Chapter VI: Part 6

THE MAN FROM YESTERDAY

"You'll not use my name," he said, "because my family would be exceedingly grieved over the notoriety the thing would bring them."

Fifty or sixty or seventy--it was hard to tell how old he was. He looked like a panhandler and talked like a scholar. Life had knocked him out and walked over him. There was no money in his pocket, no food in his stomach, no hope in his heart. He was asking for a job--some kind of writing job. His hands were trembling and his face twitched. Despair underlay his words, but he kept it under. Hunger made his body jerked and his eyes shine with an unmannerly eagerness. But his words remained suave. He removed a pair of cracked nose-glasses and held them between his thumb and forefinger and gestured politely with them. Hungry, dirty, hopeless, his linen gone, his shoes torn, something inside his beaten frame remained still intact. There was no future. But he had a past to live up to.

He was asking for a job. What kind of job he didn't know. But he could write. He had been around the world. He was a cosmopolite and a rhymester and a press agent and a journalist. He pulled himself together and his eyes struggled hard to forget the hunger of his stomach.

"In the old days," he said, enunciating in the oracular manner of a day gone by--"ah, I was talking with Jack London about it before he died. Dear Jack! A great soul. A marvelous spirit. We were in the south seas together. Yes, the old days were different. Erudition counted for something. I was Buffalo Bill's first press agent. Also I worked for dear P. T. Barnum. I was his publicity man.

"Doesn't the world seem to have changed, to you?" he asked. "I was talking to George Ade about this very thing. Strange, isn't it? George and I are old friends. Who? Dickie Davis of the Sun? Certainly--a charming fellow. Stephen Crane? Genius, my friend, genius was his. That was the day when O. Henry was in New York. There was quite a crowd of us. We used to foregather in some comfortable grog shop and discuss. Ah, life and letters were talked about a great deal in those days."

* * * * *

His voice had the sound of a man casually relating incidents of his past. But his eyes continued to shine eagerly. And between sentences there were curious pauses. The pauses asked something.

"A most curious thing occurred the other evening," he smiled. "I had to pay for my oysters by writing a rhyme for the waiter." An anecdote by a dilettante, a gracefully turned plea worthy of M'sieur Bruinrmell. "You know, it grows more and more difficult to obtain employment. My wardrobe is practically gone." He glanced with apparent amusement at his weary-willie makeup. His hand moved tremblingly to his neck. "My collar is soiled," he murmured, apologizing with eyes that managed to smile, "and the other evening I lost my stick."

Then the hunger and the hopelessness of the man broke through the shell of his manner. He needed a job, a job, a job! Something to do to get him food and shelter. His fingers tried to place the cracked nose-glasses back in position.

"I would--pardon me for mentioning this--I would much rather sit with a man like you and discuss the phases of life and literature of interest to both of us. But I would write almost anything. I have written a great deal. And I have managed money. There was a time--" A look of pain came into his eyes. This was being vulgar and not in line with the tradition that his enunciation boasted.

"I have known a great many people. I don't desire to bore you with talk of celebrities and all that. But I assure you, I have been somebody. Oh, nothing important or perhaps very worth while. I dislike this sort of thing, you know." Another smile twisted his lips. "But, when one is down to the last--er--to the last farthing, so to speak, one swallows a bit of his pride. That's more than an aphorism with me. To go on, I have handled great sums of money. I have traveled all over the world, I have eaten and spoken with men of genius all my life. My youth was a very interesting one and--and perhaps we could go somewhere for dinner and--and I could tell you things of writing men of the past that--that might appeal to you. Marvelous fellows. There was O. Henry and London and Davis and Phillips and Stevie Crane. I dislike imposing myself on you this way, but--if I didn't think you would be interested in a discussion with a man who--who admires the beautiful things of life and who has lived a rather varied existence I would not--"

* * * * *

The cracked nose-glasses were back in place and he had stopped short. Despair and hunger now were talking out of his eyes. They had come too close to his words. They must never come into his words. That would be the one defeat that would drive too deeply into him. Of the past, of the easygoing, charmingly garrulous past, all that was left to this nomad of letters was its manner. He could still sit in his rags as if he were lounging in the salon of an ocean liner, still gesture with his nose-glasses as if he were fixing the attention of a Richard Harding Davis across a bottle of Chateau Yquem.

So he remained silent. Let his eyes and the twitching of his face betray him. His words never would. His words would always be the well-groomed, carefully modulated, nicely considerate words of a gentleman. He resumed:

"So you have nothing. Ah, that's rather--rather disturbing. Just a moment--please. I don't mean to impose on you. Won't you sit down--so I will feel more at ease? Thank you, sir. Perhaps there is something in the way of a--of another kind of job. Anything about a theater, a newspaper office, a magazine, a circus, an hotel. I know them all. And if you could only keep an eye open for me. Thank you, sir. I am glad to see that men of letters are still considerate of their fellow craftsmen. Ah, you would have liked Jack London. Did you know him? You know, we live in an age of jazz. Yes, sir, the tempo is fast. Life has lost its andante. Materialism has triumphed. There is no longer room for the spirit to expand. Machines are in the way. Noises invade the sanctity of meditative hours."

* * * * *

It was cold outside the cigar store. The man from yesterday stepped into the street. He stood smiling for a moment and for the moment in the courteous friendliness of his rheumy eyes, in the mannerly tilt of his head there was the picture of a sophisticated gentleman of the world nodding an adieu outside his favorite chophouse. Then he turned. The mannerly tilt vanished. There was to be seen a man--fifty, sixty or seventy, it was hard to tell how old--shuffling tiredly down the street, his body huddled together and his shoulders shivering.

THUMBNAIL LOTHARIOS

Here's the low down, gentlemen. The Miserere of the manicurist. Peewee, the Titian-haired Aphrodite of the Thousand Nails has been inveigled into submitting her lipstick memoirs to the public eye.

Peewee is the melting little lady with the vermilion mouth and the cooing eyes who manicures in a Rialto hotel barber shop. She is the one whose touch is like the cool caress of a snowflake, whose face is as void of guile as the face of the Blessed Damosel.

There are others, scissor-Salomes and nail-file Dryads. Mr. Flo Ziegfeld has nothing on George, the head barber, when it comes to an eye for color and a sense for curve. But they are busy at the moment. The hair-tonic Dons and the mud-pack Romeos are giving the girls a heavy play. Peewee alone is at leisure. Therefore let us gallop quickly to the memoirs.

* * * * *

"H'm," says Peewee, "I'll tell you about men. Of course what I say doesn't include all men. There may be exceptions to the rule. I say may be. I hope there are. I'd hate to think there weren't. I'd get sad."

Steady, gentlemen. Peewee's doll face has lost guilelessness. Peewee's face has taken on a derisive and ominous air.

"I'll give you the low down," says she with a sniff. "Men? They're all alike. I don't care who they are or what their wives and pastors think of them or what their mothers think of them. I got them pegged regardless. Young and old, and some of them so old they've gone back to the milk diet, they all make the same play when they come in here.

"And they're all cheap. Yes, sir, some are cheaper than others, of course. There's the patent-leather hair lounge-lizard. I hand him the fur-lined medal for cheapness. But I got a lot of other medals and I give them all away, too.

"Well, sir, they come in here and you take hold of their hand and start in doing honest work and, blooey! they're off. They're strangers in town. And lonesome! My God, how lonesome they are! And they don't know no place to go. That's the way they begin. And they give your hand a squeeze and roll a soft-boiled eye at you.

"Say, it gets kind of tiring, you can imagine. Particularly after you've been through what I have and know their middle names, which are all alike, they all answering to the name of cheap sport. Sometimes I give them the baby stare and pretend I don't know what's on their so-called minds. And sometimes when my nerves are a little ragged I freeze them. Then sometimes I take them up. I let them put it over.

"You'd be surprised. Liars! They're all rich. The young ones are all bond salesmen with wealthy fathers and going to inherit soon. The middle-aged ones are great manufacturers. The old ones are retired financiers. You should ought to hear the lads when they're hitting on all six."

* * * * *

Peewee wagged a wise old head and her vermilion mouth registered scorn at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. A very cold light, however, kindled in her beautiful eyes.

"Yes, yes, I've taken them up," she went on. "I've let them stake me to the swell time. Say, ten dollars to one that these manicured millionaires don't mean any more than the Governor's pardon does to Carl Wanderer. Not a bit. I don't want to get personal, but, take it from me, they're all after one thing. And they're a pack of selfish, mushy-headed tin horns with fishhook pockets, the kind you can't pull anything out of.

"Well, to get back. About the first minute you get the big, come-on squeeze. Then next the big talk about being strangers in your town. Then next they open with the big, hearty invitations. Will you be their little guide? And ain't you the most beautiful thing they ever set eyes on! And say, if they'd only met you before they wouldn't be living around hotels now, lonesome bachelors without a friend. I forgot to tell you, they're all single. No, never married. Even some of the most humpbacked married men you ever saw, who come in here dragging leg irons and looking a picture of the Common People, they're single, too. I've seen them slip wedding rings off their fingers to make their racket stand up.

"Then after they've got along and think they've got you biting they begin to get fresh. They tell you you shouldn't ought to work in a barber shop, a girl as beautiful as you. The surroundings ain't what they should be. And they'd like to fix you up. Yes, they begin handing out their castles in Rome or Spain or whatever it is. Cheap! Say, they are so cheap they wouldn't go on the 5- and 10-cent store counter.

"Sometimes you can shame them into making good in a small way. But it's too much work. Oh, yes, they give tips. Fifty cents is the usual tip. Sometimes they make it $2.00. They think they're buying you, though, for that.

* * * * *

"As I was saying, the patent-leather hair boys are the worst. They're the ones who call themselves loop hounds. They know everybody by their first name and sometimes they've got all of $6.50 in their pocket at one time. And if you're out some evening with a friend--a regular fella, they pop in the next day and say, 'Hello, Peewee, who was that street sweeper I see you palling with last night? Oh, he wasn't! Well, I had him pegged either as a street sweeper or a plumber!"

"That's their speed. And they come again and again. They never give up. They've got visions of making a conquest some day--on $1.50. And when a new girl comes into the shop--boy, don't the buzzards buzz! I came here six months ago and they started it on me. But I wasn't born yesterday. I'd been a manicure in Indianapolis. And they're just the same in Indianapolis as they are in Chicago. And they're just the same in Podunk.

"Now, I'm not going to mention any names. But take your city directory and begin with Ab Abner and go right on through to Zeke Zimbo and don't skip any. And you'll get a clear idea about the particular gentlemen I'm talking about."

* * * * *

Peewee sighed and shook her head.

"Are you busy?" inquired the head manicurist.

"Not at all," said Peewee, "not at all."

Peewee's biographer asked a final question. To which she responded as follows:

"Well, I'll get married. Maybe. When I find the exception I was telling you about--the gentleman who isn't a stranger in town and in need of a little guide. There must be one of them somewhere. Unless they was all killed in the war."

THE SOUL OF SING LEE

The years have made a cartoon out of Sing Lee. A withered yellow face with motionless black eyes. Thin fingers that move with lifeless precision. Slippered feet that shuffle as if Sing Lee were yawning.

A smell of starch, wet linen and steam mingles with an aromatic mustiness. The day's work is done. Sing Lee sits in his chair behind the counter. Three walls look down upon him. Laundry packages--yellow paper, white string--crowd the wall shelves. Chinese letterings dance gayly on the yellow packages.

Sing Lee, from behind the counter, stares out of the window. The Hyde Park police station is across the way. People pass and glance up:

Sing Lee, Hand Laundry,
5222 Lake Park Avenue.

Come in. There is something immaculate about Sing Lee. Sing Lee has been ironing out collars and shirts for thirty-five years. And thirty-five years have been ironing Sing Lee out. He is like one of the yellow packages on the shelves. And there is a certain lettering across his face as indecipherable and strange as the dance of the black hieroglyphs on the yellow laundry paper.

Something enthralls Sing Lee. It can be seen plainly now as he sits behind the counter. It can be seen, too, as he works during the day. Sing Lee works like a man in an empty dream. It is the same to Sing Lee whether he works or sits still.

The world of collars, cuffs and shirt fronts does not contain Sing Lee. It contains merely an automaton. The laundry is owned by an automaton named Sing Lee, by nobody else. Now that the day's work is done he will sit like this for an hour, two hours, five hours. Time is not a matter of hours to Sing Lee. Or of days. Or even of years.

The many wilted collars that come under the lifeless hands of Sing Lee tell him an old story. The story has not varied for thirty-five years. A solution of water, soap and starch makes the collars clean again and stiff. They go back and they return, always wilted and soiled. Sing Lee needs no further corroboration of the fact that the crowds are at work. Doing what? Soiling their linen. That is as final as anything the crowds do. Sing Lee's curiosity does not venture beyond finalities.

* * * * *

Sing Lee is a resident of America. But this is a formal statistic and refers only to the automaton that owns the hand laundry in Lake Park Avenue. Observe a few more formal facts of Sing Lee's life. He has never been to a movie or a theater play. He has never ridden in an automobile. He has never looked at the lake.

Thus it becomes obvious that Sing Lee lives somewhere else. For a man must go somewhere in thirty-five years. Or do something. There is a story then, in Sing Lee. Not a particularly long story. Life stories are sometimes no longer than a single line--a sentence, even a phrase. So if one could find out where Sing Lee lives one would have a story perhaps a whole sentence long.

"Mukee kai, Sing Lee."

A nod of the thin head.

"Business good?"

Another nod.

"Pretty tired, washing, ironing all day, eh?"

A nod.

"When are you going to put in a laundry machine?"

A shake of the thin head.

"When are you going to quit, Sing Lee?"

Another shake of the thin head.

"You're not very gabby tonight, Sing."

A dignified answer to this: "I thinking."

"What about, Sing Lee?"

A faint smile. The smile seems to set Sing Lee in motion. It comes from behind the automaton. It is perhaps Sing Lee's first gesture of life in weeks.

"You don't mind my sitting here and smoking a pipe, eh?"

* * * * *

The minutes pass. Sing Lee stands up. He turns on a small electric light. This is a concession. This done, he opens a drawer behind the counter and removes a little bronze casket. The casket is placed on the counter. Slowly as if in a deep dream Sing Lee lights a match and holds it inside the casket. A thin spiral of lavender smoke unwinds from its mouth.

Sing Lee watches the spiral of smoke. It wavers and unwinds. A finger writing; an idiot flower. Then it opens up into a large smoke eye. Smoke eyes drift casually away. An odor crawls into the air. Sing Lee's eyes close gently and his thin body moves as he takes a deep breath.

His eyes still closed, Sing Lee speaks.

"You writer?" he murmurs.

"Yes."

"I too," says Sing Lee. "I write poem."

"Yes? When did you do that?"

"Oh, long ago. Mebbe year. Mebbe five years."

Sing Lee reaches into the open drawer and takes out a large sheet of rice paper. It is partly covered with Chinese letters up and down.

"I read you in English," says Sing Lee. His eyes remain almost shut. He reads:

The sky is young blue.
Many fields wait.
Many people look at young blue sky.
Old people look at young blue sky.
Many birds fly.
At night moon comes and young blue sky is old.
Many young people look at old sky.

"Did you write that about Chicago, Sing Lee?"

"No, no," says Sing Lee. His eyes open. The smoke eyes from the incense pot drift like miniature ghost clouds behind him and creep along the rows of yellow laundry packages.

"No, no," says Sing Lee. "I write that about Canton. I born in Canton many years ago. Many, many years ago."

MRS. RODJEZKE'S LAST JOB

Mrs. Rodjezke scrubbed the corridors of the Otis building after the lawyers, stenographers and financiers had gone home. During the day Mrs. Rodjezke found other means of occupying her time. Keeping the two Rodjezke children in order, keeping the three-room flat, near the corner of Twenty-ninth and Wallace streets, in order and hiring herself for half-day cleaning, washing or minding-the-baby jobs filled this part of her day. As for the rest of the day, no fault could be found with the manner in which Mrs. Rodjezke used that part of her time.

At five-thirty she reported for work in the janitor's quarters of the office building. She was given her pail, her scrub brush, mop and bar of soap and with eight other women who looked curiously like herself started to work in the corridors. The feet of the lawyers, stenographers and financiers had left stains. Crawling inch by inch down the tiled flooring, Mrs. Rodjezke removed the stains one at a time. Eight years at this work had taken away the necessity of her wearing knee pads. Mrs. Rodjezke's knees did not bother her very much as she scrubbed.

* * * * *

In the evening Mrs. Rodjezke usually rode home in the street car. There were several odd items about Mrs. Rodjezke that one could observe as she sat motionless and staring in her seat waiting for the 2900 block to appear. First, there were her clothes. Mrs. Rodjezke was not of the light-minded type of woman that changes styles with the season. Winter and summer she wore the same.

Then there were her hands. Mrs. Rodjezke's fingernails were a contrast to the rest of her. The rest of her was somewhat vigorous and buxom looking. The fingernails, however, were pale--a colorless light blue. And the tips of her fingers looked a trifle swollen. Also the tips of her fingers were different in shade from the rest of her hands.

Another item of note was her coiffure. Mrs. Rodjezke was always indifferently dressed, her clothes looking as if they had been thrown on and pinned together. Yet her coiffure was almost a proud and careful-looking thing. It proclaimed, alas, that the scrubwoman, despite the sensible employment of her time, was not entirely free from the vanities of her sex. The deliberate coiling and arranging of her stringy black hair must have taken a good fifteen minutes regularly out of Mrs. Rodjezke's otherwise industrious day.

These items are given in order that Mrs. Rodjezke may be visualized for a moment as she rode home on a recent evening. It was very hot and the papers carried news on the front page: "Hot Spell to Continue."

Mrs. Rodjezke got off the car at 29th and Halsted streets and walked to her flat. Here the two Rodjezke children, who were 8 and 10 years old respectively, were demanding their supper. After the food was eaten Mrs. Rodjezke said, in Bohemian:

"We are going down to the beach to-night and go in swimming."

Shouts from the younger Rodjezkes.

* * * * *

When the family appeared on the 51st Street beach it was alive with people from everywhere. They stood around cooling off in their bathing suits and trying to forget how hot it was by covering themselves in the chill sand.

Mrs. Rodjezke's bathing suit was of the kind that attracts attention these days. It was voluminous and hand made and it looked as if it might have functioned as a "wrapper" in its palmier days. For a long time nobody noticed Mrs. Rodjezke. She sat on the sand. Her head felt dizzy. Her eyes burned. And there was a burn in the small of her back. Her knees also burned and the tips of her fingers throbbed.

These symptoms failed to startle Mrs. Rodjezke. Their absence would have been more of a surprise. She sat staring at the lake and trying to keep track of her children. But their dark heads lost themselves in the noisy crowds in front of her and she gave that up. They would return in due time. Mrs. Rodjezke must not be criticized for a maternal indifference. The children of scrubwomen always return in due time.

* * * * *

Mrs. Rodjezke had come to the lake to cool off. The idea of going for a swim had been in her head for at least three years. She had always been able to overcome it, but this time somehow it had got the better of her and she had moved almost blindly toward the water front.

"I will get a rest in the water," she thought.

But now on the beach Mrs. Rodjezke found it difficult to rest. The dishes weren't washed in the kitchen home. The clothes needed changing on the beds. And other things. Lots of other things.

Mrs. Rodjezke sighed as the shouts of the bathers floated by her ears. The sun had almost gone down and the lake looked dull. Faintly colored clouds were beginning to hide the water. It was no use. Mrs. Rodjezke couldn't rest. She sat and stared harder at the lake. Yes, there was something to do. Before it got too dark. Something very important to do. And it wasn't right not to do it. The scrubwoman sighed again and put her hand against her side. The burn had dropped to there. It had also gone into her head. But that was a thing which must be forgotten. Mrs. Rodjezke had learned how to forget it during the eight years.

* * * * *

A girl saw it first. She was laughing in a group of young men from the hotel. Then she exclaimed, suddenly:

"Heavens! Look at that woman!"

The group looked. They saw a middle-aged woman in a humorous bathing costume crawling patiently down the beach on her hands and knees. Soon other people were looking. Nobody interfered at first. Perhaps this was a curious exercise. Some of them laughed.

But the woman's actions grew stranger. She would stop as she crawled and lift up handfuls of water from the edge of the lake. Then she would start scratching in the sand. A crowd collected and the beach policeman arrived. The beach policeman looked down at the woman on her hands and knees.

She had stopped and her face had grown sad.

"What's the matter here?" the policeman asked of her.

The woman began to cry. Her tears flooded her round worn face.

"I can't finish it to-night," she sobbed, "not now anyway. I'm too tired. I can't finish it to-night. And the soap has floated away. The soap is gone."

* * * * *

Mrs. Rodjezke was taken up by the policeman with the two Rodjezke children, who had, of course, returned in due time. They cried and cried and the group went to the police station.

"I don't know what's wrong with the poor woman," said the beach policeman to the Hyde Park police sergeant. "But she was moving up and down like she was trying to scrub the beach."

"I guess," said the sergeant, "we'll have to turn her over to the psychopathic hospital."

There's a lot more to the story, but it has nothing to do with Mrs. Rodjezke's last job.

QUEEN BESS' FEAST

Elizabeth Winslow, who was a short, fat woman with an amazing gift of profanity and "known to the police" as "Queen Bess," is dead. According to the coroner's report Queen Bess died suddenly in a Wabash Avenue rooming house at the age of seventy.

Twenty-five years ago Queen Bess rented rooms and sold drinks according to the easy-going ideas of that day. But there was something untouched by the sordidness of her calling about this ample Rabelaisian woman. There was a noise about Queen Bess lacking in her harpy contemporaries.

"Big-hearted Bess," the coppers used to call her, and "Queenie" was the name her employees had for her. But to customers she was always Queen Bess. In the district where Queen Bess functioned the gossip of the day always prophesied dismally concerning her. She didn't save her money, Queen Bess didn't. And the time would come when she'd realize what that meant. And the idea of Queen Bess blowing in $5,000 for a tally-ho layout to ride to the races in! Six horses and two drivers in yellow and blue livery and girls all dressed like sore thumbs and the beribboned and painted coach bouncing down the boulevard to Washington Park--a lot of good that would do her in her old age!

But Queen Bess went her way, throwing her tainted money back to the town as fast as the town threw it into her purse, roaring, swearing, laughing--a thumping sentimentalist, a clownish Samaritan, a Madam Aphrodite by Rube Goldberg. There are many stories that used to go the rounds. But when I read the coroner's report there was one tale in particular that started up in my head again. A mawkish tale, perhaps, and if I write it with too maudlin a slant I know who will wince the worst--Queen Bess, of course, who will sit up in her grave and, fastening a blazing eye on me, curse me out for every variety of fat-head and imbecile known to her exhaustive calendar of epithets.

Nevertheless, in memory of the set of Oscar Wilde's works presented to my roommate twelve years ago one Christmas morning by Queen Bess, and in memory of the six world-famous oaths this great lady invented--here goes. Let Bess roar in her grave. There's one thing she can't do and that's call me a liar.

* * * * *

It was Thanksgiving day and years ago and my roommate Ned and I were staring glumly over the roofs of the town.

"I've got an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner for both of us," said Ned. "But I feel kind of doubtful about going."

I inquired what kind of invitation.

"An engraved invitation," grinned Ned. "Here it is. I'll read it to you." He read from a white card: "You are cordially invited to attend a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Queen Bess, ---- Street and Wabash Avenue, at 3 o'clock. You may bring one gentleman friend."

"Why not go?" I asked.

"I'm a New Englander at heart," smiled Ned, "and Thanksgiving is a sort of meaningful holiday. Particularly when you're alone in the great and wicked city. I've inquired of some of the fellows about Queen Bess's dinner. It seems that she gives one every Thanksgiving and that they're quite a tradition or institution. I can't find out what sort they are, though. I suspect some sort of an orgy on the order of the Black Mass."

At 2 o'clock we left our room and headed for the house of Queen Bess.

* * * * *

A huge and ornamental chamber known as the ballroom, or the parlor, had been converted into a dining-room. Ned and I were early. Six or seven men had arrived. They stood around ill at ease, looking at the flamboyant paintings on the wall as if they were inspecting the Titian room of some museum. Ned, who knew the town, pointed out two of the six as men of means. One was manager of a store. One was a billiard champion in a Michigan Avenue club.

Gradually the room filled up. A dozen more men arrived. Each was admitted by invitation as we had been. Sally, the colored mammy of the house, took charge and bade us be seated. Some twenty men took their places about the long rectangular table. And then a pianist entered. I think it was Prof. Schultz. He played the piano in the ballrooms of the district. He came in in a brand-new frock coat and patent leather shoes and sat down at the ivories. There was a pause and then the professor struck up, doloroso pianissimo, the tune of "Home, Sweet Home."

As the first notes carrying the almost audible words, "Mid pleasures and palaces" arose from the piano the folding doors at the end of the ballroom parted and there appeared Queen Bess, followed by fifteen of the girls who sold drinks for her. Queen Bess was dressed in black, her white hair coiffured like a hospital superintendent's. Her girls were dressed in simple afternoon frocks. Neither rouge nor beads were to be seen on them. And as the professor played "Home, Sweet Home" Queen Bess marched her companions solemnly down the length of the ballroom and seated them at the table.

I remember that before the numerous servitors started functioning Queen Bess made a speech. She stood up at the head of the table, her red face beaming under her white hair and her black eyes commanding the attention of the men and women before her.

"All of you know who I am, blankety blank," said Queen Bess, "and, blankety blank, what a reputation I got. All of you know. But I've invited you to this blankety blank dinner, hoping you will humor me for the afternoon and pretend you forget. I would like to see you enjoy yourselves at the banquet board, eat and drink what wine there is and laugh and be thankful, but without pulling any blankety blank rough stuff. I would like to see you enjoy yourselves as if you were in--in your own homes. Which I take it none of you gentlemen have got, seeing you are sitting here at the board of Queen Bess.

"Now, gentlemen," she concluded, "if it's asking too much of you to forget, the fault is mine and not yours. And nobody will be penalized or bawled out, blankety blank him, for being unable to forget. But if you can forget, and if you can let us enjoy ourselves for an afternoon in a blankety blank decent and God-fearing way--God love you."

And Queen Bess sat down. We ate and drank and laughed till seven o'clock that evening. And I remember that not one of the twenty men present used a profane word during this time; not one of them did or said anything that wouldn't have passed muster in his own home, if he had one. And that no one got drunk except Queen Bess. Yes, Queen Bess in her black dress got very drunk and swore like a trooper and laughed like a crazy child. And when the party was over Queen Bess stood at the door and we passed out, shaking hands with her and giving her our thanks. She stood, steadying herself against the door beam, and saying to each of us as she shook our hands:

"God love you. God love you for bringing happiness to a blankety blank blank like old Queen Bess."

THE DAGGER VENUS

The great Gabriel Salvini, whose genius has electrified the populace of a thousand vaudeville centers, sat in his suite at the Astor Hotel and listened glumly to the strains from a phonograph.

"What is the use?" growled the great Salvini. "It is no use. You listen to her."

"New music for your act, signor?"

"No, no, no. My wife. You hear her? She lie on the floor. The phonograph music play. The man call from the phonograph, 'one, two; one, two; one, higher; one, two.' And my wife, she lie on the floor and she kick up. She kick down. She roll over. She bend back. She bend forward. But it is no use."

"Madam is reducing, then, signor?"

"Bah! She kick. She roll. She jump. I say 'Lucia, what good for you to kick and jump when tonight you sit down and you eat; name of God, how you eat! Potatoes and more potatoes. Bread with butter on it. Meat, pie, cream, candy--ten thousand devils! She eat and eat until the eyes stick out. There is no more place to put. And I say, 'Lucia, you eat enough for six weeks every time you set down to the table.' I say, 'Lucia, look how the MacSwiney of Ireland go for thirty weeks without eating one bite.' Bah!"

"It is difficult to make a woman stop eating, signor."

"Difficult! Aha, but she must stop, or what become of me, the great Salvini, who have 200 medals? Look! I will show you from my book what they say of me. They say, 'Salvini is the greatest in his line.' They say, 'Here is genius; here is a man whose skill transcends the imagination.' So what I do if madam keep on growing fatter? Ah, you hear that music? It drive me crazy. I sit every day and listen. You hear her kick. Bang, bang! That's how she kick up she lie on the back. Ah, it is tragedy, tragedy!"

I nodded in silence as the great Salvini arose and moved across the room, a dapper figure in a scarlet dressing gown and green silk slippers. He returned with a fresh load of cigarettes. I noticed his hands--thin, gentle-looking fingers, like a woman's. They quivered perceptibly as he lighted his smoke, and I marveled at this--that the wizard fingers of the great Gabriel Salvini should shake!

"I tell you my story," he resumed. "I tell no one else. But you shall hear it. It is a story of--of this." And he clapped his hand despairingly over his heart. "I suffer. Name of God, I suffer every day, every night. And why? because! You listen to her. She still kick and kick and kick. And I sit here and think 'Where will it all end?' Another five pounds and I am ruined.

"It is ten years ago I meet her. Ah, so beautiful, so sweet, so light--like this." And the great Salvini traced the wavering elfin proportions of the Lucia of his youth in the air with his hands.

"And I say to her, 'My beloved, my queen, you and I will be married and we will work together and grow famous and rich.' And she say, 'Yes.' So we marry and begin work at once. I am in Milan, in Italy. And all through the honeymoon I study my Lucia. For my work is hard. All through the honeymoon I use only little stickers I throw at her. I begin that way. Five, six, seven hours a day we practice. Ah, so sweet and beautiful she is as she stand against the board and I throw the little stickers at her. She smile at me, 'Have courage, Salvini.' And I see the love in her eyes and am happy and my arm and wrist are sure.

"Then I buy the knives to throw at her. I buy the best. Beautiful knives. I have them made for her special. For not a hair of my beloved's head must be touched. And we practice with the knives. I am then already famous. Everybody in Italy knows Salvini, the great knife thrower. They say, 'Never has there been a young man of such genius with the knives.' But I am only begin.

* * * * *

"Our début is a success. What do I say, 'Success!' Bah! It is like wildfire. They stand up and cheer. 'Salvini, Salvini!' they cry. And she, my beloved, stand against the board framed by the beautiful knives that fit exactly around her--to an inch, to a quarter inch, to a hair from her ears and neck. And she stand, and as they cheer for Salvini, the great Salvini, I see her smile at me. Ah, how sweet she is! How happy I am!

"And so we go on. I train all the time. Soon I know the outline of my Lucia so well I can close my eyes and throw knives at her, and always they come with the point only a hair away from her body. I pin her dress against the board. Her arms she stretch out and I give her two sleeves of knives. And for five years, no for eight years, everything go well. Never once I touch her. Always I watch her eyes when I throw and her eyes give me courage.

"But then what happen? Ah, ten thousand devils, she begin. She grow fat. One night I send a knife through the skin of her arm. I cannot go on with the act. I must stop. I break down and weep. For I love her so much the blood that comes from her arm drive me crazy. But I say, 'How did the great Salvini make such a mistake? It is incredible.' Then I look at her and I see something. She is getting fat. Name of God, I shudder. I say, 'Lucia, we are ruined. You get fat. I can only throw knives at you like you were, like we have studied together. You get fat. I must change my throw. I cannot!"

* * * * *

The great Salvini raised his shoulders in a despairing shrug.

"Two years ago that was," he whispered. "She weigh one hundred fifty pounds when we marry. So pretty, so light she is. But now she weigh already two hundred pounds, and she is going up. She will not listen to me.

"It is the eat, the eat, the terrible eat which do this. And every night when we perform I shiver, I grow cold. I stand looking at her as she take her place on the board. And I see she have grow bigger. Perhaps it is nothing to you, a woman grown bigger. But to Salvini it is ruin.

"I throw the knife. Zip it goes and I close my eyes each time. I no longer dare give her the beautiful frame as before. But I must throw away. Because for eight years I have thrown at a target of 150 pounds. And my art cannot change.

"Some day she will be sorry. Yes, some day she will understand what she is doing to me. She will eat, eat until she grow so fat that it is all my target that I mastered on the honeymoon. And I will throw the knife over. She will no longer be Lucia, and it will hit. Name of God, it will hit her and sink in."

"Well, she will have learned a lesson then, signor."

"She will have learned. But me, I will be ruined. They will laugh. They will say, 'Salvini, the great Salvini, is done. He cannot throw the knives any more. Look, last night he hit his wife. Twice, three, times he threw the knives into her.' _Sapristi!_ It is the stubbornness of womankind.

"I will tell you. Why does she eat, eat, eat? Why does she grow fat? Because she no longer loves me. No, she do it on purpose to ruin me."

And the great Salvini covered his ears with his hands as the phonograph continued relentlessly, "one, two, one, two, higher, two."

LETTERS

One of the drawers in my desk is full of letters that people have sent in. Some of them are knocks or boosts, but most of them are tips. There are several hundred tips on stories in the drawer.

Today, while looking them over I thought that these tips were a story in themselves. To begin with, the different kinds of stationery and the different kinds of handwriting. You would think that stationery and handwriting so varied would contain varied suggestions and varied points of view.

But from the top of the pile to the bottom--through 360 letters written on 360 different kinds of paper--there runs only one tip. And in the 360 different kinds of handwriting there runs only one story.

* * * * *

"There is a man I see almost every day on my way home from work," writes one, "and I think he would make a good story. There is something queer about him. He keeps mumbling to himself all the time." This tip is on plain stationery.

"--and I see the old woman frequently," writes another. "Nobody knows who she is or what she does. She is sure a woman of mystery. You ought to be able to get a good story out of her." This tip is on pink stationery.

"I think you can find him around midnight walking through the city hall. He walks through the hall every midnight and whistles queer tunes. Nobody has ever talked to him and they don't know what he does there. There is certainly a queer story in that man." This tip is written on a business letterhead.

"She lives in a back room and so far as anybody knows has no occupation. There's something awfully queer about her and I've often wondered what the mystery about her really was. Won't you look her up and write it out? Her address is--" This tip is on monogrammed paper.

"I've been waiting for you to write about the queer old man who hangs out on the Dearborn Street bridge. I've passed him frequently and he's always at the same place. I've wondered time and again what his history was and why he always stood in the same place." This tip is on a broker's stationery.

"He sells hot beans in the loop and he's an old-timer. He's always laughing and whenever I see him I think, 'There's a story in that old man. There's sure something odd about him.'" This tip is on scratch paper.

"I saw her first several years ago. She was dressed all in black and was running. As it was past midnight I thought it strange. But I've seen her since and always late at night and she's always running. She must be about forty years old and from what I could see of her face a very curious kind of woman. In fact, we call her the woman of mystery in our neighborhood. Come out to Oakley Avenue some night and see for yourself. There's a wonderful story in that running woman, I'm certain." This tip is signed "A Stenographer."

They continue--tips on strange, weird, curious, odd, old, chuckling, mysterious men and women. Solitaries. Enigmatic figures moving silently through the streets. Nameless ones; exiles from the free and easy conformity of the town.

If you should read these letters all through at one sitting you would get a very strange impression of the city. You would see a procession of mysterious figures flitting through the streets, an unending swarm of dim ones, queer ones. And then as you kept on reading this procession would gradually focus into a single figure. This is because all the letters are so nearly alike and because the mysterious ones offered as tips are described in almost identical terms.

So the dim ones, the queer ones, would become a composite, and you would have in your thought the image of a single one. A huge, nebulous caricature--hooded, its head lowered, its eyes peering furtively from under shaggy brows, its thin fingers fumbling under a great black cloak, its feet moving in a soundless shuffle over the pavement.

Sometimes I have gone out and found the "woman of mystery" given in a letter. Usually an embittered creature living in the memory of wrongs that life has done her. Or a psychopathic case suffering from hallucinations or at war with its own impulses. And each of them has said, "I hate people. I don't like this neighborhood. And I keep to myself."

The letters all ask, "Who is this one?"

But that doesn't begin to answer the question the letters ask, "Who is it?"

* * * * *

The story of the odd ones is perhaps no more interesting than the story that might be written of the letters that "tip them off." A story here, of the harried, buried little figures that make up the swarm of the city and of the way they glimpse mystery out of the corners of their eyes. Of the way they pause for a moment on their treadmill to wonder about the silent, shuffling caricature with its hooded face and its thin fingers groping under its heavy black cloak.

In another drawer I have stored away letters of another kind. Letters that the caricature sends me. Queer, marvelous scrawls that remind one of spiders and bats swinging against white backgrounds. These letters are seldom signed. They are written almost invariably on cheap blue lined pad paper.

There are at least two hundred of them. And if you should read them all through at one sitting you would get a strange sense that this caricature of the hooded face was talking to you. That the Queer One who shuffles through the streets was sitting beside you and whispering marvelous things into your ear.

He writes of the stars, of inventions that will revolutionize man, of discoveries he has made, of new continents to be visited, of trips to the moon and of buried races that live beneath the rivers and mountains. He writes of amazing crimes he has committed, of weird longings that will not let him sleep. And, too, he writes of strange gods which man should worship. He pours out his soul in a fantastic scrawl. He says: "One is all. God looked down and saw ants. The wheel of life turns seven times and you can see between. You will sometime understand this. But now you have curtains on your eyes."

Now that you have read all the letters the city becomes a picture. An office in which sits a well-dressed business man dictating to a pretty stenographer. They are hard at work, but as they work their eyes glance furtively out of a tall, thin window. Some one is passing outside the window. A strange figure, hooded, head down, with his hands moving queerly under his great black cloak.

THE MOTHER

She sat on one of the benches in the Morals Court. The years had made a coarse mask of her face. There was nothing to see in her eyes. Her hands were red and leathery, like a man's. They had done a man's work.

A year-old child slept in her arms. It was bundled up, although the courtroom itself was suffocating. She was waiting for Blanche's case to come up. Blanche had been arrested by a policeman for--well, for what? Something about a man. So she would lose $2.00 by not being at work at the store today. Why did they arrest Blanche? She was in that room with the door closed. But the lawyer said not to worry. Yes, maybe it was a mistake. Blanche never did nothing. Blanche worked at the store all day.

At night Blanche went out. But she was a young girl. And she had lots of friends. Fine men. Sometimes they brought Blanche home late at night. Blanche was her daughter.

* * * * *

The woman with the sleeping child in her arms looked around. The room was nice. A big room with a good ceiling. But the people looked bad. Maybe they had done something and had been arrested. There was one man with a bad face. She watched him. He came quickly to where she was sitting. What was he saying? A lawyer.

"No, I don't want no lawyer," the woman with the child mumbled. "No, no."

The man went back. He kept pretty busy, talking to lots of people in the room. So he was a lawyer. Blanche had a lawyer. She had paid him $10. A lot of money.

"Shh, Paula!" the woman whispered. Paula was the name of the sleeping child. It had stirred in the bundle.

"Shh! Mus'n't. Da-ah-ah-ah--"

She rocked sideways with the bundle and crooned over it. Her heavy coarsened face seemed to grow surprised as she stared into the bundle. The child grew quiet.

The judge took his place. Business started. From where she sat the woman with the child couldn't hear anything. She watched little groups of men and women form in front of the judge. Then they went away and other groups came.

The lawyer had said not to worry. Just wait for Blanche's name and then come right up. Not to worry.

"Shh, Paula, shh! Da-ah-ah-ah--"

There was Blanche coming out of the door. She looked bad. Her face. Oh, yes, poor girl, she worked too hard. But what could she do? Only work. And now they arrested her. They arrested Blanche when the streets were full of bums and loafers, they arrested Blanche who worked hard.

Go up in front like the lawyer said. Sure. There was Blanche going now. And the lawyer, too. He had a better face than the other one who came and asked.

"And is this the woman?"

The lawyer laughed because the judge asked this.

"Oh, no," he said; "no, your honor, that's her mother. Step up, Blanche."

What did the policeman say?

"Shh! Paula, shh! Da-ah--" She couldn't hear on account of Paula moving so much and crying. Paula was hungry. She'd have to stay hungry a little while. What man? That one!

But the policeman was talking about the man, not about Blanche.

"He said, your honor, that she'd been following him down Madison Street for a block, talking to him and finally he stopped and she asked him--"

"Shh! Paula, don't! Bad girl! Shh!"

That man with the black mustache. Who was he?

"Yes, your honor, I never saw her before. I walk in the street and she come up and talk to me and say, 'You wanna come home with me?'"

"Blanche, how long has this been going on?"

Look, Blanche was crying. Shh, Paula, shh! The judge was speaking. But Blanche didn't listen. The woman with the child was going to say, "Blanche, the judge," but her tongue grew frightened.

"Speak up, Blanche." The judge said this.

* * * * *