Chapter XII: Part 12

“Still I think the boys have got it comin to em.”

“We’ve all of us got a whole lot comin to us we dont never get.... For crissake dont quote me on this.... Joey fetch yourself a cigar from that box over there. Frien o mine sent em up from Havana by a naval officer.”

“Thankye sir.”

“Go ahead take four or five.”

“Jez thank you.”

“Say Joey how’ll you boys line up on the mayoralty election?”

“That depends on the general attitude towards the needs of the ex-service man.”

“Look here Joey you’re a smart feller ...”

“Oh they’ll line up all right. I kin talk em around.”

“How many guys have you got over there?”

“The Sheamus O’Rielly Post’s got three hundred members an new ones signin up every day.... We’re gettin em from all over. We’re goin to have a Christmas dance an some fights in the Armory if we can get hold of any pugs.”

Gus McNiel threw back his head on his bullneck and laughed. “Thataboy!”

“But honest the bonus is the only way we kin keep the boys together.”

“Suppose I come over and talk to em some night.”

“That’d be all right, but they’re dead sot against anybody who aint got a war record.”

McNiel flushed. “Come back feeling kinder smart, dont ye, you guys from overseas?” He laughed. “That wont last more’n a year or two.... I seen em come back from the Spanish American War, remember that Joe.”

An officeboy came in an laid a card on the desk. “A lady to see you Mr. McNiel.”

“All right show her in.... It’s that old bitch from the school board.... All right Joe, drop in again next week.... I’ll keep you in mind, you and your army.”

Dougan was waiting in the outer office. He sidled up mysteriously. “Well Joe, how’s things?”

“Pretty good,” said Joe puffing out his chest. “Gus tells me Tammany’ll be right behind us in our drive for the bonus ... planning a nation wide campaign. He gave me some cigars a friend o his brought up by airplane from Havana.... Have one?” With their cigars tilting up out of the corners of their mouths they walked briskly cockily across City Hall square. Opposite the old City Hall there was a scaffolding. Joe pointed at it with his cigar. “That there’s the new statue of Civic Virtue the mayor’s havin set up.”

* * * * *

The steam of cooking wrenched at his knotted stomach as he passed Child’s. Dawn was sifting fine gray dust over the black ironcast city. Dutch Robertson despondently crossed Union Square, remembering Francie’s warm bed, the spicy smell of her hair. He pushed his hands deep in his empty pockets. Not a red, and Francie couldn’t give him anything. He walked east past the hotel on Fifteenth. A colored man was sweeping off the steps. Dutch looked at him enviously; he’s got a job. Milkwagons jingled by. On Stuyvesant Square a milkman brushed past him with a bottle in each hand. Dutch stuck out his jaw and talked tough. “Give us a swig o milk will yez?” The milkman was a frail pinkfaced youngster. His blue eyes wilted. “Sure go round behind the wagon, there’s an open bottle under the seat. Dont let nobody see you drink it.” He drank it in deep gulps, sweet and soothing to his parched throat. Jez I didn’t need to talk rough like that. He waited until the boy came back. “Thankye buddy, that was mighty white.”

He walked into the chilly park and sat down on a bench. There was hoarfrost on the asphalt. He picked up a torn piece of pink evening newspaper. $500,000 HOLDUP. Bank Messenger Robbed in Wall Street Rush Hour.

In the busiest part of the noon hour two men held up
Adolphus St. John, a bank messenger for the Guarantee Trust
Company, and snatched from his hands a satchel containing a
half a million dollars in bills ...

Dutch felt his heart pounding as he read the column. He was cold all over. He got to his feet and began thrashing his arms about.

* * * * *

Congo stumped through the turnstile at the end of the L line. Jimmy Herf followed him looking from one side to the other. Outside it was dark, a blizzard wind whistled about their ears. A single Ford sedan was waiting outside the station.

“How you like, Meester ’Erf?”

“Fine Congo. Is that water?”

“That Sheepshead Bay.”

They walked along the road, dodging an occasional bluesteel glint of a puddle. The arclights had a look of shrunken grapes swaying in the wind. To the right and left were flickering patches of houses in the distance. They stopped at a long building propped on piles over the water. POOL; Jimmy barely made out the letters on an unlighted window. The door opened as they reached it. “Hello Mike,” said Congo. “This is Meester ’Erf, a frien’ o mine.” The door closed behind them. Inside it was black as an oven. A calloused hand grabbed Jimmy’s hand in the dark.

“Glad to meet you,” said a voice.

“Say how did you find my hand?”

“Oh I kin see in the dark.” The voice laughed throatily.

By that time Congo had opened the inner door. Light streamed through picking out billiard tables, a long bar at the end, racks of cues. “This is Mike Cardinale,” said Congo. Jimmy found himself standing beside a tall sallow shylooking man with bunchy black hair growing low on his forehead. In the inner room were shelves full of chinaware and a round table covered by a piece of mustardcolored oilcloth. “Eh la patronne,” shouted Congo. A fat Frenchwoman with red applecheeks came out through the further door; behind her came a _chiff_ of sizzling butter and garlic. “This is frien o mine.... Now maybe we eat,” shouted Congo. “She my wife,” said Cardinale proudly. “Very deaf.... Have to talk loud.” He turned and closed the door to the large hall carefully and bolted it. “No see lights from road,” he said. “In summer,” said Mrs. Cardinale, “sometime we give a hundred meals a day, or a hundred an fifty maybe.”

“Havent you got a little peekmeup?” said Congo. He let himself down with a grunt into a chair.

Cardinale set a fat fiasco of wine on the table and some glasses. They tasted it smacking their lips. “Bettern Dago Red, eh Meester ’Erf?”

“It sure is. Tastes like real Chianti.”

Mrs. Cardinale set six plates with a stained fork, knife, and spoon in each and then put a steaming tureen of soup in the middle of the table.

“Pronto pasta,” she shrieked in a guineahen voice. “Thisa Anetta,” said Cardinale as a pinkcheeked blackhaired girl with long lashes curving back from bright black eyes ran into the room followed by a heavily tanned young man in khaki overalls with curly sunbleached hair. They all sat down at once and began to eat the peppery thick vegetable chowder, leaning far over their plates.

When Congo had finished his soup he looked up. “Mike did you see lights?” Cardinale nodded. “Sure ting ... be here any time.” While they were eating a dish of fried eggs and garlic, frizzled veal cutlets with fried potatoes and broccoli, Herf began to hear in the distance the pop pop pop of a motorboat. Congo got up from the table with a motion to them to be quiet and looked out the window, cautiously lifting a corner of the shade. “That him,” he said as he stumped back to the table. “We eat good here, eh Meester Erf?”

The young man got to his feet wiping his mouth on his forearm. “Got a nickel Congo,” he said doing a double shuffle with his sneakered feet. “Here go Johnny.” The girl followed him out into the dark outer room. In a moment a mechanical piano started tinkling out a waltz. Through the door Jimmy could see them dancing in and out of the oblong of light. The chugging of the motorboat drew nearer. Congo went out, then Cardinale and his wife, until Jimmy was left alone sipping a glass of wine among the debris of the dinner. He felt excited and puzzled and a little drunk. Already he began to construct the story in his mind. From the road came the grind of gears of a truck, then of another. The motorboat engine choked, backfired and stopped. There was the creak of a boat against the piles, a swash of waves and silence. The mechanical piano had stopped. Jimmy sat sipping his wine. He could smell the rankness of salt marshes seeping into the house. Under him there was a little lapping sound of the water against the piles. Another motorboat was beginning to sputter in the far distance.

“Got a nickel?” asked Congo breaking into the room suddenly. “Make music.... Very funny night tonight. Maybe you and Annette keep piano goin. I didnt see McGee about landin.... Maybe somebody come. Must be veree quick.” Jimmy got to his feet and started fishing in his pockets. By the piano he found Annette. “Wont you dance?” She nodded. The piano played _Innocent Eyes_. They danced distractedly. Outside were voices and footsteps. “Please,” she said all at once and they stopped dancing. The second motorboat had come very near; the motor coughed and rattled still. “Please stay here,” she said and slipped away from him.

Jimmy Herf walked up and down uneasily puffing on a cigarette. He was making up the story in his mind.... In a lonely abandoned dancehall on Sheepshead Bay ... lovely blooming Italian girl ... shrill whistle in the dark.... I ought to get out and see what’s going on. He groped for the front door. It was locked. He walked over to the piano and put another nickel in. Then he lit a fresh cigarette and started walking up and down again. Always the way ... a parasite on the drama of life, reporter looks at everything through a peephole. Never mixes in. The piano was playing _Yes We Have No Bananas_. “Oh hell!” he kept muttering and ground his teeth and walked up and down.

Outside the tramp of steps broke into a scuffle, voices snarled. There was a splintering of wood and the crash of breaking bottles. Jimmy looked out through the window of the diningroom. He could see the shadows of men struggling and slugging on the boatlanding. He rushed into the kitchen, where he bumped into Congo sweaty and staggering into the house leaning on a heavy cane.

“Goddam ... dey break my leg,” he shouted.

“Good God.” Jimmy helped him groaning into the diningroom.

“Cost me feefty dollars to have it mended last time I busted it.”

“You mean your cork leg?”

“Sure what you tink?”

“Is it prohibition agents?”

“Prohibition agents nutten, goddam hijackers.... Go put a neeckel in the piano.” _Beautiful Girl of My Dreams_, the piano responded gayly.

When Jimmy got back to him, Congo was sitting in a chair nursing his stump with his two hands. On the table lay the cork and aluminum limb splintered and dented. “Regardez moi ça ... c’est foutu ... completement foutu.” As he spoke Cardinale came in. He had a deep gash over his eyes from which a trickle of blood ran down his cheek on his coat and shirt. His wife followed him rolling back her eyes; she had a basin and a sponge with which she kept making ineffectual dabs at his forehead. He pushed her away. “I crowned one of em good wid a piece o pipe. I think he fell in de water. God I hope he drownded.” Johnny came in holding his head high. Annette had her arm round his waist. He had a black eye and one of the sleeves of his shirt hung in shreds. “Gee it was like in the movies,” said Annette, giggling hysterically. “Wasnt he grand, mommer, wasn’t he grand?”

“Jez it’s lucky they didn’t start shootin; one of em had a gun.”

“Scared to I guess.”

“Trucks are off.”

“Just one case got busted up.... God there was five of them.”

“Gee didnt he mix it up with em?” screamed Annette.

“Oh shut up,” growled Cardinale. He had dropped into a chair and his wife was sponging off his face. “Did you get a good look at the boat?” asked Congo.

“Too goddam dark,” said Johnny. “Fellers talked like they came from Joisey.... First ting I knowed one of em comes up to me and sez I’m a revenue officer an I pokes him one before he has time to pull a gun an overboard he goes. Jez they were yeller. That guy George on the boat near brained one of em wid an oar. Then they got back in their old teakettle an beat it.”

“But how they know how we make landin?” stuttered Congo his face purple.

“Some guy blabbed maybe,” said Cardinale. “If I find out who it is, by God I’ll ...” he made a popping noise with his lips.

“You see Meester ’Erf,” said Congo in his suave voice again, “it was all champagne for the holidays.... Very valuable cargo eh?” Annette, her cheeks very red sat still looking at Johnny with parted lips and toobright eyes. Herf found himself blushing as he looked at her.

He got to his feet. “Well I must be getting back to the big city. Thank’s for the feed and the melodrama, Congo.”

“You find station all right?”

“Sure.”

“Goodnight Meester ’Erf, maybe you buy case of champagne for Christmas, genuine Mumms.”

“Too darn broke Congo.”

“Then maybe you sell to your friends an I give you commission.”

“All right I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll phone you tomorrow to tell price.”

“That’s a fine idea. Good night.”

Joggling home in the empty train through empty Brooklyn suburbs Jimmy tried to think of the bootlegging story he’d write for the Sunday Magazine Section. The girl’s pink cheeks and toobright eyes kept intervening, blurring the orderly arrangement of his thoughts. He sank gradually into dreamier and dreamier reverie. Before the kid was born Ellie sometimes had toobright eyes like that. The time on the hill when she had suddenly wilted in his arms and been sick and he had left her among the munching, calmly staring cows on the grassy slope and gone to a shepherd’s hut and brought back milk in a wooden ladle, and slowly as the mountains hunched up with evening the color had come back into her cheeks and she had looked at him that way and said with a dry little laugh: It’s the little Herf inside me. God why cant I stop mooning over things that are past? And when the baby was coming and Ellie was in the American Hospital at Neuilly, himself wandering distractedly through the fair, going into the Flea Circus, riding on merrygorounds and the steam swing, buying toys, candy, taking chances on dolls in a crazy blur, stumbling back to the hospital with a big plaster pig under his arm. Funny these fits of refuge in the past. Suppose she had died; I thought she would. The past would have been complete all round, framed, worn round your neck like a cameo, set up in type, molded on plates for the Magazine Section, like the first of James Herf’s articles on The Bootlegging Ring. Burning slugs of thought kept dropping into place spelled out by a clanking linotype.

At midnight he was walking across Fourteenth. He didnt want to go home to bed although the rasping cold wind tore at his neck and chin with sharp ice claws. He walked west across Seventh and Eighth Avenues, found the name Roy Sheffield beside a bell in a dimly lit hall. As soon as he pressed the bell the catch on the door began to click. He ran up the stairs. Roy had his big curly head with its glass-gray gollywog eyes stuck out the door.

“Hello Jimmy; come on in; we’re all lit up like churches.”

“I’ve just seen a fight between bootleggers and hijackers.”

“Where?”

“Down at Sheepshead Bay.”

“Here’s Jimmy Herf, he’s just been fighting prohibition agents,” shouted Roy to his wife. Alice had dark chestnut dollhair and an uptilted peaches and cream dollface. She ran up to Jimmy and kissed him on the chin. “Oh Jimmy do tell us all about it.... We’re so horribly bored.”

“Hello,” cried Jimmy; he had just made out Frances and Bob Hildebrand on the couch at the dim end of the room. They lifted their glasses to him. Jimmy was pushed into an armchair, had a glass of gin and ginger ale put in his hand. “Now what’s all this about a fight? You’d better tell us because were certainly not going to buy the Sunday _Tribune_ to find out,” Bob Hildebrand said in a deep rumbling voice.

Jimmy took a long drink. “I went out with a man I know who’s shiek of all the French and Italian bootleggers. He’s a fine man. He’s got a cork leg. He set me up to a swell feed and real Italian wine out in a deserted poolroom on the shores of Sheepshead Bay....”

“By the way,” asked Roy, “where’s Helena.”

“Dont interrupt Roy,” said Alice. “This is good ... and besides you should never ask a man where his wife is.”

“Then there was a lot of flashing of signal lights and stuff and a motorboat loaded down with Mumm’s extra dry champagne for Park Avenue Christmases came in and the hijackers arrived on a speedboat.... It probably was a hydroplane it came so fast ...”

“My this is exciting,” cooed Alice. “... Roy why dont you take up bootlegging?”

“Worst fight I ever saw outside of the movies, six or seven on a side all slugging each other on a little narrow landing the size of this room, people crowning each other with oars and joints of lead pipe.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“Everybody was.... I think two of the hijackers were drowned. At any rate they beat a retreat leaving us lapping up the spilled champagne.”

“But it must have been terrible,” cried the Hildebrands. “What did you do Jimmy?” asked Alice breathless.

“Oh I hopped around keeping out of harm’s way. I didnt know who was on which side and it was dark and wet and confusing everywhere.... I finally did drag my bootlegger friend out of the fray when he got his leg broken ... his wooden leg.”

Everybody let out a shout. Roy filled Jimmy’s glass up with gin again.

“Oh Jimmy,” cooed Alice, “you lead the most thrilling life.”

* * * * *

James Merivale was going over a freshly decoded cable, tapping the words with a pencil as he read them. Tasmanian Manganese Products instructs us to open credit.... The phone on his desk began to buzz.

“James this is your mother. Come right up; something terrible has happened.”

“But I dont know if I can get away....”

She had already cut off. Merivale felt himself turning pale. “Let me speak to Mr. Aspinwall please.... Mr. Aspinwall this is Merivale.... My mother’s been taken suddenly ill. I’m afraid it may be a stroke. I’d like to run up there for an hour. I’ll be back in time to get a cable off on that Tasmanian matter.”

“All right.... I’m very sorry Merivale.”

He grabbed his hat and coat, forgetting his muffler, and streaked out of the bank and along the street to the subway.

He burst into the apartment breathless, snapping his fingers from nervousness. Mrs. Merivale grayfaced met him in the hall.

“My dear I thought you’d been taken ill.”

“It’s not that ... it’s about Maisie.”

“She hasnt met with an accid...?”

“Come in here,” interrupted Mrs. Merivale. In the parlor sat a little roundfaced woman in a round mink hat and a long mink coat. “My dear this girl says she’s Mrs. Jack Cunningham and she’s got a marriage certificate to prove it.”

“Good Heavens, is that true?”

The girl nodded in a melancholy way.

“And the invitations are out. Since his last wire Maisie’s been ordering her trousseau.”

The girl unfolded a large certificate ornamented with pansies and cupids and handed it to James.

“It might be forged.”

“It’s not forged,” said the girl sweetly.

“John C. Cunningham, 21 ... Jessie Lincoln, 18,” he read aloud.... “I’ll smash his face for that, the blackguard. That’s certainly his signature, I’ve seen it at the bank.... The blackguard.”

“Now James, don’t be hasty.”

“I thought it would be better this way than after the ceremony,” put in the girl in her little sugar voice. “I wouldnt have Jack commit bigamy for anything in the world.”

“Where’s Maisie?”

“The poor darling is prostrated in her room.”

Merivale’s face was crimson. The sweat itched under his collar. “Now dearest” Mrs. Merivale kept saying, “you must promise me not to do anything rash.”

“Yes Maisie’s reputation must be protected at all costs.”

“My dear I think the best thing to do is to get him up here and confront him with this ... with this ... lady.... Would you agree to that Mrs. Cunningham?”

“Oh dear.... Yes I suppose so.”

“Wait a minute,” shouted Merivale and strode down the hall to the telephone. “Rector 12305.... Hello. I want to speak to Mr. Jack Cunningham please.... Hello. Is this Mr. Cunningham’s office? Mr. James Merivale speaking.... Out of town.... And when will he be back?... Hum.” He strode back along the hall. “The damn scoundrel’s out of town.”

“All the years I’ve known him,” said the little lady in the round hat, “that has always been where he was.”

* * * * *

Outside the broad office windows the night is gray and foggy. Here and there a few lights make up dim horizontals and perpendiculars of asterisks. Phineas Blackhead sits at his desk tipping far back in the small leather armchair. In his hand protecting his fingers by a large silk handkerchief, he holds a glass of hot water and bicarbonate of soda. Densch bald and round as a billiardball sits in the deep armchair playing with his tortoiseshell spectacles. Everything is quiet except for an occasional rattling and snapping of the steampipes.

“Densch you must forgive me.... You know I rarely permit myself an observation concerning other people’s business,” Blackhead is saying slowly between sips; then suddenly he sits up in his chair. “It’s a damn fool proposition, Densch, by God it is ... by the Living Jingo it’s ridiculous.”

“I dont like dirtying my hands any more than you do.... Baldwin’s a good fellow. I think we’re safe in backing him a little.”

“What the hell’s an import and export firm got to do in politics? If any of those guys wants a handout let him come up here and get it. Our business is the price of beans ... and its goddam low. If any of you puling lawyers could restore the balance of the exchanges I’d be willing to do anything in the world.... They’re crooks every last goddam one of em ... by the Living Jingo they’re crooks.” His face flushes purple, he sits upright in his chair banging with his fist on the corner of the desk. “Now you’re getting me all excited.... Bad for my stomach, bad for my heart.” Phineas Blackhead belches portentously and takes a great gulp out of the glass of bicarbonate of soda. Then he leans back in his chair again letting his heavy lids half cover his eyes.

“Well old man,” says Mr. Densch in a tired voice, “it may have been a bad thing to do, but I’ve promised to support the reform candidate. That’s a purely private matter in no way involving the firm.”

“Like hell it dont.... How about McNiel and his gang?... They’ve always treated us all right and all we’ve ever done for em’s a couple of cases of Scotch and a few cigars now and then.... Now we have these reformers throw the whole city government into a turmoil.... By the Living Jingo ...”

Densch gets to his feet. “My dear Blackhead I consider it my duty as a citizen to help in cleaning up the filthy conditions of bribery, corruption and intrigue that exist in the city government ... I consider it my duty as a citizen ...” He starts walking to the door, his round belly stuck proudly out in front of him.

“Well allow me to say Densch that I think its a damn fool proposition,” Blackhead shouts after him. When his partner has gone he lies back a second with his eyes closed. His face takes on the mottled color of ashes, his big fleshy frame is shrinking like a deflating balloon. At length he gets to his feet with a groan. Then he takes his hat and coat and walks out of the office with a slow heavy step. The hall is empty and dimly lit. He has to wait a long while for the elevator. The thought of holdup men sneaking through the empty building suddenly makes him catch his breath. He is afraid to look behind him, like a child in the dark. At last the elevator shoots up.

“Wilmer,” he says to the night watchman who runs it, “there ought to be more light in these halls at night.... During this crime wave I should think you ought to keep the building brightly lit.”

“Yassir maybe you’re right sir ... but there cant nobody get in unless I sees em first.”

“You might be overpowered by a gang Wilmer.”

“I’d like to see em try it.”

“I guess you are right ... mere question of nerve.”

Cynthia is sitting in the Packard reading a book. “Well dear did you think I was never coming.”

“I almost finished my book, dad.”

“All right Butler ... up town as fast as you can. We’re late for dinner.”

As the limousine whirs up Lafayette Street, Blackhead turns to his daughter. “If you ever hear a man talking about his duty as a citizen, by the Living Jingo dont trust him.... He’s up to some kind of monkey business nine times out of ten. You dont know what a relief it is to me that you and Joe are comfortably settled in life.”

“What’s the matter dad? Did you have a hard day at the office?” “There are no markets, there isnt a market in the goddam world that isnt shot to blazes.... I tell you Cynthia it’s nip and tuck. There’s no telling what might happen.... Look, before I forget it could you be at the bank uptown at twelve tomorrow?... I’m sending Hudgins up with certain securities, personal you understand, I want to put in your safe deposit box.”

“But it’s jammed full already dad.”

“That box at the Astor Trust is in your name isnt it?”

“Jointly in mine and Joe’s.”

“Well you take a new box at the Fifth Avenue Bank in your own name.... I’ll have the stuff get there at noon sharp.... And remember what I tell you Cynthia, if you ever hear a business associate talking about civic virtue, look lively.”

They are crossing Fourteenth. Father and daughter look out through the glass at the windbitten faces of people waiting to cross the street.

Jimmy Herf yawned and scraped back his chair. The nickel glints of the typewriter hurt his eyes. The tips of his fingers were sore. He pushed open the sliding doors a little and peeped into the cold bedroom. He could barely make out Ellie asleep in the bed in the alcove. At the far end of the room was the baby’s crib. There was a faint milkish sour smell of babyclothes. He pushed the doors to again and began to undress. If we only had more space, he was muttering; we live cramped in our squirrelcage.... He pulled the dusty cashmere off the couch and yanked his pyjamas out from under the pillow. Space space cleanness quiet; the words were gesticulating in his mind as if he were addressing a vast auditorium.

He turned out the light, opened a crack of the window and dropped wooden with sleep into bed. Immediately he was writing a letter on a linotype. Now I lay me down to sleep ... mother of the great white twilight. The arm of the linotype was a woman’s hand in a long white glove. Through the clanking from behind amber foots Ellie’s voice Dont, dont, dont, you’re hurting me so.... Mr. Herf, says a man in overalls, you’re hurting the machine and we wont be able to get out the bullgod edition thank dog. The linotype was a gulping mouth with nickelbright rows of teeth, gulped, crunched. He woke up sitting up in bed. He was cold, his teeth were chattering. He pulled the covers about him and settled to sleep again. The next time he woke up it was daylight. He was warm and happy. Snowflakes were dancing, hesitating, spinning, outside the tall window.

“Hello Jimps,” said Ellie coming towards him with a tray.

“Why have I died and gone to heaven or something?”

“No it’s Sunday morning.... I thought you needed a little luxury.... I made some corn muffins.”

“Oh you’re marvelous Ellie.... Wait a minute I must jump up and wash my teeth.” He came back with his face washed, wearing his bathrobe. Her mouth winced under his kiss. “And it’s only eleven o’clock. I’ve gained an hour on my day off.... Wont you have some coffee too?”

“In a minute.... Look here Jimps I’ve got something I want to talk about. Look dont you think we ought to get another place now that you’re working nights again all the time?”

“You mean move?”

“No. I was thinking if you could get another room to sleep in somewhere round, then nobody’d ever disturb you in the morning.”

“But Ellie we’d never see each other.... We hardly ever see each other as it is.”

“It’s terrible ... but what can we do when our office-hours are so different?”

Martin’s crying came in a gust from the other room. Jimmy sat on the edge of the bed with the empty coffeecup on his knees looking at his bare feet. “Just as you like,” he said dully. An impulse to grab her hands to crush her to him until he hurt her went up through him like a rocket and died. She picked up the coffeethings and swished away. His lips knew her lips, his arms knew the twining of her arms, he knew the deep woods of her hair, he loved her. He sat for a long time looking at his feet, lanky reddish feet with swollen blue veins, shoebound toes twisted by stairs and pavements. On each little toe there was a corn. He found his eyes filling with pitying tears. The baby had stopped crying. Jimmy went into the bathroom and started the water running in the tub.

* * * * *

“It was that other feller you had Anna. He got you to thinkin you didnt give a damn.... He made you a fatalist.”

“What’s at?”

“Somebody who thinks there’s no use strugglin, somebody who dont believe in human progress.”

“Do you think Bouy was like that?”

“He was a scab anyway ... None o these Southerners are classconscious.... Didn’t he make you stop payin your union dues?”

“I was sick o workin a sewin machine.”

“But you could be a handworker, do fancy work and make good money. You’re not one o that kind, you’re one of us.... I’ll get you back in good standin an you kin get a good job again.... God I’d never have let you work in a dancehall the way he did. Anna it hurt me terrible to see a Jewish girl goin round with a feller like that.”

“Well he’s gone an I aint got no job.”

“Fellers like that are the greatest enemies of the workers.... They dont think of nobody but themselves.”

They are walking slowly up Second Avenue through a foggy evening. He is a rustyhaired thinfaced young Jew with sunken cheeks and livid pale skin. He has the bandy legs of a garment worker. Anna’s shoes are too small for her. She has deep rings under her eyes. The fog is full of strolling groups talking Yiddish, overaccented East Side English, Russian. Warm rifts of light from delicatessen stores and softdrink stands mark off the glistening pavement.

“If I didn’t feel so tired all the time,” mutters Anna.

“Let’s stop here an have a drink.... You take a glass o buttermilk Anna, make ye feel good.”

“I aint got the taste for it Elmer. I’ll take a chocolate soda.”

“That’ll juss make ye feel sick, but go ahead if you wanter.” She sat on the slender nickelbound stool. He stood beside her. She let herself lean back a little against him. “The trouble with the workers is” ... He was talking in a low impersonal voice. “The trouble with the workers is we dont know nothin, we dont know how to eat, we dont know how to live, we dont know how to protect our rights.... Jez Anna I want to make you think of things like that. Cant you see we’re in the middle of a battle just like in the war?” With the long sticky spoon Anna was fishing bits of icecream out of the thick foamy liquid in her glass.

George Baldwin looked at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands in the little washroom behind his office. His hair that still grew densely down to a point on his forehead was almost white. There was a deep line at each corner of his mouth and across his chin. Under his bright gimleteyes the skin was sagging and granulated. When he had wiped his hands slowly and meticulously he took a little box of strychnine pills from the upper pocket of his vest, swallowed one, and feeling the anticipated stimulus tingle through him went back into his office. A longnecked officeboy was fidgeting beside his desk with a card in his hand.

“A lady wants to speak to you sir.”

“Has she an appointment? Ask Miss Ranke.... Wait a minute. Show the lady right through into this office.” The card read Nellie Linihan McNiel. She was expensively dressed with a lot of lace in the opening of her big fur coat. Round her neck she had a lorgnette on an amethyst chain.

“Gus asked me to come to see you,” she said as he motioned her into a chair beside the desk.

“What can I do for you?” His heart for some reason was pounding hard.

She looked at him a moment through her lorgnette. “George you stand it better than Gus does.”

“What?”

“Oh all this.... I’m trying to get Gus to go away with me for a rest abroad ... Marianbad or something like that ... but he says he’s in too deep to pull up his stakes.”

“I guess that’s true of all of us,” said Baldwin with a cold smile.

They were silent a minute, then Nellie McNiel got to her feet. “Look here George, Gus is awfully cut up about this.... You know he likes to stand by his friends and have his friends stand by him.”

“Nobody can say that I haven’t stood by him.... It’s simply this, I’m not a politician, and as, probably foolishly, I’ve allowed myself to be nominated for office, I have to run on a nonpartisan basis.”

“George that’s only half the story and you know it.”

“Tell him that I’ve always been and always shall be a good friend of his.... He knows that perfectly well. In this particular campaign I have pledged myself to oppose certain elements with which Gus has let himself get involved.”

“You’re a fine talker George Baldwin and you always were.”

Baldwin flushed. They stood stiff side by side at the office door. His hand lay still on the doorknob as if paralyzed. From the outer offices came the sound of typewriters and voices. From outside came the long continuous tapping of riveters at work on a new building.

“I hope your family’s all well,” he said at length with an effort.

“Oh yes they are all well thanks ... Goodby.” She had gone.

Baldwin stood for a moment looking out of the window at the gray blackwindowed building opposite. Silly to let things agitate him so. Need of relaxation. He got his hat and coat from their hook behind the washroom door and went out. “Jonas,” he said to a man with a round bald head shaped like a cantaloupe who sat poring over papers in the highceilinged library that was the central hall of the lawoffice, “bring everything up that’s on my desk.... I’ll go over it uptown tonight.”

“All right sir.”

When he got out on Broadway he felt like a small boy playing hooky. It was a sparkling winter afternoon with hurrying rifts of sun and cloud. He jumped into a taxi. Going uptown he lay back in the seat dozing. At Fortysecond Street he woke up. Everything was a confusion of bright intersecting planes of color, faces, legs, shop windows, trolleycars, automobiles. He sat up with his gloved hands on his knees, fizzling with excitement. Outside of Nevada’s apartmenthouse he paid the taxi. The driver was a negro and showed an ivory mouthful of teeth when he got a fiftycent tip. Neither elevator was there so Baldwin ran lightly up the stairs, half wondering at himself. He knocked on Nevada’s door. No answer. He knocked again. She opened it cautiously. He could see her curly towhead. He brushed into the room before she could stop him. All she had on was a kimono over a pink chemise.

“My God,” she said, “I thought you were the waiter.”

He grabbed her and kissed her. “I dont know why but I feel like a threeyear old.”

“You look like you was crazy with the heat.... I dont like you to come over without telephoning, you know that.”

“You dont mind just this once I forgot.”

Baldwin caught sight of something on the settee; he found himself staring at a pair of darkblue trousers neatly folded.

“I was feeling awfully fagged down at the office Nevada. I thought I’d come up to talk to you to cheer myself up a bit.”

“I was just practicing some dancing with the phonograph.”

“Yes very interesting....” He began to walk springily up and down. “Now look here Nevada.... We’ve got to have a talk. I dont care who it is you’ve got in your bedroom.” She looked suddenly in his face and sat down on the settee beside the trousers. “In fact I’ve known for some time that you and Tony Hunter were carrying on.” She compressed her lips and crossed her legs. “In fact all this stuff and nonsense about his having to go to a psychoanalyst at twentyfive dollars an hour amused me enormously.... But just this minute I’ve decided I had enough. Quite enough.”

“George you’re crazy,” she stammered and then suddenly she began to giggle.

“I tell you what I’ll do,” went on Baldwin in a clear legal voice, “I’ll send you a check for five hundred, because you’re a nice girl and I like you. The apartment’s paid till the first of the month. Does that suit you? And please never communicate with me in any way.”

She was rolling on the settee giggling helplessly beside the neatly folded pair of darkblue trousers. Baldwin waved his hat and gloves at her and left closing the door very gently behind him. Good riddance, he said to himself as he closed the door carefully behind him.

Down in the street again he began to walk briskly uptown. He felt excited and talkative. He wondered who he could go to see. Telling over the names of his friends made him depressed. He began to feel lonely, deserted. He wanted to be talking to a woman, making her sorry for the barrenness of his life. He went into a cigarstore and began looking through the phonebook. There was a faint flutter in him when he found the H’s. At last he found the name Herf, Helena Oglethorpe.

Nevada Jones sat a long while on the settee giggling hysterically. At length Tony Hunter came in in his shirt and drawers with his bow necktie perfectly tied.

“Has he gone?”

“Gone? sure he’s gone, gone for good,” she shrieked. “He saw your damn pants.”

He let himself drop on a chair. “O God if I’m not the unluckiest fellow in the world.”

“Why?” she sat spluttering with laughter with the tears running down her face.

“Nothing goes right. That means it’s all off about the matinees.”

“It’s back to three a day for little Nevada.... I dont give a damn.... I never did like bein a kept woman.”

“But you’re not thinking of my career.... Women are so selfish. If you hadn’t led me on....”

“Shut up you little fool. Dont you think I dont know all about you?” She got to her feet with the kimono pulled tight about her.

“God all I needed was a chance to show what I could do, and now I’ll never get it,” Tony was groaning.

“Sure you will if you do what I tell you. I set out to make a man of you kiddo and I’m goin to do it.... We’ll get up an act. Old Hirshbein’ll give us a chance, he used to be kinder smitten.... Come on now, I’ll punch you in the jaw if you dont. Let’s start thinkin up.... We’ll come in with a dance number see ... then you’ll pretend to want to pick me up.... I’ll be waitin for a streetcar ... see ... and you’ll say Hello Girlie an I’ll call Officer.”

* * * * *

“Is that all right for length sir,” asked the fitter busily making marks on the trousers with a piece of chalk.

James Merivale looked down at the fitter’s little greenish wizened bald head and at the brown trousers flowing amply about his feet. “A little shorter.... I think it looks a little old to have trousers too long.”

“Why hello Merivale I didn’t know you bought your clothes at Brooks’ too. Gee I’m glad to see you.”

Merivale’s blood stood still. He found himself looking straight in the blue alcoholic eyes of Jack Cunningham. He bit his lip and tried to stare at him coldly without speaking.

“God Almighty, do you know what we’ve done?” cried out Cunningham. “We’ve bought the same suit of clothes.... I tell you it’s identically the same.”

Merivale was looking in bewilderment from Cunningham’s brown trousers to his own, the same color, the same tiny stripe of red and faint mottling of green.

“Good God man two future brothersinlaw cant wear the same suit. People’ll think it’s a uniform.... It’s ridiculous.”

“Well what are we going to do about it?” Merivale found himself saying in a grumbling tone.

“We have to toss up and see who gets it that’s all.... Will you lend me a quarter please?” Cunningham turned to his salesman. “All right.... One toss, you yell.”

“Heads,” said Merivale mechanically.

“The brown suit is yours.... Now I’ve got to choose another ... God I’m glad we met when we did. Look,” he shouted out through the curtains of the booth, “why dont you have dinner with me tonight at the Salmagundi Club?... I’m going to be dining with the only man in the world who’s crazier about hydroplanes than I am.... It’s old man Perkins, you know him, he’s one of the vicepresidents of your bank.... And look when you see Maisie tell her I’m coming up to see her tomorrow. An extraordinary series of events has kept me from communicating with her ... a most unfortunate series of events that took all my time up to this moment.... We’ll talk about it later.”

Merivale cleared his throat. “Very well,” he said dryly.

“All right sir,” said the fitter giving Merivale a last tap on the buttocks. He went back into the booth to dress.

“All right old thing,” shouted Cunningham, “I’ve got to go pick out another suit ... I’ll expect you at seven. I’ll have a Jack Rose waiting for you.”

Merivale’s hands were trembling as he fastened his belt. Perkins, Jack Cunningham, the damn blackguard, hydroplanes, Jack Cunningham Salmagundi Perkins. He went to a phone booth in a corner of the store and called up his mother. “Hello Mother, I’m afraid I wont be up to dinner.... I’m dining with Randolph Perkins at the Salmagundi Club.... Yes it is very pleasant.... Oh well he and I have always been fairly good friends.... Oh yes it’s essential to stand in with the men higher up. And I’ve seen Jack Cunningham. I put it up to him straight from the shoulder man to man and he was very much embarrassed. He promised a full explanation within twentyfour hours.... No I kept my temper very well. I felt I owed it to Maisie. I tell you I think the man’s a blackguard but until there’s proof.... Well good night dear, in case I’m late. Oh no please dont wait up. Tell Maisie not to worry I’ll be able to give her the fullest details. Good night mother.”

* * * * *

They sat at a small table in the back of a dimly lighted tearoom. The shade on the lamp cut off the upper parts of their faces. Ellen had on a dress of bright peacock blue and a small blue hat with a piece of green in it. Ruth Prynne’s face had a sagging tired look under the street makeup.

“Elaine, you’ve just got to come,” she was saying in a whiny voice. “Cassie’ll be there and Oglethorpe and all the old gang.... After all now that you’re making such a success of editorial work it’s no reason for completely abandoning your old friends is it? You dont know how much we talk and wonder about you.”

“No but Ruth it’s just that I’m getting to hate large parties. I guess I must be getting old. All right I’ll come for a little while.”

Ruth put down the sandwich she was nibbling at and reached for Ellen’s hand and patted it. “That’s the little trouper.... Of course I knew you were coming all along.”

“But Ruth you never told me what happened to that traveling repertory company last summer....”

“O my God,” burst out Ruth. “That was terrible. Of course it was a scream, a perfect scream. Well the first thing that happened was that Isabel Clyde’s husband Ralph Nolton who was managing the company was a dipsomaniac ... and then the lovely Isabel wouldn’t let anybody on the stage who didn’t act like a dummy for fear the rubes wouldnt know who the star was.... Oh I cant tell about it any more.... It isnt funny to me any more, it’s just horrible.... Oh Elaine I’m so discouraged. My dear I’m getting old.” She suddenly burst out crying.

“Oh Ruth please dont,” said Ellen in a little rasping voice. She laughed. “After all we’re none of us getting any younger are we?”

“Dear you dont understand ... You never will understand.”

They sat a long while without saying anything, scraps of lowvoiced conversation came to them from other corners of the dim tearoom. The palehaired waitress brought them two orders of fruit salad.

“My it must be getting late,” said Ruth eventually.

“It’s only half past eight.... We dont want to get to this party too soon.”

“By the way ... how’s Jimmy Herf. I havent seen him for ages.”

“Jimps is fine.... He’s terribly sick of newspaper work. I do wish he could get something he really enjoyed doing.”

“He’ll always be a restless sort of person. Oh Elaine I was so happy when I heard about your being married.... I acted like a damn fool. I cried and cried.... And now with Martin and everything you must be terribly happy.”

“Oh we get along all right.... Martin’s picking up, New York seems to agree with him. He was so quiet and fat for a long while we were terribly afraid we’d produced an imbecile. Do you know Ruth I don’t think I’d ever have another baby.... I was so horribly afraid he’d turn out deformed or something.... It makes me sick to think of it.”

“Oh but it must be wonderful though.”

They rang a bell under a small brass placque that read: Hester Voorhees INTERPRETATION OF THE DANCE. They went up three flights of creaky freshvarnished stairs. At the door open into a room full of people they met Cassandra Wilkins in a Greek tunic with a wreath of satin rosebuds round her head and a gilt wooden panpipe in her hand.

“Oh you darlings,” she cried and threw her arms round them both at once. “Hester said you wouldnt come but I just knew you would.... Come wight in and take off your things, we’re beginning with a few classic wythms.” They followed her through a long candlelit incensesmelling room full of men and women in dangly costumes.

“But my dear you didn’t tell us it was going to be a costume party.”

“Oh yes cant you see evewything’s Gweek, absolutely Gweek.... Here’s Hester.... Here they are darling.... Hester you know Wuth ... and this is Elaine Oglethorpe.”

“I call myself Mrs. Herf now, Cassie.”

“Oh I beg your pardon, it’s so hard to keep twack.... They’re just in time.... Hester’s going to dance an owiental dance called Wythms from the Awabian Nights.... Oh it’s too beautiful.”

When Ellen came out of the bedroom where she had left her wraps a tall figure in Egyptian headdress with crooked rusty eyebrows accosted her. “Allow me to salute Helena Herf, distinguished editress of _Manners_, the journal that brings the Ritz to the humblest fireside ... isnt that true?”

“Jojo you’re a horrible tease.... I’m awfully glad to see you.”

“Let’s go and sit in a corner and talk, oh only woman I have ever loved...”

“Yes do let’s ... I dont like it here much.”

“And my dear, have you heard about Tony Hunter’s being straightened out by a psychoanalyst and now he’s all sublimated and has gone on the vaudeville stage with a woman named California Jones.”

“You’d better watch out Jojo.”

They sat down on a couch in a recess between the dormer windows. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a girl dancing in green silk veils. The phonograph was playing the Cesar Frank symphony.

“We mustnt miss Cassie’s daunce. The poor girl would be dreadfully offended.”

“Jojo tell me about yourself, how have you been?”

He shook his head and made a broad gesture with his draped arm. “Ah let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings.”

“Oh Jojo I’m sick of this sort of thing.... It’s all so silly and dowdy.... I wish I hadnt let them make me take my hat off.”

“That was so that I should look upon the forbidden forests of your hair.”

“Oh Jojo do be sensible.”

“How’s your husband, Elaine or rathah Helenah?”

“Oh he’s all right.”

“You dont sound terribly enthusiastic.”

“Martin’s fine though. He’s got black hair and brown eyes and his cheeks are getting to be pink. Really he’s awfully cute.”

“My deah, spare me this exhibition of maternal bliss.... You’ll be telling me next you walked in a baby parade.”

She laughed. “Jojo it’s lots of fun to see you again.”

“I havent finished my catechism yet deah.... I saw you in the oval diningroom the other day with a very distinguished looking man with sharp features and gray hair.”

“That must have been George Baldwin. Why you knew him in the old days.”

“Of course of course. How he has changed. A much more interesting looking man than he used to be I must say.... A very strange place for the wife of a bolshevik pacifist and I. W. W. agitator to be seen taking lunch, I must say.”

“Jimps isnt exactly that. I kind of wish he were....” She wrinkled up her nose. “I’m a little fed up too with all that sort of thing.”

“I suspected it my dear.” Cassie was flitting selfconsciously by.

“Oh do come and help me.... Jojo’s teasing me terribly.”

“Well I’ll twy to sit down just for a second, I’m going to dance next.... Mr. Oglethorpe’s going to wead his twanslation of the songs of Bilitis for me to dance to.”

Ellen looked from one to the other; Oglethorpe crooked his eyebrows and nodded.

Then Ellen sat alone for a long while looking at the dancing and the chittering crowded room through a dim haze of boredom.

The record on the phonograph was Turkish. Hester Voorhees, a skinny woman with a mop of hennaed hair cut short at the level of her ears, came out holding a pot of drawling incense out in front of her preceded by two young men who unrolled a carpet as she came. She wore silk bloomers and a clinking metal girdle and brassières. Everybody was clapping and saying, “How wonderful, how marvelous,” when from another room came three tearing shrieks of a woman. Everybody jumped to his feet. A stout man in a derby hat appeared in the doorway. “All right little goils, right through into the back room. Men stay here.”