to hide them, and back again for more
+until the bag was empty, Jim, contented and unhurried, squatting on the
+ground, his long knees bent under him. The way in which he did this gave
+me infinite delight. No vagabond I had ever known ignored time and duty
+more complacently.
+
+We drove on in silence, Jim taking in everything we passed. This
+shambling, slenderly educated, and clay-soiled man was fast looming up
+as a find of incalculable value--the most valuable of my experience.
+The most important thing, however, was still to be settled if a perfect
+harmony of interests was to be established between us--_would he
+like me_?
+
+Marvin's cabin, in which I was to spend my holiday, lay on a clearing
+half a mile or more outside the woods and at the foot of a hill that
+helped prop up the Knob. The stage road ran to the left. The house was a
+small two-story affair built of logs and clapboards, and was joined to
+the outlying stable by a covered passage which was lined with winter
+firewood. Marvin, who met us at the pasture-gate, carried a lantern, the
+glow of the twilight having faded from the mountain-tops. He was a
+small, thick-set man, smooth-shaven as far as the under side of his chin
+and jaws, with a whisk-broom beard spread over his shirt-front and half
+of his waistcoat. His forehead was low, and his eyes set close
+together--sure sign of a close-fisted nature.
+
+To my great surprise his first words, after a limp handshake and a
+perfunctory "pleased to see you," were devoted to an outbreak on Jim for
+having been so long on the road. "Been waitin' here an hour," he said.
+"What in tarnation kep' ye, anyway? Them cows ain't milked yit!"
+
+"Don't worry. I won't go back on them cows," replied Jim, quietly, as he
+drove through the gateway, following Marvin, who walked ahead swinging
+the lantern to show the mare the road.
+
+Mrs. Marvin's manner was as abrupt as that of her husband.
+
+"Well, well!" she said, as I stepped upon the porch, "guess you must be
+beat out comin' so fur. Come in and set by the stove," and she resumed
+her work in the pantry without another word.
+
+I was not offended at her curtness. These denizens of the forest pass
+too many hours alone and speak too seldom to understand the value of
+politeness for politeness' sake. The wife, moreover, redeemed herself
+the next morning when I found her on the back porch feeding the birds.
+
+"Snow ain't fur off," she remarked, in explanation, as she scattered the
+crumbs about, "and I want 'em to larn early where they kin find
+something to eat. Ruby'd never forgive me if I didn't feed the birds.
+She loves 'em 'bout as much as Jim does."
+
+Neither she nor her husband became any more cordial as they knew me
+better. To them I was only the boarder whose weekly stipend helped to
+decrease the farm debt, and who had to be fed three times a day and
+given a bed at night. It was Jim who made me feel at home. He was the
+fellow I had longed for; the round peg of a chance acquaintance that
+exactly fitted into the round hole of my holiday life, and he fulfilled
+my every expectation. He would fish or hunt or carry a sketch-trap or
+wash brushes, or loaf, or go to sleep beside me--or get up at
+daylight--whatever the one half of me wanted to do, Jim, the other
+half, agreed to with instant cheerfulness.
+
+And yet, in spite of this constant companionship, I never crossed a
+certain line of reserve which he had set up between us. He would ramble
+on by the hour about the things around us; about the trees, the birds,
+and squirrels; of the way the muskrats lived by the sawmill dam, and
+their cleverness in avoiding his traps; about the deer that "yarded"
+back of Taft's Knob last winter, and their leanness in the spring.
+Sometimes he would speak of Mother Marvin, saying she "thought a heap of
+Ruby, and ought to," and now and then he would speak of Ruby with a
+certain tender tone in his voice, telling me of the prizes she had won
+at school, and how nobody could touch her in "'rithmetic and readin'."
+But, to my surprise, he never discussed any of his private affairs with
+me. I say "surprise," for until I met Jim I had found that men of his
+class talked of little else, especially when over campfires smouldering
+far into the night.
+
+This reticence also extended to Marvin's affairs. The relations between
+them, I saw, were greatly strained, although Jim always discharged his
+duties conscientiously, never failing to render a strict account of the
+time he spent with me, which Marvin always itemized in the weekly bill.
+I used often to wonder if he were not under some obligation to his
+employer which he could not requite; it might be for food and shelter
+in his earlier days, or perhaps that he was weighted by a money debt he
+was unable to pay.
+
+One morning, after a particularly ugly outbreak in which Jim had been
+denounced for some supposed neglect of his duties, I asked him, then
+lying beside me, his head cupped upon his saucer of a slouch hat, why he
+stayed on with a man like Marvin, so different from himself in every
+way. I had often wondered why Jim stood it, and wished that he had the
+spirit to try his fortunes elsewhere. In my sympathy for him I had even
+gone so far as to hint once or twice at my finding him other employment.
+Indeed, I must confess that the only cloud between us dimming my
+confidence in him was this very lack of independence.
+
+"Well, I got to git along with him for a spell yit," Jim answered,
+slowly, his eyes turned up to the sky. "He _is_ ornery, and no mistake,
+and I git mad at him sometimes; but then ag'in I feel kinder sorry for
+him somehow. He's a queer kind, ain't he, to be livin' up here all his
+life with trees and mountains all 'round him, all doin' their best to
+please him--and I don't know nothin' friendlier nor honester--and yet
+him bein' what he is? I'd 'a' thought they'd thawed him out 'fore this.
+And he's so dog-goned close, too, if I must say it. Why, if it warn't
+for Mother Marvin, some o' us 'raound here"--and he stopped and lowered
+his voice--"would be out in the cold; some ye wouldn't suspect, too."
+
+This apparently studied reticence only incited my curiosity to learn
+something more of the man for whom I had begun to have a real affection.
+I wanted particularly to know something of his life before he came to
+Marvin's!--twelve years now. I could not, of course, ask Marvin or his
+wife for any details--my intimacy with Jim forbade such an invasion of
+his privacy--and I met no one else in the forest. I saw plainly that he
+was not a mountaineer by birth. Not only did his dialect differ from
+those about him, but his habits were not those of a woodsman. For
+instance, he would always carry his matches loose in his pocket, instead
+of in a dry box; then, again, he would wear his trousers rolled up like
+a fireman's, as if to keep out the wet, instead of tucking them into his
+boots to tramp the woods the better. Now and then, too, he would let
+fall some word or expression which would betray greater familiarity with
+the ins and outs of the city than with the intricacies of the forest.
+
+"It was fixed up in a glass case like one Abe Condit used to have in his
+place in the Bowery," he said once in describing a prize trout some city
+fisherman had stuffed and framed. But when I asked him, with some
+surprise, if he knew the Bowery, he looked at me quickly, with the
+slightest trace of offended dignity in his eyes, as if I had meant to
+overstep the line between us, and answered quickly:
+
+"I knowed Abe Condit," and immediately changed the conversation.
+
+And yet I must admit that there was nothing in the way he answered this
+and all my other questions that weakened my confidence in his sincerity.
+If there were any blackened pages in his past record that he did not
+want to lay bare even to me, they were discolored, I felt sure, more by
+privations and suffering than by any stains he was ashamed of.
+
+
+II
+
+One morning at daybreak I was awakened by Jim swinging back my door. He
+had on his heavy overcoat and carried a lantern. His slouch hat was
+flattened on the back of his head; the rim flared out, framing his face,
+which was wreathed in smiles. He seemed to be under some peculiar
+excitement, for his breath came thick and fast.
+
+"Sorry to wake ye, but I'm goin' to Plymouth," and he lowered his head
+and stepped inside my room. "Ruby's comin'. Feller brought me a letter
+she'd sent on by the stage. The driver left it at the sawmill. I'd 'a'
+told ye las' night, but ye'd turned in."
+
+"When will you be back?" I called out from between the bedclothes. We
+had planned a trip to the Knob the next day, and were to camp out for
+the night. He evidently saw my disappointment in my face, for he
+answered quickly, as he bent over me:
+
+"Oh, to-night, sure; and maybe Ruby'll go along. There ain't nothin' ye
+kin teach her 'bout campin', and she'll go anywheres I'll take
+her--leastways, she allus has." This last was said with some hesitation,
+as if he had suddenly thought that my presence might make some
+difference to her. "Leave yer brushes where I kin git 'em," he
+continued, anxious to make up for my disappointment. "I'll wash 'em when
+I git back," and he clattered down the steep stairs and slammed the door
+behind him.
+
+I jumped from my bed, threw up the narrow, unpainted sash and watched
+his tall, awkward figure swinging the lantern as he hurried away toward
+the shed where the gray mare lived in solitude. Then I crept back to bed
+again to plan my day anew.
+
+When I joined Marvin at breakfast I found him in one of his ugliest
+moods, with all his bristles out; not turned toward me, nor even toward
+his wife, but toward the world in general. Strange to say, he made no
+allusion to his daughter's return nor to Jim's absence.
+
+Suddenly his wife blurted out, as if she could restrain her joy no
+longer:
+
+"You ain't never seen Ruby. She's comin' tonight. Jim's gone for her.
+The head teacher's sick and some o' the girls has got a holiday."
+
+"Yes," I answered, quietly; "Jim told me."
+
+"Oh, he did!" And she put down her cup and leaned across the table.
+"Well, I'm awful glad she's comin', just so ye kin see her. Ye won't
+never forgit her when ye do. She's got six months more, then she's
+comin' home for a spell until she goes teachin'," and a look of exultant
+pride and joy of which I had never believed her capable came into
+her eyes.
+
+Marvin turned his head and in a half-angry way said:
+
+"It's 'bout time. Little good ye've had o' her for the last four years
+with yer fool notions 'bout eddication." And he put on his hat and
+went out.
+
+"How old is your daughter?" I asked, more to soften the effect of
+Marvin's brutal remark than anything else.
+
+"She's seventeen, I guess, but she's big for her age."
+
+The announcement came as a surprise. I had supposed from the way Jim had
+always spoken of her that she was a child of twelve. The possibilities
+of her camping out became all the more remote.
+
+"And has she been away from you long this time?"
+
+"'Bout four months. I didn't 'spect her to come till Christmas, till she
+wrote Jim to come for her. He allus fetches her. They'll be 'long
+'bout dark."
+
+I instantly determined to extend the heartiest of welcomes to this
+little daughter, not alone because of the mother and Jim, but because
+the home-coming of a young girl had always appealed to me as one of the
+most satisfying of all family events. My memory instinctively went back
+to the return of my own little bird, and of the many marvellous
+preparations begun weeks before in honor of the event. I saw again in my
+mind the wondrous curtains, stiff and starched, hung at the windows and
+about the high posts of the quaint bedstead that had sheltered her from
+childhood; I remembered the special bakings and brewings and the
+innumerable bundles, big and little, that were tucked away under
+secretive sofas and the thousand other surprises that hung upon her
+coming. This little wood-pigeon should have my best attention, however
+simple and plain might be her plumage.
+
+Moreover, I was more than curious to see what particular kind of a
+fledgling could be born to these two parent birds--one so hard and
+unsympathetic and the other so kind and simple. Jim, I remembered, had
+always spoken enthusiastically of Ruby, but then Jim always spilled over
+the edges whenever he spoke of the things he loved, whether they were
+dogs, trees, flowers, or brilliant young maidens.
+
+At nine o'clock that night my ear caught the sound of wheels; then came
+Jim's "Whoa! Bess," and the mother threw wide the door and caught her
+daughter in her arms.
+
+"Oh, mother!" the girl cried, "wasn't it good I could come?" and she
+kissed her again. Then she turned to me--I had followed out in the
+starlight--"Uncle Jim sent me word you were here, and I was so glad.
+I've always wanted to see somebody paint, and Uncle Jim says he's sure
+you will let me go sketching with you. I wasn't coming home with the
+other girls until I got his letter and knew that you were here."
+
+She said this frankly and simply, without the slightest embarrassment,
+and without a trace of any dialect in her speech. Jim evidently had not
+exaggerated her attainments. She had, too, unconsciously to herself,
+solved one of the mysteries that surrounded me. If Jim was her uncle it
+must be on her mother's side; it certainly could not be on Marvin's.
+
+"And I'm glad, too," I replied. "Of course you shall go, and Jim tells
+me also that you are as good a woodsman as he is. And so Jim's your
+uncle, is he? He never told me that."
+
+"Oh, no," she answered quickly, with a little deprecatory air. "He isn't
+my _real_ uncle. He's just Jim, but I've always called him Uncle Jim
+ever since I was a little girl. And I love him dearly; don't I, Uncle
+Jim?" and she turned toward him as he entered the door carrying her
+bundle, followed by her father with the kerosene lamp, Marvin having
+brought it out to help Jim unload the buck-board.
+
+"That's what ye allus says, baby-girl," answered Jim, "so I got to
+believe it. And if I didn't, there wouldn't be no use o' livin'--not a
+mite." There was a vibrating tenderness in the man's voice, and an
+indescribable pathos in its tone, as he spoke, that caused me
+instinctively to turn my head and look into his face.
+
+The light shone full upon it--so full and direct that there were no
+shadows anywhere. Whether it was because of the lamp's direct rays or
+because of his long ride in the crisp November air, I could not decide,
+but certain it was that Jim's face was without a wrinkle, and that he
+looked twenty years younger. Even the hard, drawn lines about his mouth
+and nose had disappeared.
+
+With the light of the lamp came another revelation. While the girl's
+cheap woollen dress and jacket, of a pattern sold in the country stores,
+showed her to be the product of Marvin's home and the recipient of his
+scanty bounty, her trim, well-rounded figure, soft, glossy hair--now
+that her hat was off--and small hands and feet, classed her as one of
+far gentler birth. There was, too, as she passed in and out of the room
+helping her mother with the supper-table, a certain grace and dignity,
+especially in the way in which she bent her head on one side to listen,
+a gesture often seen in a drawing-room, but never, in my experience, in
+a cabin. What astonished me most, however, were her hands--her
+exquisitely modelled hands, still ruddy from the fresh night air, but so
+wonderfully curved and dimpled. And then, too, the perfect graciousness
+and simplicity of her manner and its absolute freedom from coquetry or
+self-consciousness. Her mother was right--I would not soon forget her.
+And yet, by what freak of Nature, I found myself continually repeating,
+had this flower been made to bloom on this soil? Through what ancestor's
+veins had this blood trickled, and through what channels had it reached
+these humble occupants of a forest home?
+
+But if her mother was the happier for her coming, Jim, radiant with joy,
+seemed to walk on air. His head was up, his arms were swinging free, and
+there was a lightness and spring in his movements that made me forget
+the grotesqueness of his gait. Nor, as the days went by, did this
+buoyant happiness ever fail him. He and Ruby were inseparable from the
+time she opened the rude door of her bedroom in the morning until she
+bade us all good-night and carried with her all the light and charm and
+joyousness of the day. The camping-out, I may as well state, had been
+given up as soon as I had mentioned it, she saying to me with a little
+start, as if frightened at the proposition, that she thought she'd
+better stay home and help her mother. Then, seeing Jim's face fall, she
+added, "But we can be off all day, can't we?"
+
+And Jim answered that it was all right, just as Ruby said--that we would
+go fishing instead, and that he had spotted an old trout that lived in a
+hole down the East Branch that he'd been saving for her, and that he had
+tied the day before the "very fly that will fix him"--all of which was
+true, for Ruby landed him the next day with all the skill of a
+professional, besides a dozen smaller ones whose haunts Jim knew.
+
+And so the weeks flew by, Ruby tramping the forest daily between us or
+sitting beside me as I painted, noting every stroke of my brush and
+asking me innumerable questions as to the choice of colors and the
+mixing of the tints. At other times she would ply me with questions,
+making me tell her of the things I had seen abroad and of the cities and
+peoples she had read of; or she would talk of the books she had studied,
+and of others she wanted to read. Jim would listen eagerly, with a
+certain pride in his eyes that she knew so much and could talk so well,
+and when we were alone he would comment on it:
+
+"Nearly catched ye, didn't she? I see once or twice ye were stumped
+clean out o' yer boots on them questions she fired. How her little head
+holds it all is what bothers me. But I always knowed how it would be; I
+told the old man so ten year ago. Ain't one o' 'em 'raound here kin
+touch her."
+
+At night, under the kerosene lamp in the cabin, she would ask me to read
+aloud, she looking up into my face and drinking in every word, the
+others listening, Jim watching every expression that crossed her face.
+
+Dear old Jim! I still see your tender, shrinking eyes peering at her
+from under your bushy eyebrows and still hear the low ripple of your
+merry laugh over her volleys of questions. You were so proud of her and
+so happy in those days! So tender in touch, so gentle of voice, so
+constant in care!
+
+One morning I had some letters to write, and Ruby and Jim took the rods
+and went up the brook without me. They both begged me to go, Ruby being
+particularly urgent, I thought, but I had already delayed the mail too
+long and so refused point-blank--too abruptly, perhaps, as I thought
+afterward, when I remembered the keen look of disappointment in her
+face. When she re-entered the cabin alone an hour later she passed me
+hurriedly, and calling out to her father that Jim was wanted at the
+sawmill to fix the wheel and would not be back until morning, shut
+herself into her room before I could offer myself in Jim's place--which
+I would gladly have done, now that her morning's pleasure had
+been spoiled.
+
+When she joined us at supper--she had kept her room all day--I saw that
+her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. I knew then that I had
+offended her.
+
+"Ruby, I really couldn't go," I said. "You don't feel cross about it, do
+you?"
+
+"Oh, no," she answered, with some earnestness. "And I knew you were
+busy."
+
+"And about Jim--what's the matter with the wheel?" I asked, greatly
+relieved at the discovery that whatever troubled her, my staying at home
+had not caused it.
+
+"One of the buckets is broken--Uncle Jim always fixes it," and she
+turned her head away to hide her tears.
+
+"Is Jim a carpenter, too?" I asked, with a smile.
+
+"Why, yes," she replied. "Didn't you know that? They often send for him
+to fix the mill. There's no one else about here who can." And she
+changed the conversation and began talking of the beauty of that part of
+the brook where they had been to fish, and of the rich brown tint of the
+water in the pools, and how lovely the red sumachs were reflected in
+their depths.
+
+The next morning, and without any previous warning, Ruby appeared in her
+cloth dress and jacket and announced her intention of taking the stage
+back to Plymouth, adding that as Jim had not returned, Marvin must drive
+her over to the cross-roads. I offered my services, but she declined
+them graciously but firmly, bidding me good-by and saying with one of
+her earnest looks, as she held my hand in hers, that she should never
+forget my kindness to Jim, and that she would always remember me for
+what I had done for him, and then she added with peculiar tenderness:
+
+"And dear Uncle Jim won't forget you, either."
+
+And so she had gone, and with her had faded all the light and joyousness
+of the place.
+
+When Jim returned the next day I was at work in the pasture painting a
+group of white birches. I hallooed to him as he shambled along within a
+hundred yards of me, swinging his arms, but he did not answer except to
+turn his head.
+
+That night at table he replied to my questions in monosyllables,
+explaining his not stopping when I had called in the morning by saying
+that he didn't want to "'sturb me," and when I laughed and told
+him--using his own words--that Ruby "wouldn't pass a fellow and give him
+the dead, cold shake," he pushed back his chair with a sudden impatient
+gesture, said he had forgotten something, and left the table without a
+word or look in reply.
+
+I knew then that I had hurt him in some way.
+
+"What's the matter with Jim, Mr. Marvin? He seems put out about
+something. Did he say anything to you?" I asked, astonished at Jim's
+behavior, and anxious for some clew by which to solve its mystery.
+
+"Got one o' his spells on. Gits that way sometimes, and when he does ye
+can't git no good out o' him. I want them turnips dug, and he's got to
+do it or git out. I ain't hired him to loaf 'round all day with Ruby and
+to sulk when she's gone. I'm a-payin' him wages right along, ain't I?"
+he added with some fierceness as he stopped at the door. "What he gits
+for fixin' the mill ain't nothin' to me--I don't git a cent on it."
+
+III
+
+When the morning came and Jim had not returned I started for the mill. I
+found him alone, sitting idly on a bench near the water-wheel. I had
+heard the hum of the saw before I reached the dam and knew that he had
+finished his work.
+
+"Jim," I said, walking up to him and extending my hand, "if I have done
+anything to hurt your feelings, I'm sorry. If I had known you would have
+been put out by my not going with Ruby I would have let the mail wait."
+
+He took my hand mechanically, but he did not raise his eyes. The old
+look had returned to his face, as if he were afraid of some sudden blow.
+"I did all I could to make Ruby's visit a happy one--don't you know I
+did?" I continued.
+
+He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes still on
+the ground. There was something infinitely pathetic in the attitude.
+"Ye ain't done nothin' to me," he answered, slowly, "and ye ain't done
+nothin' to Ruby. I cottoned to ye fust time I see ye, and so did Ruby,
+and we still do. It ain't that."
+
+"Well, what is it, then? Why have you kept away from me?"
+
+He arose wearily until his whole length was erect, hooked his long arms
+behind his back, and began walking up and down the platform. He was no
+longer my comrade of the woods. The spring and buoyancy of his step had
+gone out of him. He seemed shrivelled and bent, as if some sudden
+weakness had overcome him. His face was white and drawn, and the eyelids
+drooped, as if he had not slept.
+
+At the second turn he stopped, gazed abstractedly at the boards under
+his feet, as a man sometimes does when his mind is on other things.
+Mechanically he stooped to pick up a small iron nut that had slipped
+from one of the bolts used in repairing the wheel, and in the same
+abstracted way, still ignoring me, raised it to his eye, looked through
+the hole for a moment, and then tossed it into the dam. The splash of
+the iron striking the water frightened a bird, which arose in the air,
+sang a clear, sweet note, and disappeared in the bushes on the opposite
+bank. Jim started, turned his head quickly, following the flight of the
+bird, and sank slowly back upon the bench, his face in his hands.
+
+"There it is again," he cried out. "Every way I turn it's the same
+thing. I can't even chuck nothin' overboard but I hear it."
+
+"Hear what?" The keen anguish expressed in his voice had alarmed me.
+
+"That song-sparrow--did ye hear it? I tell ye this thing'll drive me
+crazy. I tell ye I can't stand it--I can't stand it." And he turned his
+head and covered his face with his sleeve.
+
+The outburst and gesture only intensified my anxiety. Was Jim's mind
+giving away? I arose from my seat and bent over him, my hand on his arm.
+
+"Why, that's only a bird, Jim--I saw it--it's gone into the bushes."
+
+"Yes, I know it; I seen it; that's what hurts me; that's what's allus
+goin' to hurt me. And 'tain't only goin' to be the birds. It's goin' to
+be the trees and the gray-backs and the trout we catched, and everywhere
+I look and every place I go to it's goin' to be the same thing. And it
+ain't never goin' to be no better--never--never--long as I live. She
+said so. Them was her very words I ain't never goin' to forgit 'em." And
+he leaned his head in a baffled, tired way against the planking of
+the mill.
+
+"Who said so, Jim?" I asked.
+
+Jim raised his head, looked me straight in the face and, with the tears
+starting in his eyes, answered in a low voice:
+
+"Ruby. She loves 'em--loves every one o' 'em. Oh, what's goin' to
+become o' me now, anyhow?"
+
+"Well, but I don't--" The revelation came to me before I could complete
+the sentence. Jim's face had told the story of his heart!
+
+"Jim," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, "do you love Ruby?"
+
+"Sit down here," he said, in a hopeless, despondent voice, "and mebbe
+I'll git grit enough to tell ye. I ain't never told none o' the folks
+that comes up here o' how things was, but I'm goin' to tell you. And I'm
+goin' to tell it to ye plumb from the beginnin'. too." And a sigh like
+the moan of one in pain escaped him.
+
+"Twelve years ago I come here from New York. I'd been cleaned out o'
+everything I had by a man I trusted, and I was flat broke. I didn't care
+where I went, so's I got away from the city and from people. I wanted to
+git somewheres out into the country, and so I got aboard the train and
+kep' on till I'd struck Plymouth. There my money gin out and I started
+up the road into the mountains. I thought I'd hire out to some choppers
+for the winter. When night come I see a light and knocked at the door
+and Jed opened it. He warn't goin' to keep me, but he was a-buildin' the
+shed where the old mare is now, and he found out I was handy with the
+tools and didn't want no wages, only my board, so he let me stay. The
+next spring he hired me regular and give me wages every month. I kep'
+along, choppin' in the winter and helpin' 'round the place, and in
+summer goin' out with the parties that come up from the city, helpin.'
+'em fish and hunt. I liked that, for I loved the woods ever since I was
+a boy, when I used to go off by myself and stay days and nights with
+nothin' but a tin can o' grub and a blanket. That's why I come here when
+I went broke.
+
+"One summer there come a feller from Boston to fish. He brought his wife
+along, and T used to go out with both o' 'em. The man's wife was puttin'
+up for some o' them children's homes, and she used to talk to Marm
+Marvin about takin' one o' the children and what a comfort it would be
+to the child to git out into the fresh air, and one mornin' 'fore she
+left she took Jed down in the woods and talked to him, and the week
+after she left for home Marm Marvin sent me over to the station--same
+place I fetched ye--and out she got with a tag sewed on her jacket and
+her name on it, and a bundle o' clothes no bigger'n your head. She was
+'bout seven or eight years old, and the cunnin'est young un ye ever see.
+Jus' the same eyes she's got now, only they looked bigger, 'cause her
+cheeks was caved in."
+
+"Not Ruby, Jim!" I cried, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, Ruby. That's what was on the tag."
+
+"And she isn't Marvin's child?"
+
+"No more'n she's yourn, nor mine. She ain't nobody's child that anybody
+knows about. She's jus' Ruby, and that's all there is to her.
+
+"Well, by the time I'd got her out to the farm and had heared her talk
+and seen her clap her hands at the chippies, and laugh at the birds, and
+go half wild over every little thing she'd see, I knowed I'd got hold o'
+something that filled up every crack o' my heart. And she didn't come a
+day too soon, for Jed had got so ugly there warn't no livin' with him,
+and I'd made up my mind to quit, and I would if he hadn't took a streak
+ag'in Ruby at the start. Then I knowed where my trail led. And arter
+that I never let her out o' my sight. Marm Marvin was different. She
+never had no child o' her own, and she warmed up to Ruby more'n more
+every day, and she loves her now much as she kin love anything.
+
+"That fust winter we had a good deal o' snow and I made a pair o'
+leggins for her out o' a deer's skin I'd killed, and rigged up a sled,
+and I'd haul her after me wherever I went, and when school opened down
+to the cross-roads I'd haul her down and bring her back if the snow
+warn't too deep, and when summer come she'd go 'long jus' the same. I
+taught her to fish and shoot, and often she'd stay out in camp with me
+all night when I was tendin' the sugar-maples--she sleepin' on the
+balsams with my coat throwed over her.
+
+"Things went on this way till 'bout three years ago, when I see she
+warn't gittin' ahead fast as she could, and I went for the old man to
+send her to school down to Plymouth. Marm Marvin was willin', but Jed
+held out, and at last he give in after my talkin' to him. So I hooked up
+the buck-board and drove her down to Plymouth and left her, with her
+arms 'round my neck and the tears streamin' down her face. But she was
+game all the same, only she hated to have me leave her.
+
+"Every July and Christmas I'd go for her, and she'd allus be waitin' for
+me at the head o' the stairs or would come runnin' down with her arms
+wide open, and she'd kiss me and hug me and call me dear Uncle Jim, and
+tell me how she loved me, and how there warn't nothin' in the world she
+loved so much; and then when she'd git home we'd tramp the woods
+together every chance we got."
+
+Jim stopped and bent forward, his face in his hands, his elbows on his
+knees. For a time he was silent; then he went on:
+
+"This last time when I went for her she pretty nigh took my breath away.
+She seemed just as glad to see me, but she didn't git into my arms as
+she ueeter, and she looked different, too. She had growed every way
+bigger, and wider, and older. I kep' a-lookin' at her, tryin' to find
+the little girl I'd left some months afore, but she warn't there. She
+acted different, too--more quiet like and still, so that I was feared to
+touch her like I useter, and took it out in talkin' to her and listenin'
+to all she told me o' what she was larnin' and how this winter she was
+goin' to git through and git her certificate, and then she was goin' to
+teach and help her mother--she allus called Marm Marvin mother. Then she
+told me o' how one o' the teachers--a young fellow from a college--was
+goin' to set up a school o' his own and goin' to git some o' the
+graduates to help teach when he got started, and how he had asked her to
+be one o' 'em, and how she was goin' with him.
+
+"Since you been here and us three been together and I begun to see how
+happy she was a-talkin' to you and askin' you questions, I got worse'n
+ever over her. I begun to see that I warn't what I had been to her. When
+we was trampin' and fishin' it was all right and she'd talk to me 'bout
+the ways o' the birds and what flowers come up fust and all that, but
+when it got to geography and history I warn't in it with her, and you
+was. That sickened me more'n ever. Pretty soon I began to feel as if
+everything I had in life war slippin' away from me. I didn't want her to
+shut me out from anything she had. I wanted to have half, same's we
+allus had--half for me and half for her. Why, lately, when I lay awake
+nights a-thinkin' it over, I've wished sometimes that she hadn't growed
+up at all, and that she'd allus be my baby-girl and I her Uncle Jim.
+
+"Yesterday mornin'--" Jim's voice broke, and he cleared his throat.
+"Yesterday mornin' we went down the branch, as ye know, and she was
+a-settin' on a log throwin' her fly into the pool, when one o' them
+song-sparrows lit on a bush and looked at her, and begin to sing like
+he'd bust his little chest, and she sung back at him with her eyes
+a-laughin' and her hair a-flyin', and I stood lookin' at her and my
+heart choked up in my throat, and I leaned over and took the rod out
+o' her hand.
+
+"'Baby-girl,' I says, 'there ain't a bird 'round here that ain't got a
+mate; and that's what makes 'em so happy. I ain't got nobody but you,
+Ruby--don't go 'way from me, child--stay with me.' And I told her. She
+looked at me startled like, same as a deer does when he hears a dog
+bark; then she jumped up and begin to cry.
+
+"'Oh, Jim--Jim--dear Jim!' she says. 'I love you so, and you've been so
+good to me all my life, but don't--don't never say that to me again.
+That can never be--not so long as we live.' And she dropped down on the
+ground and cried till she couldn't git her breath. Then she got up and
+kissed my hands and went home, leavin' me there alone feelin' like I'd
+fell off a scaffoldin' and struck the sidewalk."
+
+Jim arose from his seat and began pacing the platform again. I had not
+spoken a word through his long story.
+
+"Jim," I began, "how old are you?"
+
+"Forty-two," he said, in a patient, listless way.
+
+"More than twice as old as Ruby, aren't you? Old enough, really, to be
+her father. You love her, don't you--love her for herself--not yourself?
+You wouldn't let anything hurt her if you could help it. You were right
+when you said every bird has its mate. That's true, Jim, and the way it
+ought to be--but they mate with _this_ year's birds, not _last_ year's.
+When men get as old as you and I we forget these things sometimes, but
+they are true all the same."
+
+"I know it," he broke out, "I know it; you can't tell me nothin' about
+it. I thought it all over more'n a hundred times lately. I could bite my
+tongue off for sayin' what I did to her, and spilin' her visit, but it's
+done now and I can't help it, and I've got to stay here and bear it."
+
+"No, Jim, don't stay here. So long as she sees you around here she'll be
+unhappy, and you will be equally miserable. Go away from here; find work
+somewhere else."
+
+"When?" he said, quietly.
+
+"Now; right away; before she comes back at Christmas."
+
+"No, I can't do it, and I won't. Not till she graduates and gits her
+certificate. That'll be next June."
+
+"What's that got to do with it?"
+
+"Got a good deal to do with it. If I should leave now jes's winter's
+comin' on I mightn't git another job, and she'd have to come home and
+her eddication be sp'ilt."
+
+"What would bring her home?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"What would bring her home?" he repeated, with some irritation. "Why
+they'd send her if the bills warn't paid--that's what Marm Marvin
+couldn't help her, and Jed wouldn't give her a cent. Them school-bills,
+you know, I've always paid out o' my wages--that's why Jed let her go.
+No; I'll stick it out here till she finishes, if it kills me. Baby-girl
+sha'n't miss nothin' through me."
+
+One beautiful spring day I swung back the gate of a garden on the
+outskirts of the village of Plymouth and walked up a flower-bordered
+path to a cottage porch smothered in vines.
+
+Ruby was standing in the door, her hands held out to me. I had not seen
+her for years. Her husband had not returned yet from their school, but
+she expected him every minute.
+
+"And dear old Jim?" I asked. "What has become of him?"
+
+"Look," she said, pointing to a shambling, awkward figure stooping under
+the apple-trees, which were in full bloom. "There he is, picking
+blossoms with little Ruby. He never leaves her for a minute."
+
+
+
+COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR--COLOGNE TO PARIS
+
+He was looking through a hole--a square hole, framed about with mahogany
+and ground glass. His face was red, his eyes were black, his
+mustache--waxed to two needle-points--was a yellowish brown; his necktie
+blue and his uniform dark chocolate seamed with little threads of
+vermilion and incrusted with silver poker-chip buttons emblazoned with
+the initials of the corporation which he served.
+
+I knew I was all right when I read the initials. I had found the place
+and the man. The place was the ticket-office of the International
+Sleeping-Car Company. The man was its agent.
+
+So I said, very politely and in my best French--it is a little frayed
+and worn at the edges, but it arrives--sometimes----
+
+"A lower for Paris."
+
+The man in chocolate, with touches of the three primary colors
+distributed over his person, half-closed his eyes, lifted his shoulders
+in a tired way, loosened his fingers, and, without changing the
+lay-figure expression of his face, replied:
+
+"There is nothing."
+
+"Not a berth?"
+
+"Not a berth."
+
+"Are they all _paid_ for?" and I accented the word _paid_. I spend
+countless nights on Pullmans in my own country and am familiar with many
+uncanny devices.
+
+"All but one."
+
+"Why can't I have it? It is within an hour of train-time. Who ordered
+it?"
+
+"The Director of the great circus. He is here now waiting for his
+troupe, which arrives from Berlin in a special car belonging to our
+company. The other car--the one that starts from here--is full. We have
+only two cars on this train--Monsieur the Director has the last berth."
+
+He said this, of course, in his native language. I am merely translating
+it. I would give it to you in the original, but it might embarrass you;
+it certainly would me.
+
+"What's the matter with putting the Circus Director in the special car?
+Your regulations say berths must be paid for one hour before train-time.
+It is now fifty-five minutes of eight. Your train goes at eight, doesn't
+it? Here is a twenty-franc gold piece--never mind the change"--and I
+flung a napoleon on the desk before him.
+
+The bunch of fingers disentangled themselves, the shoulders sank an
+inch, the waxed ends of the taffy-colored mustache vibrated slightly,
+and a smile widened in circles across the flat dulness of his face
+until it engulfed his eyebrows, ears, and chin. The effect of the
+dropping of the coin had been like the dropping of a stone into the
+still smoothness of a pool--the wrinkling wavelets had reached the
+uttermost shore-line.
+
+The smile over, he opened a book about the size of an atlas, dipped a
+pen in an inkstand, recorded my point of departure--Cologne, and my
+point of arrival--Paris; dried the inscription with a pinch of black
+sand filched from a saucer--same old black sand used in the last
+century--cut a section of the page with a pair of shears, tossed the
+coin in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a satisfied look,
+slipped the whole twenty-franc piece into his pocket--regular fare,
+fifteen francs, irregular swindle, five francs--and handed me the
+billet. Then he added, with a trace of humor in his voice:
+
+"If Monsieur the Director of the Circus comes now he will go in the
+special car."
+
+I examined the billet. I had Compartment Number Four, upper berth, Car
+312.
+
+I lighted a cigarette, gave my small luggage-checks to a porter with
+directions to deposit my traps in my berth when the train was ready--the
+company's office was in the depot--and strolled out to look at
+the station.
+
+You know the Cologne station, of course. It is as big as the Coliseum,
+shaped like an old-fashioned hoop-skirt with a petticoat of glass, and
+connects with one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. It has
+two immense waiting-rooms, with historical frescos on the walls and two
+huge fireplaces supported on nudities shivering with the cold, for no
+stick of wood ever blazes on the well-swept hearths. It has also a
+gorgeous restaurant, with panelled ceiling, across which skip bunches of
+butterfly Cupids in shameless costumes, and an inviting cafe with
+never-dying palms in the windows, a portrait of the Kaiser over the
+counter holding the coffee-urn, and a portrait of the Kaiserin over the
+counter holding the little sticky cakes, the baby bottles of champagne,
+and the long lady-finger sandwiches with bits of red ham hanging from
+their open ends like poodle-dogs' tongues.
+
+Outside these ponderous rooms, under the arching glass of the station
+itself, is a broad platform protected from rushing trains and yard
+engines by a wrought-iron fence, twisted into most enchanting scrolls
+and pierced down its whole length by sliding wickets, before which stand
+be-capped and be-buttoned officials of the road. It is part of the duty
+of these gatemen never to let you through these wickets until the
+arrival of the last possible moment compatible with the boarding of
+your car.
+
+So if you are wise--that is, if you have been left behind several times
+depending on the watchfulness of these Cerberi and their promises to let
+you know when your train is ready--you hang about this gate and keep an
+eye out as to what is going on. I had been two nights on the sleeper
+through from Warsaw and beyond, and could take no chances.
+
+Then again, I wanted to watch the people coming and going--it is a habit
+of mine; nothing gives me greater pleasure. It has made me an expert in
+judging human nature. I flatter myself that I can tell the moment I set
+my eyes on a man just what manner of life he leads, what language he
+speaks, whether he be rich or poor, educated or ignorant. I can do all
+this before he opens his mouth. I have never been proud of this faculty.
+I have regarded it more as a gift, as I would an acute sense of color,
+or a correct eye for drawing, or the ability to acquire a language
+quickly. I was born that way, I suppose.
+
+The first man to approach the wicket was the Director of the Circus. I
+knew him at once. There was no question as to _his_ identity. He wore a
+fifty-candle-power stone in his shirt-front, a silk hat that shone like
+a new hansom cab, and a Prince Albert coat that came below his knees. He
+had taken off his ring boots, of course, and was without his whip, but
+otherwise he was completely equipped to raise his hat and say: "Ladies
+and Gentlemen, the world-renowned," etc., etc., "will now perform the
+blood-curdling act of," etc.
+
+He was attended by a servant, was smooth-shaven, had an Oriental
+complexion as yellow as the back of an old law-book, black, jet-black
+eyes, and jet-black hair.
+
+I listened for some outbreak, some explosion about his bed having been
+sold from under him, some protest about the rights of a citizen. None
+came. The gateman merely touched his hat, slid back the gate, and the
+Director of the Greatest Show on Earth, smiling haughtily, passed in,
+crossed the platform and stepped into a _wagon-lit_ standing on the next
+track to me labelled "Paris 312," and left me behind. The gateman had
+had free tickets, of course, or would have, for himself and family
+whenever the troupe should be in Cologne. There was no doubt of it--I
+saw it in the smile that permeated his face and the bow that bent his
+back as the man passed him. This kind of petty bribery is, of course,
+abominable, and should never be countenanced.
+
+Some members of the troupe came next. The gentleman in chocolate with my
+five francs in his pocket did not mention the name of any other member
+of the troupe except the Director, but it was impossible for me to be
+mistaken about these people--I have seen too many of them.
+
+She was rather an imposing-looking woman--not young, not old--dressed in
+a long travelling-cloak trimmed with fur (how well we know these
+night-cloaks of the professional!), and was holding by a short leash an
+enormous Danish hound; one of those great hulking hounds--a hound whose
+shoulders shake when he walks, with white, blinky eyes, smooth skin, and
+mottled spots--brown and gray--spattered along his back and ribs. Trick
+dog, evidently--one who springs at the throat of the assassin (the
+assassin has a thin slice of sausage tucked inside his collar-button),
+pulls him to the earth, and sucks his life's blood or chews his throat.
+She, too, went through with a sweep--the dog beside her, followed by a
+maid carrying two band-boxes, a fur boa, and a bunch of parasols closely
+furled and tied with a ribbon. I braced up, threw out my shoulders, and
+walked boldly up to the wicket. The be-buttoned and be-capped man looked
+at me coldly, waved me away with his hand, and said "Nein."
+
+Now, when a man of intelligence, speaking the language of the country,
+backed by the police, the gendarmerie, and the Imperial Army, says
+"Nein" to me, if I am away from home I generally bow to the will of
+the people.
+
+So I waited.
+
+Then I heard the low rumble of a train and a short high-keyed shriek--we
+used to make just such shrieking sounds by blowing into keys when we
+were boys. The St. Petersburg express was approaching end foremost--the
+train with the special sleeping-car holding the balance of the circus
+troupe. The next moment it bumped gently into Car No. 312, holding the
+Director (I wondered whether he had my berth), the woman with the dog,
+and her maid.
+
+The gateman paused until the train came to a dead standstill, waited
+until the last arriving passenger had passed through an exit lower down
+along the fence, slid back the gate, and I walked through--alone! Not
+another passenger either before or behind me! And the chocolate
+gentleman told me the car was full! The fraud!
+
+When I reached the steps of Car No. 312 I found a second gentleman in
+chocolate and poker-chip buttons. He was scrutinizing a list of sold and
+unsold compartments by the aid of a conductor's lantern braceleted on
+his elbow. He turned the glare of his lantern on my ticket, entered the
+car and preceded me down its narrow aisle and slid back the door of
+Number Four. I stepped and discovered, to my relief, my small luggage,
+hat-box, shawl, and umbrella, safely deposited in the upper berth. My
+night's rest, at all events, was assured.
+
+I found also a bald-headed passenger, who was standing with his back to
+me stowing his small luggage into the lower berth. He looked at me over
+his shoulder for a moment, moved his bag so that I could pass, and went
+on with his work. My sharing his compartment had evidently produced an
+unpleasant impression.
+
+I slipped off my overcoat, found my travelling-cap, and was about to
+light a fresh cigarette when there came a tap at the door. Outside in
+the aisle stood a man with a silk hat in his hand.
+
+"Monsieur, I am the Manager of the Compagnie Internationale. It is my
+pleasure to ask whether you have everything for your comfort. I am going
+on to Paris with this same train, so I shall be quite within
+your reach."
+
+I thanked him for his courtesy, assured him that now that all my traps
+were in my berth and the conductor had shown me to my compartment, my
+wants were supplied, and watched him knock at the next door. Then I
+stepped out into the aisle.
+
+It was an ordinary European Pullman, some ten staterooms in a row, a
+lavatory at one end and a three-foot sofa at the other. When you are
+unwilling to take your early morning coffee on the gritty, dust-covered,
+one-foot-square, propped-up-with-a-leg table in your stuffy compartment,
+you drink it sitting on this sofa. Three of these compartment doors were
+open. The woman with the dog was in Number One. The big dog and the maid
+in Number Two, and the Ring Master in Number Three (his original number,
+no doubt; the clerk had only lied)--I, of course, came next in
+Number Four.
+
+Soon I became conscious that a discussion was going on in the newly
+arrived circus-car whose platform touched ours. I could hear the voice
+of a woman and then the gruff tones of a man. Then a babel of sounds
+came sifting down the aisle. I stepped over the dog, who had now
+stretched himself at full length in the aisle, and out on to
+the platform.
+
+A third gentleman in chocolate--the porter of the circus-car and a
+duplicate of our own--was being besieged by a group of people all
+talking at once and all in different tongues. A mild-eyed, pink-cheeked
+young man in spectacles was speaking German; a richly dressed woman of
+thirty-five, very stately and very beautiful, was interpolating in
+Russian, and a plump, rosy-cheeked, energetic little Englishwoman was
+hurling English in a way as pointed as it was forcible. Everybody was
+excited and everybody was angry. Standing in the car-door listening
+intently was a French maid and two round-faced, wide-collared boys, of
+say ten and twelve. The dispute was evidently over these two boys, as
+every attack contained some direct allusion to "mes enfants" or "these
+children" or "die Kinder," ending in the forefinger of each speaker
+being thrust bayonet fashion toward the boys.
+
+While I was making up my mind as to the particular roles which these
+several members of the Greatest Show on Earth played, I heard the
+English girl say--in French, of course--English-French--with an accent:
+
+"It is a shame to be treated in this way. We have paid for every one of
+these compartments, and you know it. The young masters will not go in
+those vile-smelling staterooms for the night. It's no place for them. I
+will go to the office and complain."
+
+[Illustration: Everybody was excited and everybody was mad.]
+
+The third chocolate attendant, in reply, merely lifted his shoulders. It
+was the same old lift--a tired feeling seems to permeate these
+gentlemen, as if they were bored to death. A hotel clerk on the Riviera
+sometimes has this lift when he tells you he has not a bed in the house
+and you tell him he--prevaricates. I knew something of the lift--
+had already cost me five francs. I knew, too, what kind of medicine that
+sort of tired feeling needed, and that until the bribe was paid the
+young woman and her party would be bedless.
+
+My own anger was now aroused. Here was a woman, rather a pretty woman,
+an Anglo-Saxon--my own race--in a strange city and under the power of a
+minion whose only object was plunder. That she jumped through hoops or
+rode bareback in absurdly short clothes, or sold pink lemonade in
+spangles, made no difference. She was in trouble, and needed assistance.
+I advanced with my best bow.
+
+"Madam, can I do anything for you?"
+
+She turned, and, with a grateful smile, said:
+
+"Oh, you speak English?"
+
+I again inclined my head.
+
+"Well, sir, we have come from St. Petersburg by way of Berlin. We had
+five compartments through to Paris for our party when we started, all
+paid for, and this man has the tickets. He says we must get out here and
+buy new tickets or we must all go in two staterooms, which is
+impossible--" and she swept her hand over the balance of the troupe.
+
+The chocolate gentleman again lifted his shoulders. He had been abused
+in that way by passengers since the day of his birth.
+
+The richly dressed woman, another Leading Lady doubtless, now joined in
+the conversation--she probably was the trained rabbit-woman or the girl
+with the pigeons--pigeons most likely, for these stars are always
+selected by the management for their beauty, and she certainly was
+beautiful.
+
+"And Monsieur"--this in French--again I spare the reader--"I have given
+him"--pointing to the chocolate gentleman--"pour boire all the time. One
+hundred francs yesterday and two gold pieces this morning. My maid is
+quite right--it is abominable, such treatment----"
+
+The personalities now seemed to weary the attendant. His elbows widened,
+his shoulders nearly touched his ears, and his fingers opened; then he
+went into his closet and shut the door. So far as he was concerned the
+debate was closed.
+
+The memory of my own five francs now loomed up, and with them the
+recollection of the trick by which they had been stolen from me.
+
+"Madam," I said, gravely, "I will bring the manager. He is here and
+will see that justice is done you."
+
+It was marvellous to watch what followed. The manager listened patiently
+to the Pigeon Charmer's explanation of the outrage, started suddenly
+when she mentioned some details which I did not hear, bowed as low to
+her reply as if she had been a Duchess--his hat to the floor--slid back
+the closet-door, beckoned me to step in, closed it again upon the three
+of us, and in less than five minutes he had the third chocolate
+gentleman out of his chocolate uniform and stripped to his underwear,
+with every pocket turned inside out, bringing to light the
+one-hundred-franc note, the gold pieces, and all five of the circus
+parties' tickets.
+
+Then he flung the astonished and humiliated man his trousers, waited
+until he had pulled them on, grabbed him by his shirt-collar and marched
+him out of the car across the platform through the wicket gate, every
+passenger on the train looking on in wonder. Five minutes later the
+whole party--the stately Pigeon Charmer, her English maid, the
+spectacled German (performing sword-swallower or lightning calculator
+probably), and the two boys (tumblers unquestionably), with all their
+belongings--were transferred to my car, the Pigeon Charmer graciously
+accepting my escort, the passengers, including the bald-headed man--my
+room-mate--standing on one side to let us pass: all except the big dog,
+who had shifted his quarters, and was now stretched out at the sofa end
+of the car.
+
+Then another extraordinary thing happened--or rather a series of
+extraordinary things.
+
+When I had deposited the Pigeon Charmer in her own compartment (Number
+Five, next door), and had entered my own, I found my bald-headed
+room-mate again inside. This time he was seated by the foot-square,
+dust-covered table assorting cigarettes. He had transferred my small
+luggage--bag, coat, etc.--to the _lower_ berth, and had arranged his own
+belongings in the upper one.
+
+He sprang to his feet the instant he saw me.
+
+The bow of the Sleeping-Car Manager to the Pigeon Charmer was but a bend
+in a telegraph-pole to the sweep the bald-headed man now made me. I
+thought his scalp would touch the car-floor.
+
+"No, your Highness," he cried, "I insist"--this to my protest that I had
+come last--that he had prior right--besides, he was an older man, etc.,
+etc.--"I could not sleep if I thought you were not most
+comfortable--nothing can move me. Pardon me--will not your Highness
+accept one of my poor cigarettes? They, of course, are not like the ones
+you use, but I always do my best. I have now a new cigarette-girl, and
+she rolled them for me herself, and brought them to me just as I was
+leaving St. Petersburg. Permit me"--and he handed me a little leather
+box filled with Russian cigarettes.
+
+Now, figuratively speaking, when you have been buncoed out of five
+francs by a menial in a ticket-office, jumped upon and trampled under
+foot by a gate-keeper who has kept you cooling your heels outside his
+wicket while your inferiors have passed in ahead of you--to have even a
+bald-headed man kotow to you, give you the choice berth in the
+compartment, move your traps himself, and then apologize for offering
+you the best cigarette you ever smoked in your life--well! that is to
+have myrrh, and frankincense, and oil of balsam, and balm of Gilead
+poured on your tenderest wound.
+
+I accepted the cigarette.
+
+Not haughtily--not even condescendingly--just as a matter of course. He
+had evidently found out who and what I was. He had seen me address the
+Pigeon Charmer, and had recognized instantly, from my speech and
+bearing--both, perhaps--that dominating vital force, that breezy
+independence which envelops most Americans, and which makes them so
+popular the world over. In thus kotowing he was only getting in line
+with the citizens of most of the other effete monarchies of Europe.
+Every traveller is conscious of it. His bow showed it--so did the soft
+purring quality of his speech. Recollections of Manila, Santiago, and
+the voyage of the Oregon around Cape Horn were in the bow, and Kansas
+wheat, Georgia cotton, and the Steel Trust in the dulcet tones of his
+voice. That he should have mistaken me for a great financial magnate
+controlling some one of these colossal industries, instead of locating
+me instantly as a staid, gray-haired, and rather impecunious
+landscape-painter, was quite natural. Others before him have made that
+same mistake. Why, then, undeceive him? Let it go--he would leave in the
+morning and go his way, and I should never see him more. So I smoked on,
+chatting pleasantly and, as was my custom, summing him up.
+
+He was perhaps seventy--smooth-shaven--black--coal-black eyes. Dressed
+simply in black clothes--not a jewel--no watch-chain even--no rings on
+his hands but a plain gold one like a wedding-ring. His dressing-case
+showed the gentleman. Bottles with silver tops--brushes backed with
+initials--soap in a silver cup. Red morocco Turkish slippers with
+pointed toes; embroidered smoking-cap--all appointments of a man of
+refinement and of means. Tucked beside his razor-case were some books
+richly bound, and some bundles tied with red tape. Like most educated
+Russians, he spoke English with barely an accent.
+
+I was not long in arriving at a conclusion. No one would have been--no
+one of my experience. He was either a despatch-agent connected with the
+Government, or some lawyer of prominence, who was on his way to Paris to
+look after the interests of some client of his in Russia. The latter,
+probably. The only man on the car he seemed to know, besides myself, was
+the Sleeping-Car Manager, who lifted his hat to him as he passed, and
+the Ring Master, with whom he stood talking at the door of his
+compartment. This, however, was before I had brought the Pigeon Charmer
+into the car.
+
+The cigarette smoked, I was again in the corridor, the bald-headed man
+holding the door for me to pass out first.
+
+It was now nine o'clock, and we had been under way an hour. I found the
+Pigeon Charmer occupying the sofa. The two young Acrobats and the
+Lightning Calculator were evidently in bed, and the maid, no doubt, busy
+preparing her mistress's couch for the night. She smiled quite frankly
+when I approached, and motioned me to a seat beside her. All these
+professional people the world over have unconventional manners, and an
+acquaintance is often easily made--at least, that has been my
+experience.
+
+She began by thanking me in French for my share in getting her such
+comfortable quarters--dropped into German for a sentence or two, as if
+trying to find out my nationality--and finally into English, saying,
+parenthetically:
+
+"You are English, are you not?"
+
+No financial magnate this time--rather queer, I thought--that she missed
+that part of my personality. My room-mate had recognized it, even to the
+extent of calling me "Your Highness."
+
+"No, an American."
+
+"Oh, an American! Yes, I should have known--No, you are not English. You
+are too kind to be English. An Englishman would not have taken even a
+little bit of trouble to help us." I noticed the race prejudice in her
+tone, but I did not comment on it.
+
+Then followed the customary conversation, I doing most of the talking. I
+began by telling her how big our country was; how many people we had;
+how rich the land; how wealthy the citizens; how great the opportunities
+for artists seeking distinction, etc. We all do that with foreigners.
+Then I tried to lead the conversation so as to find out something about
+herself--particularly where she could be seen in Paris. She was charming
+in her travelling-costume--she would be superb in low neck and bare
+arms, her pets snuggling under her chin, or alighting on her upraised,
+shapely hands. But either she did not understand, or she would not let
+me see she did--the last, probably, for most professional people dislike
+all reference to their trade by non-professionals--they object to be
+even mentally classed by themselves.
+
+While we talked on, the Dog Woman opened the door of her compartment,
+knocked at the Dog's door--his Dogship and the maid were inside--patted
+the brute on his head, and re-entered her compartment and shut the door
+for the night.
+
+I looked for some recognition between the two members of the same
+troupe, but my companion gave not the slightest sign that the Dog Woman
+existed. Jealous, of course, I said to myself. That's another
+professional trait.
+
+The Ring Master now passed, raised his hat and entered his compartment.
+No sign of recognition; rather a cold, frigid stare, I thought.
+
+The Sleeping-Car Manager next stepped through the car, lifted his hat
+when he caught sight of my companion, tiptoed deferentially until he
+reached the door, and went on to the next car. She acknowledged his
+homage with a slight bend of her beautiful head, rose from her seat,
+gave an order in Russian to her English maid who was standing in the
+door of her compartment, held out her hand to me with a frank
+good-night, and closed the door behind her.
+
+I looked in on the bald-headed man. He was tucked away in the upper
+berth sound asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the next morning I moved up the long platform of the Gare du Nord
+in search of a cab, I stepped immediately behind the big Danish hound.
+He was walking along, his shoulders shaking as he walked, his tongue
+hanging from his mouth. The Woman had him by a leash, her maid following
+with the band-boxes, the feather boa, and the parasols. In the crowd
+behind me walked the bald-headed man, his arm, to my astonishment,
+through that of the King Master's. _They_ both kotowed as they switched
+off to the baggage-room, the Ring Master bowing even lower than
+my roommate.
+
+Then I became sensible of a line of lackeys in livery fringing the edge
+of the platform, and at their head a most important-looking individual
+with a decoration on the lapel of his coat. He was surrounded by half a
+dozen young men, some in brilliant uniforms. They were greeting with
+great formality my fair companion of the night before! The two Acrobats,
+the German Calculator, and the English bareback-rider maid stood on
+one side.
+
+My thought was that it was all an advertising trick of the Circus
+people, arranged for spectacular effect to help the night's receipts.
+
+While I looked on in wonder, the Manager of the Sleeping-Car Company
+joined me.
+
+"I must thank you, sir," he said, "for making known to me the outrage
+committed by one of our porters on the Princess. She is travelling
+incognito, and I did not know she was on the train until she told me
+last night who she was. We get the best men we can, but we are
+constantly having trouble of that kind with our porters. The trick is to
+give every passenger a whole compartment, and then keep packing them
+together unless they pay something handsome to be let alone. I shall
+make an example of that fellow. He is a new one and didn't know me"--and
+he laughed.
+
+"Do they call her the _Princess_?" I asked. They were certainly
+receiving her like one, I thought.
+
+"Why, certainly, I thought you knew her," and he looked at me curiously,
+"the Princess Dolgorouki Sliniski. Her husband, the Prince, is attached
+to the Emperor's household. She is travelling with her two boys and
+their German tutor. The old gentleman with the white mustache now
+talking to her is the Russian Ambassador. And you only met her on the
+train? Old Azarian told me you knew her intimately."
+
+"Azarian!" I was groping round in the fog now.
+
+"Yes--your room-mate. He is an Armenian and one of the richest bankers
+in Russia. He lends money to the Czar. His brother got on with you at
+Cologne. There they go together to look after their luggage--they have
+an agency here, although their main bank is in St. Petersburg. The
+brother had the compartment next to that woman, with the big dog. She is
+the wife of a rich brewer in Cologne, and just think--we must always
+give that brute a compartment when she travels. Is it not outrageous? It
+is against the rules, but the orders come from up above"--and he jerked
+his finger meaningly over his shoulder.
+
+The fog was so thick now I could cut it with a knife.
+
+"One moment, please," I said, and I laid my hand on his elbow and
+looked him searchingly in the eye. I intended now to clear things up.
+"Was there a circus troupe on the train last night?"
+
+"No." The answer came quite simply, and I could see it was the truth.
+
+"Nor one expected?"
+
+"No. There _was_ a circus, but it went through last week."
+
+
+
+SAMMY
+
+It was on the Limited: 10.30 Night Express out of Louisville, bound
+south to Nashville and beyond.
+
+I had lower Four.
+
+When I entered the sleeper the porter was making up the berths, the
+passengers sitting about in each other's way until their beds
+were ready.
+
+I laid my bag on an empty seat, threw my overcoat over its back, and sat
+down to face a newspaper within a foot of my nose. There was a man
+behind it, but he was too intent on its columns to be aware of my
+presence. I made an inspection of his arms and hands and right leg, the
+only portions of his surface exposed to view.
+
+I noticed that the hands were strong and well-shaped, their backs
+speckled with brown spots--too well kept to have guided a plough and
+too weather-tanned to have wielded a pen. The leg which was crossed, the
+foot resting on the left knee, was full and sinewy, the muscles of the
+thigh well developed, and the round of the calf firmly modelled. The
+ankle was small and curved like an axe handle and looked as tough.
+
+There are times when the mind lapses into vacancy. Nothing interests
+it. I find it so while waiting to have my berth made up; sleep is too
+near to waste gray matter.
+
+A man's thighs, however, interest me in any mood and at any time. While
+you may get a man's character from his face, you can, if you will, get
+his past life from his thigh. It is the walking beam of his locomotion;
+controls his paddles and is developed in proportion to its uses. It
+indicates, therefore, the man's habits and his mode of life.
+
+If he has sat all day with one leg lapped over the other, arm on chair,
+head on hand, listening or studying--preachers, professors, and all the
+other sedentaries sit like this--then the thigh shrinks, the muscles
+droop, the bones of the ankle bulge, and the knee-joints push through.
+If he delivers mail, or collects bills, or drives a pack-mule, or walks
+a tow-path, the muscles of the thigh are hauled taut like cables, the
+knee-muscles keep their place, the calves are full of knots--one big one
+in a bunch just below the strap of his knickerbockers, should he
+wear them.
+
+If he carries big weights on his back--sacks of salt, as do the poor
+stevedores in Venice; or coal in gunnies, as do the coolies in Cuba; or
+wine in casks, or coffee in bags, then the calves swell abnormally, the
+thighs solidify; the lines of beauty are lost; but the lines of
+strength remain.
+
+If, however, he has spent his life in the saddle, rounding up cattle,
+chasing Indians, hunting bandits in Mexico, ankle and foot loose, his
+knees clutched tightly, hugging that other part of him, the horse, then
+the muscles of the thigh round out their intended lines--the most subtle
+in the modulating curving of the body. The aboriginal bareback rider
+must have been a beauty.
+
+I at once became interested then in the man before me, or rather in his
+thighs--the "Extra" hid the rest.
+
+I began to picture him to myself--young, blond hair, blue eyes, drooping
+mustache, slouch hat canted rakishly over one eye; not over twenty-five
+years of age. I had thought forty, until a movement of the paper
+uncovered for a moment his waist-line which curved in instead of out.
+This settled it--not a day over twenty-five, of course!
+
+The man's fingers tightened on the edges of the paper. He was still
+reading, entirely unconscious that my knees were within two inches
+of his own.
+
+Then I heard this exclamation--
+
+"It's a damned outrage!"
+
+My curiosity got the better of me--I coughed.
+
+The paper dropped instantly.
+
+"My dear sir," he said, bending forward courteously and laying his hand
+on my wrist, "I owe you an apology. I had no idea anyone was
+opposite me."
+
+If I was a surprise to him, he was doubly so to me.
+
+My picture had vanished.
+
+He was sixty-five, if a day; gray, with bushy eyebrows, piercing brown
+eyes, heavy, well-trimmed mustache, strong chin and nose, with fine
+determined lines about the mouth. A man in perfect health, his full
+throat browned with many weathers showing above a low collar caught
+together by a loose black cravat--a handsome, rather dashing sort of a
+man for one so old.
+
+"I say it is a shame, sir," he continued, "the way they are lynching the
+negroes around here. Have you read the Extra?" passing it over to me
+--"Another this morning at Cramptown. It's an infernal outrage, sir!"
+
+I had read the "Extra," with all its sickening details, and so handed it
+back to him.
+
+"I quite agree with you," I said; "but this man was a brute."
+
+"No doubt of it, sir. We've got brutal negroes among us, just as we've
+got brutal white men. But that's no reason why we should hang them
+without a trial; we still owe them that justice. When we dealt fairly
+with them there was never any such trouble. There were hundreds of
+plantations in the South during the war where the only men left were
+negroes. We trusted our wives and children to them; and yet such
+outrages as these were unheard of and absolutely impossible. I don't
+expect you to agree with me, of course; but I tell you, sir, the
+greatest injustice the North over did the slave was in robbing him of
+his home. I am going to have a smoke before going to bed. Won't you
+join me?"
+
+Acquaintances are quickly made and as quickly ended in a Pullman. Men's
+ways lie in such diverse directions, and the hours of contact are often
+so short, that no one can afford to be either ungracious or exclusive.
+The "buttoned-up" misses the best part of travelling. He is like a
+camera with the cap on--he never gets a new impression. The man with the
+shutters of his ears thrown wide and the lids of his eyes tied back gets
+a new one every hour.
+
+If, in addition to this, he wears the lens of his heart upon his sleeve,
+and will adjust it so as to focus the groups around him--it may be a
+pair of lovers, or some tired mother, or happy child, or lonely
+wayfarer, or a waif--he will often get a picture of joy, or sorrow, or
+hope--life dramas all--which will not only enrich the dull hours of
+travel, but will leave imprints on the mind which can be developed later
+into the richest and tenderest memories of his life.
+
+I have a way of arranging my own sensitized plates, and I get a certain
+amount of entertainment out of the process, and now and then a Rembrandt
+effect whose lights and darks often thrill me for days.
+
+So when this unknown man, with his young legs and his old face, asked
+me, on one minute's acquaintance, to smoke, I accepted at once.
+
+"I am right about it, my dear sir," he continued, biting off the end of
+a cigar and sharing with me the lighted match. "The negro is infinitely
+worse off than in the slave days. We never had to hang any one of them
+then to make the others behave themselves."
+
+"How do you account for it?" I asked, settling myself in my chair. (We
+were alone in the smoking compartment.)
+
+"Account for what?"
+
+"The change that has come over the South--to the negro," I answered.
+
+"The negro has become a competitor, sir. The interests of the black man
+and the white man now lie apart. Once the white man was his friend; now
+he is his rival."
+
+His eyes were boring into mine; his teeth set tight.
+
+The doctrine was new to me, but I did not interrupt him.
+
+"It wasn't so in the old days. We shared what we had with them.
+One-third of the cabins of the South were filled with the old and
+helpless. Now these unfortunates are out in the cold; their own people
+can't help them, and the white man won't."
+
+"Were you a slave-owner?" I asked, not wishing to dispute the point.
+
+"No, sir; but my father was. He had fifty of them on our plantation. He
+never whipped one of them, and he wouldn't let anybody else strike them,
+either. There wasn't one of them that wouldn't have come back if we had
+had a place to put him. The old ones are all dead now, thank God!--all
+except old Aleck; he's around yet."
+
+"One of your father's slaves, did you say?"
+
+I was tapping away at the door of his recollections, camera all ready.
+
+"Yes; he carried me about on his back when I was so high," and he
+measured the distance with his hand. "Aleck and I were boys together. I
+was about eight and he about fifteen when my father got him."
+
+My companion paused, drumming on the leather covering of his chair. I
+waited, hoping he would at least open his door wide enough to give me a
+glimpse inside.
+
+"Curiously enough," he went on, "I've been thinking of Aleck all day. I
+heard yesterday that he was sick again, and it has worried me a good
+deal. He's pretty feeble now, and I don't know how long he'll last."
+
+He flicked the ashes from his cigar, nursing his knee with the other
+hand. The leg must have pained him, for I noticed that he lifted it
+carefully and moved it on one side, as if for greater relief.
+
+"Rheumatism?" I ventured, sympathetically.
+
+"No; just _gets_ that way sometimes," he replied, carelessly. "But
+Aleck's got it bad; can hardly walk. Last time I saw him he was about
+bent double."
+
+Again he relapsed into silence, smoking quietly.
+
+"And you tell me," I said, "that this old slave was loyal to your family
+after his freedom?"
+
+He hadn't told me anything of the kind; but I had found his key-hole
+now, and was determined to get inside his door, even if I picked the
+lock with a skeleton-key.
+
+"Aleck!" he cried, rousing himself with a laugh; "well, I should say so!
+Anybody would be loyal who'd been treated as my father treated Aleck. He
+took him out of jail and gave him a home, and would have looked after
+him till he died if the war hadn't broken out. Aleck wasn't raised on
+our plantation. He was a runaway from North Carolina. There were three
+of them that got across the river--a man and his wife and Aleck. The
+slave-driver had caught Aleck in our town and had locked him up in the
+caboose for safe-keeping. Then he came to my father to help him catch
+the other two. But my father wasn't that kind of a man. The old
+gentleman had curious notions about a good many things. He believed when
+a slave ran away that the fault was oftener the master's than the
+negro's. 'They are nothing but children,' he would say, 'and you must
+treat them like children. Whipping is a poor way to bring anybody up.'
+
+"So when my father heard about the three runaways he refused to have
+anything to do with the case. This made the driver anxious.
+
+"'Judge,' he said--my father had been a Judge of the County Court for
+years--'if you'll take the case I'll give you this boy Aleck as a fee.
+He's worth a thousand dollars.'
+
+"'Send for him,' said my father. 'I'll tell you when I see him.'
+
+"So they brought him in. He was a big, strong boy, with powerful
+shoulders, black as a chunk of coal, and had a look about him that made
+you trust him at first sight. My father believed in him the moment
+he saw him.
+
+"'What did you run away for, Aleck?' he asked.
+
+"The boy held his head down.
+
+"'My mother died, Marster, an' I couldn't stay dar no mo'.'
+
+"'I'll take him,' said my father; 'but on condition that the boy wants
+to live with me.'
+
+"This was another one of the old gentleman's notions. He wouldn't have a
+negro on the place that he had to watch, nor one that wasn't happy.
+
+"The driver opened his eyes and laughed; but my father meant what he
+said, and the papers were made out on those terms. The boy was outside
+in charge of the Sheriff while the papers were being drawn, and when
+they were signed the driver brought him in and said:
+
+"'He's your property, Judge.'
+
+"'Aleck,' father said, 'you've heard?'
+
+"'Yes, sah.'
+
+"The boy stood with tears in his eyes. He thought he was going to get a
+life-sentence. He had never faced a judge before.
+
+"'Well, you're my property now, and I've got a proposition to make to
+you. There's my horse outside hitched to that post. Get on him and ride
+out to my plantation, two miles from here; anybody'll tell you where it
+is. Talk to my negroes around the quarters, and then go over to Mr.
+Shandon's and talk to his negroes--find out from any one of them what
+kind of a master I am, and then come back to me here before sundown and
+tell me if you want to live with me. If you don't want to live with me
+you can go free. Do you understand?'
+
+"My father said it all over again. Aleck looked at the driver, then at
+the Sheriff, and then at my father. Then he crept out of the room, got
+on the mare, and rode up the pike.
+
+"'You've thrown your money away,' said the driver, shrugging his
+shoulders. 'You'll never see that nigger again.'
+
+"The Sheriff laughed, and they both went out. Father said nothing and
+waited. About an hour before sundown back came Aleck. Father always
+said he never saw a man change so in four hours. He went out crouching
+like a dog, his face over his shoulder, scared to death, and he came
+back with his head up and a snap in his eye, looking as if he could whip
+his weight in wildcats.
+
+"'I'll go wid ye, an' thank ye all my life,' was all he said.
+
+"Well, it got out around the village, and that night the other two
+runaways--the man and wife--they were hiding in the town--gave
+themselves up, and one of our neighbors bought them both and set them to
+work on a plantation next to ours, and the driver went away happy.
+
+"I was a little fellow then, running around barefooted, but I remember
+meeting Aleck just as if it were yesterday. He was holding the horse
+while my father and the overseer stood talking on one side. They were
+planning his work and where he should sleep. I crept up to look at him.
+I had heard he was coming and that he was a runaway slave. I thought his
+back would be bloody and all cut to pieces, and that he'd have chains on
+him, and I was disappointed because I couldn't see his skin through his
+shirt and because his hands were free. I must have gotten too near the
+mare, for before I knew it he had lifted me out of danger.
+
+"'What's your name?' I asked.
+
+"'Aleck,' he said; 'an' what's your name, young marster?'
+
+"'Sammy,' I said.
+
+"That's the way it began between us, and it's kept on ever since. I call
+him 'Aleck,' and he calls me 'Sammy'--never anything else, even today."
+
+"He calls you 'Sammy'!" I said, in astonishment. The familiarity was new
+to me between master and slave.
+
+"Yes, always. There isn't another person in the world now that calls me
+'Sammy,'" he answered, with a tremor in his voice.
+
+My travelling-companion stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, drew a
+silver match-safe from his pocket, relighted his cigar, and continued.
+
+"The overseer put Aleck to ploughing the old orchard that lay between
+the quarters and the house. I sneaked out to watch him as a curious
+child would, still intent on seeing his wounds. Soon as Aleck saw me, he
+got a board and nailed it on the plough close to the handle for a seat,
+and tied up the old horse's tail so it wouldn't switch in my face, and
+put me on it, and I never left that plough till sundown. My father asked
+Aleck where he had learned that trick, and Aleck told him he used to
+take his little brother that way before he died.
+
+"After the orchard was ploughed Aleck didn't do a thing but look after
+me. We fished together and went swimming together; and we hunted eggs
+and trapped rabbits; and when I got older and had a gun Aleck would go
+along to look after the dogs and cut down the trees when we were out
+for coons.
+
+"Once I tumbled into a catfish-hole by the dam, and he fished me out;
+and once, while he had crawled in after a woodchuck, a rock slipped and
+pinned him down, and I ran two miles to get help, and fell in a faint
+before I could tell them where he was. What Aleck had in those days I
+had, and what I had he had; and there was no difference between us till
+the war broke out.
+
+"I was grown then, and Aleck was six or seven years older. We were on
+the border-line, and one morning the Union soldiers opened fire, and all
+that was left of the house, barns, outbuildings, and negro quarters was
+a heap of ashes.
+
+"That sent me South, of course, feeling pretty ugly and bitter, and I
+don't know that I've gotten over it since. My father was too old to go,
+and he and my mother moved into the village and lived in two rooms over
+my father's office. The negroes, of course, had to shift for themselves,
+and hard shifting it was--the women and children herding in the towns
+and the men working as teamsters and doing what they could.
+
+"The night before I left home Aleck crawled out to see me. I was hidden
+in a hayrick in the lower pasture. He begged me to let him go with me,
+but I knew father would want him, and he finally gave in and promised
+to stay with him, and I left. But no one was his own master in those
+days, and in a few months they had drafted Aleck and carried him off.
+
+"Three years after that my mother fell ill, and I heard of it and came
+back in disguise, and was arrested as a suspicious character as I
+entered the town. I didn't blame them, for I looked like a tramp and
+intended to. The next day I was let out and went home to where my mother
+and father were living. As I was opening the garden-gate--it was
+night--Aleck laid his hand on my shoulder. He had on the uniform of a
+United States soldier. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. I had lost
+track of him, and, as I found out afterward, so had my father. We stood
+under the street-lamp and he saw the look in my face and threw his hands
+up over his head as a negro does when some sudden shock comes to him.
+
+"'Don't turn away f'om me, Sammy,' he cried; 'please don't, Sammy.
+'Tain't my fault I got on dese clo'es, 'deed it ain't. Dey done fo'ced
+me. I heared you was here an' I been tryin' to git to ye all day. Oh, I
+so glad to git hold ob ye, Sammy, so glad, so glad.' He broke out into
+sobs of crying. I was near it myself, for he was the first one from home
+I had seen, and there was something in his voice that went through me.
+
+"Then he unbuttoned his coat, felt in his pocket, pushed something into
+my hand, and disappeared in the darkness. When I got inside and held it
+out to the light, he had given me two five-dollar greenbacks!
+
+"I was sitting by my mother the next night about ten o'clock--she
+wouldn't let me out of her sight--when there came a rap at the door and
+Aleck came in. I knew how my father would feel about seeing him in those
+clothes. I didn't know till afterward that they were all he had and that
+the poor fellow was as bad off as any of us.
+
+"Father opened upon Aleck right away, just as I knew he would, without
+giving him a chance to speak. He upbraided him for going into the Army,
+told him to take his money back, and showed him the door. The old
+gentleman could be pretty savage when he wanted to, and he didn't spare
+Aleck a bit. Aleck never said a word--just listened to my father's abuse
+of him--his hands folded over his cap, his eyes on the two bills lying
+on the table where my father had thrown them. Then he said, slowly:
+
+"'Marse Henry, I done hearn ye every word. You don't want me here no
+mo', an' I'm gwine away. I ain't a-fightin' agin you an' Sammy an' neber
+will--it's 'cause I couldn't help it dat I'm wearin' dese clo'es. As to
+dis money dat you won't let Sammy take, it's mine to gib 'cause I saved
+it up. I gin it to Sammy 'cause I fotched him up an' 'cause he's as much
+mine as he is your'n. He'll tell ye so same's me. If you say I got to
+take dat money back I got to do it 'cause I ain't neber dis'beyed ye an'
+I ain't gwine to begin now. But I don't want yer ter say it, Marse
+Henry--I don't want yer to say it. You is my marster I know, but Sammy
+is my _chile_. An' anudder thing, dey ain't gwine to let him stay in dis
+town more'n a day. I found dat out yisterday when I heared he'd come.
+Dar ain't no money whar he's gwine, an' dis money ain't nothin' to me
+'cause I kin git mo' an' maybe Sammy can't. Please, Marse Henry, let
+Sammy keep dis money. Dere didn't useter be no diff'ence 'tween us, and
+dere oughtn't to be none now.'
+
+"My father didn't speak again--he hadn't the heart, and Aleck went out,
+leaving the money on the table."
+
+Again my companion stopped and fumbled over the matches in his safe,
+striking one or two nervously and relighting his cigar. It was
+astonishing how often it went out. I sat with my eyes riveted on his
+face. I could see now the lines of tenderness about his mouth and I
+caught certain cadences in his voice which revealed to me but too
+clearly why the negro loved him and why he must always be only a boy to
+the old slave. The cigar a-light, he went on:
+
+"When the war closed I came home and began to pick up my life again.
+Aleck had gone to Wisconsin and was living in the same town as young
+Cruger, one of my father's law-students. When my father died, I
+telegraphed Cruger, inviting him to serve as one of the pall-bearers,
+and asked him to find Aleck and tell him. I knew he would be hurt if I
+didn't let him know.
+
+"At two o'clock that night my niece, who was with my mother, rapped at
+my door. I was sitting up with my father's body and would go down every
+hour to see that everything was all right.
+
+"'There's a man trying to get in at the front door,' she said. I got up
+at once and went downstairs. I could see the outlines of a man's figure
+moving in the darkness, but I could not distinguish the features.
+
+"'Who is it?' I asked, throwing open the door and peering out.
+
+"'It's me, Sammy--it's Aleck. Take me to my ole marster.'
+
+"He came in and stood where the light fell full upon him. I hardly knew
+him, he was so changed--much older and bent, and his clothes hung on
+him in rags.
+
+"I pointed to the parlor-door, and the old man went on tip-toe into the
+room and stood looking at my father's dead face for a long time--the
+body lay on a cot. Then he placed his hat on the floor and got down on
+his knees. There was just light enough to see his figure black against
+the white of the sheet that covered the cot. For some minutes he knelt
+motionless, as if in prayer, though no sound escaped him. Then he
+stretched out his big black hand and passed it over the body, smoothing
+it gently and patting it tenderly as one would a sleeping child. By and
+by he leaned closer to my father's face.
+
+"'Marse Henry,' I heard him say, 'please, Marse Henry, listen. Dis
+yere's Aleck. Ye'r wouldn't hear me the las' time but yer got ter hear
+me now. It's yo' Aleck, Marster, dat's who it is. I come soon's I could,
+Marse Henry, I didn't wait a minute.' He stopped as if expecting an
+answer, and went on. 'I ain't neber laid up nothin' agin ye though,
+Marse Henry. When ye turned me out dat night in the col' 'cause I had
+dem soger clo'es on an' didn't want me to gin dat money to Sammy, I
+knowed how yer felt, but I didn't lay it up agin ye. I ain't neber loved
+nobody like I loved you, Marse Henry, you an' Sammy. Do yer 'member when
+I fust come? 'Member how ye tuk me out o' jail, an' gin me a home?
+'Member how ye nussed me when I was sick, an' fed me when I was hongry,
+an' put clo'es on me when I was most naked? Nobody neber trusted me with
+nothin' till you trusted me, dey jus' beat me an' hunt me. An' don't yer
+'member, Marse Henry, de time ye gin me Sammy an' tol' me to take care
+on him? you ain't forgot dat day, is yer? He's here, Marster; Sammy's
+here. He's settin' outside a-watch-in'. Him an' me togedder, same's we
+useter was.'
+
+"He got upon his feet, and looked earnestly into the dead face. Then he
+bent down and picked up one corner of the white sheet, and kissed it
+reverently. He did not touch the face. When he had tiptoed out of the
+room, he laid his hand on my shoulder. The tears were streaming down his
+face: 'It was jes' like ye, Sammy, to send fo' me. We knows one anudder,
+you an' me--' and he turned toward the front door.
+
+[Illustration: I hardly knew him, he was so changed.]
+
+"'Where are you going, Aleck?' I asked.
+
+"'I dunno, Sammy--some place whar I kin lay down.'
+
+"'You don't leave here to-night, Aleck,' I said. 'Go upstairs to that
+room next to mine--you know where it is--and get into that bed.' He held
+up his hand and began to say he couldn't, but I insisted.
+
+"The next morning was Sunday. I saw when he came downstairs that he had
+done the best he could with his clothes, but they were still pretty
+ragged. I asked him if he had brought any others, but he told me they
+were all he had. I didn't say anything at the time, but that afternoon I
+took him to a clothing store, had it opened as a favor to me and fitted
+him out with a suit of black, and a shirt, and shoes and a
+hat--everything he wanted--and got him a carpet-bag, and told Abraham,
+the clothier, to put Aleck's old things into it, and he would call for
+them the next day.
+
+"When we got outside, Aleck looked himself all over--along his sleeves,
+over his waistcoat, and down to his shoes. He seemed to be thinking
+about something. He would start to speak to me and stop and look over
+his clothes again, testing the quality with his fingers. Finally he laid
+his hand on my arm, and, with a curious, beseeching look, in his
+eyes, said:
+
+"'Sammy, all yesterday, when I was a-comin', I was a-studyin' about it,
+an' I couldn't git it out'n my mind. It come to me agin when I saw Marse
+Henry las' night, an' I wanted to tell him. But when I got up dis
+mawnin' an' see myself I knowed I couldn't ask ye, Sammy, an' I didn't.
+Now I got dese clo'es, it's come to me agin. I kin ask ye now, an' I
+don't want ye to 'fuse me. I want ye to let me drive my marster's body
+to de grave.'
+
+"I held out my hand, and for an instant neither of us spoke.
+
+"'Thank ye, Sammy,' was all he said."
+
+Again my companion's voice broke. Then he went on:
+
+"When the carriages formed in line I saw Aleck leaning against the
+fence, and the undertaker's man was on the hearse. I caught Aleck's eye
+and beckoned to him.
+
+"'What's the matter, Aleck? Why aren't you on the hearse?'
+
+"'De undertaker man wouldn't let me, Sammy; an' I didn't like to 'sturb
+you an' de mistis.'
+
+"The tears stood in his eyes.
+
+"'Go find him and bring him to me,' I said.
+
+"When he came I told him the funeral would stop where it was if he
+didn't carry out my orders.
+
+"He said there was some mistake, though I didn't believe it, and went
+off with Aleck. As we turned out of the gate and into the road I caught
+sight of the hearse, Aleck on the box. He sat bolt upright, head erect,
+the reins in one hand, the whip resting on his knee, as I had seen him
+do so often when driving my father--grave, dignified, and thoughtful,
+speaking to the horses in low tones, the hearse moving and stopping as
+each carriage would be filled and driven ah pad.
+
+"He wouldn't drive the hearse back; left it standing at the gate of the
+cemetery. I heard the discussion, but I couldn't leave my mother to
+settle it.
+
+"'I ain't gwine to do it,' I heard him say to the undertaker. 'It was my
+marster I was 'tendin' on, not yo' horses. You can drive 'em home
+yo'-self.'"
+
+My companion settled himself in his chair, rested his head on his hand,
+and closed his eyes. I remained silent, watching him. His cigar had gone
+out; so had mine. Once or twice a slight quiver crossed his lips, then
+his teeth would close tight, and again his face would relapse into calm
+impassiveness.
+
+At this instant the curtains of the smoking-room parted and the Pullman
+porter entered.
+
+"Your berth's all ready, Major," said the porter.
+
+My companion rose from his chair, straightened his leg, held out his
+band, and said:
+
+"You can understand now, sir, how I feel about these continued outrages.
+I don't mean to say that every man is like Aleck, but I do mean to say
+that Aleck would never have been as loyal as he is but for the way my
+father brought him up. Good-night, sir."
+
+He was gone before I could do more than express my thanks for his
+confidence. It was just as well--any further word of mine would have
+been superfluous. Even my thanks seemed out of place.
+
+In a few minutes the porter returned with, "Lower Four's all ready,
+sir."
+
+"All right, I'm coming. Oh, porter."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Porter, come closer. Who is that gentleman I've been talking to?"
+
+"That's Major Sam Garnett, sir."
+
+"Was he in the war?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he was, for a fact. He was in de Cavalry, sir, one o'
+Morgan's Raiders. Got more'n six bullets in him now. I jes' done helped
+him off wid his wooden leg. It was cut off below de knee. His old man
+Aleck most generally takes care of dat leg. He didn't come wid him dis
+trip. But he'll be on de platform in de mornin' a-waitin' for him."
+
+
+
+MARNY'S SHADOW
+
+If you know the St. Nicholas--and if you don't you should make its
+acquaintance at once--you won't breakfast upstairs in that gorgeous room
+overlooking the street where immaculate, smilelees waiters move
+noiselessly about, limp palms droop in the corners, and the tables are
+lighted with imitation wax candles burning electric wicks hooded by
+ruby-colored shades, but you will stumble down a dark, crooked staircase
+to the left of the office-desk, push open a swinging, green baize door
+studded with brass tacks, pass a corner of the bar resplendent in cut
+glass, and with lowered head slip into a little box of a place built
+under the sidewalk.
+
+Here of an afternoon thirsty gentlemen sip their cocktails or sit
+talking by the hour, the smoke from their cigars drifting in long lines
+out the open door leading to the bar, and into the caffč beyond. Here in
+the morning hungry habitues take their first meal--those whose
+life-tickets are punched with much knowledge of the world, and who,
+therefore, know how much shorter is the distance from where they sit to
+the chef's charcoal fire.
+
+Marny has one of these same ragged life-tickets bearing punch-marks
+made the world over, and so whenever I journey his way we always
+breakfast together in this cool, restful retreat, especially of a
+Sunday morning.
+
+On one of these mornings, the first course had been brought and eaten,
+the cucumbers and a' special mysterious dish served, and I was about to
+light a cigarette--we were entirely alone--when a well-dressed man
+pushed open the door, leaned for a moment against the jamb, peered into
+the room, retreated, appeared again, caught sight of Marny, and settled
+himself in a chair with his eyes on the painter.
+
+I wondered if he were a friend of Marny's, or whether he had only been
+attracted by that glow of geniality which seems to radiate from
+Marny's pores.
+
+The intruder differed but little in his manner of approach from other
+strangers I had seen hovering about my friend, but to make sure of his
+identity--the painter had not yet noticed the man--I sent Marny a
+Marconi message of inquiry with my eyebrows, which he answered in the
+negative with his shoulders.
+
+The stranger must have read its meaning, for he rose quickly, and, with
+an embarrassed look on his face, left the room.
+
+"Wanted a quarter, perhaps," I suggested, laughing.
+
+"No, guess not. He's just a Diffendorfer. Always some of them round
+Sunday mornings. That's a new one, never saw him before. In town over
+night, perhaps."
+
+"What's a Diffendorfer?"
+
+"Did you never meet one?"
+
+"No, never heard of one."
+
+"Oh, yes, you have; you've seen lots of them."
+
+"Do they belong to any sect?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What are they, then?"
+
+"Just Diffendorfers. Thought I'd told you about one whom I knew. No?
+Wait till I light my cigar; it's a long story."
+
+"Anything to do with the fellow who's just gone out?"
+
+"Not a thing, though I'm sure he's one of them. You'll find
+Diffendorfers everywhere. First one I struck was in Venice, some years
+ago. I can pick them out now at sight." Marny struck a match and lighted
+his cigar. I drew my cup of coffee toward me and settled myself in my
+chair to listen.
+
+"You remember that little smoking-room to the right as you enter the
+Caffč Quadri," he began; "the one off the piazza? Well, a lot of us
+fellows used to dine there--Whistler, Rico, Old Ziem, Roscoff, Fildes,
+Blaas, and the rest of the gang.
+
+"Jimmy was making his marvellous pastels that year" (it is in this
+irreverent way that Marny often speaks of the gods), "and we used to
+crowd into the little room every night to look them over. We were an
+enthusiastic lot of Bohemians, each one with an opinion of his own about
+any subject he happened to be interested in, and ready to back it up if
+it took all night. Whistler's pastels, however, took the wind out of
+some of us who thought we could paint, especially Roscoff, who prided
+himself on his pastels, and who has never forgiven Jimmy to this day.
+
+"Well, one night, Auguste, the headwaiter--you remember him, he used to
+get smuggled cigarettes for us; that made him suspicious; always thought
+everybody was a spy--pointed out a man sitting just outside the room on
+one of the leather-covered seats. Auguste said he came every evening and
+got as close as he could to our table without attracting attention;
+close enough, however, to hear every word that was said. If I knew the
+man it was all right; if I didn't know him, he suggested that I keep an
+eye on him.
+
+"I looked around, and saw a heavy-featured, dull-looking man about
+twenty-five, dressed in a good suit of well-cut clothes, shiny
+stove-pipe silk hat, high collar with a good deal of necktie, a big
+pearl pin, and a long gold watch-chain which went all around his neck
+like an eye-glass ribbon. He had a smooth-shaven face, two keen eyes, a
+flat nose, square jaw, and a straight line of a mouth.
+
+"I didn't know the man, didn't want to know him, fellows in silk hate
+not being popular with us, and I didn't keep an eye on him except long
+enough to satisfy myself that the man was only one of those hungry
+travellers who was adding to his stock of information by picking up the
+crumbs of conversation which fell from the tables, and not at all the
+kind of a person who would hold me or anybody else up in a _sotto
+portico_ or chuck me over a bridge. Then again, I was twenty pounds
+heavier than he was, and could take care of myself.
+
+"Some nights after this I was dining alone, none of the boys having
+shown up owing to a heavy rain, when Auguste nudged me, and there sat
+this stranger within ten feet of my table. He dropped his eyes when he
+saw me looking at him, and began turning the sheets of a letter he had
+in his hand. I was smoking one of Auguste's cigarettes, and checking the
+mčnu with a lead-pencil, when it slipped from my hand and rolled between
+the man's feet. He rose, picked up the pencil, laid it beside my plate,
+and without a word returned to his seat, that same curious, inquisitive,
+hungry look on his face you saw a moment ago on that fellow's who has
+just gone out. Auguste, of course, lost all interest in my dinner. If he
+wasn't after me then he was after him; both meant trouble for Auguste.
+
+"I shifted my chair, opened the 'Gazetta' to serve as a screen, and
+looked the fellow over. If he were following me around to murder me, as
+Auguste concluded--he always had some cock-and-bull story to tell--he
+was certainly very polite about it. I could see that he was not an
+Italian, neither was he a German nor a Frenchman. He looked more like a
+well-to-do Dutchman--like one of those young fellows you and I used to
+see at the Harmonie Club in Dordrecht, or on the veranda of the Amstel,
+in Amsterdam. They look more like Americans than any other people
+in Europe.
+
+"The next night I was telling the fellows some stories, they crowding
+about to listen, when Auguste whispered in my ear. I turned, and there
+he was again, his eyes watching every mouthful I swallowed, his ears
+taking in everything that was said. The other fellows had noticed him
+now, and had christened him 'Marny's Shadow.' One of them wanted to ask
+him his business, and fire him into the street if it wasn't
+satisfactory, but I wouldn't have it. He had said nothing to me or
+anybody else, nor had he, so far as I knew, followed me when I went out.
+He had a perfect right to dine where he pleased if he paid for it--and
+he did--so Auguste admitted, and liberally, too. He could look at whom
+he pleased. The fact is, that but for Auguste, who was scared white half
+the time, fearing the Government would get on to his cigarette game, no
+one would have noticed him. Besides, the fellow might have his own
+reasons for remaining incog., and if he did we all knew he wouldn't have
+been the first one.
+
+"A few days after this I was painting up the Zattere near San
+Rosario--I was making the sketch for that big Giudeeca picture--the one
+that went to Munich that year--you remember it?--lot of figures around a
+fruit-stand, with the church on the right and the Giudeeca and Lagoon
+beyond--and had my gondolier Marco posing some twenty feet away with his
+back turned toward me, when my mysterious friend walked out from a
+little _calle_ tins side of the church, looked at Marco for a moment
+without turning his head--he didn't see me--and stopped at a door next
+to old Pietro Varni's wine-shop. He hesitated a moment, looking up and
+down the Zattere, opened the door with a key which he took from his
+pocket, and disappeared inside. I beckoned to Marco, and sent him to the
+wine-shop to find Pietro. When he came (Pietro was agent for the
+lodging-rooms above, and let them out to swell painters--we couldn't
+afford them--fifty lira a week, some of them more) I said:
+
+"'Pietro, did you see the chap that went upstairs a few moments ago?'
+
+"'Yes, signore.'
+
+"'Do you know who he is?'
+
+"'Yes, he is one of my gentlemen. He has the top floor--the one that
+Signore Almadi used to live in. The Signore Almadi is gone away.'
+
+"'How long has he been here?'
+
+"'About a month.'
+
+"'Is he a painter?
+
+"'No, I don't think so.'
+
+"'What is he, then?'
+
+"'Ah, Signore, who can tell? At first his letters were sent to me--now
+he gets them himself. The last were from Monte Carlo, from the
+Hotel--Hotel--I forget the name. But why does the Signore want to know?
+He pays the rent on the day--that is much better.'
+
+"'Where does he come from?'
+
+"Pietro shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"'That will do, Pietro.'
+
+"There was evidently nothing to be gotten out of him.
+
+"The next day we had another rainstorm--regular deluge. This time it
+came down in sheets; campos running rivers; gondolas half full of water,
+everything soaked. I had a room in the top of the Palazzo da Mula on the
+Grand Canal just above the Salute and within a step of the traghetto of
+San Giglio. By going out of the rear door and keeping close to the wall
+of the houses skirting the Fondamenta San Zorzi, I could reach the
+traghetto without getting wet. The Quadri was the nearest caffč, anyhow,
+and so I started.
+
+"When I stepped out of the gondola on the other side of the canal and
+walked up the wooden steps to the level of the Campo, my mysterious
+friend moved out from under the shadow of the traghetto box and stood
+where the light from the lantern hanging in front of the Madonna fell
+upon his face. His eyes, as usual, were fixed on mine. He had evidently
+been waiting for me.
+
+"I thought I might just as well end the thing then as at any other time.
+There was no question now in my mind that the fellow meant business.
+
+"I turned on him squarely.
+
+"'You waiting for me?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'What for?'
+
+"'I want you to go to dinner with me.'
+
+"'Where?'
+
+"'Anywhere you say.'
+
+"'I don't know you.'
+
+"'Yes, that's what I thought you would say.'
+
+"'Do you know me?'
+
+"'No.'
+
+"'Know my name?'
+
+"'Yes, your name's Marny.'
+
+"'What's yours?'
+
+"'Mine's Diffendorfer.'
+
+"'Where do you want to dine?'
+
+"'Anywhere you say. How will the Quadri do?'
+
+"'In a private room?' I said this to see how he would take it. He still
+stood in the full glare of the lantern.
+
+"'No, unless you prefer. I would rather dine downstairs--more people
+there.'
+
+"'All right--lead the way, I'll follow.'
+
+"It was the worst night that you ever saw. Hardly a soul in the
+streets. It had set in for a three days' storm, I knew; we always had
+them in Venice during December. My friend kept right on without looking
+behind him or speaking to me; over the bridge, through the Campo San
+Moisč and so on to the _Piazza_ and the caffč. There were only half a
+dozen fellows inside when we entered. These greeted me with the yell of
+welcome we always gave each other on entering, and which this time I
+didn't return, I knew they would open their eyes when they saw us sit
+down together, and I didn't want any complications by which I would be
+obliged to introduce him to anybody. I hated not to be decent, but you
+see I didn't know but I'd have to hand him over to the police before I
+was through with him, and I wanted the responsibility of his
+acquaintance to devolve on me alone. Roscoff either wouldn't or didn't
+take in the situation, for he came up when we were seated, leaned over
+my chair, and put his arm around my neck. I saw a shade of
+disappointment cross my companion's face when I didn't present Roscoff
+to him, but he said nothing. But I couldn't help it--I didn't see
+anything else to do. Then again, Roscoff was one of those fellows who
+would never let you hear the end of it if anything went wrong.
+
+"The man looked at the bill of fare steadily for some minutes, pushed it
+over to me, and said: 'You order.'
+
+"There was nothing gracious in the way he said it--more like a command
+than anything else. It nettled me for a moment. I don't like your
+buttoned-up kind of a man that gives you a word now and then as
+grudgingly as if he were doling out pennies from a pocket-hook. But I
+kept still. Then I was on a voyage of discovery. The tones of his voice
+jarred on me, I must admit, and I answered him in the same peremptory
+way. Not that I had any animosity toward him, but so as to meet him on
+his own ground.
+
+"'Then it will he the regular table d'hôte dinner with a pint of Chianti
+for each,' I snapped out. 'Will that suit you?'
+
+"'Yes, if you like Chianti.'
+
+"'I do when it's good.'
+
+"'Do you like anything better?' he asked, as if he were cross
+questioning me on the stand.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'What?'
+
+"'Well, Valpocelli of '82.' That was the best wine in their cellar, and
+cost ten lire a bottle.
+
+"'Is there anything better than that?' he demanded.
+
+"'Yes, Valpocelli of '71. _Thirty_ lire a bottle. They haven't a drop of
+it here or anywhere else.'
+
+"Auguste, who had been half-paralyzed when we sat down, and who, in his
+bewilderment, had not heard the conversation, reached over and placed
+the ordinary Chianti included in the price of the dinner at my elbow.
+
+"The man raised his eyes, looked at August with a peculiar expression,
+amounting almost to disgust, on his face, and said:
+
+"'I didn't order that. Take that stuff away and bring me a bottle of
+'82--a quart, mind you--if you haven't the '71.'
+
+"All through the dinner he talked in monosyllables, answering my
+questions but offering few topics of his own; and although I did my best
+to draw him out, he made no statement of any kind that would give me the
+slightest clew as to his antecedents or that would lead up either to his
+occupation or his purpose in seeking me out. He didn't seem to wish to
+conceal anything about himself, although of course I asked him no
+personal questions, nor did he pump me about my affairs. He was just one
+of those dull, lifeless conversationalists who must be probed all the
+time to get anything out of. Before I was half through the dinner I
+wondered why I had bothered about him at all.
+
+"All this time the fellows were off in one corner watching the whole
+affair. When Auguste brought the '82, looking like a huge tear bottle
+dug up from where it had rusted for two thousand years, Roscoff gave a
+gasp and crossed the room to tell Billy Wood that I had struck a
+millionnaire who was going to buy everything I had painted, including
+my big picture for the Salon, all of which was about as close as that
+idiot Roscoff ever got to anything.
+
+"When the bill was brought Diffendorfer turned his back to me, took out
+a roll of bills from his hip-pocket, and passed a new bank-note to
+Auguste with a contemptuous side wiggle of his forefinger and the remark
+in English in a tone intended for Auguste's ear alone: 'No change.'
+
+"Auguste laid the bill on his tray and walked up to the desk with a face
+struggling between joy over the fee and terror for my safety. A fellow
+who lived on ten-lire wine and who gave money away like water must
+murder people for a living and have a cemetery of his own in which to
+bury his dead. He evidently never expected to see me alive again.
+
+"Dinner over and paid for, my host put on his coat, said 'Good-night'
+with rather an embarrassed air, and without looking at anyone in the
+room--not even Roscoff, who made a move as if to intercept him--Roscoff
+had some pictures of his own to sell--walked dejectedly out of the caffe
+and disappeared in the night.
+
+"When I crossed the traghetto the following evening the storm had not
+abated. It was worse than on the previous night; the wind was blowing a
+gale and whirling the fog into the narrow streets and choking up the
+archways and _sotti portici_.
+
+"As my foot touched the nagging of the Campo, Diffendorfer stepped
+forward and laid his hand on my arm.
+
+"'You are late,' he said. He spoke in the same crisp way he had the
+night before. Whether it was an assumed air of bravado, or whether it
+was his natural ugly disposition, I couldn't tell. It jarred on me
+again, however, and I walked on.
+
+"He stepped quickly in front of me, as if to bar my way, and said, in a
+gentler tone:
+
+"'Don't go away. Come dine with me.'
+
+"'But I dined with you yesterday.'
+
+"'Yes, I know--and you hated me afterward. I'll be better this time.'
+
+"'I didn't hate you, I only----'
+
+"'Yes, you did, and you had reason to. I wasn't myself, somehow. Try me
+again to-day.'
+
+"There was something in his eyes--a troubled, disappointed expression
+that appealed to me--and so I said:
+
+"'All right, but on one condition: it's my dinner this time.'
+
+"'And my wine,' he answered, and a satisfied look came into his face.
+
+"'Yes, your wine. Come along.'
+
+"The fellow's blunt, jerky way of speaking had somehow made me speak in
+the same way. Our talk sounded just like two boys who had had a fight
+and who were forced to shake hands and make up. My own curiosity as to
+who he might be, what he was doing in Venice, and why he was pursuing
+me, was now becoming aroused. That he should again throw himself in my
+way after the stupid dinner of the night before only deepened
+the mystery.
+
+"When we got inside, just as we were taking our seats at one of the
+small tables in that side room off the street, a shout of laughter came
+from the next room--the one we fellows always dined in. I had determined
+to get inside of the fellow at this sitting, and thought the more
+retired table better for the purpose. Diffendorfer jumped to his feet on
+hearing the laughter, peered into the room, and, picking up his wet
+umbrella, said:
+
+"'Let's go in there--more people.' I followed him, and drew out another
+chair from a table opposite one at which Roscoff, Woods, and two or
+three of the boys were dining. They all nudged each other when we came
+in, and a wink went around, but they didn't speak. They behaved
+precisely as if I had a girl in tow and wanted to be left alone.
+
+"This dinner was exactly like the first one. Diffendorfer ordered the
+same wine--Valpocelli, '82, and ate each course that Auguste brought
+him, with only a word now and then about the weather, the number of
+people in Venice, and the dishes. The only time when his face lighted up
+was when a chap named Cruthers, from Munich, who arrived that morning
+and who hadn't been in Venice for years, came up and slapped me on the
+back and hollered out as he dragged up a chair and sat down beside me:
+'Glad to see you, old man; what are you drinking?'
+
+"I reached for the '82--there was only a glass left--and was moving the
+bottle within reach of my friend's hand when Diffendorfer said
+to Auguste:
+
+"'Bring another quart of '82;' then he turned and said to the Munich
+chap: 'Sorry, sir, it isn't the '71, but they haven't a bottle in
+the house.'
+
+"I was up a tree, and so I said:
+
+"'Cruthers, let me present you to my friend, Mr. Diffendorfer.' My
+companion at mention of his name sprang up, seized Cruthers's fingers as
+if he had been a long-lost brother, and pretty nearly shook his hand
+off. Cruthers said in reply:
+
+"'I'm very glad to meet you. If you're a friend of Marny's you're all
+right. You've got all you ought to have in this world.' You must have
+known Cruthers--he was always saying that kind of frilly things to the
+boys. Then they both sat down again.
+
+"After this quite a different expression came into the man's face. His
+embarrassment, or ugliness of temper, or whatever it was, was gone. He
+jumped up again, insisted upon filling Cruthers's glass himself, and
+when Cruthers tasted it and winked both of his eyes over it, and then
+got up and shook Diffendorfer's hand a second time to let him know how
+good he thought it was, and how proud he was of being his guest,
+Diffendorfer's face even broke out into a smile, and for a moment the
+fellow was as happy as anybody about him, and not the chump he had been
+with me. He was evidently pleased with Cruthers, for when Cruthers
+refused a third glass he said to him: 'To-morrow, perhaps'--and,
+beckoning to Auguste, said, in a voice loud enough for us all to hear:
+'Put a cork in it and mark it; we'll finish it to-morrow.'
+
+"Cruthers made no reply, not considering himself, of course, as one of
+the party, and, nodding pleasantly to my companion, joined Woods's
+table again.
+
+"When dinner was over, Diffendorfer put on his hat and coat, handed me
+my umbrella, and said:
+
+"'I'm going home now. Walk along with me?'
+
+"It was still raining, the wind rattling the swinging doors of the
+caffč. I did not answer for a moment. The dinner had left me as much in
+the dark as ever, and I was trying to make up my mind what to do next.
+
+"'Why not stay here and smoke?' I asked.
+
+"'No, walk along with me as far as the traghetto, please,' and he laid
+his hand in a half-pleading way on my arm.
+
+"Again that same troubled look in his face that I had seen once before
+made me alter my mind. I threw on my coat, picked up my umbrella, nodded
+to the boys, who looked rather anxiously after me, and plunged through
+the door and out into the storm.
+
+"It was the kind of a night that I love,--a regular howler. Most people
+think the sunshine makes Venice, but they wouldn't think so if they
+could study it on one of these nights when a nor'easter whirls up out of
+the Adriatic and comes roaring across the lagoons as if it would swallow
+up the dear old girl and sweep her into the sea. She don't mind it. She
+always comes up smiling the next day, looking twice as pretty for her
+bath, and I'm always twice as happy, for I've seen a whole lot of things
+I never would have seen in the daylight. The Campanile, for one thing,
+upside down in the streaming piazza; slashes of colored light from the
+shop-windows soaking into the rain-pools; and great, black, gloomy
+shadows choking up alleys, with only a single taper peering out of the
+darkness like a burglar's lantern.
+
+"When we turned to breast the gale--the rain had almost ceased--and
+struggled on through the Ascensione, a sudden gust of wind whirled my
+umbrella inside out, and after that I walked on ahead of him, stopping
+every now and then to enjoy the grandeur of it all, until we reached the
+traghetto. When we arrived, only one gondola was on duty, the gondolier
+muffled to his eyes in glistening oilskins, his sou'wester hat tied
+under his chin.
+
+"Once on the other side of the Canal it started in to rain again, and so
+Diffendorfer held his own umbrella over me until we reached my gate on
+the Fondamenta San Zorzi, in the rear of my quarters. He stood beside me
+under the flare of the gas-jets while I fumbled in my pocket for my
+night-key--I had about decided to invite him in and pump him dry--and
+then said:
+
+"'I live a little way from here; don't go in; come home with me.'
+
+"A strange feeling now took possession of me, which I could not account
+for. The whole plot rushed over me with a force which I must confess
+sent a cold chill down my back. I began to think: This man had forced
+himself upon me not once, but twice; had set up the best bottle of wine
+he could buy, and was now about to steer me into a den. Then the thought
+rose in my mind--I could handle any two of him, and if I give way now
+and he finds I am over-cautious or suspicious, it will only make it
+worse for me when I see him again. This was followed by a common-sense
+view of the whole situation. The mystery in it, after all, if there was
+any mystery, was one of my own making. To ask a man who had been dining
+with you to come to your lodging was neither a suspicious nor an unusual
+thing. Besides, while he had been often brusque, and at times curt, he
+had shown me nothing but kindness, and had tried only to please me.
+
+"My mind was made up instantly. I determined to follow the affair to the
+end.
+
+"'Yes, I'll go,' and I pulled my umbrella into shape, opened it with a
+flop, and stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the pelt of the
+driving rain.
+
+"We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the bridge by the side of the
+Canal of San Vio as far as the Caffč Calcina, and then out on the
+Zattero, which was being soused with the waves of the Giudecca breaking
+over the coping of its pavement. Hugging the low wall of Clara
+Montalba's garden, he keeping out of the wind as best he could, we
+passed the church of San Rosario and stopped at the same low door
+opening into the building next to Pietro's wine-shop--the one I had seen
+him enter when I was painting. The caffč was still open, for the glow of
+its lights streamed out upon the night and was reflected in the
+rain-drenched pavement. Then a thought struck me:
+
+"'Come in here a moment,' I said to him, and I pushed in Pietro's door.
+
+"'Pietro,' I called out, so that everybody in the caffč could hear, 'I'm
+going up to Mr. Diffendorfer's room. Better get a fiasco of Chianti
+ready--the old kind you have in the cellar. When I want it I'll send
+for it.' If I was going into a trap it was just as well to let somebody
+know whom I was last seen with. The boys had seen me go out with him,
+but nobody knew where he lived or where he had taken me. I was ashamed
+of it as soon as I had said it, but somehow I felt as if it were just
+as well to keep my eyes open.
+
+"Diffendorfer pushed past me and called out to Pietro, in a half-angry
+tone:
+
+"'No, don't you send it. I've got all the wine we'll want,' turned on
+his heel, held his door open for me to pass in, and slammed it
+behind us.
+
+"It was pitch-dark inside as we mounted the stairs one step at a time
+until we reached the second flight, where the light from a smouldering
+wick of a fiorentina set in a niche in the wall shed a dim glow. At the
+sound of our footsteps a door was opened in a passageway on our left, a
+head thrust out, and as suddenly withdrawn. The same thing happened on
+the third landing. Diffendorfer paid no attention to these intrusions,
+and kept on down a long corridor ending in a door. I didn't like the
+heads--it looked as if they were waiting for Diffendorfer to bring
+somebody home, and so I slipped my umbrella along in my hand until I
+could use it as a club, and waited in the dark until he had found the
+key-hole, unlocked the door, and thrown it open. All I saw was the gray
+light of the windows opposite this door, which made a dim silhouette of
+Diffendorfer's figure. Then I heard the scraping of a match, and a
+gas-jet flashed.
+
+"'Come in,' called Diffendorfer, in a cheery tone. 'Wait till I punch up
+the fire. Here, take this seat,' and he moved a great chair close to
+the grate.
+
+"I have seen a good many rooms in my time, but I must say this one took
+the breath out of me for an instant. The walls were hung in old
+tapestries, the furniture was of the rarest. There were three or four
+old armchairs that looked as if they had been stolen out of the
+Doge's Palace.
+
+"Diffendorfer continued punching away at the fire until it burst into a
+blaze.
+
+"In another moment he was on his feet again, saying he had forgotten
+something. Then he entered the next room--there were three in the
+suite--unlocked a closet, brought back a mouldy-looking bottle and two
+Venetian glasses, moved up a spider-legged, inlaid table, and said, as
+he placed the bottle and glasses beside me:
+
+"'That's the Valpocelli of '71. You needn't worry about helping
+yourself; I've got a dozen bottles more.'
+
+"I thought the game had gone far enough now, and I squared myself and
+faced him.
+
+"'See here, Mr. Diffendorfer,' I said, 'before I take your wine I've got
+some questions to ask you. I'm going to ask them pretty straight, too,
+and I want you to answer them exactly in the same way. You have followed
+me round now for two weeks. You invite me to dinner--a man you have
+never seen before--and when I come you sit like a bump on a log, and
+half the time I can't get a word out of you. You spend your money on me
+like water--none of which I can return, and you know it--and when I tell
+you I don't like that sort of thing you double the expense. Now, what
+does it all mean? Who are you, anyway, and where do you come from? If
+you're all right there's my hand, and you'll find it wide open.'
+
+"He dropped into his chair, put his head into his hands for a moment,
+and said, in a greatly altered tone:
+
+"'If I told you, you wouldn't understand.'
+
+"'Yes, I would.'
+
+"'No, you wouldn't--you couldn't. You've had everything you wanted all
+your life--I haven't had anything.'
+
+"'Me!--what rot! You've got a chair under you now that will sell for
+more money than I see in a year.'
+
+"'Yes--and nobody to sit in it; not a man who knows me or wants to know
+me.'
+
+"'But why did you pick me out?'
+
+"'Because you seemed to be the kind of a man who would understand me
+best. I watched you for weeks, though you didn't know it. You've got
+people who love you for yourself. You go into Florian's or the Quadri
+and you can't get a chance to swallow a mouthful for fellows who want to
+shake hands with you and slap you on the back. When I saw that, I got up
+courage enough to speak to you.
+
+"'When that first night you wouldn't introduce me to your friend
+Roscoff, I saw how it was and how you suspected me, and I came near
+giving it up. Then I thought I'd try again, and if you hadn't introduced
+Mr. Cruthers to me, and if he hadn't drank my wine, I would have given
+it up. But I don't want them to like me because I'm with _you_. I want
+them to like me for myself, so they'll be glad to see me when I come in,
+just as they are glad to see you.
+
+"'I come from Pennsylvania. My father owns the oil-wells at Stockville.
+He came over from Holland when he was a boy. He sent me over here six
+months ago to learn something about the world, and told me not to come
+back till I did. I got to Paris, and I couldn't find a soul to talk to
+but the hotel porter; then I kept on to Lucerne, and it was no better
+there. When I got as far as Dresden I mustered up courage to speak to a
+man in the station, but he moved off, and I saw him afterward speaking
+to a policeman and pointing to me. Then I came on down here. I thought
+maybe if I got some good rooms to live in where people could be
+comfortable, I could get somebody to come in and sit down. So I bought
+this lot of truck of an Italian named Almadi--a prince or something--and
+moved in. I tried the fellows who lived here--you saw them sticking
+their heads out as we came up--but they don't speak English, so I was as
+bad off as I was before. Then I made up my mind I'd tackle you and keep
+at it till I got to know you. You might think it queer now that I didn't
+tell you before who I was or how I came here, or how lonesome I
+was--just lonesome--but I just couldn't. I didn't want your pity, I
+wanted your _friendship_. That's all.'
+
+"He had straightened up now, and was leaning back in his chair.
+
+"'And it was just dead lonesomeness, then, was it?' and I held out my
+hand to him.
+
+"'Yes--the deadliest kind of lonesome. Kind makes you want to fall off a
+dock. Now, please drink my wine'--and he pushed the bottle toward me--'I
+had a devil of a hunt for it, but I wanted to do something for you you
+couldn't do for yourself.'
+
+"We fellows, I tell you, took charge of Diffendorfer after that, and a
+ripping good fellow he was. We got that high collar off of him, a slouch
+hat on his head instead of his stove-pipe, and a pipe in his mouth, and
+before the winter was over he had more friends than any fellow in
+Venice. It was only awkwardness that made him talk so queer and ugly.
+And maybe we didn't have some good times in those rooms of his on
+the Zattere!"
+
+Marny stopped, threw away the end of his cigar, laid a coin under his
+plate for the waiter and another on top of it for Henri, the chef,
+reached for his hat, and said, as he rose from his seat, and flecked
+the ashes from his coat-sleeve:
+
+"So now, whenever I see a poor devil haunting a place like this, looking
+around out of the corner of his eye, hoping somebody will speak to him,
+I say that's a Diffendorfer, and more than half the time I'm right."
+
+
+
+MUFFLES--THE BAR-KEEP
+
+My friend Muffles has had a varied career. Muffles is not his baptismal
+name--if he were ever baptized, which I doubt. The butcher, the baker,
+the candlestick maker, and the brewer--especially the brewer--knew him
+as Mr. Richard Mulford, proprietor of the Shady Side on the Bronx--and
+his associates as Dick. Only his intimates knew him as Muffles. I am one
+of his intimates. This last sobriquet he earned as a boy among his
+fellow wharf-rats, by reason of an extreme lightness of foot attended by
+an equally noiseless step, particularly noticeable when escaping from
+some guardian of the peace who had suddenly detected him raiding an
+apple-stand not his own, or in depleting a heap of peanuts the property
+of some gentleman of foreign birth, or in making off with a just-emptied
+ash-barrel--Muffles did the emptying--on the eve of an election.
+
+If any member of his unknown and widely scattered family reached the
+dignity of being considered the flower of the clan, no stretch of
+imagination or the truth on the part of his acquaintances--and they
+were numerous--ever awarded that distinction to Muffles. He might have
+been a weed, but he was never a flower. A weed that grew up between the
+cobbles, crouching under the hoofs of horses and the tramp of men, and
+who was pulled up and thrown aside and still lived on and flourished in
+various ways, and all with that tenacity of purpose and buoyancy of
+spirit which distinguishes all weeds and which never by any possibility
+marks a better quality of plant, vegetable or animal.
+
+The rise of this gamin from the dust-heap to his present lofty position
+was as interesting as it was instructive. Interesting because his career
+was a drama--instructive because it showed a grit, pluck, and
+self-denial which many of his contemporaries might have envied and
+imitated: wharf-rat, newsboy, dish-washer in a sailor's dive,
+bar-helper, bar-tender, bar-keeper, bar-owner, ward heeler, ward
+politician, clerk of a district committee--go-between, in shady deals,
+between those paid to uphold the law and those paid to break it--and
+now, at this time of writing, or was a year or so ago, the husband of
+"the Missus," as he always calls her, the father of two children, one
+three and the other five, and the proprietor of the Shady Side Inn,
+above the Harlem River and within a stone's throw of the historic Bronx.
+
+The reaching of this final goal, the sum of all his hopes and
+ambitions, was due to the same tenacity of purpose which had
+characterized his earlier life, aided and abetted by a geniality of
+disposition which made him countless friends, a conscience which
+overlooked their faults, together with a total lack of perception as to
+the legal ownership of whatever happened to be within his reach. As to
+the keeping of the other commandments, including the one of doing unto
+others as you would have them do unto you----
+
+Well, Muffles had grown up between the cobbles of the Bowery, and his
+early education had consequently been neglected.
+
+The Shady Side Inn, over which Muffles presided, and in which he was
+one-third owner--the Captain of the Precinct and a "Big Pipe" contractor
+owned the other two-thirds--was what was left of an old colonial
+mansion. There are dozens of them scattered up and down the Bronx, lying
+back from the river; with porches falling into decay, their gardens
+overrun with weeds, their spacious rooms echoing only the hum of the
+sewing-machine or the buzz of the loom.
+
+This one belonged to some one of the old Knickerbockers whose winter
+residence was below Bleecker Street and who came up here to spend the
+summer and so escape the heat of the dog-days. You can see it any day
+you drive up the Speedway. It has stood there for over a hundred years
+and is likely to continue. You know its history, too--or can, if you
+will take the trouble to look up its record. Aaron Burr stopped here, of
+course--he stopped about everywhere along here and slept in almost every
+house; and Hamilton put his horse up in the stables--only the site
+remains; and George Washington dined on the back porch, his sorrel mare
+tied to one of the big trees. There is no question about these facts.
+They are all down in the books, and I would prove it to you if I could
+lay my hand on the particular record. Everybody believes it--Muffles
+most of all.
+
+Many of the old-time fittings and appurtenances are still to be seen. A
+knocker clings to the front door--a wobbly old knocker, it is true, with
+one screw gone and part of the plate broken--but still boasting its
+colonial descent. And there is a half-moon window over the door above
+it, with little panes of glass held in place by a spidery parasol frame,
+and supported on spindling columns once painted white. And there is an
+old lantern in the hall and funny little banisters wreathed about a
+flight of stairs that twists itself up to the second floor.
+
+The relics--now that I come to think of it--stop here. There was a fine
+old mantel framing a great open fireplace in the front parlor, before
+which the Father of His Country toasted his toes or sipped his grog, but
+it is gone now. Muffles's bar occupied the whole side of this front
+room, and the cavity once filled with big, generous logs, blazing away
+to please the host's distinguished guests, held a collection of bottles
+from Muffles's cellar--a moving cellar, it is true, for the beer-wagon
+and the grocer's cart replenished it daily.
+
+The great garden in the rear of the old mansion has also changed. The
+lines of box and sweet syringa are known only by their roots. The
+rose-beds are no more, the paths that were woven into long stripes
+across its grass-plats are overgrown and hardly traceable. Only one
+lichen-covered, weather-stained seat circling about an old locust-tree
+remains, and this is on its last legs and needs propping up--or did the
+last time I saw it. The trees are still there. These old stand-bys reach
+up their arms so high, and their trunks are so big and straight and
+smooth, that nothing can despoil them. They will stay there until the
+end--that is, until some merciless Commissioner runs the line of a city
+street through their roots. Then their fine old bodies will be drawn and
+quartered, and their sturdy arms and lesser branches go to feed the
+fires of some near-by factory.
+
+No ladies of high degree now sip their tea beneath their shade, with
+liveried servants about the slender-legged tables, as they did in the
+old days. There are tables, of course--a dozen in all, perhaps, some in
+white cloths and some in bare tops, bare of everything except the glass
+of beer--it depends very largely on what one orders, and who orders
+it--but the servants are missing unless you count Muffles and his
+stable-boy. Two of these old aristocrats--I am speaking of the old trees
+now, not Muffles, and certainly not the stable-boy--two giant elms (the
+same that Washington tied his mare to when they were little)--stand
+guard on either side of the back porch, a wide veranda of a porch with a
+honeysuckle, its stem, as thick as your arm, and its scraggy, half-dead
+tendrils plaited in and out of the palings and newly painted
+lattice-work.
+
+On Sunday mornings--and this tale begins with a Sunday morning--Muffles
+always shaved himself on this back porch. On these occasions he was
+attired in a pair of trousers, a pair of slippers, and a red flannel
+undershirt.
+
+I am aware that this is not an extraordinary thing for a man living in
+the country to do on a Sunday morning, and it is not an extraordinary
+costume in which to do it. It was neither the costume nor the occupation
+that made the operation notable, but the distinguished company who sat
+around the operator while it went on.
+
+There was the ex-sheriff--a large, bulbous man with a jet-black mustache
+hung under his nose, a shirt-collar cut low enough to permit of his
+breathing, and a skin-tight waistcoat buttoned over a rotundity that
+rested on his knees. He had restless, quick eyes, and, before his "ex"
+life began and his avoirdupois gained upon him, restless, quick fingers
+with steel springs inside of them--good fingers for handling the
+particular people he "wanted."
+
+Then there was the "Big Pipe" contractor--a lean man with half-moon
+whiskers, a red, weather-beaten, knotted face, bushy gray eyebrows, and
+a clean-shaven mouth that looked when shut like a healed scar. On Sunday
+this magnate wore a yellow diamond pin and sat in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+There could be found, too, now and then, tilted back on their chairs,
+two or three of the light-fingered gentry from the race-course near
+by--pale, consumptive-looking men, with field-glasses hung over their
+shoulders and looking like bank-clerks, they were so plainly and neatly
+dressed; as well as some of the less respectable neighbors, besides a
+few intimate personal friends like myself.
+
+While Muffles shaved and the group about him discussed the several
+ways--some of them rather shady, I'm afraid--in which they and their
+constituents earned their daily bread, the stable-boy--he was a street
+waif, picked up to keep him from starving--served the beverages. Muffles
+had no Sunday license, of course, but a little thing like that never
+disturbed Muffles or his friends--not with the Captain of the Precinct
+as part owner.
+
+My intimacy with Muffles dated from a visit I had made him a year
+before, when I stopped in one of my sketching-tramps to get something
+cooling. A young friend of mine--a musician--was with me. Muffles's
+garden was filled with visitors: some celebration or holiday had called
+the people out. Muffles, in expectation, had had the piano tuned and had
+sent to town for an orchestra of three. The cornet and bass-viol had put
+in an appearance, but the pianist had been lost in the shuffle.
+
+"De bloke ain't showed up and we can't git nothin' out o' de fish-horn
+and de scrape--see?" was the way Muffles put it.
+
+My friend was a graduate of the Conservatoire, an ex-stroke, crew of
+'91, owned a pair of shears which he used twice a year in the vaults of
+a downtown bank, and breakfasted every day at twelve--but none of these
+things had spoiled him.
+
+"Don't worry," he said; "put a prop under your piano-lid and bring me a
+chair. I'll work the ivories for you."
+
+He played till midnight, drank his free beers between each selection,
+his face as grave as a judge except when he would wink at me out of the
+corner of his eye to show his intense enjoyment of the whole situation.
+You can judge of its effect on the audience when I tell you that one
+young girl in a pink shirt-waist was so overcome with emotion and so
+sorry for the sad young man who had to earn his living in any such way,
+that she laid a ten-cent piece on the piano within reach of my friend's
+fingers. The smile of intense gratitude which permeated his face--a
+"thank-God-you-have-saved-me-from-starvation" smile, was part of the
+evening's enjoyment. He wears the dime now on his watch-chain; he says
+it is the only money he ever earned by his music; to which one of his
+club-friends added, "Or in your life."
+
+Since that time I have been _persona grata_ to Muffles. Since that time,
+too, I have studied him at close range: on snowy days--for I like my
+tramps in winter, with the Bronx a ribbon of white, even though it may
+be too cold to paint--as well as my outings on Sunday summer mornings
+when I sit down with his other friends to watch Muffles shave.
+
+On one of these days I found a thin, cadaverous, long-legged, long-armed
+young man behind the bar. He had yellow-white hair that rested on his
+head like a window-mop, whitey blue eyes, and a pasty complexion. When
+he craned his neck in his anxiety to get my order right, I felt that his
+giraffe throat reached down to his waist-line and that all of it would
+come out of his collar if I didn't make up my mind at once "what it
+should be."
+
+"Who's he, Muffles?" I asked.
+
+"Dat's me new bar-keep. I've chucked me job."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Bowser."
+
+"Where did you get him?"
+
+"Blew in here one night las' month, purty nigh froze--out of a job and
+hungry. De Missus got soft on him--she's dat kind, ye know. Yer oughter
+seen him eat! Well, I guess! Been in a littingrapher's shop--ye kin tell
+by his fingers. Say, Bowser, show de gentleman yer fingers."
+
+Bowser held them up as quickly as if the order had come down the barrel
+of a Winchester.
+
+"And ye oughter see him draw. Gee! if I could draw like him I wouldn't
+do nothin' else. But I ain't never had nothin' in my head like that. A
+feller's got to have sumpin' besides school-larnin' to draw like him.
+Now you're a sketch-artist, and know. Why, he drawed de Sheriff last
+Sunday sittin' in de porch huggin' his bitters, to de life. Say, Bowse,
+show de gentleman de picter ye drawed of de Sheriff."
+
+Bowser slipped his hand under the bar and brought out a charcoal sketch
+of a black mustache surrounded by a pair of cheeks, a treble chin, and
+two dots of eyes.
+
+"Kin hear him speak, can't ye? And dat ain't nothin' to de way he kin
+print. Say, Bowse"--the intimacy grew as the young man's talents loomed
+up in Muffles's mind--"tell de gentleman what de boss said 'bout yer
+printin'."
+
+"Said I could print all right, only there warn't no more work." There
+was a modesty in Bowser's tone that gave me a better opinion of him.
+
+"Said ye could print all right, did he? Course he did--and no guff in
+it, neither. Say, Missus"--and he turned to his wife, who had just
+come in, the youngest child in her arms. She weighed twice as much as
+Muffles--one of those shapeless women with a kindly, Alderney face, and
+hair never in place, who lets everything go from collar to waist-line.
+
+"Say, Missus, didn't de Sheriff say dat was a perfec' likeness?" And he
+handed it to her.
+
+The wife laughed, passed it back to Muffles and, with a friendly nod to
+me, kept on to the kitchen.
+
+"Bar-room ain't no place for women," Muffles remarked in an undertone
+when his wife had disappeared. "Dat's why de Missus ain't never 'round.
+And when de kids grow up we're goin' to quit, see? Dat's what de Missus
+says, and what she says goes!"
+
+All that summer the Shady Side prospered. More tables were set out under
+the trees; Bowser got an assistant; Muffles wore better clothes; the
+Missus combed out her hair and managed to wear a tight-fitting dress,
+and it was easy to see that fame and fortune awaited Muffles--or what he
+considered its equivalent. Muffles entertained his friends as usual on
+the back porch on Sunday mornings, but he shaved himself upstairs and
+wore an alpaca coat and boiled shirt over his red flannel underwear. The
+quality of the company improved, too--or retrograded, according to the
+point of view. Now and then a pair of deer, with long tails and manes,
+hitched to a spider-web of a wagon, would drive up to the front
+entrance and a gentleman wearing a watch-chain, a solitaire diamond
+ring, a polished silk hat, and a white overcoat with big pearl buttons,
+would order "a pint of fiz" and talk in an undertone to Muffles while he
+drank it. Often a number of these combinations would meet in Muffles's
+back room and a quiet little game would last until daylight. The orders
+then were for quarts, not pints. On one of these nights the Captain of
+the Precinct was present in plain clothes. I learned this from
+Bowser--from behind his hand.
+
+One night Muffles was awakened by a stone thrown at his bedroom window.
+He went downstairs and found two men in slouch hats; one had a black
+carpet-bag. They talked some time together, and the three went down into
+the cellar. When they came up the bag was empty.
+
+The next morning one of those spider-wheeled buggies, driven by one of
+the silk hat and pearl-buttoned gentlemen, accompanied by a friend,
+stopped at the main gate. When they drove away they carried the contents
+of the black carpet-bag stowed away under the seat.
+
+The following day, about ten o'clock in the morning, a man in a derby
+hat and with a pair of handcuffs in his outside pocket showed Muffles a
+paper he took from his coat, and the two went off to the city. When
+Muffles returned that same night--I had heard he was in trouble and
+waited for his return--he nodded to me with a smile, and said:
+
+"It's all right. Pipes went bail."
+
+He didn't stop, but walked through to the back room. There he put his
+arms around his wife. She had sat all day at the window watching for his
+return, so Bowser told me.
+
+
+II
+
+One crisp, cool October day, when the maples blazed scarlet and the
+Bronx was a band of polished silver and the hoar-frost glistened in the
+meadows, I turned into the road that led to the Shady Side. The outer
+gate was shut, and all the blinds on the front of the house were closed.
+I put my hand on the old brass knocker and rapped softly. Bowser opened
+the door. His eyes looked as if he had not slept for a week.
+
+"What's the matter--anybody sick?"
+
+"No--dead!" and he burst into tears.
+
+"Not Muffles!"
+
+"No--the Missus."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last night. De boss is inside, all broke up."
+
+I tiptoed across the hall and into the bar-room. He was sitting by a
+table, his head in his hands, his back toward me.
+
+"Muffles, this is terrible! How did it happen?"
+
+He straightened up and held out his hand, guiding me to a seat beside
+him. For some minutes he did not speak. Then he said, slowly, ignoring
+my question, the tears streaming down his cheeks:
+
+"Dis ends me. I ain't no good widout de Missus. You thought maybe when
+ye were 'round that I was a runnin' things; you thought maybe it was me
+that was lookin' after de kids and keepin' 'em clean; you thought maybe
+when I got pinched and they come near jugging me that some of me pals
+got me clear--you don't know nothin' 'bout it. De Missus did that, like
+she done everything."
+
+He stopped as if to get his breath, and put his head in his hands
+again--rocking himself to and fro like a man in great physical pain. I
+sat silent beside him. It is difficult to decide what to do or say to a
+man under such circumstances. His reference to some former arrest arose
+in my mind, and so, in a perfunctory way--more for something to say than
+for any purpose of prying into his former life--I asked:
+
+"Was that the time the Pipe Contractor went bail for you?"
+
+He moved his head slightly and without raising it from his hands looked
+at me from over his clasped fingers.
+
+"What, dat scrape a month ago, when I hid dem goods in de cellar? Naw!
+Dat was two pals o' mine. Dey was near pinched and I helped 'em out.
+Somebody give it away. But dat ain't noth-in'--Cap'n took care o' dat.
+Dis was one o' me own five year ago. What's goin' to become o' de kids
+now?" And he burst out crying again.
+
+
+III
+
+A year passed.
+
+I had been painting along the Thames, lying in my punt, my face up to
+the sky, or paddling in and out among the pond-lilies. I had idled, too,
+on the lagoons of my beloved Venice, listening to Luigi crooning the
+songs he loves so well, the soft air about me, the plash of my
+gondolier's oar wrinkling the sheen of the silver sea. It had been a
+very happy summer; full of color and life. The brush had worked easily,
+the weather had lent a helping hand; all had been peace and quiet.
+Ofttimes, when I was happiest, somehow Muffles's solitary figure rose
+before me, the tears coursing down his cheeks, and with it that cold
+silence--a silence which only a dead body brings to a house and which
+ends only with its burial.
+
+The week after I landed--it was in November, a day when the crows flew
+in long wavy lines and the heavy white and gray clouds pressed close
+upon the blue vista of the hills--I turned and crossed through the wood,
+my feet sinking into the soft carpet of its dead leaves. Soon I caught a
+glimpse of the chimneys of Shady Side thrust above the evergreens; a
+curl of smoke was floating upward, filling the air with a filmy haze. At
+this sign of life within, my heart gave a bound.
+
+Muffles was still there!
+
+When I swung back the gate and mounted the porch a feeling of
+uncertainty came over me. The knocker was gone, and so was the sign. The
+old-fashioned window-casings had been replaced by a modern door newly
+painted and standing partly open. Perhaps Muffles had given up the bar
+and was living here alone with his children.
+
+I pushed open the door and stepped into the old-fashioned hall. This,
+too, had undergone changes. The lantern was missing, and some modern
+furniture stood against the walls. The bar where Bowser had dispensed
+his beverages and from behind which he had brought his drawings had been
+replaced by a long mahogany counter with marble top, the sideboard being
+filled with cut glass and the more expensive appointments of a modern
+establishment. The tables and chairs were also of mahogany; and a new
+red carpet covered the floor. The proprietor was leaning against the
+counter playing with his watch-chain--a short man with a bald head. A
+few guests were sitting about, reading or smoking.
+
+"What's become of Mulford," I asked; "Dick Mulford, who used to be
+here?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"Why, yes, you must have known him--some of his friends called him
+Muffles."
+
+The man continued to shake his head. Then he answered, carelessly:
+
+"I've only been here six months--another man had it before me. He put
+these fixtures in."
+
+"Maybe you can tell me?"--and I turned to the bar-keeper.
+
+"Guess he means the feller who blew in here first month we come," the
+bar-keeper answered, addressing his remark to the proprietor. "He said
+he'd been runnin' the place once."
+
+"Oh, you mean that guy! Yes, I got it now," answered the proprietor,
+with some animation, as if suddenly interested. "He come in the week we
+opened--worst-lookin' bum you ever see--toes out of his shoes, coat all
+torn. Said he had no money and asked for something to eat. Billy here
+was goin' to fire him out when one of my customers said he knew him. I
+don't let no man go hungry if I can help it, and so I sent him
+downstairs and cook filled him up. After he had all he wanted to eat he
+asked Billy if he might go upstairs into the front bedroom. I don't want
+nobody prowlin' 'round--not that kind, anyhow--but he begged so I sent
+Billy up with him. What did he do, Billy? You saw him." And he turned to
+his assistant.
+
+"Didn't do nothin' but just look in the door, he held on to the jamb and
+I thought he was goin' to fall. Then he said he was much obliged, and
+he walked downstairs again and out the door cryin' like a baby, and I
+ain't seen him since."
+
+Another year passed. To the picture of the man sitting alone in that
+silent, desolate room was added the picture of the man leaning against
+the jamb of the door, the tears streaming down his face. After this I
+constantly caught myself peering into the faces of the tramps I would
+meet in the street. Whenever I walked before the benches of Madison Park
+or loitered along the shady paths of Union Square, I would stop, my eye
+running over the rows of idle men reading the advertisements in the
+morning papers or asleep on the seats. Often I would pause for a moment
+as some tousled vagabond would pass me, hoping that I had found my
+old-time friend, only to be disappointed. Once I met Bowser on his way
+to his work, a roll of theatre-bills under his arm. He had gone back to
+his trade and was working in a shop on Fourteenth Street. His account of
+what had happened after the death of "the Missus" only confirmed my
+fears. Muffles had gone on from bad to worse; the place had been sold
+out by his partners; Muffles had become a drunkard, and, worse than all,
+the indictment against him had been pressed for trial despite the
+Captain's efforts, and he had been sent to the Island for a year for
+receiving and hiding stolen goods. He had been offered his freedom by
+the District Attorney if he would give up the names of the two men who
+had stolen the silverware, but he said he'd rather "serve time than give
+his pals away," and they sent him up. Some half-orphan asylum had taken
+the children. One thing Bowser knew and he would "give it to me
+straight," and he didn't care who heard it, and that was that there was
+"a good many gospil sharps running church-mills that warn't half as
+white as Dick Mulford--not by a d---- sight."
+
+One morning I was trying to cross Broadway, dodging the trolleys that
+swirled around the curves, when a man laid his hand on my arm with a
+grip that hurt me.
+
+It was Muffles!
+
+Not a tramp; not a ragged, blear-eyed vagabond--older, more serious, the
+laugh gone out of his eyes, the cheeks pale as if from long confinement.
+Dressed in dark clothes, his face cleanshaven; linen neat, a plain black
+tie--the hat worn straight, not slouched over his eyes with a rakish
+cant as in the old days.
+
+"My God! but I'm glad to see ye," he cried. "Come over in the Square and
+let's sit down."
+
+He was too excited to let me ask him any questions. It all poured out of
+him in a torrent, his hand on my knee most of the time.
+
+"Oh, but I had it tough! Been up for a year. You remember about it, the
+time Pipes went bail. I didn't git none o' the swag; it warn't my job,
+but I seed 'em through. But that warn't nothin'. It was de Missus what
+killed me. Hadn't been for de kids I'd been off the dock many a time.
+Fust month or two I didn't draw a sober breath. I couldn't stand it.
+Soon's I'd come to I'd git to thinkin' agin and then it was all up wid
+me. Then Pipes and de Sheriff went back on me and I didn't care. Bowser
+stuck to me the longest. He got de kids took care of. He don't know I'm
+out, or he'd turn up. I tried to find him, but nobody don't know where
+he was a-workin'--none of de barrooms I've tried. Oh, but it was tough!
+But it's all right now, d'ye hear? All right! I got a job up in Harlem,
+see? I'm gittin' orders for coal." And he touched a long book that stuck
+out of his breast-pocket. "And I've got a room near where I work. And I
+tell ye another thing," and his hand sought mine, and a peculiar light
+came into his eyes, "I got de kids wid me. You just oughter see de
+boy--legs on him thick as your arm! I toll ye that's a comfort, and
+don't you forgit it. And de little gal! Ain't like her mother?
+what!--well, I should smile!"
+
+
+
+HIS LAST CENT<
+
+Jack Waldo stood in his studio gazing up at the ceiling, or, to be more
+exact, at a Venetian church-lamp--which he had just hung and to which he
+had just attached a red silk tassel bought that morning of a bric-a-brac
+dealer whose shop was in the next street. There was a bare spot in that
+corner of his sumptuously appointed room which offended Waldo's
+sensitive taste--a spot needing a touch of yellow brass and a note of
+red--and the silk tassel completed the color-scheme. The result was a
+combination which delighted his soul; Jack had a passion for having his
+soul delighted and an insatiable thirst for the things that did the
+delighting, and could no more resist the temptation to possess them when
+exposed for sale than a confirmed drunkard could resist a favorite
+beverage held under his nose. That all of these precious objects of
+bigotry and virtue were beyond his means, and that most of them then
+enlivening his two perfectly appointed rooms were still unpaid for,
+never worried Jack.
+
+"That fellow's place," he would say of some dealer, "is such a jumble
+and so dark that nobody can see what he's got. Ought to be very grateful
+to me that I put 'em where people could see 'em. If I can pay for 'em,
+all right, and if I can't, let him take 'em back. He always knows where
+to find 'em. I'm not going to have an auction."
+
+This last course of "taking his purchases back" had been followed by a
+good many of Jack's creditors, who, at last, tired out, had driven up a
+furniture van and carted the missing articles home again. Others, more
+patient, dunned persistently and continually--every morning some one of
+them--until Jack, roused to an extra effort, painted pot-boilers
+(portrait of a dog, or a child with a rabbit, or Uncle John's exact
+image from a daguerrotype many years in the family) up to the time the
+debt was discharged and the precious bit of old Spanish leather or the
+Venetian chest or Sixteenth Century chair became his very own for all
+time to come.
+
+This "last-moment" act of Jack's--this reprieve habit of saving his
+financial life, as the noose was being slipped over his bankrupt
+neck--instead of strangling Jack's credit beyond repair, really improved
+it. The dealer generally added an extra price for interest and the
+trouble of collecting (including cartage both ways), knowing that his
+property was perfectly safe as long as it stayed in Jack's admirably
+cared-for studio, and few of them ever refused the painter anything he
+wanted. When inquiries were made as to his financial standing the report
+was invariably, "Honest but slow--he'll pay some time and somehow," and
+the ghost of a bad debt was laid.
+
+The slower the better for Jack. The delay helped his judgment. The
+things he didn't want after living with them for months (Jack's test of
+immortality) he was quite willing they should cart away; the things he
+loved he would go hungry to hold on to.
+
+This weeding-out process had left a collection of curios, stuffs,
+hangings, brass, old furniture, pottery, china, costumes and the like,
+around Jack's rooms, some of which would have enriched a museum: a Louis
+XVI. cabinet, for instance, that had been stolen from the Trianon (what
+a lot of successful thieves there were in those days); the identical
+sofa that the Pompadour used in her afternoon naps, and the undeniable
+curtain that covered her bed, and which now hung between Jack's
+two rooms.
+
+In addition to these ancient and veritable "antiques" there was a
+collection of equally veritable "moderns," two of which had arrived that
+morning from an out-of-town exhibition and which were at this precise
+moment leaning against the legs of an old Spanish chair. One had had
+three inches of gilt moulding knocked off its frame in transit, and both
+bore Jack's signature in the lower left-hand corner.
+
+"Didn't want 'em, eh?" cried Jack, throwing himself on to the divan,
+temporarily exhausted with the labor of hanging the lamp and attaching
+the tassel. "Wanted something painted with darning-needle
+brushes--little tooty-wooty stuff that everybody can understand. 'See
+the barndoor and the nails in the planks and all them knots!'"--Jack was
+on his feet now, imitating the drawl of the country art-buyer--"'Ain't
+them natural! Why, Maria, if you look close ye can see jes' where the
+ants crawl in and out. My, ain't that wonderful!'"
+
+These remarks were not addressed to the offending canvas nor to the
+imaginary countryman, but to his chum, Sam Ruggles, who sat hunched up
+in a big armchair with gilt flambeaux on each corner of its high
+back--it being a holiday and Sam's time his own. Ruggles was entry clerk
+in a downtown store, lived on fifteen dollars a week, and was proud of
+it. His daily fear--he being of an eminently economical and practical
+turn of mind--was that Jack would one day find either himself tight shut
+in the lock-up in charge of the jailer or his belongings strewed loose
+on the sidewalk and in charge of the sheriff. They had been college
+mates together--these two--and Sam loved Jack with an affection in which
+pride in his genius and fear for his welfare were so closely interwoven,
+that Sam found himself most of the time in a constantly unhappy frame of
+mind. Why Jack should continue to buy things he couldn't pay for,
+instead of painting pictures which one day somebody would want, and at
+fabulous prices, too, was one thing he could never get through his head.
+
+"Where have those pictures been, Jack?" inquired Sam, in a sympathetic
+tone.
+
+"Oh, out in one of those God's-free-air towns where they are studying
+high art and microbes and Browning--one of those towns where you can
+find a woman's club on every corner and not a drop of anything to drink
+outside of a drug-store. Why aren't you a millionnaire, Sam, with a
+gallery one hundred by fifty opening into your conservatory, and its
+centre panels filled with the works of that distinguished impressionist,
+John Somerset Waldo, R.A.?"
+
+"I shall be a millionnaire before you get to be R.A.," answered Sam,
+with some emphasis, "if you don't buckle down to work, old man, and
+bring out what's in you--and stop spending your allowance on a lot of
+things that you don't want any more than a cow wants two tails. Now,
+what in the name of common-sense did you buy that lamp for which you
+have just hung? It doesn't light anything, and if it did, this is a
+garret, not a church. To my mind it's as much out of place here as that
+brass coal-hod you've got over there would be on a cathedral altar."
+
+"Samuel Ruggles!" cried Jack, striking a theatrical attitude, "you talk
+like a pig-sticker or a coal-baron. Your soul, Samuel, is steeped in
+commercialism; you know not the color that delights men's hearts nor
+the line that entrances. The lamp, my boy, is meat and drink to me, and
+companionship and a joy unspeakable. Your dull soul, Samuel, is clay,
+your meat is figures, and your drink profit and loss; all of which
+reminds me, Samuel, that it is now two o'clock and that the nerves of my
+stomach are on a strike. Let--me--see"--and he turned his back, felt in
+his pocket, and counted out some bills and change--"Yes, Sam"--here his
+dramatic manner changed--"the account is still good--we will now lunch.
+Not expensively, Samuel"--with another wave of the hand--"not
+riotously--simply, and within our means. Come, thou slave of the
+desk--eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die--or bust, Samuel,
+which is very nearly the same thing!"
+
+"Old John" at Solari's took their order--a porter-house steak with
+mushrooms, peas, cold asparagus, a pint of extra dry--in honor of the
+day, Jack insisted, although Sam protested to the verge of
+discourtesy--together with the usual assortment of small drinkables and
+long smokables--a Reina Victoria each.
+
+On the way back to the studio the two stopped to look in a shop-window,
+when Jack gave a cry of delight and pressed his nose against the glass
+to get a better view of a small picture by Monet resting on an easel.
+
+"By the gods, Sam!--isn't that a corker! See the way those trees are
+painted! Look at the air and light in it--not a value out of
+scale--perfectly charming!--_charming_," and he dived into the shop
+before Sam. could check him.
+
+In a moment he was out again, shaking his head, chewing his under-lip,
+and taking another devouring look at the canvas.
+
+"What do they want for it, Jack?" asked Sam--his standard of merit was
+always the cost of a thing.
+
+"About half what it's worth--six hundred dollars."
+
+"Whew!" burst out Sam; "that's nearly as much as I make in a year. I
+wouldn't give five dollars for it."
+
+Jack's face was still pressed against the glass of the window, his eyes
+riveted on the canvas. He either did not hear or would not answer his
+friend's criticism.
+
+"Buy it, Jack," Sam continued, with a laugh, the hopelessness of the
+purchase making him the more insistent. "Hang it under the lamp, old
+man--I'll pay for the candles."
+
+"I would," said Jack, gravely and in perfect seriousness, "only the
+governor's allowance isn't due for a week, and the luncheon took my
+last cent."
+
+The next day, after business hours, Sam, in the goodness of his heart,
+called to comfort Jack over the loss of the Monet--a loss as real to the
+painter as if he had once possessed it--he _had_ in that first glance
+through the window-pane; every line and tone and brush-mark was his own.
+So great was Sam's sympathy for Jack, and his interest in the matter,
+that he had called upon a real millionaire and had made an appointment
+for him to come to Jack's studio that same afternoon, in the hope that
+he would leave part of his wealth behind him in exchange for one of
+Jack's masterpieces.
+
+Sam found Jack flat on the floor, his back supported by a cushion
+propped against the divan. He was gloating over a small picture, its
+frame tilted back on the upright of his easel. It was the Monet!
+
+"Did he loan it to you, old man?" Sam inquired.
+
+"Loan it to me, you quill-driver! No, I bought it!"
+
+"For how much?"
+
+"Full price--six hundred dollars. Do you suppose I'd insult Monet by
+dickering for it?"
+
+"What have you got to pay it with?" This came in a hopeless tone.
+
+"Not a cent! What difference does that make? Samuel, you interest me.
+Why is it your soul never rises above dollars and cents?"
+
+"But, Jack--you can't take his property and----"
+
+"I can't--can't I? _His_ property! Do you suppose Monet painted it to
+please that one-eyed, double-jointed dealer, who don't know a picture
+from a hole in the ground! Monet painted it for me--me, Samuel--ME--who
+gets more comfort out of it than a dozen dealers--ME--and that part of
+the human race who know a good thing when they see it. You don't belong
+to it, Samuel. What's six hundred or six millions to do with it? It's
+got no price, and never will have any price. It's a work of art,
+Samuel--a work of art. That's one thing you don't understand and
+never will."
+
+"But he paid his money for it and it's not right----"
+
+"Of course--that's the only good thing he has done--paid for it so that
+it could get over here where I could just wallow in it. Get down here,
+you heathen, take off your shoes and bow three times to the floor and
+then feast your eyes. You think you've seen landscapes before, but you
+haven't. You've only seen fifty cents' worth of good canvas spoiled by
+ten cents' worth of paint. I put it that way, Samuel, because that's the
+only way you'll understand it. Look at it! Did you ever see such a sky?
+Why, it's like a slash of light across a mountain-pool! I tell
+you--Samuel--that's a masterpiece!"
+
+While they were discussing the merits of the landscape and the demerits
+of the transaction there came a knock at the door and the Moneybags
+walked in. Before he opened his lips Jack had taken his measure. He was
+one of those connoisseurs who know it all. The town is full of them.
+
+A short connoisseur with a red face--red in spots--close-clipped gray
+hair that stood up on his head like a polishing brush, gold eyeglasses
+attached to a wide black ribbon, and a scissored mustache. He was
+dressed in a faultlessly fitting serge suit enlivened by a nankeen
+waistcoat supporting a gold watch-chain. The fingers of one hand
+clutched a palm-leaf fan; the fingers of the other were extended toward
+Jack. He had known Jack's governor for years, and so a too formal
+introduction was unnecessary.
+
+"Show me what you've got," he began, "the latest, understand. Wife wants
+something to hang over the sideboard. You've been doing some new things,
+I hear from Ruggles."
+
+The tone of the request grated on Jack, who had risen to his feet the
+moment "His Finance" (as he insisted on calling him afterward to Sam)
+had opened the door. He felt instantly that the atmosphere of his
+sanctum had, to a certain extent, been polluted. But that Sam's eyes
+were upon him he would have denied point-blank that he had a single
+canvas of any kind for sale, and so closed the incident.
+
+Sam saw the wavering look in his friend's face and started in to
+overhaul a rack of unframed pictures with their faces turned to the
+wall. These he placed one after the other on the ledge of the easel and
+immediately above the Monet, which still kept its place on the floor,
+its sunny face gazing up at the shopkeeper, his clerk, and
+bin customer.
+
+"This the newest one you've got?" asked the millionnaire, in the same
+tone he would have used to his tailor, as he pointed to a picture of a
+strip of land between sea and sky--one of those uncertain landscapes
+that a man is righteously excused for hanging upside down.
+
+"Yes," said Jack, with a grave face, "right off the ice."
+
+Sam winced, but "His Finance" either did not hear it or supposed it was
+some art-slang common to such a place.
+
+"This another?" he inquired, fixing his glasses in place and hending
+down closer to the Monet.
+
+"No--that's out of another refrigerator," remarked Jack, carelessly--not
+a smile on his face.
+
+"Rather a neat thing," continued the Moneybags. "Looks just like a place
+up in Somesbury where I was born--same old pasture. What's the price?"
+
+"It isn't for sale," answered Jack, in a decided tone.
+
+"Not for sale?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I rather like it," and he bent down closer, "and, if you can fix
+a figure, I might----"
+
+"I can't fix a figure, for it isn't for sale. I didn't paint it--it's
+one of Monet's."
+
+"Belongs to you--don't it?"
+
+"Yes--belongs to me."
+
+"Well, how about a thousand dollars for it?"
+
+Sam's heart leaped to his throat, but Jack's face never showed a
+wrinkle.
+
+"Thanks; much obliged, but I'll hold on to it for a while. I'm not
+through with it yet."
+
+"If you decide to sell it will you let me know?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the canvas and carrying it
+across the room, he turned its face to the wall.
+
+While Sam was bowing the millionnaire out (there was nothing but the
+Monet, of course, which he wanted now that he couldn't buy it), Jack
+occupied the minutes in making a caricature of His Finance on a
+fresh canvas.
+
+Sam's opening sentences on his return, out of breath with his run back
+up the three flights of stairs, were not complimentary. They began by
+impeaching Jack's intelligence in terms more profane than polite, and
+ended in the fervent hope that he make an instantaneous visit to His
+Satanic Majesty.
+
+In the midst of this discussion--in which one side roared his
+displeasure and the other answered in pantomime between shouts of his
+own laughter--there came another knock at the door, and the owner of the
+Monet walked in. He, too, was in a disturbed state of mind. He had heard
+some things during the day bearing directly on Jack's credit, and had
+brought a bill with him for the value of the picture.
+
+He would like the money then and there.
+
+Jack's manner with the dealer was even more lordly and condescending
+than with the would-be buyer.
+
+"Want a check--when--now? My dear sir! when I bought that Monet was
+there anything said about my paying for it in twenty-four hours?
+To-morrow, when my argosies arrive laden with the spoils of the far
+East, but not now. I never pay for anything immediately--it would injure
+my credit. Sit down and let me offer you a cigar--my governor imports
+'em and so you can be assured they are good. By the way--what's become
+of that Ziem I saw in your window last week? The Metropolitan ought to
+have that picture."
+
+The one-eyed dealer--Jack was right, he had but one eye--at once agreed
+with Jack as to the proper ultimate destination of the Ziem, and under
+the influence of the cigar which Jack had insisted on lighting for him,
+assisted by Jack's casual mention of his father--a name that was known
+to be good for half a million--and encouraged--greatly encouraged
+indeed--by an aside from Sam that the painter had already been offered
+more than he paid for it by a man worth millions--under all these
+influences, assistances, and encouragements, I say, the one-eyed dealer
+so modified his demands that an additional twenty-four hours was
+granted Jack in which to settle his account, the Monet to remain in his
+possession.
+
+When Sam returned from this second bowing-out his language was more
+temperate. "You're a Cracker-Jack," was all he said, and closed the door
+behind him.
+
+During the ten days that followed, Jack gloated over the Monet and
+staved off his various creditors until his father's semi-monthly
+remittance arrived. Whenever the owner of the Monet mounted the stairs
+by appointment and pounded at Jack's door, Jack let him pound, tiptoeing
+about his room until he heard the anxious dealer's footsteps echoing
+down the stairs in retreat.
+
+On the day that the "governor's" remittance arrived--it came on the
+fifteenth and the first of every month--Sam found a furniture van backed
+up opposite Jack's studio street entrance. The gravity of the situation
+instantly became apparent. The dealer had lost patience and had sent for
+the picture; the van told the story. Had he not been sure of getting it
+he would not have sent the van.
+
+Sam went up three steps at a time and burst into Jack's studio. He found
+its owner directing two men where to place an inlaid cabinet. It was a
+large cabinet of ebony, elaborately carved and decorated, and the two
+furniture men--judging from the way they were breathing--had had their
+hands full in getting it up the three flights of stairs. Jack was
+pushing back the easels and pictures to make room for it when Sam
+entered. His first thought was for the unpaid-for picture.
+
+"Monet gone, Jack?" he asked, glancing around the room hurriedly in his
+anxiety to find it.
+
+"Yea--last night. He came and took it away. Here," (this to the two men)
+"shove it close to the wall," pointing to the cabinet. "There--now go
+down and get the top, and look out you don't break those little drawers.
+What's the matter with you, Samuel? You look as if somebody had walked
+over your grave."
+
+"And you had no trouble?"
+
+"Trouble! What are you dilating about, Samuel? We never have any trouble
+up here."
+
+"Then it's because I've kept him quiet. I've been three times this week
+and held him up--much as I could do to keep him from getting out
+a warrant."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Your one-eyed dealer, as you call him."
+
+"My one-eyed dealer isn't worrying, Samuel. Look at this," and he pulled
+out a receipted bill. "His name, isn't it? 'Received in full payment--
+Six hundred dollars.' Seems odd, Samuel, doesn't it?"
+
+"Did your governor send the money?"
+
+"Did my governor send the money! My governor isn't so obliging.
+Here--don't stand there with your eyes hanging out on your cheeks; look
+on this--found it yesterday at Sighfor's. Isn't it a stunner? bottom
+modern except the feet, but the top is Sixteenth Century. See the way
+the tortoise-shell is worked in--lots of secret drawers, too, all
+through it--going to keep my bills in one of 'em and lose the key. What
+are you staring at, anyhow, Sam?"
+
+"Well--but Jack--I don't see----"
+
+"Of course you don't see! You think I robbed a bank or waylaid your
+Moneybags. I did--took twelve hundred dollars out of his clothes in a
+check on the spot--wrote it right there at that desk--for the Monet, and
+sent it home to his Palazzo da Avenue. Then I took his dirty check,
+indorsed it over to that one-eyed skinflint, got the balance in bills,
+bought the cabinet for five hundred and eighty-two dollars cash--forgive
+me, Samuel, but there was no other way--and here is just eighteen
+dollars to the good"--and he pulled out some bank-notes--"or was before
+I gave those two poor devils a dollar apiece for carrying up this
+cabinet. To-night, Samuel--to-night--we will dine at the Waldorf."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underdog, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
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