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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9463-8.txt b/9463-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f9bb56 --- /dev/null +++ b/9463-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8334 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underdog, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Underdog + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9463] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 3, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS 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 be 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 be 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. 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Hopkinson Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Underdog + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9463] +First Posted: October 3, 2003 +Last Updated: October 24,2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNDERDOG *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Cormode, Kevin Handy, David Widger +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + <h1> + THE UNDER DOG + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + BY + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + F. HOPKINSON SMITH + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + ILLUSTRATED + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + 1903 + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkfrontispiece" id="linkfrontispiece"></a> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="frontispiece.jpg (71K)" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" + width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="titlepage.jpg (39K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <table summary=""> + <tr> + <td> + <h3> + To my Readers: + </h3> + <p> + In the strife of life some men lose place through physical weakness + or<br /> lost opportunities or impaired abilities; struggle on as + they may, they<br /> must always be the Under Dog in the fight. + </p> + <p> + Others are misjudged—often by their fellows; sometimes by the + law. If<br /> you are one of the fellows, you pass the man with a + nod. If you are the<br /> law, you crush out his life with a + sentence. + </p> + <p> + Still others lose place from being misunderstood; from being out of<br /> + touch with their surroundings; out of reach of those who, if they + knew,<br /> would help; men with hearts chilled by neglect, whose + smouldering<br /> coals—coals deep hidden in their nature—need + only the warm breath of<br /> some other man's sympathy to be fanned + back into life. + </p> + <p> + Once in a while there can be met another kind, one whose poverty or<br /> + uncouthness makes us shun him at sight; and yet one, if we did but + know<br /> it, with a joyous melody in his heart, ofttimes in tune + with our own<br /> harmonies. This kind is rare, and when found adds + another ripple to our<br /> scanty stock of laughter. + </p> + <p> + These Under Dogs—grave and gay—have always appealed to + me. Their<br /> stories are printed here in the hope that they may + also appeal to you. + </p> + <p> + F.H.S. + </p> + <p> + NEW YORK. + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CONTENTS + </h2> + <table summary=""> + <tr> + <td> + <p> + <i><a href="#linkrespect">No Respecter of Persons</a><br /> I. + The Crime of Samanthy North<br /> II. Bud Tilden, + Mail-Thief<br /> III. "Eleven Months and Ten Days"<br /> + <a href="#linkbob">Cap'n Bob of the Screamer</a><br /> <a + href="#linkumb">A Procession of Umbrellas</a><br /> <a href="#linkdoc">"Doc" + Shipman's Fee</a><br /> <a href="#linkfin">Plain Fin—Paper-Hanger</a><br /> + <a href="#linkjim">Long Jim</a><br /> <a href="#linkparis">Compartment + Number Four—Cologne to Paris</a><br /> <a href="#linksam">Sammy</a><br /> + <a href="#linkmarny">Marny's Shadow</a><br /> <a href="#linkbar">Muffles—The + Bar-Keep</a><br /> <a href="#linkcent">His Last Cent</a></i> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + ILLUSTRATIONS + </h2> + <table summary=""> + <tr> + <td> + <p> + <i><a href="#linkfrontispiece">During the trip he sat in the far + corner of the car</a></i> + </p> + <p> + <i><a href="#linkbushes">"I threw him in the bushes and got the + letter"</a></i> + </p> + <p> + <i><a href="#linktired">"I git so tired, so tired; please let me go"</a></i> + </p> + <p> + <i><a href="#linkshoe">I saw the point of a tiny shoe</a></i> + </p> + <p> + <i><a href="#linkexcited">Everybody was excited and everybody was + mad</a></i> + </p> + <p> + <i><a href="#linkchanged">I hardly knew him, he was so changed</a></i> + </p> + <br /><br /> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <a name="linkrespect" id="linkrespect"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS + </h2> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <h3> + THE CRIME OF SAMANTHY NORTH + </h3> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + Marny's studio is over the Art Club. + </p> + <p> + He was at work on a picture of a cañon with some Sioux Indians in + the foreground, while I sat beside him, watching the play of his masterly + brush. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Now and then she interpolated her efforts with such remarks as: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The painter squeezed a tube of white on his palette, relit his cigarette, + fumbled over his sheaf of brushes and continued: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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, <i>she</i> wouldn't treat + a dog that way, nor anything else that lives and breathes or has feeling, + human or brute. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + This was why it happened that within the hour Marny and I crossed the + bridge and left his studio and the city behind us. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The Sergeant moved rapidly across the room, pushed aside the disk and + brought to view the nose and eyes of a prison guard. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "How long have you been here?" I asked, lowering my voice and stepping + closer to the bars. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + "Eleven months and three days. Reckon I be the oldest"—and he looked + about him as if for confirmation. "Yes, reckon I be." + </p> + <p> + "What for?" + </p> + <p> + "Sellin'." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Makin'," they severally replied. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I turned and looked down the corridor. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "That girl a prisoner?" I asked the Warden. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, she's been here some time. Judge suspended sentence a while ago. + She's gone after her things." + </p> + <p> + There was no joy over her release in his tones, nor pity for her + condition. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "Will you come here, please, to the grating? I want to speak to you." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Where do you come from?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + I had to begin in some way. + </p> + <p> + "From Pineyville." The voice was that of a child, with a hard, dry note in + it. + </p> + <p> + "How old is the baby?" + </p> + <p> + "Three months and ten days." She had counted the child's age. She had + thought enough for that. + </p> + <p> + "How far is Pineyville?" + </p> + <p> + "I doan' know. It took mos' all night to git here." There was no change in + the listless monotone. + </p> + <p> + "Are you going out now?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, soon's I kin git ready." + </p> + <p> + "How are you going to get home?" + </p> + <p> + "Walk, I reckon." There was no complaint in her tone, no sudden exhibition + of any suffering. She was only stating facts. + </p> + <p> + "Have you no money?" + </p> + <p> + "No." Same bald statement, and in the same hopeless tone. She had not + moved—not even to look at the child. + </p> + <p> + "What's the fare?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Did you sell any whiskey?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I tol' the Judge so." Still no break in her voice. It was only + another statement. + </p> + <p> + "Oh! you kept a saloon?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "How did you sell it, then?" + </p> + <p> + "Jest out of a kag—in a cup." + </p> + <p> + "Had you ever sold any before?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Why did you sell it, then?" + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Did you make the whiskey?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "How came you to be arrested?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "How long have you been here?" + </p> + <p> + "Three months next Tuesday." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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? + </p> + <p> + I leaned closer so that I could touch her hand if need be. + </p> + <p> + "What's your name?" + </p> + <p> + "Samanthy North." + </p> + <p> + "What's your husband's name?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Where is he?" I determined now to round up every fact. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Is your home near the railroad?" + </p> + <p> + "No, it's thirty-six miles furder." + </p> + <p> + "How will you get from the railroad?" + </p> + <p> + "Ain't no way 'cept walkin'." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I put my hand through the bars and laid it on her wrist. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "What about that girl, Sergeant—the one with the baby?" I demanded, + in a tone that made them both turn quickly. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + The Sergeant looked at Marny, relaxed the scowl about his eyebrows, and + smiled; such "softies" seemed rare to him. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "You don't mean—" A cold chill suddenly developed near the roots of + my hair and trickled to my spine. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Dat I will, honey," she answered, positively, when the case was laid + before her. "<i>Dat I will</i>; 'deed an' double I will." + </p> + <p> + She stepped into the house, left her basket, joined us again on the + sidewalk, and walked with us back to the Sheriff's office. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>dat</i>. 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!" + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>can</i> be done. + </p> + <p> + It is the law of the land—the just, holy, beneficent law, which is + no respecter of persons. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "What's he here for?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + "Bobbin' the U-nited States mail." + </p> + <p> + "Where?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "When was he arrested?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "You say they are going to try him to-day?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The crier of the court, a young negro, made his announcements. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Bowditch will take the chair!" cried the prosecutor. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + With the resting of the Government's case a dead silence fell upon the + room. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + No one answered. Again the Judge put the question, this time with some + impatience. + </p> + <p> + Then he addressed the prisoner. + </p> + <p> + "Is your lawyer present?" + </p> + <p> + Bud bent forward in his chair, put his hands on his knees, and answered + slowly, without a tremor in his voice: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Did I not appoint counsel in this case yesterday?" said the Judge, + turning to the clerk. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I turned in my seat and touched the arm of my neighbor. + </p> + <p> + "Who is that man who wants to go on with the case?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Cartwright began by asking that the mail-carrier be recalled. The little + man again took the stand. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "At what hour do you say the attempted robbery took place, Mr. Bowditch?" + </p> + <p> + "About eleven o'clock." + </p> + <p> + "Did you have a watch?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "How do you know, then?" The question was asked in a mild way as if he + intended to help the carrier's memory. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know exactly; it may have been half-past ten or eleven." + </p> + <p> + "You, of course, saw the man's face?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Then you heard him speak?" Same tone as if trying his best to encourage + the witness in his statements. + </p> + <p> + "No." This was said with some positiveness. The mail-carrier evidently + intended to tell the truth. + </p> + <p> + Cartwright turned quickly with a snarl like that of a dog suddenly goaded + into a fight. + </p> + <p> + "How can you swear, then, that the prisoner made the assault?" + </p> + <p> + The little man changed color and stammered out in excuse: + </p> + <p> + "He was as big as him, anyway, and there ain't no other like him nowhere + in them parts." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, he was as <i>big</i> as him, was he?" This retort came with + undisguised contempt. "And there are no others like him, eh? Do you know + <i>everybody</i> in Bell County, Mr. Bowditch?" + </p> + <p> + The mail-carrier did not answer. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "Will Mr. Perkins Tilden take-the stand?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Cartwright's manner to this witness was the manner of a lackey who hangs + on every syllable that falls from his master's lips. + </p> + <p> + "At what time, Mr. Tilden, did your son Bud reach your house on the night + of the robbery?" + </p> + <p> + The old man cleared his throat and said, as if weighing each word: + </p> + <p> + "At ten minutes past ten o'clock." + </p> + <p> + "How do you fix the time?" + </p> + <p> + "I had just wound the clock when Bud come in." + </p> + <p> + "How, Mr. Tilden, how far is it to the cross-roads where the mail-carrier + says he was robbed?" + </p> + <p> + "About a mile and a half from my place." + </p> + <p> + "And how long would it take an able-bodied man to walk it?" + </p> + <p> + "'Bout fifteen minutes." + </p> + <p> + "Not more?" + </p> + <p> + "No, sir." + </p> + <p> + The Government's attorney had no questions to ask, and said so with a + certain assumed nonchalance. + </p> + <p> + 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!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + He seemed on the point of making some protest which the action of the + officer alone restrained. + </p> + <p> + Cartwright, after the oath had been administered, began in a voice so low + that the jury stretched their necks to listen: + </p> + <p> + "Miss Moore, do you know the prisoner?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "How long have you known him?" + </p> + <p> + There was a pause, and then she said in a faint voice: + </p> + <p> + "Ever since he and me growed up." + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, sir." + </p> + <p> + "At what time?" + </p> + <p> + "'Bout ten o'clock." This was again repeated. + </p> + <p> + "How long did he stay?" + </p> + <p> + "Not more'n ten minutes." + </p> + <p> + "Where did he go then?" + </p> + <p> + "He said he was goin' home." + </p> + <p> + "How far is it to his home from your house?" + </p> + <p> + "'Bout ten minutes' walk." + </p> + <p> + "That will do, Miss Moore," said Cartwright, and took his seat. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "Did anybody else come to see you the next night after the robbery?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The girl's face flushed, and she began to fumble the shawl nervously with + her fingers. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, Hank Halliday," she murmured, in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Halliday, who has testified here?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, sir." + </p> + <p> + "What did he want?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Have you got that letter now?" + </p> + <p> + "No, sir." + </p> + <p> + "Did you ever get it?" + </p> + <p> + "No, sir." + </p> + <p> + "Did you ever see it?" + </p> + <p> + "No, and I don't think it was ever writ." + </p> + <p> + "But he <i>has</i> written you letters before?" + </p> + <p> + "He used to; he don't now." + </p> + <p> + "That will do." + </p> + <p> + The girl took her place again behind the old man. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "The prisoner will take the stand!" cried Cartwright, in a firm voice. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>mail-sack</i>?" 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "'Bout as close's I could git to it—'bout three feet, I should say—maybe + less." + </p> + <p> + Cartwright gave a slight start and bit his lip. Evidently the prisoner had + misunderstood him. The silence continued. + </p> + <p> + "I don't mean <i>here</i>, Mr. Tilden;" and he pointed to the bag. "I mean + the night of the so-called robbery." + </p> + <p> + "That's what I said; 'bout as close's I could git." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "No, of course not." The tone of relief was apparent. + </p> + <p> + "Well, do you know anything about the cutting of the bag?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "Who did it?" + </p> + <p> + "Me." + </p> + <p> + "<i>You?"</i> The surprise was now an angry one. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, me." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + Bud turned slowly and, pointing his finger at Halliday, said between his + closed teeth: + </p> + <p> + "Ask Hank Halliday; he knows." + </p> + <p> + The buzzard sprang to his feet. There was the scent of carrion in the air + now; I saw it in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + The irregularity of the proceeding was unnoticed in the tense excitement. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <a name="linkbushes" id="linkbushes"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="bushes.jpg (97K)" src="images/bushes.jpg" width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The stillness that followed was broken only by the Judge's voice. + </p> + <p> + "What became of that letter?" + </p> + <p> + "I got it. Want to see it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + Bud felt in his pockets as if looking for something, and then, with an + expression as if he had suddenly remembered, remarked: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + The Judge leaned forward in his seat and said: + </p> + <p> + "Hand me the letter." + </p> + <p> + The letter was passed up by the court-crier, every eye following it. His + Honor examined the envelope, and, beckoning to Halliday, said: + </p> + <p> + "Is this your letter?" + </p> + <p> + Halliday stepped to the side of the Judge, fingered the letter closely, + and said: "Looks like my writin'." + </p> + <p> + "Open it and see." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, it's my letter;" and he glanced sheepishly around the room and hung + his head, his face scarlet. + </p> + <p> + The Judge leaned back in his chair, raised his hand impressively, and said + gravely: + </p> + <p> + "This case is adjourned until ten o'clock tomorrow." + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + "What became of Bud Tilden?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + "ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + For eleven months and ten days he had been penned up in one of the steel + cages of Covington jail. + </p> + <p> + I recognized him the moment I saw him. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + How wonderful the system, how mighty the results! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + And his record? + </p> + <p> + Ah, how often is this so in the law!—his record must be kept good. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Tell the jury exactly how it all happened," he said, "and in your own + way, just as you told it to me." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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?' + </p> + <p> + "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——" + </p> + <p> + The buzzard sprang to his feet and shrieked out: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "I'm gettin' there's fast's I kin, sir, 'deed I am; I ain't hidin' + nothin'." + </p> + <p> + He wasn't. Anyone could see it in his face. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "When did you next see Mr. Fillmore and Luke Shanders?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 be over the next day; that they was tired o' + fightin', and that if I was willin' to settle they was. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Then Luke Shanders 'lowed he was cold, and asked if I had a drap o' + whiskey." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "You didn't put the dime there, did you?" the young attorney asked, in a + tone that implied a negative answer. + </p> + <p> + "No, sir; I don't take no money for what I give a man." This came with a + slight touch of indignation. + </p> + <p> + "Do you know who put it there?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <a name="linktired" id="linktired"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="tired.jpg (97K)" src="images/tired.jpg" width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The buzzard was on his feet now, his arms sawing the air, his strident + voice filling the courtroom. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + What's to be done about it? + </p> + <p> + Nothing. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkbob" id="linkbob"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CAP'N BOB OF THE SCREAMER + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Yes—Teutonic." + </p> + <p> + "Where did you pick her up—Fire Island?" + </p> + <p> + "No; 'bout hundred miles off Montauk." + </p> + <p> + Captain Bob has been a Sandy Hook pilot for some years back. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + And the modesty of the man! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Cap'n Bob stopped it, sir," was sure to have been the proffered reply. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Then the first officer walked down the deck to where I stood, followed by + a huddle of seamen who began unrolling a rope ladder. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I thought I knew that spring, even before I saw his face or got hold of + his hand. + </p> + <p> + It was Captain Bob. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "But she was a good sea-boat," I interpolated. "The Screamer was always + the pride of the work." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'What d'ye want?' the skipper says, when he got within hail. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + He was settled in his chair now, his legs crossed, his head down between + his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>were</i> 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>my</i> permission.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "It did look kind o' nasty for us, and no mistake. One day more, and we'd + 'a' been through and had our money. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'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: + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Was that the last time you saw him?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'Ahoy! Is the Captain aboard?' + </p> + <p> + "'He is,' I said, steppin' out. 'Who wants him?' + </p> + <p> + "'Colonel Throckmorton,' he says, 'and Major Severn.' + </p> + <p> + "'Come aboard, gentlemen,' I says. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Are you the Captain?' he says, and he looked me over 'bout as the + admiral had done. + </p> + <p> + "'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?' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'What makes you think the Screamer won't lift it?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'All ready, Cap'n,' he says. 'She's got every pound she can carry.' + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'Water's comin' in!' + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>would</i> 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: + </p> + <p> + "'All gone.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Pretty soon he came up to where I was a-gettin' the tackle ready to lower + the stone in the hold, and he says: + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'Well, gentlemen,' I says, 'what was wrong about it? What's the matter + with the Screamer's rig?' + </p> + <p> + "'Well, the size of the rope for one thing,' says the Colonel, 'and the + boom.' + </p> + <p> + "'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 <i>growed + right</i>—that's what's the matter with it; and it bellies out in + the middle, just where it ought to be thickest.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'That don't make no difference, Cap'n, what kind of clo'es you come in. + We dine at eight o'clock.' + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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'. + </p> + <p> + "The Colonel see I was in earnest, and he stepped up, quick-like, and laid + his hand on my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + "'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!'" + </p> + <p> + The Captain stopped, shook the ashes from his cigar, slowly raised himself + to his feet, and reached for his hat. + </p> + <p> + "Did you go, Captain?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkumb" id="linkumb"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + I + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Then she caught sight of my umbrella. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Très drôle, Monsieur!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Then came a halloo from the greensward. The priest was coming toward us, + calling out, as he walked: + </p> + <p> + "Susette! Susette!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Again came the voice, this time quite near. + </p> + <p> + "Susette! Susette!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "The Châlet Cycle is the nearest," she volunteered, grasping the + situation, and pointing to a path opening to the right as she spoke. + </p> + <p> + "Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, hurriedly. + </p> + <p> + "No, Monsieur—Susette has gone home. It is only a little way." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Do you happen to know the Châlet Cycle? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Believe me, a most seductive place is this Châlet Cycle, with its + tables set out under the trees! + </p> + <p> + A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on <i>tête-à-tête</i> + 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 <i>unexpected</i> + that always happens at the Châlet Cycle. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>vin ordinaire</i> in + peace. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "Send me a waiter to take my order—orders for <i>one</i>, 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of this mêlée 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="linkshoe" id="linkshoe"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="shoe.jpg (72K)" src="images/shoe.jpg" width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur—" he answered, instantly. + </p> + <p> + "And the lady?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud of the Variété. + She comes quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season." + </p> + <p> + He evidently took me for an old <i>habitué</i>. There are some + compensations, after all, in the life of a staid old painter. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Up to this Moment no portion of my order had materialized. No cover for + one, nor filet, nor <i>vin ordinaire</i>, nor waiter had appeared. The + painter was growing impatient. The man inside was becoming hungry. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge umbrellas, the ones used over + the <i>tête-à-tête</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>pour + boire</i>. 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "You know the Mademoiselle, then?" + </p> + <p> + My waiter shrugged his shoulders, his face still impenetrable. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + My waiter belonged to this last group. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>viveurs</i>—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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "Quite new—only ten days or so, I think." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Monsieur?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "He will <i>not think</i>, Monsieur. They pulled him out of the river last + month." + </p> + <p> + "Drowned?" + </p> + <p> + His answer gave me a little start, but I did not betray myself. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "In the morgue?" I inquired in a tone of surprise. I spoke as if this part + of the story had not reached me. + </p> + <p> + "In the morgue, Monsieur." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Drowned himself for love of Mademoiselle Béraud, you say?" + </p> + <p> + "Quite true, Monsieur. He is not the only one. I know four." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Why not, Monsieur? One must live." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "You say you have only been two years in Suresne?" I resumed, carelessly, + flicking the ashes from my cigar. + </p> + <p> + "But two years, Monsieur." + </p> + <p> + "Why did you leave Paris?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, you are right. And so you came to Suresne to be quiet." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "It is true, Monsieur." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Very pretty—" still the same monotone. + </p> + <p> + "And you love her!" It was up to the hilt now. + </p> + <p> + "She is the only thing I have left to love, Monsieur," he answered, + calmly. + </p> + <p> + Then, bending over me, he added: + </p> + <p> + "Monsieur, I do not think I am mistaken. Were you not painting along the + river this morning?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "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! + </p> + <p> + "Yes, of course; the one playing with the priest," I answered, quickly. + "But—" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "No, you are wrong again, Monsieur. The woman in the white cap is my + sister. My sweetheart is the little girl—my granddaughter, Susette." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkdoc" id="linkdoc"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + "DOC" SHIPMAN'S FEE + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Where's the silver one?" I asked, referring to an old silver-backed watch + I had seen him wear. + </p> + <p> + The Doctor looked up and smiled. + </p> + <p> + "That's in the drawer. I don't wear it any more—not since I got this + one back." + </p> + <p> + "What happened? Was it broken?" + </p> + <p> + "No, stolen." + </p> + <p> + "When?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, some time ago. Help yourself to a cigar and I'll tell you about it. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + (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.) + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 '<i>E.M.S. from J.H.S</i>.' 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'What for?' + </p> + <p> + "'My pal's sick.' + </p> + <p> + "'What's the matter with him?' + </p> + <p> + "'Well, he's sick—took bad. He'll die if he don't git help.' + </p> + <p> + "'Where is he?' + </p> + <p> + "'Down in Washington Street.' + </p> + <p> + "'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: + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Here's the "Doc,"' I heard him say. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Shot?' I asked of the man nearest me. + </p> + <p> + "'Yes.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "The man turned his head and opened his eyes. He was a stockily built + fellow of thirty with a clean-shaven face. + </p> + <p> + "'Is that you, "Doc"?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, where does it hurt?' + </p> + <p> + "'"Doc" Shipman—who used to be at Bellevue five or six years ago?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes—now tell me where the pain is.' + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "I looked him over again, put in a few stitches, and fixed him up for the + night. When I had finished he said: + </p> + <p> + "'Come closer, "Doc"; am I going to die?' + </p> + <p> + "'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,' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "I turned to the wounded man again. + </p> + <p> + "'You say you've seen me before?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, once. You sewed this up'—and he held up his arm showing a + healed scar. 'You've forgot it, but I haven't.' + </p> + <p> + "'Where?' + </p> + <p> + "'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."' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'Ain't forgot me again, have you, "Doc"!' + </p> + <p> + "'No, you're the man I fixed up in Washington Street last fall.' + </p> + <p> + "'Yea, that's right, "Doc"; that's me. Can I come in? I got something for + you.' + </p> + <p> + "I brought him in and he sat down on that sofa. Then he pulled out a + package from his inside pocket. + </p> + <p> + "'"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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Very nice pin,' I said. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'How did you get this one?' I asked, holding up the pearl pin. + </p> + <p> + "'I picked it up outside Cooper Union.' + </p> + <p> + "'On the sidewalk?' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "'Then you ain't mad 'cause I brought 'em?'—and he looked at me + searchingly from under his dark eyebrows, his lips firmly set. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'Well, "Doc," ain't there something else I can do for you? Man like you + must have <i>something</i> you want—something you can't get without + somebody's help. Think now—you mightn't see me again.' + </p> + <p> + "Instantly I thought of my mother's watch. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'What kind of a watch?' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'Anybody here but you?' + </p> + <p> + "'No.' + </p> + <p> + "'Sure?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yee, very sure.' + </p> + <p> + "He spoke in a husky, rasping voice, like a man who had caught his breath + again after a long run. + </p> + <p> + "He turned his back to the window, slipped his hand in his hip-pocket and + pulled out my mother's watch. + </p> + <p> + "'Is that it, "Doc"?' + </p> + <p> + "The light was pretty low, but I'd have known it in the dark. + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, of course it is—' and I opened the lid in search of the old + lady's photo. 'Where did you get it?' + </p> + <p> + "'Look again. There ain't no likeness.' + </p> + <p> + "'No, but here are the marks where they scraped it off'—and I held + it close to his eyes. 'Where did you get it?' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Sit down. You'll let me pay you for it, won't you? Wait until I go back + in my bedroom for some money.' + </p> + <p> + "'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—— + </p> + <p> + "'Hold on,' I said—and I walked rapidly toward him—'don't go + yet—you are not well.' + </p> + <p> + "He leaned against the bookcase and put his hand to his side. + </p> + <p> + "I was alongside of him now, my arm under his, guiding him into a chair. + </p> + <p> + "'Are you faint?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes—got a drop of anything, "Doc"? That's all I want. It ain't + nothing.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'My God! man,' I cried; 'you are hurt, your shirt's all bloody. Come back + here until I can see what's the matter.' + </p> + <p> + "'No, "Doc"—<i>no!</i> 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.' + </p> + <p> + "And he was gone." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkfin" id="linkfin"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + PLAIN FIN—PAPER-HANGER + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + I + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + His name was as brief as his stature. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + And the inns!—or rather my own particular inn—the White Hart + at Sonning. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + And the people in and about this White Hart inn! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "I hope you 'eard our Vicar, sir—No? Sorry you didn't, sir. I tell + yer 'e's a nailer." + </p> + <p> + And so much for the company at the White Hart Inn. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Try a punt once. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "No work?" I said, aimlessly. As long as he kept still I didn't care what + he talked or laughed about. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Row with your Union?" I remarked, listlessly, my mind still intent on + watching a sky tint above the foreground trees. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper-hanging evidently had its + lively side. + </p> + <p> + "Afoot?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Hanging paper?" I suggested with a smile. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "No, Fin; go on." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'His Lordship wants ye in a hurry, Fin,' and he jumped inside. + </p> + <p> + "When I got there I see something was goin' on—a party or something—the + lights was lit clear up to the roof. + </p> + <p> + "'His Lordship's waitin' in the hall for ye,' said his man, and I jumped + off me box and wint inside. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Good-night, Your Ladyship,' says His Lordship. + </p> + <p> + "'Good-night, Sir Henry,' she called back, her head out of the winder, and + off I driv. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "The next mornin' I went to see His Lordship. + </p> + <p> + "'Did ye land her all right, Fin?' + </p> + <p> + "'I did, sor,' I says. + </p> + <p> + "'Had ye any trouble wid the key?' + </p> + <p> + "'No, sor,' I says, 'the door was open.' + </p> + <p> + "'That's queer,' he says; 'maybe her husband came in earlier and forgot to + shut it. And ye put her on the sofa——' + </p> + <p> + "'No, sor, in a big chair.' + </p> + <p> + "'In the parlor on the right?' + </p> + <p> + "'No, sor, in a little room on the left—down one step——' + </p> + <p> + "He stopped and looked at me. + </p> + <p> + "'Te're sure ye put her in the fust white house?' + </p> + <p> + "'I am, sor.' + </p> + <p> + "'Wid geraniums in the winder?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, sor.' + </p> + <p> + "'Red?' he says. + </p> + <p> + "'No, white,' I says. + </p> + <p> + "'On the north side of the Square? + </p> + <p> + "'No,' I says, 'on the south.' + </p> + <p> + "'My God! Fin,' he says, 'ye left her in the wrong house!'" + </p> + <p> + It was I who shook the boat this time. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The four-inch dog acted as valve this morning. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "The darlin'"—this from Katy the barmaid, who reached him first—"who's + stomped on him?" + </p> + <p> + "How outrageous to be so cruel!"—this from the two maiden sisters. + </p> + <p> + "Give him to me, Katy—oh, the brute of a man!"—this from the + fair owner. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "How came you to know him?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "I ought to have been a barrister, sor; I started as one." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'Give him the writ,' he says, 'and give him two days off. It kin do no + harm for him to try.' + </p> + <p> + "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'. + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'Who's there?' he says, when I knocked. + </p> + <p> + "'Coals,' I says. + </p> + <p> + "'Where from?' he says. + </p> + <p> + "I told him the name on the card. He opened the door an inch and I could + see a chain between the crack. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'Where'll I put it?' I says. + </p> + <p> + "'In the box,' he says, walkin' toward the grate. 'Have ye brought the + bill?' + </p> + <p> + "'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! + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "I got a raise of five bob when I went back and ten bob besides from the + boss. + </p> + <p> + "I ought to have stayed at the law, sor; I'd be a magistrate by now + a-sittin' on a sheepskin instead of ——— + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "Of course I mind, Fin; I'll have trouble to fill your place. Are you + sorry to leave?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + It must have been Fin's laugh! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkjim" id="linkjim"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + LONG JIM + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Who's Ruby?" The brother brush had not mentioned him. "Mr. Marvin's son?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + The buck-board is the only vehicle possible over these mountain-roads. It + is the <i>volante</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "You like trees, then?" I asked, watching the glow on his face. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the tenth mile he stopped the mare suddenly. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—<i>would he + like me</i>? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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!" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Marvin's manner was as abrupt as that of her husband. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Well, I got to git along with him for a spell yit," Jim answered, slowly, + his eyes turned up to the sky. "He <i>is</i> 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "I knowed Abe Condit," and immediately changed the conversation. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly his wife blurted out, as if she could restrain her joy no longer: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," I answered, quietly; "Jim told me." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + Marvin turned his head and in a half-angry way said: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "How old is your daughter?" I asked, more to soften the effect of Marvin's + brutal remark than anything else. + </p> + <p> + "She's seventeen, I guess, but she's big for her age." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "And has she been away from you long this time?" + </p> + <p> + "'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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no," she answered quickly, with a little deprecatory air. "He isn't + my <i>real</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Ruby, I really couldn't go," I said. "You don't feel cross about it, do + you?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no," she answered, with some earnestness. "And I knew you were busy." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "One of the buckets is broken—Uncle Jim always fixes it," and she + turned her head away to hide her tears. + </p> + <p> + "Is Jim a carpenter, too?" I asked, with a smile. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "And dear Uncle Jim won't forget you, either." + </p> + <p> + And so she had gone, and with her had faded all the light and joyousness + of the place. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I knew then that I had hurt him in some way. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + "Well, what is it, then? Why have you kept away from me?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Hear what?" The keen anguish expressed in his voice had alarmed me. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Why, that's only a bird, Jim—I saw it—it's gone into the + bushes." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Who said so, Jim?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + Jim raised his head, looked me straight in the face and, with the tears + starting in his eyes, answered in a low voice: + </p> + <p> + "Ruby. She loves 'em—loves every one o' 'em. Oh, what's goin' to + become o' me now, anyhow?" + </p> + <p> + "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! + </p> + <p> + "Jim," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, "do you love Ruby?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Not Ruby, Jim!" I cried, in astonishment. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, Ruby. That's what was on the tag." + </p> + <p> + "And she isn't Marvin's child?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'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." + </p> + <p> + Jim arose from his seat and began pacing the platform again. I had not + spoken a word through his long story. + </p> + <p> + "Jim," I began, "how old are you?" + </p> + <p> + "Forty-two," he said, in a patient, listless way. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>this</i> year's birds, + not <i>last</i> year's. When men get as old as you and I we forget these + things sometimes, but they are true all the same." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "When?" he said, quietly. + </p> + <p> + "Now; right away; before she comes back at Christmas." + </p> + <p> + "No, I can't do it, and I won't. Not till she graduates and gits her + certificate. That'll be next June." + </p> + <p> + "What's that got to do with it?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "What would bring her home?" I asked in surprise. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "And dear old Jim?" I asked. "What has become of him?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkparis" id="linkparis"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR—COLOGNE TO PARIS + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + So I said, very politely and in my best French—it is a little frayed + and worn at the edges, but it arrives—sometimes—— + </p> + <p> + "A lower for Paris." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "There is nothing." + </p> + <p> + "Not a berth?" + </p> + <p> + "Not a berth." + </p> + <p> + "Are they all <i>paid</i> for?" and I accented the word <i>paid</i>. I + spend countless nights on Pullmans in my own country and am familiar with + many uncanny devices. + </p> + <p> + "All but one." + </p> + <p> + "Why can't I have it? It is within an hour of train-time. Who ordered it?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "If Monsieur the Director of the Circus comes now he will go in the + special car." + </p> + <p> + I examined the billet. I had Compartment Number Four, upper berth, Car + 312. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The first man to approach the wicket was the Director of the Circus. I + knew him at once. There was no question as to <i>his</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>wagon-lit</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + So I waited. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <a name="linkexcited" id="linkexcited"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="excited.jpg (86K)" src="images/excited.jpg" width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + [Everybody was excited and everybody was mad.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Madam, can I do anything for you?" + </p> + <p> + She turned, and, with a grateful smile, said: + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you speak English?" + </p> + <p> + I again inclined my head. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + The chocolate gentleman again lifted his shoulders. He had been abused in + that way by passengers since the day of his birth. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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——" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Madam," I said, gravely, "I will bring the manager. He is here and will + see that justice is done you." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Then another extraordinary thing happened—or rather a series of + extraordinary things. + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>lower</i> berth, and had arranged his own + belongings in the upper one. + </p> + <p> + He sprang to his feet the instant he saw me. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I accepted the cigarette. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The cigarette smoked, I was again in the corridor, the bald-headed man + holding the door for me to pass out first. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "You are English, are you not?" + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + "No, an American." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The Ring Master now passed, raised his hat and entered his compartment. No + sign of recognition; rather a cold, frigid stare, I thought. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I looked in on the bald-headed man. He was tucked away in the upper berth + sound asleep. + </p> + <p> + 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. <i>They</i> both kotowed as they switched off to the + baggage-room, the Ring Master bowing even lower than my roommate. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + My thought was that it was all an advertising trick of the Circus people, + arranged for spectacular effect to help the night's receipts. + </p> + <p> + While I looked on in wonder, the Manager of the Sleeping-Car Company + joined me. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Do they call her the <i>Princess</i>?" I asked. They were certainly + receiving her like one, I thought. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Azarian!" I was groping round in the fog now. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + The fog was so thick now I could cut it with a knife. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "No." The answer came quite simply, and I could see it was the truth. + </p> + <p> + "Nor one expected?" + </p> + <p> + "No. There <i>was</i> a circus, but it went through last week." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linksam" id="linksam"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + SAMMY + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It was on the Limited: 10.30 Night Express out of Louisville, bound south + to Nashville and beyond. + </p> + <p> + I had lower Four. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I at once became interested then in the man before me, or rather in his + thighs—the "Extra" hid the rest. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Then I heard this exclamation— + </p> + <p> + "It's a damned outrage!" + </p> + <p> + My curiosity got the better of me—I coughed. + </p> + <p> + The paper dropped instantly. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + If I was a surprise to him, he was doubly so to me. + </p> + <p> + My picture had vanished. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + I had read the "Extra," with all its sickening details, and so handed it + back to him. + </p> + <p> + "I quite agree with you," I said; "but this man was a brute." + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "How do you account for it?" I asked, settling myself in my chair. (We + were alone in the smoking compartment.) + </p> + <p> + "Account for what?" + </p> + <p> + "The change that has come over the South—to the negro," I answered. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + His eyes were boring into mine; his teeth set tight. + </p> + <p> + The doctrine was new to me, but I did not interrupt him. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Were you a slave-owner?" I asked, not wishing to dispute the point. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "One of your father's slaves, did you say?" + </p> + <p> + I was tapping away at the door of his recollections, camera all ready. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Rheumatism?" I ventured, sympathetically. + </p> + <p> + "No; just <i>gets</i> 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." + </p> + <p> + Again he relapsed into silence, smoking quietly. + </p> + <p> + "And you tell me," I said, "that this old slave was loyal to your family + after his freedom?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "So when my father heard about the three runaways he refused to have + anything to do with the case. This made the driver anxious. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'Send for him,' said my father. 'I'll tell you when I see him.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'What did you run away for, Aleck?' he asked. + </p> + <p> + "The boy held his head down. + </p> + <p> + "'My mother died, Marster, an' I couldn't stay dar no mo'.' + </p> + <p> + "'I'll take him,' said my father; 'but on condition that the boy wants to + live with me.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'He's your property, Judge.' + </p> + <p> + "'Aleck,' father said, 'you've heard?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, sah.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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?' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'You've thrown your money away,' said the driver, shrugging his + shoulders. 'You'll never see that nigger again.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'I'll go wid ye, an' thank ye all my life,' was all he said. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'What's your name?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + "'Aleck,' he said; 'an' what's your name, young marster?' + </p> + <p> + "'Sammy,' I said. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "He calls you 'Sammy'!" I said, in astonishment. The familiarity was new + to me between master and slave. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, always. There isn't another person in the world now that calls me + 'Sammy,'" he answered, with a tremor in his voice. + </p> + <p> + My travelling-companion stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, drew a + silver match-safe from his pocket, relighted his cigar, and continued. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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! + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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 <i>chile</i>. 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.' + </p> + <p> + "My father didn't speak again—he hadn't the heart, and Aleck went + out, leaving the money on the table." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'Who is it?' I asked, throwing open the door and peering out. + </p> + <p> + "'It's me, Sammy—it's Aleck. Take me to my ole marster.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="linkchanged" id="linkchanged"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> + <img alt="changed.jpg (69K)" src="images/changed.jpg" width="100%" /> + </div> + <p> + [I hardly knew him, he was so changed.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Where are you going, Aleck?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + "'I dunno, Sammy—some place whar I kin lay down.' + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "I held out my hand, and for an instant neither of us spoke. + </p> + <p> + "'Thank ye, Sammy,' was all he said." + </p> + <p> + Again my companion's voice broke. Then he went on: + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'What's the matter, Aleck? Why aren't you on the hearse?' + </p> + <p> + "'De undertaker man wouldn't let me, Sammy; an' I didn't like to 'sturb + you an' de mistis.' + </p> + <p> + "The tears stood in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + "'Go find him and bring him to me,' I said. + </p> + <p> + "When he came I told him the funeral would stop where it was if he didn't + carry out my orders. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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.'" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + At this instant the curtains of the smoking-room parted and the Pullman + porter entered. + </p> + <p> + "Your berth's all ready, Major," said the porter. + </p> + <p> + My companion rose from his chair, straightened his leg, held out his band, + and said: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + In a few minutes the porter returned with, "Lower Four's all ready, sir." + </p> + <p> + "All right, I'm coming. Oh, porter." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, sir." + </p> + <p> + "Porter, come closer. Who is that gentleman I've been talking to?" + </p> + <p> + "That's Major Sam Garnett, sir." + </p> + <p> + "Was he in the war?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkmarny" id="linkmarny"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + MARNY'S SHADOW + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 caffè 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The stranger must have read its meaning, for he rose quickly, and, with an + embarrassed look on his face, left the room. + </p> + <p> + "Wanted a quarter, perhaps," I suggested, laughing. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "What's a Diffendorfer?" + </p> + <p> + "Did you never meet one?" + </p> + <p> + "No, never heard of one." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, yes, you have; you've seen lots of them." + </p> + <p> + "Do they belong to any sect?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "What are they, then?" + </p> + <p> + "Just Diffendorfers. Thought I'd told you about one whom I knew. No? Wait + till I light my cigar; it's a long story." + </p> + <p> + "Anything to do with the fellow who's just gone out?" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "You remember that little smoking-room to the right as you enter the Caffè + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>sotto portico</i> or + chuck me over a bridge. Then again, I was twenty pounds heavier than he + was, and could take care of myself. + </p> + <p> + "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 mènu + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>calle</i> 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: + </p> + <p> + "'Pietro, did you see the chap that went upstairs a few moments ago?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, signore.' + </p> + <p> + "'Do you know who he is?' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'How long has he been here?' + </p> + <p> + "'About a month.' + </p> + <p> + "'Is he a painter? + </p> + <p> + "'No, I don't think so.' + </p> + <p> + "'What is he, then?' + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "'Where does he come from?' + </p> + <p> + "Pietro shrugged his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + "'That will do, Pietro.' + </p> + <p> + "There was evidently nothing to be gotten out of him. + </p> + <p> + "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 caffè, anyhow, and + so I started. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "I turned on him squarely. + </p> + <p> + "'You waiting for me?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes.' + </p> + <p> + "'What for?' + </p> + <p> + "'I want you to go to dinner with me.' + </p> + <p> + "'Where?' + </p> + <p> + "'Anywhere you say.' + </p> + <p> + "'I don't know you.' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, that's what I thought you would say.' + </p> + <p> + "'Do you know me?' + </p> + <p> + "'No.' + </p> + <p> + "'Know my name?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, your name's Marny.' + </p> + <p> + "'What's yours?' + </p> + <p> + "'Mine's Diffendorfer.' + </p> + <p> + "'Where do you want to dine?' + </p> + <p> + "'Anywhere you say. How will the Quadri do?' + </p> + <p> + "'In a private room?' I said this to see how he would take it. He still + stood in the full glare of the lantern. + </p> + <p> + "'No, unless you prefer. I would rather dine downstairs—more people + there.' + </p> + <p> + "'All right—lead the way, I'll follow.' + </p> + <p> + "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 Moisè and + so on to the <i>Piazza</i> and the caffè. 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. + </p> + <p> + "The man looked at the bill of fare steadily for some minutes, pushed it + over to me, and said: 'You order.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'Then it will be the regular table d'hôte dinner with a pint of + Chianti for each,' I snapped out. 'Will that suit you?' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, if you like Chianti.' + </p> + <p> + "'I do when it's good.' + </p> + <p> + "'Do you like anything better?' he asked, as if he were cross questioning + me on the stand. + </p> + <p> + "'Yes.' + </p> + <p> + "'What?' + </p> + <p> + "'Well, Valpocelli of '82.' That was the best wine in their cellar, and + cost ten lire a bottle. + </p> + <p> + "'Is there anything better than that?' he demanded. + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, Valpocelli of '71. <i>Thirty</i> lire a bottle. They haven't a drop + of it here or anywhere else.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "The man raised his eyes, looked at August with a peculiar expression, + amounting almost to disgust, on his face, and said: + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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 <i>sotti portici</i>. + </p> + <p> + "As my foot touched the nagging of the Campo, Diffendorfer stepped forward + and laid his hand on my arm. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "He stepped quickly in front of me, as if to bar my way, and said, in a + gentler tone: + </p> + <p> + "'Don't go away. Come dine with me.' + </p> + <p> + "'But I dined with you yesterday.' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, I know—and you hated me afterward. I'll be better this time.' + </p> + <p> + "'I didn't hate you, I only——' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, you did, and you had reason to. I wasn't myself, somehow. Try me + again to-day.' + </p> + <p> + "There was something in his eyes—a troubled, disappointed expression + that appealed to me—and so I said: + </p> + <p> + "'All right, but on one condition: it's my dinner this time.' + </p> + <p> + "'And my wine,' he answered, and a satisfied look came into his face. + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, your wine. Come along.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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?' + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "I was up a tree, and so I said: + </p> + <p> + "'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: + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "When dinner was over, Diffendorfer put on his hat and coat, handed me my + umbrella, and said: + </p> + <p> + "'I'm going home now. Walk along with me?' + </p> + <p> + "It was still raining, the wind rattling the swinging doors of the caffè. + 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. + </p> + <p> + "'Why not stay here and smoke?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + "'No, walk along with me as far as the traghetto, please,' and he laid his + hand in a half-pleading way on my arm. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'I live a little way from here; don't go in; come home with me.' + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "My mind was made up instantly. I determined to follow the affair to the + end. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the bridge by the side of the Canal + of San Vio as far as the Caffè 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 caffè 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: + </p> + <p> + "'Come in here a moment,' I said to him, and I pushed in Pietro's door. + </p> + <p> + "'Pietro,' I called out, so that everybody in the caffè 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. + </p> + <p> + "Diffendorfer pushed past me and called out to Pietro, in a half-angry + tone: + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Diffendorfer continued punching away at the fire until it burst into a + blaze. + </p> + <p> + "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: + </p> + <p> + "'That's the Valpocelli of '71. You needn't worry about helping yourself; + I've got a dozen bottles more.' + </p> + <p> + "I thought the game had gone far enough now, and I squared myself and + faced him. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "He dropped into his chair, put his head into his hands for a moment, and + said, in a greatly altered tone: + </p> + <p> + "'If I told you, you wouldn't understand.' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes, I would.' + </p> + <p> + "'No, you wouldn't—you couldn't. You've had everything you wanted + all your life—I haven't had anything.' + </p> + <p> + "'Me!—what rot! You've got a chair under you now that will sell for + more money than I see in a year.' + </p> + <p> + "'Yes—and nobody to sit in it; not a man who knows me or wants to + know me.' + </p> + <p> + "'But why did you pick me out?' + </p> + <p> + "'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. + </p> + <p> + "'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 <i>you</i>. 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. + </p> + <p> + "'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 + <i>friendship</i>. That's all.' + </p> + <p> + "He had straightened up now, and was leaning back in his chair. + </p> + <p> + "'And it was just dead lonesomeness, then, was it?' and I held out my hand + to him. + </p> + <p> + "'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.' + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkbar" id="linkbar"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + MUFFLES—THE BAR-KEEP + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—— + </p> + <p> + Well, Muffles had grown up between the cobbles of the Bowery, and his + early education had consequently been neglected. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Don't worry," he said; "put a prop under your piano-lid and bring me a + chair. I'll work the ivories for you." + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + Since that time I have been <i>persona grata</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + "Who's he, Muffles?" I asked. + </p> + <p> + "Dat's me new bar-keep. I've chucked me job." + </p> + <p> + "What's his name?" + </p> + <p> + "Bowser." + </p> + <p> + "Where did you get him?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + Bowser held them up as quickly as if the order had come down the barrel of + a Winchester. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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'." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Say, Missus, didn't de Sheriff say dat was a perfec' likeness?" And he + handed it to her. + </p> + <p> + The wife laughed, passed it back to Muffles and, with a friendly nod to + me, kept on to the kitchen. + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "It's all right. Pipes went bail." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "What's the matter—anybody sick?" + </p> + <p> + "No—dead!" and he burst into tears. + </p> + <p> + "Not Muffles!" + </p> + <p> + "No—the Missus." + </p> + <p> + "When?" + </p> + <p> + "Last night. De boss is inside, all broke up." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Muffles, this is terrible! How did it happen?" + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + "Was that the time the Pipe Contractor went bail for you?" + </p> + <p> + He moved his head slightly and without raising it from his hands looked at + me from over his clasped fingers. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + A year passed. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Muffles was still there! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "What's become of Mulford," I asked; "Dick Mulford, who used to be here?" + </p> + <p> + The man shook his head. + </p> + <p> + "Why, yes, you must have known him—some of his friends called him + Muffles." + </p> + <p> + The man continued to shake his head. Then he answered, carelessly: + </p> + <p> + "I've only been here six months—another man had it before me. He put + these fixtures in." + </p> + <p> + "Maybe you can tell me?"—and I turned to the bar-keeper. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + It was Muffles! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "My God! but I'm glad to see ye," he cried. "Come over in the Square and + let's sit down." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> <a name="linkcent" id="linkcent"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + HIS LAST CENT + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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!'" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Where have those pictures been, Jack?" inquired Sam, in a sympathetic + tone. + </p> + <p> + "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.?" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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!—<i>charming</i>," and he dived into the shop before Sam. + could check him. + </p> + <p> + In a moment he was out again, shaking his head, chewing his under-lip, and + taking another devouring look at the canvas. + </p> + <p> + "What do they want for it, Jack?" asked Sam—his standard of merit + was always the cost of a thing. + </p> + <p> + "About half what it's worth—six hundred dollars." + </p> + <p> + "Whew!" burst out Sam; "that's nearly as much as I make in a year. I + wouldn't give five dollars for it." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>had</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + "Did he loan it to you, old man?" Sam inquired. + </p> + <p> + "Loan it to me, you quill-driver! No, I bought it!" + </p> + <p> + "For how much?" + </p> + <p> + "Full price—six hundred dollars. Do you suppose I'd insult Monet by + dickering for it?" + </p> + <p> + "What have you got to pay it with?" This came in a hopeless tone. + </p> + <p> + "Not a cent! What difference does that make? Samuel, you interest me. Why + is it your soul never rises above dollars and cents?" + </p> + <p> + "But, Jack—you can't take his property and——" + </p> + <p> + "I can't—can't I? <i>His</i> 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." + </p> + <p> + "But he paid his money for it and it's not right——" + </p> + <p> + "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!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "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. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Jack, with a grave face, "right off the ice." + </p> + <p> + Sam winced, but "His Finance" either did not hear it or supposed it was + some art-slang common to such a place. + </p> + <p> + "This another?" he inquired, fixing his glasses in place and hending down + closer to the Monet. + </p> + <p> + "No—that's out of another refrigerator," remarked Jack, carelessly—not + a smile on his face. + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "It isn't for sale," answered Jack, in a decided tone. + </p> + <p> + "Not for sale?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Well, I rather like it," and he bent down closer, "and, if you can fix a + figure, I might——" + </p> + <p> + "I can't fix a figure, for it isn't for sale. I didn't paint it—it's + one of Monet's." + </p> + <p> + "Belongs to you—don't it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes—belongs to me." + </p> + <p> + "Well, how about a thousand dollars for it?" + </p> + <p> + Sam's heart leaped to his throat, but Jack's face never showed a wrinkle. + </p> + <p> + "Thanks; much obliged, but I'll hold on to it for a while. I'm not through + with it yet." + </p> + <p> + "If you decide to sell it will you let me know?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the canvas and carrying it across + the room, he turned its face to the wall. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + He would like the money then and there. + </p> + <p> + Jack's manner with the dealer was even more lordly and condescending than + with the would-be buyer. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + "Monet gone, Jack?" he asked, glancing around the room hurriedly in his + anxiety to find it. + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "And you had no trouble?" + </p> + <p> + "Trouble! What are you dilating about, Samuel? We never have any trouble + up here." + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> + <p> + "Who?" + </p> + <p> + "Your one-eyed dealer, as you call him." + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "Did your governor send the money?" + </p> + <p> + "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?" + </p> + <p> + "Well—but Jack—I don't see——" + </p> + <p> + "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." + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underdog, by F. 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Hopkinson Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Underdog + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9463] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 3, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS 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 canon 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 be 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. + +"Tres drole, 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 Chalet 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 Chalet 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 Chalet Cycle, with its tables +set out under the trees! + +A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on +_tete-a-tete_ 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 Chalet 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 Maitre d'Hotel, +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 melee 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 coupe, 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 coupe. + +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 Cafe 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 Maitre d'Hotel, 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 Maitre d'Hotel--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 Beraud of the Variete. She comes +quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season." + +He evidently took me for an old _habitue_. 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 Beraud, 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 Maitre d'Hotel 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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 Beraud 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 Cafe 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 Beraud, 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 Beraud, +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 coupe 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 cafes, 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 caffe 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 +Caffe 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 +menu 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 caffe, 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 +Moise and so on to the _Piazza_ and the caffe. 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 be the regular table d'hote 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 +caffe. 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 Caffe 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 caffe 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 caffe 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. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..508807c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9463 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9463) diff --git a/old/7udog10.txt b/old/7udog10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e235d10 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7udog10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8306 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underdog, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +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: ASCII + +*** 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 canon 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. + +"Tres drole, 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 Chalet 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 Chalet 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 Chalet Cycle, with its tables +set out under the trees! + +A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on +_tete-a-tete_ 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 Chalet 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 Maitre d'Hotel, +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 melee 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 coupe, 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 coupe. + +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 Cafe 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 Maitre d'Hotel, 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 Maitre d'Hotel--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 Beraud of the Variete. She comes +quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season." + +He evidently took me for an old _habitue_. 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 Beraud, 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 Maitre d'Hotel 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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 Beraud 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 Cafe 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 Beraud, 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 Beraud, +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 coupe 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 cafes, 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 caffe 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 +Caffe 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 +menu 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 caffe, 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 +Moise and so on to the _Piazza_ and the caffe. 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'hote 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 +caffe. 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 Caffe 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 caffe 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 caffe 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. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +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. 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Hopkinson Smith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +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 4, 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 + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<center> +<h1>THE UNDER DOG</h1> +<br> +<h3>BY</h3> +<br> +<h2>F. HOPKINSON SMITH</h2> +<br><br><br> +<h3>ILLUSTRATED</h3> +<br><br><br> +<h1>1903</h1></center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<a name="frontispiece"></a> +<br><br> +<img alt="frontispiece.jpg (71K)" src="frontispiece.jpg" height="889" width="609"> +<br><br><br><br> +<img alt="titlepage.jpg (39K)" src="titlepage.jpg" height="911" width="590"> +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<h3>To my Readers:</h3> + +<p>In the strife of life some men lose place through physical weakness or<br> +lost opportunities or impaired abilities; struggle on as they may, they<br> +must always be the Under Dog in the fight.</p> + +<p>Others are misjudged—often by their fellows; sometimes by the law. If<br> +you are one of the fellows, you pass the man with a nod. If you are the<br> +law, you crush out his life with a sentence.</p> + +<p>Still others lose place from being misunderstood; from being out of<br> +touch with their surroundings; out of reach of those who, if they knew,<br> +would help; men with hearts chilled by neglect, whose smouldering<br> +coals—coals deep hidden in their nature—need only the warm breath of<br> +some other man's sympathy to be fanned back into life.</p> + +<p>Once in a while there can be met another kind, one whose poverty or<br> +uncouthness makes us shun him at sight; and yet one, if we did but know<br> +it, with a joyous melody in his heart, ofttimes in tune with our own<br> +harmonies. This kind is rare, and when found adds another ripple to our<br> +scanty stock of laughter.</p> + +<p>These Under Dogs—grave and gay—have always appealed to me. Their<br> +stories are printed here in the hope that they may also appeal to you.</p> + +<p>F.H.S.</p> + +<p>NEW YORK.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>CONTENTS</h2></center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<p><i><a href="#respect">No Respecter of Persons</a><br> + I. The Crime of Samanthy North<br> + II. Bud Tilden, Mail-Thief<br> + III. "Eleven Months and Ten Days"<br> +<a href="#bob">Cap'n Bob of the Screamer</a><br> +<a href="#umb">A Procession of Umbrellas</a><br> +<a href="#doc">"Doc" Shipman's Fee</a><br> +<a href="#fin">Plain Fin—Paper-Hanger</a><br> +<a href="#jim">Long Jim</a><br> +<a href="#paris">Compartment Number Four—Cologne to Paris</a><br> +<a href="#sam">Sammy</a><br> +<a href="#marny">Marny's Shadow</a><br> +<a href="#bar">Muffles—The Bar-Keep</a><br> +<a href="#cent">His Last Cent</a></i></p> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2> +ILLUSTRATIONS</h2></center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<p><i><a href="#frontispiece">During the trip he sat in the far corner of the car</a></i></p> + +<p><i><a href="#bushes">"I threw him in the bushes and got the letter"</a></i></p> + +<p><i><a href="#tired">"I git so tired, so tired; please let me go"</a></i></p> + +<p><i><a href="#shoe">I saw the point of a tiny shoe</a></i></p> + +<p><i><a href="#excited">Everybody was excited and everybody was mad</a></i></p> + +<p><i><a href="#changed">I hardly knew him, he was so changed</a></i></p> +<br><br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<a name="respect"></a> +<br><br> + +<h2> +NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS</h2> + +<h2> +I</h2> + +<h3>THE CRIME OF SAMANTHY NORTH</h3> + +<p>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?</p> + + + +<p>Marny's studio is over the Art Club.</p> + +<p>He was at work on a picture of a cañon with some Sioux Indians in the +foreground, while I sat beside him, watching the play of his +masterly brush.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Now and then she interpolated her efforts with such remarks as:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The painter squeezed a tube of white on his palette, relit his +cigarette, fumbled over his sheaf of brushes and continued:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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, <i>she</i> wouldn't treat a dog that way, nor +anything else that lives and breathes or has feeling, human or brute.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>This was why it happened that within the hour Marny and I crossed the +bridge and left his studio and the city behind us.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Sergeant moved rapidly across the room, pushed aside the disk and +brought to view the nose and eyes of a prison guard.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been here?" I asked, lowering my voice and stepping +closer to the bars.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Eleven months and three days. Reckon I be the oldest"—and he looked +about him as if for confirmation. "Yes, reckon I be."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"Sellin'."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Makin'," they severally replied.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I turned and looked down the corridor.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"That girl a prisoner?" I asked the Warden.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's been here some time. Judge suspended sentence a while ago. +She's gone after her things."</p> + +<p>There was no joy over her release in his tones, nor pity for her +condition.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Will you come here, please, to the grating? I want to speak to you."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Where do you come from?" I asked.</p> + +<p>I had to begin in some way.</p> + +<p>"From Pineyville." The voice was that of a child, with a hard, dry note +in it.</p> + +<p>"How old is the baby?"</p> + +<p>"Three months and ten days." She had counted the child's age. She had +thought enough for that.</p> + +<p>"How far is Pineyville?"</p> + +<p>"I doan' know. It took mos' all night to git here." There was no change +in the listless monotone.</p> + +<p>"Are you going out now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, soon's I kin git ready."</p> + +<p>"How are you going to get home?"</p> + +<p>"Walk, I reckon." There was no complaint in her tone, no sudden +exhibition of any suffering. She was only stating facts.</p> + +<p>"Have you no money?"</p> + +<p>"No." Same bald statement, and in the same hopeless tone. She had not +moved—not even to look at the child.</p> + +<p>"What's the fare?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Did you sell any whiskey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I tol' the Judge so." Still no break in her voice. It was only +another statement.</p> + +<p>"Oh! you kept a saloon?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How did you sell it, then?"</p> + +<p>"Jest out of a kag—in a cup."</p> + +<p>"Had you ever sold any before?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why did you sell it, then?"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Did you make the whiskey?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How came you to be arrested?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How long have you been here?"</p> + +<p>"Three months next Tuesday."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>I leaned closer so that I could touch her hand if need be.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Samanthy North."</p> + +<p>"What's your husband's name?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Where is he?" I determined now to round up every fact.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Is your home near the railroad?"</p> + +<p>"No, it's thirty-six miles furder."</p> + +<p>"How will you get from the railroad?"</p> + +<p>"Ain't no way 'cept walkin'."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I put my hand through the bars and laid it on her wrist.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What about that girl, Sergeant—the one with the baby?" I demanded, in +a tone that made them both turn quickly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The Sergeant looked at Marny, relaxed the scowl about his eyebrows, and +smiled; such "softies" seemed rare to him.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean—" A cold chill suddenly developed near the roots of my +hair and trickled to my spine.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Dat I will, honey," she answered, positively, when the case was laid +before her. "<i>Dat I will</i>; 'deed an' double I will."</p> + +<p>She stepped into the house, left her basket, joined us again on the +sidewalk, and walked with us back to the Sheriff's office.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>dat</i>. 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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>can</i> be done.</p> + +<p>It is the law of the land—the just, holy, beneficent law, which is no +respecter of persons.</p> + + +<br><br><br> +<h2> +II</h2> +<br> +<h3> +BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF</h3> +<br> +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What's he here for?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Bobbin' the U-nited States mail."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"When was he arrested?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You say they are going to try him to-day?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The crier of the court, a young negro, made his announcements.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bowditch will take the chair!" cried the prosecutor.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>With the resting of the Government's case a dead silence fell upon the +room.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No one answered. Again the Judge put the question, this time with some +impatience.</p> + +<p>Then he addressed the prisoner.</p> + +<p>"Is your lawyer present?"</p> + +<p>Bud bent forward in his chair, put his hands on his knees, and answered +slowly, without a tremor in his voice:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did I not appoint counsel in this case yesterday?" said the Judge, +turning to the clerk.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I turned in my seat and touched the arm of my neighbor.</p> + +<p>"Who is that man who wants to go on with the case?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Cartwright began by asking that the mail-carrier be recalled. The little +man again took the stand.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"At what hour do you say the attempted robbery took place, Mr. +Bowditch?"</p> + +<p>"About eleven o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Did you have a watch?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How do you know, then?" The question was asked in a mild way as if he +intended to help the carrier's memory.</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly; it may have been half-past ten or eleven."</p> + +<p>"You, of course, saw the man's face?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then you heard him speak?" Same tone as if trying his best to encourage +the witness in his statements.</p> + +<p>"No." This was said with some positiveness. The mail-carrier evidently +intended to tell the truth.</p> + +<p>Cartwright turned quickly with a snarl like that of a dog suddenly +goaded into a fight.</p> + +<p>"How can you swear, then, that the prisoner made the assault?"</p> + +<p>The little man changed color and stammered out in excuse:</p> + +<p>"He was as big as him, anyway, and there ain't no other like him nowhere +in them parts."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he was as <i>big</i> as him, was he?" This retort came with undisguised +contempt. "And there are no others like him, eh? Do you know <i>everybody</i> +in Bell County, Mr. Bowditch?"</p> + +<p>The mail-carrier did not answer.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Will Mr. Perkins Tilden take-the stand?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Cartwright's manner to this witness was the manner of a lackey who hangs +on every syllable that falls from his master's lips.</p> + +<p>"At what time, Mr. Tilden, did your son Bud reach your house on the +night of the robbery?"</p> + +<p>The old man cleared his throat and said, as if weighing each word:</p> + +<p>"At ten minutes past ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"How do you fix the time?"</p> + +<p>"I had just wound the clock when Bud come in."</p> + +<p>"How, Mr. Tilden, how far is it to the cross-roads where the +mail-carrier says he was robbed?"</p> + +<p>"About a mile and a half from my place."</p> + +<p>"And how long would it take an able-bodied man to walk it?"</p> + +<p>"'Bout fifteen minutes."</p> + +<p>"Not more?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>The Government's attorney had no questions to ask, and said so with a +certain assumed nonchalance.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He seemed on the point of making some protest which the action of the +officer alone restrained.</p> + +<p>Cartwright, after the oath had been administered, began in a voice so +low that the jury stretched their necks to listen:</p> + +<p>"Miss Moore, do you know the prisoner?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"How long have you known him?"</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then she said in a faint voice:</p> + +<p>"Ever since he and me growed up."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"At what time?"</p> + +<p>"'Bout ten o'clock." This was again repeated.</p> + +<p>"How long did he stay?"</p> + +<p>"Not more'n ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"Where did he go then?"</p> + +<p>"He said he was goin' home."</p> + +<p>"How far is it to his home from your house?"</p> + +<p>"'Bout ten minutes' walk."</p> + +<p>"That will do, Miss Moore," said Cartwright, and took his seat.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Did anybody else come to see you the next night after the robbery?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The girl's face flushed, and she began to fumble the shawl nervously +with her fingers.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Hank Halliday," she murmured, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Halliday, who has testified here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"What did he want?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Have you got that letter now?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever get it?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see it?"</p> + +<p>"No, and I don't think it was ever writ."</p> + +<p>"But he <i>has</i> written you letters before?"</p> + +<p>"He used to; he don't now."</p> + +<p>"That will do."</p> + +<p>The girl took her place again behind the old man.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The prisoner will take the stand!" cried Cartwright, in a firm voice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>mail-sack</i>?" 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"'Bout as close's I could git to it—'bout three feet, I should +say—maybe less."</p> + +<p>Cartwright gave a slight start and bit his lip. Evidently the prisoner +had misunderstood him. The silence continued.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean <i>here</i>, Mr. Tilden;" and he pointed to the bag. "I mean +the night of the so-called robbery."</p> + +<p>"That's what I said; 'bout as close's I could git."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not." The tone of relief was apparent.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you know anything about the cutting of the bag?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Who did it?"</p> + +<p>"Me."</p> + +<p>"<i>You?"</i> The surprise was now an angry one.</p> + +<p>"Yes, me."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Bud turned slowly and, pointing his finger at Halliday, said between +his closed teeth:</p> + +<p>"Ask Hank Halliday; he knows."</p> + +<p>The buzzard sprang to his feet. There was the scent of carrion in the +air now; I saw it in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The irregularity of the proceeding was unnoticed in the tense +excitement.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + + +<a name="bushes"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="bushes.jpg (97K)" src="bushes.jpg" height="800" width="508"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>The stillness that followed was broken only by the Judge's voice.</p> + +<p>"What became of that letter?"</p> + +<p>"I got it. Want to see it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Bud felt in his pockets as if looking for something, and then, with an +expression as if he had suddenly remembered, remarked:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The Judge leaned forward in his seat and said:</p> + +<p>"Hand me the letter."</p> + +<p>The letter was passed up by the court-crier, every eye following it. His +Honor examined the envelope, and, beckoning to Halliday, said:</p> + +<p>"Is this your letter?"</p> + +<p>Halliday stepped to the side of the Judge, fingered the letter closely, +and said: "Looks like my writin'."</p> + +<p>"Open it and see."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's my letter;" and he glanced sheepishly around the room and +hung his head, his face scarlet.</p> + +<p>The Judge leaned back in his chair, raised his hand impressively, and +said gravely:</p> + +<p>"This case is adjourned until ten o'clock tomorrow."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What became of Bud Tilden?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br> +<h2> +III</h2> +<br> +<h3> +"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS"</h3> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>For eleven months and ten days he had been penned up in one of the steel +cages of Covington jail.</p> + +<p>I recognized him the moment I saw him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>How wonderful the system, how mighty the results!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And his record?</p> + +<p>Ah, how often is this so in the law!—his record must be kept good.</p> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tell the jury exactly how it all happened," he said, "and in your own +way, just as you told it to me."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?'</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>The buzzard sprang to his feet and shrieked out:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I'm gettin' there's fast's I kin, sir, 'deed I am; I ain't hidin' +nothin'."</p> + +<p>He wasn't. Anyone could see it in his face.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"When did you next see Mr. Fillmore and Luke Shanders?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Then Luke Shanders 'lowed he was cold, and asked if I had a drap o' +whiskey."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You didn't put the dime there, did you?" the young attorney asked, in a +tone that implied a negative answer.</p> + +<p>"No, sir; I don't take no money for what I give a man." This came with a +slight touch of indignation.</p> + +<p>"Do you know who put it there?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<a name="tired"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="tired.jpg (97K)" src="tired.jpg" height="503" width="805"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The buzzard was on his feet now, his arms sawing the air, his strident +voice filling the courtroom.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What's to be done about it?</p> + +<p>Nothing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="bob"></a> +<br><br> + + +<h2>CAP'N BOB OF THE SCREAMER</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Teutonic."</p> + +<p>"Where did you pick her up—Fire Island?"</p> + +<p>"No; 'bout hundred miles off Montauk."</p> + +<p>Captain Bob has been a Sandy Hook pilot for some years back.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And the modesty of the man!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Cap'n Bob stopped it, sir," was sure to have been the proffered reply.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then the first officer walked down the deck to where I stood, followed +by a huddle of seamen who began unrolling a rope ladder.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I thought I knew that spring, even before I saw his face or got hold of +his hand.</p> + +<p>It was Captain Bob.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But she was a good sea-boat," I interpolated. "The Screamer was always +the pride of the work."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'What d'ye want?' the skipper says, when he got within hail.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>He was settled in his chair now, his legs crossed, his head down between +his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>were</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>my</i> permission.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"It did look kind o' nasty for us, and no mistake. One day more, and +we'd 'a' been through and had our money.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'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:</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Was that the last time you saw him?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'Ahoy! Is the Captain aboard?'</p> + +<p>"'He is,' I said, steppin' out. 'Who wants him?'</p> + +<p>"'Colonel Throckmorton,' he says, 'and Major Severn.'</p> + +<p>"'Come aboard, gentlemen,' I says.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Are you the Captain?' he says, and he looked me over 'bout as the +admiral had done.</p> + +<p>"'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?'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'What makes you think the Screamer won't lift it?' I asked.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'All ready, Cap'n,' he says. 'She's got every pound she can carry.'</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'Water's comin' in!'</p> + +<p>"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 <i>would</i> 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:</p> + +<p>"'All gone.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Pretty soon he came up to where I was a-gettin' the tackle ready to +lower the stone in the hold, and he says:</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'Well, gentlemen,' I says, 'what was wrong about it? What's the matter +with the Screamer's rig?'</p> + +<p>"'Well, the size of the rope for one thing,' says the Colonel, 'and the +boom.'</p> + +<p>"'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 <i>growed right</i>—that's what's the matter +with it; and it bellies out in the middle, just where it ought to be +thickest.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'That don't make no difference, Cap'n, what kind of clo'es you come in. +We dine at eight o'clock.'</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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'.</p> + +<p>"The Colonel see I was in earnest, and he stepped up, quick-like, and +laid his hand on my shoulder.</p> + +<p>"'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!'"</p> + +<p>The Captain stopped, shook the ashes from his cigar, slowly raised +himself to his feet, and reached for his hat.</p> + +<p>"Did you go, Captain?" I asked.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="umb"></a> +<br><br> + +<h2>A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS</h2> +<br> +<p> +I</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then she caught sight of my umbrella.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Très drôle, Monsieur!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then came a halloo from the greensward. The priest was coming toward us, +calling out, as he walked:</p> + +<p>"Susette! Susette!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Again came the voice, this time quite near.</p> + +<p>"Susette! Susette!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The Châlet Cycle is the nearest," she volunteered, grasping the +situation, and pointing to a path opening to the right as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"No, Monsieur—Susette has gone home. It is only a little way."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p> + +A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS</p> + +<p> +II</p> + +<p>Do you happen to know the Châlet Cycle?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Believe me, a most seductive place is this Châlet Cycle, with its tables +set out under the trees!</p> + +<p>A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on +<i>tête-à-tête</i> 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 +<i>unexpected</i> that always happens at the Châlet Cycle.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>vin ordinaire</i> +in peace.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"Send me a waiter to take my order—orders for <i>one</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this mêlée 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<a name="shoe"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="shoe.jpg (72K)" src="shoe.jpg" height="839" width="608"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur—" he answered, instantly.</p> + +<p>"And the lady?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud of the Variété. She comes +quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season."</p> + +<p>He evidently took me for an old <i>habitué</i>. There are some +compensations, after all, in the life of a staid old painter.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Up to this Moment no portion of my order had materialized. No cover for +one, nor filet, nor <i>vin ordinaire</i>, nor waiter had appeared. The +painter was growing impatient. The man inside was becoming hungry.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge umbrellas, the ones used +over the <i>tête-à-tête</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>pour boire</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You know the Mademoiselle, then?"</p> + +<p>My waiter shrugged his shoulders, his face still impenetrable.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>My waiter belonged to this last group.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>viveurs</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Quite new—only ten days or so, I think."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Monsieur?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He will <i>not think</i>, Monsieur. They pulled him out of the river last +month."</p> + +<p>"Drowned?"</p> + +<p>His answer gave me a little start, but I did not betray myself.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"In the morgue?" I inquired in a tone of surprise. I spoke as if this +part of the story had not reached me.</p> + +<p>"In the morgue, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Drowned himself for love of Mademoiselle Béraud, you say?"</p> + +<p>"Quite true, Monsieur. He is not the only one. I know four."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Why not, Monsieur? One must live."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You say you have only been two years in Suresne?" I resumed, +carelessly, flicking the ashes from my cigar.</p> + +<p>"But two years, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave Paris?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right. And so you came to Suresne to be quiet."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It is true, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Very pretty—" still the same monotone.</p> + +<p>"And you love her!" It was up to the hilt now.</p> + +<p>"She is the only thing I have left to love, Monsieur," he answered, +calmly.</p> + +<p>Then, bending over me, he added:</p> + +<p>"Monsieur, I do not think I am mistaken. Were you not painting along the +river this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course; the one playing with the priest," I answered, quickly. +"But—"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"No, you are wrong again, Monsieur. The woman in the white cap is my +sister. My sweetheart is the little girl—my granddaughter, Susette."</p> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="doc"></a> +<br><br> + +<h2>"DOC" SHIPMAN'S FEE</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Where's the silver one?" I asked, referring to an old silver-backed +watch I had seen him wear.</p> + +<p>The Doctor looked up and smiled.</p> + +<p>"That's in the drawer. I don't wear it any more—not since I got this +one back."</p> + +<p>"What happened? Was it broken?"</p> + +<p>"No, stolen."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, some time ago. Help yourself to a cigar and I'll tell you about it.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>(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.)</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 '<i>E.M.S. from J.H.S</i>.' 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'What for?'</p> + +<p>"'My pal's sick.'</p> + +<p>"'What's the matter with him?'</p> + +<p>"'Well, he's sick—took bad. He'll die if he don't git help.'</p> + +<p>"'Where is he?'</p> + +<p>"'Down in Washington Street.'</p> + +<p>"'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:</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Here's the "Doc,"' I heard him say.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Shot?' I asked of the man nearest me.</p> + +<p>"'Yes.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The man turned his head and opened his eyes. He was a stockily built +fellow of thirty with a clean-shaven face.</p> + +<p>"'Is that you, "Doc"?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, where does it hurt?'</p> + +<p>"'"Doc" Shipman—who used to be at Bellevue five or six years ago?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes—now tell me where the pain is.'</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"I looked him over again, put in a few stitches, and fixed him up for +the night. When I had finished he said:</p> + +<p>"'Come closer, "Doc"; am I going to die?'</p> + +<p>"'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,'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I turned to the wounded man again.</p> + +<p>"'You say you've seen me before?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, once. You sewed this up'—and he held up his arm showing a +healed scar. 'You've forgot it, but I haven't.'</p> + +<p>"'Where?'</p> + +<p>"'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."'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'Ain't forgot me again, have you, "Doc"!'</p> + +<p>"'No, you're the man I fixed up in Washington Street last fall.'</p> + +<p>"'Yea, that's right, "Doc"; that's me. Can I come in? I got something +for you.'</p> + +<p>"I brought him in and he sat down on that sofa. Then he pulled out a +package from his inside pocket.</p> + +<p>"'"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Very nice pin,' I said.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'How did you get this one?' I asked, holding up the pearl pin.</p> + +<p>"'I picked it up outside Cooper Union.'</p> + +<p>"'On the sidewalk?'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"'Then you ain't mad 'cause I brought 'em?'—and he looked at me +searchingly from under his dark eyebrows, his lips firmly set.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'Well, "Doc," ain't there something else I can do for you? Man like you +must have <i>something</i> you want—something you can't get without +somebody's help. Think now—you mightn't see me again.'</p> + +<p>"Instantly I thought of my mother's watch.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'What kind of a watch?'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'Anybody here but you?'</p> + +<p>"'No.'</p> + +<p>"'Sure?'</p> + +<p>"'Yee, very sure.'</p> + +<p>"He spoke in a husky, rasping voice, like a man who had caught his +breath again after a long run.</p> + +<p>"He turned his back to the window, slipped his hand in his hip-pocket +and pulled out my mother's watch.</p> + +<p>"'Is that it, "Doc"?'</p> + +<p>"The light was pretty low, but I'd have known it in the dark.</p> + +<p>"'Yes, of course it is—' and I opened the lid in search of the old +lady's photo. 'Where did you get it?'</p> + +<p>"'Look again. There ain't no likeness.'</p> + +<p>"'No, but here are the marks where they scraped it off'—and I held it +close to his eyes. 'Where did you get it?'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Sit down. You'll let me pay you for it, won't you? Wait until I go +back in my bedroom for some money.'</p> + +<p>"'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——</p> + +<p>"'Hold on,' I said—and I walked rapidly toward him—'don't go yet—you +are not well.'</p> + +<p>"He leaned against the bookcase and put his hand to his side.</p> + +<p>"I was alongside of him now, my arm under his, guiding him into a chair.</p> + +<p>"'Are you faint?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes—got a drop of anything, "Doc"? That's all I want. It ain't +nothing.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'My God! man,' I cried; 'you are hurt, your shirt's all bloody. Come +back here until I can see what's the matter.'</p> + +<p>"'No, "Doc"—<i>no!</i> 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.'</p> + +<p>"And he was gone."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="fin"></a> +<br><br> + + +<h2>PLAIN FIN—PAPER-HANGER</h2> +<br> +<p> +I</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>His name was as brief as his stature.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And the inns!—or rather my own particular inn—the White Hart at +Sonning.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And the people in and about this White Hart inn!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I hope you 'eard our Vicar, sir—No? Sorry you didn't, sir. I tell yer +'e's a nailer."</p> + +<p>And so much for the company at the White Hart Inn.</p> + +<p> +II</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Try a punt once.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No work?" I said, aimlessly. As long as he kept still I didn't care +what he talked or laughed about.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Row with your Union?" I remarked, listlessly, my mind still intent on +watching a sky tint above the foreground trees.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper-hanging evidently had its +lively side.</p> + +<p>"Afoot?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Hanging paper?" I suggested with a smile.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, Fin; go on."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'His Lordship wants ye in a hurry, Fin,' and he jumped inside.</p> + +<p>"When I got there I see something was goin' on—a party or +something—the lights was lit clear up to the roof.</p> + +<p>"'His Lordship's waitin' in the hall for ye,' said his man, and I jumped +off me box and wint inside.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Good-night, Your Ladyship,' says His Lordship.</p> + +<p>"'Good-night, Sir Henry,' she called back, her head out of the winder, +and off I driv.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The next mornin' I went to see His Lordship.</p> + +<p>"'Did ye land her all right, Fin?'</p> + +<p>"'I did, sor,' I says.</p> + +<p>"'Had ye any trouble wid the key?'</p> + +<p>"'No, sor,' I says, 'the door was open.'</p> + +<p>"'That's queer,' he says; 'maybe her husband came in earlier and forgot +to shut it. And ye put her on the sofa——'</p> + +<p>"'No, sor, in a big chair.'</p> + +<p>"'In the parlor on the right?'</p> + +<p>"'No, sor, in a little room on the left—down one step——'</p> + +<p>"He stopped and looked at me.</p> + +<p>"'Te're sure ye put her in the fust white house?'</p> + +<p>"'I am, sor.'</p> + +<p>"'Wid geraniums in the winder?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, sor.'</p> + +<p>"'Red?' he says.</p> + +<p>"'No, white,' I says.</p> + +<p>"'On the north side of the Square?</p> + +<p>"'No,' I says, 'on the south.'</p> + +<p>"'My God! Fin,' he says, 'ye left her in the wrong house!'"</p> + +<p>It was I who shook the boat this time.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The four-inch dog acted as valve this morning.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The darlin'"—this from Katy the barmaid, who reached him first—"who's +stomped on him?"</p> + +<p>"How outrageous to be so cruel!"—this from the two maiden sisters.</p> + +<p>"Give him to me, Katy—oh, the brute of a man!"—this from the fair +owner.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How came you to know him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I ought to have been a barrister, sor; I started as one."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'Give him the writ,' he says, 'and give him two days off. It kin do no +harm for him to try.'</p> + +<p>"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'.</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'Who's there?' he says, when I knocked.</p> + +<p>"'Coals,' I says.</p> + +<p>"'Where from?' he says.</p> + +<p>"I told him the name on the card. He opened the door an inch and I could +see a chain between the crack.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'Where'll I put it?' I says.</p> + +<p>"'In the box,' he says, walkin' toward the grate. 'Have ye brought the +bill?'</p> + +<p>"'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!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I got a raise of five bob when I went back and ten bob besides from the +boss.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have stayed at the law, sor; I'd be a magistrate by now +a-sittin' on a sheepskin instead of ———</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + + + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I mind, Fin; I'll have trouble to fill your place. Are you +sorry to leave?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It must have been Fin's laugh!</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="jim"></a> +<br><br> + +<h2>LONG JIM</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Who's Ruby?" The brother brush had not mentioned him. "Mr. Marvin's +son?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The buck-board is the only vehicle possible over these mountain-roads. +It is the <i>volante</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You like trees, then?" I asked, watching the glow on his face.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>At the end of the tenth mile he stopped the mare suddenly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>would he +like me</i>?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marvin's manner was as abrupt as that of her husband.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, I got to git along with him for a spell yit," Jim answered, +slowly, his eyes turned up to the sky. "He <i>is</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"I knowed Abe Condit," and immediately changed the conversation.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +II</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly his wife blurted out, as if she could restrain her joy no +longer:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered, quietly; "Jim told me."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Marvin turned his head and in a half-angry way said:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"How old is your daughter?" I asked, more to soften the effect of +Marvin's brutal remark than anything else.</p> + +<p>"She's seventeen, I guess, but she's big for her age."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And has she been away from you long this time?"</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she answered quickly, with a little deprecatory air. "He isn't +my <i>real</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ruby, I really couldn't go," I said. "You don't feel cross about it, do +you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she answered, with some earnestness. "And I knew you were +busy."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"One of the buckets is broken—Uncle Jim always fixes it," and she +turned her head away to hide her tears.</p> + +<p>"Is Jim a carpenter, too?" I asked, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"And dear Uncle Jim won't forget you, either."</p> + +<p>And so she had gone, and with her had faded all the light and joyousness +of the place.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I knew then that I had hurt him in some way.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>III</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it, then? Why have you kept away from me?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Hear what?" The keen anguish expressed in his voice had alarmed me.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why, that's only a bird, Jim—I saw it—it's gone into the bushes."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Who said so, Jim?" I asked.</p> + +<p>Jim raised his head, looked me straight in the face and, with the tears +starting in his eyes, answered in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"Ruby. She loves 'em—loves every one o' 'em. Oh, what's goin' to +become o' me now, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"Jim," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, "do you love Ruby?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Not Ruby, Jim!" I cried, in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ruby. That's what was on the tag."</p> + +<p>"And she isn't Marvin's child?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>Jim arose from his seat and began pacing the platform again. I had not +spoken a word through his long story.</p> + +<p>"Jim," I began, "how old are you?"</p> + +<p>"Forty-two," he said, in a patient, listless way.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>this</i> year's birds, not <i>last</i> year's. +When men get as old as you and I we forget these things sometimes, but +they are true all the same."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"When?" he said, quietly.</p> + +<p>"Now; right away; before she comes back at Christmas."</p> + +<p>"No, I can't do it, and I won't. Not till she graduates and gits her +certificate. That'll be next June."</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What would bring her home?" I asked in surprise.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And dear old Jim?" I asked. "What has become of him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="paris"></a> +<br><br> + + +<h2>COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR—COLOGNE TO PARIS</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So I said, very politely and in my best French—it is a little frayed +and worn at the edges, but it arrives—sometimes——</p> + +<p>"A lower for Paris."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"There is nothing."</p> + +<p>"Not a berth?"</p> + +<p>"Not a berth."</p> + +<p>"Are they all <i>paid</i> for?" and I accented the word <i>paid</i>. I spend +countless nights on Pullmans in my own country and am familiar with many +uncanny devices.</p> + +<p>"All but one."</p> + +<p>"Why can't I have it? It is within an hour of train-time. Who ordered +it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"If Monsieur the Director of the Circus comes now he will go in the +special car."</p> + +<p>I examined the billet. I had Compartment Number Four, upper berth, Car +312.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The first man to approach the wicket was the Director of the Circus. I +knew him at once. There was no question as to <i>his</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>wagon-lit</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So I waited.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<a name="excited"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="excited.jpg (86K)" src="excited.jpg" height="764" width="482"> +<p>[Everybody was excited and everybody was mad.]</p> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Madam, can I do anything for you?"</p> + +<p>She turned, and, with a grateful smile, said:</p> + +<p>"Oh, you speak English?"</p> + +<p>I again inclined my head.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The chocolate gentleman again lifted his shoulders. He had been abused +in that way by passengers since the day of his birth.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Madam," I said, gravely, "I will bring the manager. He is here and +will see that justice is done you."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then another extraordinary thing happened—or rather a series of +extraordinary things.</p> + +<p>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 <i>lower</i> berth, and had arranged his own +belongings in the upper one.</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet the instant he saw me.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I accepted the cigarette.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The cigarette smoked, I was again in the corridor, the bald-headed man +holding the door for me to pass out first.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"You are English, are you not?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"No, an American."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Ring Master now passed, raised his hat and entered his compartment. +No sign of recognition; rather a cold, frigid stare, I thought.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I looked in on the bald-headed man. He was tucked away in the upper +berth sound asleep.</p> + + + +<p>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. <i>They</i> both kotowed as they switched +off to the baggage-room, the Ring Master bowing even lower than +my roommate.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>My thought was that it was all an advertising trick of the Circus +people, arranged for spectacular effect to help the night's receipts.</p> + +<p>While I looked on in wonder, the Manager of the Sleeping-Car Company +joined me.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Do they call her the <i>Princess</i>?" I asked. They were certainly +receiving her like one, I thought.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Azarian!" I was groping round in the fog now.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The fog was so thick now I could cut it with a knife.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No." The answer came quite simply, and I could see it was the truth.</p> + +<p>"Nor one expected?"</p> + +<p>"No. There <i>was</i> a circus, but it went through last week."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="sam"></a> +<br><br> + +<h2>SAMMY</h2> +<br> +<p>It was on the Limited: 10.30 Night Express out of Louisville, bound +south to Nashville and beyond.</p> + +<p>I had lower Four.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I at once became interested then in the man before me, or rather in his +thighs—the "Extra" hid the rest.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then I heard this exclamation—</p> + +<p>"It's a damned outrage!"</p> + +<p>My curiosity got the better of me—I coughed.</p> + +<p>The paper dropped instantly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>If I was a surprise to him, he was doubly so to me.</p> + +<p>My picture had vanished.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>I had read the "Extra," with all its sickening details, and so handed it +back to him.</p> + +<p>"I quite agree with you," I said; "but this man was a brute."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How do you account for it?" I asked, settling myself in my chair. (We +were alone in the smoking compartment.)</p> + +<p>"Account for what?"</p> + +<p>"The change that has come over the South—to the negro," I answered.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>His eyes were boring into mine; his teeth set tight.</p> + +<p>The doctrine was new to me, but I did not interrupt him.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Were you a slave-owner?" I asked, not wishing to dispute the point.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"One of your father's slaves, did you say?"</p> + +<p>I was tapping away at the door of his recollections, camera all ready.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Rheumatism?" I ventured, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"No; just <i>gets</i> 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."</p> + +<p>Again he relapsed into silence, smoking quietly.</p> + +<p>"And you tell me," I said, "that this old slave was loyal to your family +after his freedom?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"So when my father heard about the three runaways he refused to have +anything to do with the case. This made the driver anxious.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'Send for him,' said my father. 'I'll tell you when I see him.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'What did you run away for, Aleck?' he asked.</p> + +<p>"The boy held his head down.</p> + +<p>"'My mother died, Marster, an' I couldn't stay dar no mo'.'</p> + +<p>"'I'll take him,' said my father; 'but on condition that the boy wants +to live with me.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'He's your property, Judge.'</p> + +<p>"'Aleck,' father said, 'you've heard?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, sah.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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?'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'You've thrown your money away,' said the driver, shrugging his +shoulders. 'You'll never see that nigger again.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'I'll go wid ye, an' thank ye all my life,' was all he said.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'What's your name?' I asked.</p> + +<p>"'Aleck,' he said; 'an' what's your name, young marster?'</p> + +<p>"'Sammy,' I said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He calls you 'Sammy'!" I said, in astonishment. The familiarity was new +to me between master and slave.</p> + +<p>"Yes, always. There isn't another person in the world now that calls me +'Sammy,'" he answered, with a tremor in his voice.</p> + +<p>My travelling-companion stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, drew a +silver match-safe from his pocket, relighted his cigar, and continued.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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 <i>chile</i>. 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.'</p> + +<p>"My father didn't speak again—he hadn't the heart, and Aleck went out, +leaving the money on the table."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'Who is it?' I asked, throwing open the door and peering out.</p> + +<p>"'It's me, Sammy—it's Aleck. Take me to my ole marster.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<a name="changed"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="changed.jpg (69K)" src="changed.jpg" height="733" width="560"> +<p>[I hardly knew him, he was so changed.]</p> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + + + +<p>"'Where are you going, Aleck?' I asked.</p> + +<p>"'I dunno, Sammy—some place whar I kin lay down.'</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"I held out my hand, and for an instant neither of us spoke.</p> + +<p>"'Thank ye, Sammy,' was all he said."</p> + +<p>Again my companion's voice broke. Then he went on:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'What's the matter, Aleck? Why aren't you on the hearse?'</p> + +<p>"'De undertaker man wouldn't let me, Sammy; an' I didn't like to 'sturb +you an' de mistis.'</p> + +<p>"The tears stood in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"'Go find him and bring him to me,' I said.</p> + +<p>"When he came I told him the funeral would stop where it was if he +didn't carry out my orders.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.'"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At this instant the curtains of the smoking-room parted and the Pullman +porter entered.</p> + +<p>"Your berth's all ready, Major," said the porter.</p> + +<p>My companion rose from his chair, straightened his leg, held out his +band, and said:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes the porter returned with, "Lower Four's all ready, +sir."</p> + +<p>"All right, I'm coming. Oh, porter."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Porter, come closer. Who is that gentleman I've been talking to?"</p> + +<p>"That's Major Sam Garnett, sir."</p> + +<p>"Was he in the war?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="marny"></a> +<br><br> +<h2>MARNY'S SHADOW</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 caffè 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The stranger must have read its meaning, for he rose quickly, and, with +an embarrassed look on his face, left the room.</p> + +<p>"Wanted a quarter, perhaps," I suggested, laughing.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What's a Diffendorfer?"</p> + +<p>"Did you never meet one?"</p> + +<p>"No, never heard of one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you have; you've seen lots of them."</p> + +<p>"Do they belong to any sect?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What are they, then?"</p> + +<p>"Just Diffendorfers. Thought I'd told you about one whom I knew. No? +Wait till I light my cigar; it's a long story."</p> + +<p>"Anything to do with the fellow who's just gone out?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You remember that little smoking-room to the right as you enter the +Caffè 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>sotto +portico</i> or chuck me over a bridge. Then again, I was twenty pounds +heavier than he was, and could take care of myself.</p> + +<p>"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 +mènu 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>calle</i> 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:</p> + +<p>"'Pietro, did you see the chap that went upstairs a few moments ago?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, signore.'</p> + +<p>"'Do you know who he is?'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'How long has he been here?'</p> + +<p>"'About a month.'</p> + +<p>"'Is he a painter?</p> + +<p>"'No, I don't think so.'</p> + +<p>"'What is he, then?'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"'Where does he come from?'</p> + +<p>"Pietro shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"'That will do, Pietro.'</p> + +<p>"There was evidently nothing to be gotten out of him.</p> + +<p>"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 caffè, anyhow, +and so I started.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I turned on him squarely.</p> + +<p>"'You waiting for me?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes.'</p> + +<p>"'What for?'</p> + +<p>"'I want you to go to dinner with me.'</p> + +<p>"'Where?'</p> + +<p>"'Anywhere you say.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know you.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, that's what I thought you would say.'</p> + +<p>"'Do you know me?'</p> + +<p>"'No.'</p> + +<p>"'Know my name?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, your name's Marny.'</p> + +<p>"'What's yours?'</p> + +<p>"'Mine's Diffendorfer.'</p> + +<p>"'Where do you want to dine?'</p> + +<p>"'Anywhere you say. How will the Quadri do?'</p> + +<p>"'In a private room?' I said this to see how he would take it. He still +stood in the full glare of the lantern.</p> + +<p>"'No, unless you prefer. I would rather dine downstairs—more people +there.'</p> + +<p>"'All right—lead the way, I'll follow.'</p> + +<p>"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 +Moisè and so on to the <i>Piazza</i> and the caffè. 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.</p> + +<p>"The man looked at the bill of fare steadily for some minutes, pushed it +over to me, and said: 'You order.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Then it will he the regular table d'hôte dinner with a pint of Chianti +for each,' I snapped out. 'Will that suit you?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, if you like Chianti.'</p> + +<p>"'I do when it's good.'</p> + +<p>"'Do you like anything better?' he asked, as if he were cross +questioning me on the stand.</p> + +<p>"'Yes.'</p> + +<p>"'What?'</p> + +<p>"'Well, Valpocelli of '82.' That was the best wine in their cellar, and +cost ten lire a bottle.</p> + +<p>"'Is there anything better than that?' he demanded.</p> + +<p>"'Yes, Valpocelli of '71. <i>Thirty</i> lire a bottle. They haven't a drop of +it here or anywhere else.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The man raised his eyes, looked at August with a peculiar expression, +amounting almost to disgust, on his face, and said:</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>sotti portici</i>.</p> + +<p>"As my foot touched the nagging of the Campo, Diffendorfer stepped +forward and laid his hand on my arm.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"He stepped quickly in front of me, as if to bar my way, and said, in a +gentler tone:</p> + +<p>"'Don't go away. Come dine with me.'</p> + +<p>"'But I dined with you yesterday.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, I know—and you hated me afterward. I'll be better this time.'</p> + +<p>"'I didn't hate you, I only——'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, you did, and you had reason to. I wasn't myself, somehow. Try me +again to-day.'</p> + +<p>"There was something in his eyes—a troubled, disappointed expression +that appealed to me—and so I said:</p> + +<p>"'All right, but on one condition: it's my dinner this time.'</p> + +<p>"'And my wine,' he answered, and a satisfied look came into his face.</p> + +<p>"'Yes, your wine. Come along.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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?'</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"I was up a tree, and so I said:</p> + +<p>"'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:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"When dinner was over, Diffendorfer put on his hat and coat, handed me +my umbrella, and said:</p> + +<p>"'I'm going home now. Walk along with me?'</p> + +<p>"It was still raining, the wind rattling the swinging doors of the +caffè. 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.</p> + +<p>"'Why not stay here and smoke?' I asked.</p> + +<p>"'No, walk along with me as far as the traghetto, please,' and he laid +his hand in a half-pleading way on my arm.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'I live a little way from here; don't go in; come home with me.'</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"My mind was made up instantly. I determined to follow the affair to the +end.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the bridge by the side of the +Canal of San Vio as far as the Caffè 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 caffè 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:</p> + +<p>"'Come in here a moment,' I said to him, and I pushed in Pietro's door.</p> + +<p>"'Pietro,' I called out, so that everybody in the caffè 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.</p> + +<p>"Diffendorfer pushed past me and called out to Pietro, in a half-angry +tone:</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Diffendorfer continued punching away at the fire until it burst into a +blaze.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"'That's the Valpocelli of '71. You needn't worry about helping +yourself; I've got a dozen bottles more.'</p> + +<p>"I thought the game had gone far enough now, and I squared myself and +faced him.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"He dropped into his chair, put his head into his hands for a moment, +and said, in a greatly altered tone:</p> + +<p>"'If I told you, you wouldn't understand.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, I would.'</p> + +<p>"'No, you wouldn't—you couldn't. You've had everything you wanted all +your life—I haven't had anything.'</p> + +<p>"'Me!—what rot! You've got a chair under you now that will sell for +more money than I see in a year.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes—and nobody to sit in it; not a man who knows me or wants to know +me.'</p> + +<p>"'But why did you pick me out?'</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'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 <i>you</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>"'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 <i>friendship</i>. That's all.'</p> + +<p>"He had straightened up now, and was leaning back in his chair.</p> + +<p>"'And it was just dead lonesomeness, then, was it?' and I held out my +hand to him.</p> + +<p>"'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.'</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="bar"></a> +<br><br> +<h2>MUFFLES—THE BAR-KEEP</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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——</p> + +<p>Well, Muffles had grown up between the cobbles of the Bowery, and his +early education had consequently been neglected.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Don't worry," he said; "put a prop under your piano-lid and bring me a +chair. I'll work the ivories for you."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Since that time I have been <i>persona grata</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Who's he, Muffles?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Dat's me new bar-keep. I've chucked me job."</p> + +<p>"What's his name?"</p> + +<p>"Bowser."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Bowser held them up as quickly as if the order had come down the barrel +of a Winchester.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Say, Missus, didn't de Sheriff say dat was a perfec' likeness?" And he +handed it to her.</p> + +<p>The wife laughed, passed it back to Muffles and, with a friendly nod to +me, kept on to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"It's all right. Pipes went bail."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +II</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter—anybody sick?"</p> + +<p>"No—dead!" and he burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"Not Muffles!"</p> + +<p>"No—the Missus."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"Last night. De boss is inside, all broke up."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Muffles, this is terrible! How did it happen?"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Was that the time the Pipe Contractor went bail for you?"</p> + +<p>He moved his head slightly and without raising it from his hands looked +at me from over his clasped fingers.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p> +III</p> + +<p>A year passed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Muffles was still there!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What's become of Mulford," I asked; "Dick Mulford, who used to be +here?"</p> + +<p>The man shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, you must have known him—some of his friends called him +Muffles."</p> + +<p>The man continued to shake his head. Then he answered, carelessly:</p> + +<p>"I've only been here six months—another man had it before me. He put +these fixtures in."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you can tell me?"—and I turned to the bar-keeper.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was Muffles!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My God! but I'm glad to see ye," he cried. "Come over in the Square and +let's sit down."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="cent"></a> +<br><br> + +<h2>HIS LAST CENT</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!'"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Where have those pictures been, Jack?" inquired Sam, in a sympathetic +tone.</p> + +<p>"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.?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!—<i>charming</i>," and he dived into the shop +before Sam. could check him.</p> + +<p>In a moment he was out again, shaking his head, chewing his under-lip, +and taking another devouring look at the canvas.</p> + +<p>"What do they want for it, Jack?" asked Sam—his standard of merit was +always the cost of a thing.</p> + +<p>"About half what it's worth—six hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>"Whew!" burst out Sam; "that's nearly as much as I make in a year. I +wouldn't give five dollars for it."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Did he loan it to you, old man?" Sam inquired.</p> + +<p>"Loan it to me, you quill-driver! No, I bought it!"</p> + +<p>"For how much?"</p> + +<p>"Full price—six hundred dollars. Do you suppose I'd insult Monet by +dickering for it?"</p> + +<p>"What have you got to pay it with?" This came in a hopeless tone.</p> + +<p>"Not a cent! What difference does that make? Samuel, you interest me. +Why is it your soul never rises above dollars and cents?"</p> + +<p>"But, Jack—you can't take his property and——"</p> + +<p>"I can't—can't I? <i>His</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"But he paid his money for it and it's not right——"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jack, with a grave face, "right off the ice."</p> + +<p>Sam winced, but "His Finance" either did not hear it or supposed it was +some art-slang common to such a place.</p> + +<p>"This another?" he inquired, fixing his glasses in place and hending +down closer to the Monet.</p> + +<p>"No—that's out of another refrigerator," remarked Jack, carelessly—not +a smile on his face.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't for sale," answered Jack, in a decided tone.</p> + +<p>"Not for sale?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, I rather like it," and he bent down closer, "and, if you can fix +a figure, I might——"</p> + +<p>"I can't fix a figure, for it isn't for sale. I didn't paint it—it's +one of Monet's."</p> + +<p>"Belongs to you—don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—belongs to me."</p> + +<p>"Well, how about a thousand dollars for it?"</p> + +<p>Sam's heart leaped to his throat, but Jack's face never showed a +wrinkle.</p> + +<p>"Thanks; much obliged, but I'll hold on to it for a while. I'm not +through with it yet."</p> + +<p>"If you decide to sell it will you let me know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the canvas and carrying it +across the room, he turned its face to the wall.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He would like the money then and there.</p> + +<p>Jack's manner with the dealer was even more lordly and condescending +than with the would-be buyer.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Monet gone, Jack?" he asked, glancing around the room hurriedly in his +anxiety to find it.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And you had no trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Trouble! What are you dilating about, Samuel? We never have any trouble +up here."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Your one-eyed dealer, as you call him."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Did your governor send the money?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Well—but Jack—I don't see——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underdog, by F. 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