Chapter IV: Part TWO: I (1)

Nothing in the Gore offices could have been changed in many years, Wilfred supposed. Many a country lawyer did himself better. Mr. Amasa Gore shared one very large room with his secretary, John Dobereiner and his assistant secretary, or office boy, or door-keeper, or whatever you chose to call him, which was Wilfred. The room had a door opening directly on the public corridor; and double doors in the right and left walls. Various officials of the Gore railroads strolled through from time to time; and Mr. Isaac Gore, the elder brother, was in the habit of making his escape through their room, when his own way out was blocked. Still, there was privacy of a kind, the room was so big. From his corner Wilfred could not hear what Mr. Gore might be saying in his corner; nor could Dobereiner from his.

Wilfred’s particular job was to open the corridor door when anyone knocked. He would open it a crack first, with his foot behind it, while he reconnoitred. So far there had never been any excitement. Nothing was painted on the door but the number of the room, 47; and this password, was given out only to Mr. Gore’s friends. Occasionally a crank or a begging widow took a chance and knocked: that was all. In the beginning Wilfred had speculated on what he would do should an anarchist burst in with a bomb in a satchel. That had happened to Russell Sage, once. Wilfred had made up a story about it, in which he played a heroic part; but it was not one of his best stories.

Mr. Gore’s big roll-top desk was turned cater-cornered. The door into his brother’s office was at his hand in case _he_ wanted to make a quick getaway. When he was seated at his desk, Wilfred could see no more than the thin lock of hair which waved on his forehead, and his sulky eyes when he raised them. Mr. Dobereiner’s desk was in the other front corner; Wilfred’s desk in one of the back corners. One could have given a ball in the middle of the room.

The great chance of his life! his aunts called it; being placed so close to a millionaire. How Wilfred hated it! Day after day he felt as if there was some foul stuff smoldering in his breast, the fumes of which were slowly suffocating him. So much had been made of this job, he couldn’t conceive of any escape from it. The whole millionaire atmosphere; the bluff, man-to-man air which the cleverest of Mr. Gore’s creatures had learned to adopt towards their master; he hated it. The private secretary, Dobereiner was an out and out toady and lick-spittle; Wilfred didn’t mind him; it was the fine gentlemen; the various stockbrokers; corporation officials; dummy directors and so on; Ugh! Loathsome!

Mr. Gore was a good enough employer; liberal; he was rather a fool behind his big front, and Wilfred could have liked him under other circumstances. Millionaire and office boy preserved a distant air towards each other. Wilfred took care to keep the lashes lowered over his resentful eyes. He kept his employer’s check-books and accounts; thus he knew that Mr. Gore’s income amounted to more than seven hundred thousand dollars a year. It made the office boy grind his teeth.

Wilfred had not enough to do to keep him busy during office hours; and he shamefully neglected what he had to do. It had been understood when he came, that he was to perfect himself in shorthand; that he might take some of the correspondence off Dobereiner’s hands. There lay the Pitman textbook, and the note-book handy to his hand; and the sight of them turned his stomach. Wilfred spent the greater part of the days in listless dreaming: his body held in such a position that to a glance from behind he might appear to be practicing shorthand. He suspected that Mr. Gore spent hours dreaming, too. Well he was able to if he wanted. Certainly there wasn’t much business transacted in that office. Yet Mr. Gore kept regular office hours. Apparently he hadn’t anything to do, but come sit in his office. So far as Wilfred could judge he had never read a book in his life. What an existence for one with two thousand dollars a day to spend! But to scorn his employer didn’t help Wilfred any; he knew he was the idle apprentice, and he hated himself.

A murmur was heard from Mr. Gore’s corner, and Dobereiner, springing up, paddled to his employer’s desk. He had very large flat feet that turned out wide, and his knees gave a little with every step. He had bulging blue eyes that held a doglike expression; and his broad, ugly, German face was always oily with devotion. An invaluable creature, Wilfred conceded, but not the man he would choose to have around him. A brief whispered colloquy took place—everything was whispered in that office; and Dobereiner came hustling over to Wilfred’s desk, breathing a little hard, as one who bears momentous tidings.

“Mr. Gore has decided not to go out to lunch,” he said. “Please bring him a glass of milk and two chicken sandwiches from the directors’ restaurant.”

Wilfred cast a glance on Dobereiner, and went out. In a moment or two he returned—empty handed. Dobereiner ran to meet him.

“Where is Mr. Gore’s lunch?” he demanded, aghast.

“I gave the order,” said Wilfred. “A waiter will bring it directly.”

Dobereiner’s slightly bloodshot eyes stuck out at Wilfred—but more in dismay, than anger. “I told you to bring it!” he stammered. “Mr. Gore must not be kept waiting!”

Wilfred looked at him without speaking, one side of his mouth pressed stubbornly into his cheek. All but wringing his hands, Dobereiner turned, and waddled out of the room.

In due course he returned, bearing the glass and plate as if they were holy vessels. Placing them on Mr. Gore’s desk, he stood back. Mr. Gore did not ask the wherefore of this act of service, but picked up one of the sandwiches, and bit into it. Wilfred suspected that such incidents as this did not injure him with his boss; after all they were of the same class: it was other things.

Mr. Gore was still munching when there was heard a light, assured tapping on the glass of the corridor door; two fingernails rotated. Wilfred’s breast burned and his lip curled painfully as he went to open the door. They all knew who this was. Dobereiner turned a foolish, beaming smile towards the door; and Mr. Gore looked over the top of his desk with all the sullenness gone out of his face. Wilfred opened the door; and Joe Kaplan breezed past him.

“‘Lo, Wilfred! . . . ’Lo, Mr. Dobereiner. . . . Good morning, Mr. Gore.”

He got no answering greeting from Wilfred; but a fat lot Joe cared for that. That was the worst of it; filled with a fervor of indignation, Wilfred had not the power to make Joe feel it. Why? He knew. It was because his indignation was insincere. The sight of the glittering Joe made him sick with envy. He was crushed by the hatefulness of his own feelings.

Wilfred scanned him in the effort to discover something . . . something that would enable him to feel superior. But Joe was too perfect; he was too exactly what Wilfred himself dreamed of becoming; the gay, gilded, insouciant youth. Insouciant was one of Wilfred’s favorite words. To be sure, Joe was a little _too_ well-dressed to be a gentleman; but there was nothing blatant about him; he picked things up too quickly. And everybody was ready to forgive a slightly dandified air in so good-looking a youth. Wilfred, while he sneered at the beautifully-fitting dark green suit with a small check, the puffy Ascot tie with a handsome pearl in it, the Dunlap derby fresh from the burnisher’s iron, secretly admired. Somehow Wilfred’s effects never came off. Though they were of the same age, the finish Joe had acquired made him look three or four years older. Wilfred was miserably aware of being an untidy and gangly eighteen.

Joe plumped himself down like an equal in a chair at Mr. Gore’s left hand; and their heads drew close together. Whisper; whisper; whisper; punctuated with chuckles. Joe was visible at the side of the desk; but Mr. Gore Wilfred could not see; however, he knew only too well how the man’s face relaxed; how his sulky eyes became moist and irresponsible; and how the thick lips parted. Almost anybody except the fatuous Dobereiner could have told at a glance what was the relation between those two. Wilfred had no difficulty in reading his employer; a sensual man, weak and shy. It was Joe’s perfect shamelessness which had won him. It was the same with everybody. The satyr in Joe’s hard, bright, close-set eyes encouraged the imprisoned appetites to come out and stretch themselves. Had not Wilfred felt it himself? Only he could not let himself go. He did not blame Mr. Gore; there was something warm and human in the man’s surrender. He was getting something that his nature craved. But Joe! while he smiled and murmured and debauched others, _his_ eyes remained cold and bright and watchful. What a horror!

What did they talk about? They were arranging the details of parties, Wilfred assumed; small, discreet parties, conducted without danger of discovery. That would be Joe’s business. Wilfred’s opulent imagination proceeded to supply the details of their parties. Oh Heaven! supreme luxury and voluptuousness! And Joe of course, a sharer in it all. Envy suffocated him. Joe had turned out such a tall, handsome, graceful fellow. And no foolish scruples to hamper him! Joe shared in it; the soulless gutter-snipe; the lad no older than himself; he had everything; money; good clothes; admiration; and endless pleasure: while he, Wilfred who _had_ imagination and feeling was poor and half-baked and despised and starving for joy! Why didn’t the dull millionaire come to _him_ for his pleasures? He had imagination. In Joe’s parties there would be a leer; but in _his_ only a mad, mad joy! In the midst of this Wilfred grinned bitterly at himself; for he knew well enough that he was shameless only in his imagination. A shivering fastidiousness held him in leash. After all, Joe was a fitter instrument for the millionaire.

These talks between Mr. Gore and Joe always ended in the same way. Mr. Gore pulled out a little drawer in his desk, and took something from it that found its way into Joe’s trousers pocket. The fool! thought Wilfred; does he suppose I’m not on to him? Always, later, a check would be made out to a certain Harry Bannerman, a creature of Mr. Gore’s, who would carry it to the bank; and bring back the wherewithal to replenish the drawer against Joe’s next visit. Many hundreds of dollars weekly. Mr. Gore did not require cash for anything else, since he had credit everywhere.

And then Joe, sleek and elegant as a panther, would steam out, scattering good-byes; and Mr. Gore, resuming his ordinary sulky mask, would glance intimidatingly at poor Dobereiner and Wilfred, as if daring them to suggest that he had ever dropped it. Dobereiner of course, had no thought of criticizing his master; and Wilfred at least adopted a polite air of inscrutability. On this occasion whether or not Mr. Gore suspected the thoughts that Wilfred hid under it, he said:

“Bring over your note-book, Pell.”

Wilfred obeyed with a heart full of bitterness—sharp apprehension, too. _He_ was required to make pot-hooks while Joe was sent out with a pocketful of money, to scour the markets for beauty! The inevitable humiliation awaited him now; perhaps the final humiliation. Wilfred hated his job, but was none the less terrified of losing it. For where would he, the timid, the self-distrustful, the half-baked, find another? And how could he ever face the Aunts who had plotted for years to obtain this job for him?

After an unhappy quarter of an hour Mr. Gore said in a bored voice: “. . . Er . . . How long does it take to learn shorthand?”

“Three months,” murmured Wilfred.

“You’ve been studying it longer than that.”

“It’s difficult . . . to apply oneself at night.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re not very busy in the daytime. . . . What’s the matter with you, Pell? You would do very well here, if you would only wake up. You appear to be half asleep most of the time.”

“I will try to do better,” mumbled Wilfred, loathing himself.

He went back to his desk, seething. The fool! The fool! The empty-headed, dull, rich fool! It’s lucky he has his money-bags to give him some identity! He hasn’t even got brains enough to go to the devil by himself, but must hire a boy to lead him!

Then his mood changed. He sat staring at the square glass inkstands on his desk, with their lacquered iron covers; cheap stuff stamped out by the million. What is to become of me? he thought with a sinking heart; I undertake to rage at everything, yet I am no good myself. There is no beginning place in me; I am spread all over. I want to be . . . I want to be everything, and I have started at nothing. Everything I try to grasp dissolves in my hand. I exist in a fog! . . . God! how I hate business! My father was a failure, and I am a failure, too. What is one to do if one has the instincts of a gentleman and no money . . . !

Dobereiner was looking over at Wilfred in horrified commiseration. He could imagine nothing worse than to be rebuked by Mr. Gore. During the rest of the day his manner towards Wilfred was gentle. Wilfred glared at him helplessly.

II

Joe had chosen the top floor in a row of old walk-up flats on West Fifty-Eighth street. The neighborhood was one of the best in town; but the house itself was unimproved, and a little run-down; anybody might live in such a house. It was pleasant too, to walk up the interminable, dark, shabbily-carpeted stairs, and at the top burst into a paradise of red velvet portières and Oriental divans crowded with feather cushions. Joe had bought all the stuff himself; it had been great to pick out the very best quality velours and the thickest rugs. It was Mr. Gore who stipulated for a walk-up apartment. In a house with an elevator, you ran the chance of a blackmailing elevator boy.

Jewel Le Compte (Mr. Gore had suggested the changed spelling of her name) sat half reclining in a Morris chair, sewing a ribbon strap on a sheer undergarment, with microscopic stitches. Joe lay stretched out on a divan with his hands under his head, watching her. She was wrapped in a blue silk kimono embroidered with pink chrysanthemums; Joe had picked that out, too. Her legs were crossed, and from the foot which was elevated, a quilted blue mule dangled free of her rosy heel. Her plentiful black hair was gathered in a rough twist on top of her head: and she had no make-up on her face. Joe liked to see her without her war paint; when she left it off, the babyish look came back to her cheeks; they no longer looked all of a piece; but showed delicate, dusky discolorations and unevennesses. A damn pretty girl, Jewel; and how well she suited her luxurious surroundings! He had had the wit to foresee that while she was still in Allen street.

From time to time Jewel looked up from her sewing, and her eyes travelled with pleasure over Joe from head to foot.

“You’re fillin’ out,” she remarked. “You’ll soon be a man.”

“Aah!” said Joe; “I’m man enough alretty to be _your_ master!”

Jewel laughed. “Listen to it! I got you to nurse, boy.”

“Where would you be if it wasn’t for me?” demanded Joe.

“Oh, as a business manager you’re all right,” said Jewel. “That wasn’t what I meant. . . . In ten years maybe you can talk about bein’ my master!”

“How do you know I’ll stick to you that long?” asked Joe.

“Well, you will. Not that it matters . . . but you will.”

Joe felt uncomfortable. “Why will I?”

“I don’t know . . . I guess we’re a pair . . .”

A thousand recollections tumbled into Joe’s mind. He looked at Jewel and in her unsmiling eyes he saw the same things that were in his own mind. For the moment he seemed to have become Jewel; and Jewel him; he the woman; Jewel the man. It made him feel queer. “Aah!” he snarled.

Jewel resumed her sewing. “It’s like this,” she said; “with all the other fellows I’ve known, I had to chuck a bluff, see? One kind of bluff or another. And they the same with me. Like an Irish jig, when you dance up to your partner and back. . . . But with you—though you’re only a boy, it’s different. . . . You belong to me, like.”

“The hell I do!” said Joe.

Jewel shrugged. “Not that my saying so, matters. Either it’s so or it isn’t so, and we can’t change it.”

“I t’ink you got Jewish blood, too,” said Joe, “That’s how they talk.”

“I do’ know what I got,” she said indifferently.

“The Jews are a great people,” said Joe; “when they chuck all that Jewish bunk, and get down to tacks. . . . But an old-fashioned Jew! Gee! Like my old man. A preachin’ Jew’s the limit!”

Jewel was not listening to this. The color of her eyes seemed to darken. “I know why it is,” she said. “With me . . . you forget yourself.”

“You forget yourself, too,” said Joe quickly.

“Oh, sure!” she said lightly. Joe perceived resentfully that she only said it to shut him up. “It’s great to be able to make a fellow like you lose himself,” she went on with a slow smile; she was honest enough then; “you’re so stuck on yourself!”

“Aah!” said Joe sorely. For the moment he could find no rejoinder; he studied her, looking for some way to get back at her. “You’ll get fat,” he said at length.

“Sure, bright-eyes!” she said unconcernedly. “Your eyes run over me like rats. . . . But at that, men will still like me.”

“Why will they?”

“I dunno. . . . It’s somepin. . . . For the same reason maybe, that women will always run after you, you pink and black devil!”

“Because I’m so handsome?” said Joe, grinning.

“Nah! there’s a plenty of handsomer fellows than you!”

“Well, you’re no Lillian Russell!”

“It’s somepin we know . . . but I don’t know how to name it. . . . Neither you nor me gives a damn. . . .”

“Now you’re talkin’!” said Joe, pleased.

“But . . . we’ll never be able to get shet of each other,” Jewel went on with her darkened eyes.

“We’d better get hitched, then,” said Joe, sneering.

“Oh, Gawd!” she said, disgustedly.

Joe echoed her disgust. “Oh, Gawd!”

They looked at each other and laughed.

“You’ll always come back,” she said.

“I’m gonna marry a swell dame,” said Joe; “the pick of the whole four hundred. . . . You needn’t laugh. You wait!”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“You kin marry, too, if you play your cards right.”

Jewel laughed suddenly. “Thanks for the favor,” she said. . . . “Not on your life! I like my own self too well. I like to live alone. . . . Why should I marry? I ain’t ambitious.”

“To get a man to keep you when you’re old,” said Joe.

“I’ll put by enough for me old age,” said Jewel. “I don’t want much. All this—” she waved her arm about, “is all right to attrac’ custom, but it don’t mean nottin’ to me. . . . A nice plain room wit’ a winda on a busy street. There I’ll sit. . . . All I want good is a bed. My bed must be of the best; a1 box spring and a real hair mattress. Plenty of tasty food cooked the way I like it. Nobody to hinder my comin’ and goin’; nobody wit’ the right to bother me! That’s livin’!”

“Aah! you’ll git like the fat lady in Barnum and Bailey’s!”

“All right!”

“It wouldn’t suit me,” said Joe. “I want to be mixed up in things. I’m gonna be a big man. One of the biggest. I been about a bit now. I’m as smart as anybody I see. I’m gonna make them feel me. I like to see the buggers crawl on their bellies. Like Dobereiner. I’ll have a secretary like Dobereiner. Makes you feel great. . . . And a hell of a big house on Fift’ Avenoo, and a yacht and a private car . . . there isn’t anything I won’t have!”

“You’re welcome to it,” said Jewel. “Seems childish to me.”

“And a swell-lookin’ wife to take around, wearing diamonds all over her. . . .”

“Just the same, you’ll come to see me,” said Jewel smiling to herself; “fat though I be.”

* * * * *

“Have you braced the old man?” asked Jewel.

Joe armed himself with caution. He had been waiting for this. “No,” he said. “All bills paid, and a hundred a week clear! Ain’t yeh satisfied?”

“No,” said Jewel. “This may blow up any time. I want to be protected. A lump sum down. A man as rich as that; it’s customary. It don’t have to be in cash. A string of pearls, if it suits him better. Or anything I can realize on.”

Joe smoothed out his tone. “You’re right, Jewel. You’re certainly entitled to it. Just leave it to me. I’ll brace him as soon as the time is ripe.”

“The time is ripe now,” said Jewel with quiet stubbornness.

“Who’s runnin’ this show?” Joe demanded.

“There’s some things you don’t know,” said Jewel. “You’re only a kid. The time is ripe. The old man is ripe.”

“All right,” said Joe. “I’ll brace him next time I see him.”

“That’s what you said before. You needn’t mind now. I’ll brace him myself to-night.”

Joe sat up suddenly. “Go ahead!” he cried violently. “And the whole show’ll blow up right then! I know that old geezer! If _you_ ask him for money, he’ll fade! He likes to make out it’s all a fairy-story like, when he comes here.”

“Has he already given you the money for me?” Jewel asked unexpectedly.

Joe’s mouth opened and shut. He perceived that he had betrayed himself by showing too much heat. Oh well, he had to have it out with her anyhow. “Yes,” he said coolly, falling back on the divan.

Jewel stood up suddenly. Her sewing fell to the floor. She stood over Joe with clenched hands; a flush in her dark cheeks; her big eyes burning—she was handsome! “You dirty cheat!” she said, not loud. “You rotten kid! Rotten before you’re ripe! You thieving Jew! . . . I might have known how it would be!”

Joe felt relieved. If this was how she was going to take it, he was right there with her. He grinned up at her. “Aah! chase yerself!” he drawled. “This is my show. I started it, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t earn this money, damn you!”

“I put you in the way of earning it!”

Jewel suddenly quieted down. “Was it in cash?” she asked.

“No, railroad bonds. He got ’em out of the safe deposit box himself.”

Jewel sat down, and picked up her sewing. This was what Joe was afraid of. He ground his teeth together. “Aah, what was you anyhow when I picked you out of the gutter?” he cried noisily. “You was nottin’ but a dirty little Allen street. . . .”

Jewel smiled at him. “What’s the use?” she said; “you know you got to fork out.”

“I’m damned if I will!” cried Joe. “Now you know it, what you goin’ to do about it?”

Jewel merely pulled her sewing this way and that.

“I’m damned well gonna keep those bonds!” shouted Joe. “You tell the old man when he comes here to-night! Maybe he’ll hand you a new set. I don’t think! What _can_ you do? It’s back to Allen street for yours if _I_ drop you. The old man’ll fire me, you says. What the hell do I care? ‘’ll still have the mon’, won’t I? I’m about troo wit’ t’ old stiff anyhow . . . and he don’t need neither me nor you no more, if you want to know it; cos I’ve taught him the ropes. There’s plenty other girls.”

Joe’s tone changed. “. . . But you got him eatin’ out of your hand. He don’t want to hafta make up to a new girl. If you was wise you could keep him long as you wanted. The longer you kep’ him, the harder it would be for him to make a break. You could work him for a whole sheaf of gilt-edge bonds. But you gotta make a stink, I suppose. That’s just like a woman. All right! All right! If you’re so stuck on the Allen street houses. . . .”

Joe ran out of matter. You’ve got to have some return from the other side in order to keep this sort of thing up. He jumped up, and walked about the room muttering angrily; picking things up and putting them down again; darting little side looks at Jewel. She went on sewing.

Joe found his voice again. “It’s up to you now. I warn yeh! I’m about to resign the job as your manager anyhow. It don’t give me enough scope. I’m tired suckin’ up to that old dub—to anybody! I’m gonna operate on my own now. I’ll have them comin’ to me! And I don’t need no woman in my business neither! . . . A few thousands is little enough for you to pay me for puttin’ you where you are. . . .”

In spite of himself, Joe could not keep his mind on any one line; it shot off this way and that. He sounded weak to himself. How the hell had he come to let himself be put on the defensive anyhow? Now, struggle as he would, he could not keep a whining tone from coming into his voice.

“Aah! what’s the matter with yeh? I ain’t tryin’ to swipe the bonds offen you. You know me! I on’y want to use ’em for a little while. I got a scheme. . . . I can pay you back twice over. I can make money for both of us. You said I was a good business man. Well, I’m a better business man than you know. On’y I got to have a lump sum to start with. As a decoy to attrac’ more. I’ll tell you my scheme. . . .”

“I ain’t interested,” said Jewel, biting off her thread.

“Now listen, Jewel. . . .”

“You hand over my bonds,” she said, looking at him steadily. “When they’re in my own hands, then you can talk. I’ll have the handling of my own money, see? If your scheme looks good to me, I’ll put something in it—but I’ll say how much.”

Joe flung himself down on the divan again. “Yeah!” he said in extreme bitterness. “You think you’re gonna run my business, don’t you? What you know about business? You never been off Allen street till you come up here. You’d do better to stick to your own business, and leave me mine.”

“Where are the bonds?” she asked.

“Aah! in the inside pocket o’ me coat.” Joe flung an arm over his eyes.

Jewel got up without haste.

III

From his place in the corner of the basement room Wilfred watched the other diners covertly. Had he but possessed a mantle of invisibility his happiness would have been complete. As it was, his pleasure in looking at people vanished when they looked at him. There were four places at a table, and he was most comfortable when all were taken. People sitting so close, never looked at you; and they made a sort of screen for you; moreover he was able to listen to their talk, and to build upon it.

He ate his dinner in this place on West Tenth street once or twice a week; or as often as he could scare up the necessary thirty-five cents. He told his Aunts he had to work late at the office. How scandalized they would have been could they have seen him sitting there with a bottle of wine before him. They would never realize that he was grown. The place had no license of course, and you had a pleasant feeling of lawlessness; at any moment the police might come banging at the door. But they never had. A plain and friendly place, it supplied something that Wilfred had apprehended in novels of foreign life. He had got in the first time by attaching himself to the tail of a party at the door. Now he was known there and hailed by name. The generous minestrone, ravioli, etc., made his stomach purr. When he sat back and lighted a cigarette, life ceased to appall.

It was run by a handsome Italian woman with a heavenly smile, named Ceccina. Her husband, Michele, held sway over the kitchen, which was revealed through an open door; and their three children Raymo, Alessandro and Enriqueta helped their mother to wait upon the tables. Simple people; Wilfred loved them from a distance, except the little girl, who was pert without being engaging. It was the fault of the fond patrons. Wilfred felt it his duty to discourage her. He had a specially warm spot for Alessandro the bullet-headed one, a blonde sport in that dark family. Alessandro, always watching for a chance to sneak out and play in the streets, was often in trouble with his father, who swore at him in English, without being aware of the comic effect of his aspersions on the boy’s parentage.

The round table in the middle of the room, which would hold six at a squeeze, was reserved for a little company of friends that included two known authors; a lady editor; an artist; and a long-legged young man of unknown affiliations, whom the others called the bambino. These people constituted the focus of interest in the place. Wilfred watching them, and listening, decided against them. Let the authors be known as well as they might, their circle was not the real thing; its brilliancy was self-conscious. One author looked like a walrus with his tusks drawn; the other like an elderly trained poodle. The artist had a voluminous cape to his overcoat; and rattled his stick against the door-frame when he entered. Somebody said he designed labels for tomato cans. The room was small enough for Wilfred to scoop in these bits of information, as they flew about.

These and others in the room were of the general show; there was one group that Wilfred had taken for his own; whom he regarded with an intensity of interest that hurt. Young fellows, no more than a year or two older than himself; lively young fellows; and good friends! Until he had come to Ceccina’s he had never seen any young men like these, but he immediately understood them; he seemed to have been waiting for such. The conventions upon which young men ordinarily formed themselves, had no force with them. Their eyes seemed to see what they were turned upon; they were interested in things; they could let themselves go; and how they talked!

Two of them came every night. These addressed each other as Stanny and Jasper. Stanny was short and sturdily built; with an expression of doughty wistfulness that arrested Wilfred. He had a tenor voice with rather plaintive modulations, that went with his eyes. A man every inch of him, from the set of his strong shoulders, and his courageous glance; but a man who felt things and wondered. Up to this time Wilfred had despairingly supposed that manliness was the capacity for not feeling things. Jasper, with his crisp, bronze, wavy hair, and warm color, was full of a slow, earthy zest. His face generally wore a sleepy half-smile; and he had a trick of squinting down his big nose. Wilfred inferred that he must have wit, from the surprised laughter which greeted his rare sallies.

These two were sometimes joined by an older man with a fine, reticent face and silky black beard, whom they called Hilgy. Hilgy had his features under such control, that it was impossible to decide whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. Wilfred observed that sometimes his own friends did not know how to take him. Hilgy liked to string them. Sometimes a thin, handsome youth no older than Wilfred, made one of the party. They called him Binks; and so exuberant and audacious was his style, that all hung upon his words, though he was the youngest among them.

Unfortunately for Wilfred, these fellows, unlike the party at the center table, talked low and all he could get of it was a phrase here and there. He had gathered that they were all artists, though they wore their hair short, and dressed like anybody else. They forced him to reconsider all his notions about artists. Art! the word rang hopefully in Wilfred’s consciousness; it was a way other than business, of making one’s living. Of course he couldn’t be a painter, because his fingers were all thumbs. But a writer, perhaps; that was an art, too. Years ago, his grandfather had told him he had imagination; he had been hugging the assurance ever since. Nobody else had ever suggested that he had any worthy quality. Still, a writer!—how ridiculous to dream of such a thing, when he lacked a college education.

For many nights Wilfred had been watching these happy fellows. Such friends! What would he not have given for one friend, and each of these had three! Talk boiled out of them. Sometimes at a heard phrase, Wilfred’s own breast would froth up like yeasty beer. It was so extraordinary to discover that they talked about the same things that troubled his mind! They were clever. They poked sly fun at the other diners. Once Wilfred caught Stanny’s nickname for the writer who looked like a poodle: “Flannel-belly!” Inexplicably right! he laughed whenever he thought of it.

Wilfred had taken two of the four to his heart; Stanny and Binks. But his feelings toward them were different: for the one he felt a violent affection and sympathy; for the other, a violent, helpless admiration. One or another of these two, or both of them, linked arms with Wilfred in his waking dreams; and into their attentive ears he poured the frothy stuff that choked his breast. When he came to himself, he would smile, to think how in his dreams, he did all the talking.

On this night none of the fellows had come, and Wilfred was obliged to swallow his disappointment. Ceccina had finally been obliged to give their places to a party of overdressed strangers from up-town, who stared rudely around the room, and made audible comments. Such people cheapened everybody in the place. Wilfred cursed them under his breath.

Then the bell rang, and Stanny and Jasper entered the room, a good half hour after their usual time. Wilfred’s heart leaped like a lover’s; then set up a tremendous pounding; for the only two vacant places together, were at his table. The two crossed the room as a matter of course; and Stanny asked him politely if they might share his table.

“Certainly!” stammered Wilfred, keeping his eyes down. He simply had not the courage to look at them so near to.

They sat down side by side opposite him. Wilfred’s breast was in a commotion. His confusion must have affected the other two, for they were silent at first. Undoubtedly they thought him a churl, who hugged his solitude. He could not bring himself to look at them. He was bitterly upbraiding himself. You fool! What a poor figure you are cutting! Why can’t you be natural? These are simple, likable fellows, willing to be friends. They are your kind. What a chance! And you’re throwing it away! You won’t get another such chance. This is what comes of dreaming! Unfits you for the reality. . . .

Their soup was brought; and they hungrily applied themselves to it, with encomiums upon its flavor. While waiting for their next course, they picked up a conversation that had evidently been dropped a little while before. They spoke low; but Wilfred’s sharpened ears heard every word.

“I think you’re foolish,” said Stanny, “after working in the office all day, to sit in your basement nights, hacking away at your carving. With a book of Italian verbs open besides you, too. Or if you’re not there, you’re sitting in Madame Tardieu’s stuffy room, droning French with that tiresome old soul!”

“She needs the money,” mumbled Jasper. His shy, unsure utterance endeared him to Wilfred.

“Well, that’s not your fault,” said Stanny, slightly exasperated. “You’re too easy. She knows she’s got a good thing, and she’s nursing it along. . . . I say, it’s not natural at our age.”

“What else is there to do, nights?” grumbled Jasper. “We haven’t any money to spend.”

“Loaf!” said Stanny, promptly. “A certain amount of loafing is necessary to the soul’s health. You’re doing violence to your nature with this continual grind. It’ll get back at you some day. This self-improvement business can be carried too far. How can you improve when you’ve worked yourself into a half-doped state? . . . I bet you fall asleep in your chair at Mme. Tardieu’s many’s the night, while the old body drools on.”

“It’s a fact,” confessed Jasper.

While they talked together, ignoring him, Wilfred quieted down. It was better they should ignore him, he thought; for if, as was probable, they should not like him, that would be worse. Meanwhile what a glimpse into their lives he was getting!

“Last night,” said Jasper in his diffident, masculine voice, “I was sitting in Madame Tardieu’s room. It’s true, I was half asleep. I happened to look out of the window. . . . In the house opposite, there was a girl going to bed. She’d forgotten to pull down the shades. . . . Damn nice-looking girl! When she put up her arms to unpin her hair . . . lovely round arms . . . such a picture! . . . Well . . . I lost my head. I said good-night to the old lady in a hurry, and I went . . . I mean I went across the street. . . .”

“_What!_” exclaimed Stanny.

“It’s a rooming house. The outer door was closed. I waited on the stoop until one of the lodgers came home. Told him I’d lost my key. He let me in. I went up to the girl’s room and went in. . . .”

“Good God! what did _she_ say?” demanded Stanny.

“Oh, she was surprised,” said Jasper shyly. “But she didn’t make much of a fuss . . . I stayed. . . .”

“Suppose she _had_ made a fuss?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“You had been drinking!”

“No. . . . Something got into me. . . .”

Wilfred was astounded and delighted by this anecdote. Such delicious effrontery was almost inconceivable to him. It was _right_, thought Wilfred; that was the gallant way; the mad, imprudent jolly way! Jasper loomed a hero in his eyes. He ventured to steal a look at the pair of them. Stanny was a little scandalized by the story—but only a little. Evidently it was much the sort of thing a friend might expect to hear from Jasper. Then Wilfred looked at Jasper; and at the same moment Jasper happened to raise his shy, wicked eyes to Wilfred’s face. A spark was struck, and suddenly they laughed together.

Wilfred blushed scarlet. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I couldn’t help hearing. . . .”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jasper, blushing, too. “You know how it is.”

A warm tide of joy coursed through Wilfred. To be hailed by Jasper as a fellow!

Stanny now included Wilfred in his remarks. He was annoyed. “A piece of folly, if you ask me,” he said. “God knows what might have happened!”

“But it wouldn’t, to him,” said Wilfred. “There wasn’t any room in his mind for it to happen.”

Stanny looked at Wilfred dubiously. Wilfred blushed again. What nonsense am I talking? he thought.

“He understands,” said Jasper, with a jerk of his head in Wilfred’s direction.

“Yes, I understand,” said Wilfred, a little breathlessly. “But I wouldn’t have had the nerve to carry it through, myself. I think it was fine!”

“Huh!” said Stanny. “You don’t know this idiot as well as I do. Works himself into a state of stupefaction. Then suddenly blows up, and doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t call that rational!”

“Oh well, reason isn’t everything!” said Wilfred grinning.

“Hear! Hear!” said Jasper.

Stanny’s irritation was only on the surface. He grinned back at Wilfred. “You shouldn’t encourage him!” he said with an affectionate glance at Jasper. “The old stove-in-bottom! You wouldn’t think he was capable of it, to look at him, would you?”

“I’m not bragging about it,” said Jasper with an aggrieved air. “I only told you how it was. I’m ashamed of myself now, I felt rotten about it all day.”

“If it had been me, I wouldn’t be ashamed,” murmured Wilfred.

“Anyhow, you’re no Joseph!” said Jasper to Stanny. “How about Myrtle?”

A flicker of disgust made Stanny’s face look pinched. “Oh, that was just a common or garden pick-up,” he said; “all conducted according to rule. It’s ended. Two nights ago I blew her to a ride in a hansom. Bowling down Fifth Avenue. Felt like a lord! She spoiled it by getting mercenary. I invited her to get out, and came home alone.”

“Why shouldn’t she be mercenary?” asked Jasper mildly.

“Sure, I’m a sentimentalist!” said Stanny.

Wilfred experienced a pang of sympathy. Glancing in Stanny’s face, he thought: He deserves better than that!

Spaghetti was brought to Stanny and Jasper; and they applied themselves to it. Wilfred, who had finished his meal, lit a cigarette with slightly trembling fingers; and prayed that this might not be the end. In his mind he searched furiously around for interesting matter to carry on the talk; while at the same time another part of his mind warned him not to force the occasion, or it would break down as it always did; but to let the occasion use him. While he was still distracted between these inner voices, the talk started of itself.

Said Stanny: “When I came down-town to-night, I saw that they had taken away the female figures leading up to the Dewey Arch on either side. Charlotte Marshall posed for those figures. She comes here sometimes.”

“I’ve seen her,” said Wilfred. “What a strange creature!”

Stanny smiled at him good-naturedly, in a way that made Wilfred feel very young. Of course! thought Wilfred. I was trying to be wise. I _will_ be natural!

“All legs,” grumbled Jasper.

“Well, that’s the sculptor’s ideal,” said Stanny.

“The degenerate sculptor’s ideal!”

“Anyhow, it looks a lot better without them—or her,” said Stanny. “I like it, though it’s been damaged a bit by the weather, and by the hubs of the busses driving through. Wish you could have seen the pair of drivers I saw to-night, racing through abreast, licking their horses like the chariot race in Ben-Hur.”

“It’s not really good,” said Jasper. “Just a lot of miscellaneous architecture.”

“Well, you ought to know, old Goat and Compasses!”

“I like to look at it,” said Wilfred shyly. “Just because it was run up for a sort of festival. It was a damn fool thing to spend all that money on a monument of lath and plaster. That’s why I like it. Everything else is so damned useful. . . .”

He suddenly became aware that both young fellows were listening to him. Self-consciousness supervened, and his tongue began to stumble. They listen! he thought. I can talk too.

“Do you paint?” asked Stanny.

Wilfred shook his head. “I’m only a millionaire’s office boy,” he said, trying to carry it off with a grin.

“That’s nothing,” said Stanny quickly. “I make line drawings for James Gordon Bennett, and Jasper here, draws plans for a millionaire jerry-builder.”

“Some day I hope to write,” Wilfred said. In that moment his resolution was formed.

“That so?” said Stanny with interest. “We haven’t got a writer in our bunch.”

Wilfred’s heart almost burst out of his breast. Did he mean anything by that? . . . But probably not.

Thenceforward, talk never failed.

The three youths left the restaurant together. A despair had seized upon Wilfred. There was nothing further he could do to prolong the occasion. He had no place where he could ask them to come. This was the end! They paused on the sidewalk.

“Which way you go?” asked Stanny, offhand.

“I live in Eleventh street.”

“Walk around by the Avenue with us.”

So he obtained five minutes reprieve. At the Eleventh street corner they paused again. Wilfred’s heart was low. His tongue clave to his palate.

Stanny said in the forthright manner that became his doughty self so well: “Look here; I’ve got a garret up on Fourteenth street. Jasper’s coming up. Would you like to come and look at my stuff?”

Would he! Wilfred could scarcely reply. “Oh yes!” he murmured. “I was hoping you would ask me.”

Both lads looked at him with quick pleasure. Without knowing it, he had said exactly the right thing. They marched up-town three abreast.

“Got anything to drink?” mumbled Jasper.

“Divil a drop, you sponge!”

“I . . . I wish you’d let me . . . stand treat,” stammered Wilfred. With his fingers, he made sure of the limp dollar bill in his trousers pocket. That was for lunches the balance of the week, but . . . !

“All right,” said Stanny. “We’ll go round by Maria’s, and get a bottle of Nebiola . . .”

IV

Towards the close of the business day, Joe Kaplan dropped in at Harry Bannerman’s little office on Nassau street. He had been there before. In his sphere, Harry occupied much the same relation to Mr. Gore that Joe did in his. It had been no part of Mr. Gore’s plans to make his two favorites known to each other, but they had in a way of speaking smelled each other out. No doubt it had occurred to Harry, as it certainly had to Joe, that an alliance would be useful. How else could they keep tab on each other? It had greatly amused Joe to watch Harry’s face when he had unexpectedly come into Mr. Gore’s office one day to find Joe seated by the millionaire’s desk. Joe could imagine Harry going to Dobereiner for information; and Dobereiner getting off his innocent spiel about the clever young man whom Mr. Gore was educating! How Harry must have been tormented by the sums in cash he was forced to draw every week! Well, now, unknown to Mr. Gore and Dobereiner, Harry and Joe had become “intimate” friends. That was funny, too!

“’Lo, Harry!” said Joe. He allowed a shadow to appear on his brow, and rolled his Eden perfecto moodily between his lips.

“This is out o’ sight!” cried Harry. “I’ll be through directly. We’ll go out and have something.”

Behind this parade of heartiness, Joe perceived the glitter of hatred, and exulted. He dropped on a chair, and extending his elegantly trousered legs plucked at the creases. A sickly look appeared in Harry’s eyes. Don’t he wish he was me! thought Joe.

Joe said, gloomily: “I need a drink!”

“What’s the matter, old fel’?” asked Harry.

Joe, observing the spring of eager malice in his eyes, thought: He’s a smart fellow; but I’m smarter. I can play on him like the piano. I can surround him all about, and be ready for him to move in any direction! Joe said: “You’ve got me in a hole, that’s what!”

“I?” said Harry, opening his china blue eyes, candid for once in his astonishment.

Joe chuckled inwardly; and looking Harry over, made him wait for the explanation. Harry was a young man, but not so young as he looked. He made a business of being a young man. He was slender; yet somehow he gave the impression of being soft and plump. A dimple in one cheek contributed to that effect. From the neck up he had a naked look, though his head was furnished with a sufficient quantity of hair. It was one of those heads of hair that suggest a wig. He even had a small, stiff mustache, every hair of which was laid in order. Just the same his face had a naked look.

“How could I get you in a hole?” he asked.

“I been talkin’ too much about you up at the flat,” said Joe. “About our gettin’ to be friends, and goin’ around together, and all.”

“Has she told _him_?” asked Harry sharply.

“Nah! That kid is wise. She don’t tell the old man anything but what he wants to hear.”

“What’s the trouble then?”

Joe scowled. “Aah! She wants me to bring you up there while the old man’s out of town.”

Harry quickly lowered his lids—not so quickly, though, but that Joe perceived what was under them. It was funny! Harry of course, was out of his mind with curiosity concerning the flat on Fifty-Eighth street, and it’s occupant. “Well . . . why not?” said Harry with a shrug.

“Good God! man!” cried Joe. “Suppose the old man got on to it?”

“Why should he get on to it, if the girl is on the level with us?”

“Suppose she was to get stuck on you?” said Joe. “Where would I be?”

Harry fiddled among the papers on his desk. “Oh, you can leave that to me,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not going to let her . . . I might ask you the same question. Where would _I_ be if she did?”

“I don’t see how you could help yourself,” said Joe. “If you attempted to discourage her, it would only make her worse. I tell you frankly, after a certain point _I_ can’t handle her.”

“What did she say?” Harry asked, keeping his face averted from Joe—but Joe marked the deepening dimple.

“Said she was bored, seeing nobody but the old man and me.”

“Well . . . you’re not old,” suggested Harry.

“Oh, I’m like her brother,” said Joe. “We scrap all the time.”

“I mean, what did she say about me?”

“Said if I didn’t bring you up, she’d come down here.”

“So this has been going on some time?”

“Oh, a couple of weeks.”

“Well . . . it’s up to you,” said Harry. “You’re running that show.”

“Do you want to come?” asked Joe.

“Oh, I’m only human,” said Harry, shrugging. “I’m curious to see what the old man’s taste is. . . . But it makes no real difference. I have other interests as you know.”

Joe grinned inwardly. Does he think he’s taking me in, the jay-bird! He said, grumblingly: “Well, I suppose I’ll have to take you. I’ll get no peace until I do! . . . Look here, if there should be any trouble, can I count on you to do the right thing by me? Suppose the old man should get on to something, will you tell him it wasn’t my fault?”

“Why, sure!” said Harry, with a reproachful look. “You ought to know me better than that, Joe! . . . Make your mind, easy. There isn’t going to be any trouble. I’m the quietest little pot of tea that ever brewed on the back of the stove!”

“All right,” said Joe. “We’ll go on up, after we’ve had a drink. We can have dinner sent in from outside.”

* * * * *

Shortly after midnight Joe and Harry issued out of the house on Fifty-Eighth street. Apparently there was nothing to choose between them for mellowness; but Joe was not as mellow as he was making out to be. He linked his arm affectionately within Harry’s.

“You’re a damn good fellow, Harry! I think the world of you! . . . Just the same there’s going to be trouble as a result of this night’s work!”

“You’re foolish!” said Harry, dimpling. “She didn’t care. . . .”

“I know her!” said Joe significantly. “She wasn’t going to let anything on to you, of course. And me being there, too. . . .”

“Well,” said Harry expansively, “even so! Need the heavens fall? . . . Oh my God! what a skin! Like old white velvet. . . . What the old man don’t know won’t hurt him!”