Chapter III: Part 3

She received him at the door herself and if the little flat had been a palace she couldn’t have been more delighted. It was so very fine that when she told him she had gone into debt just a little bit he promptly asked how much and paid up without even so much as a murmur. It was so easy that she ought to have given it back to him a little while just to hold.

When he went away he had a latch key and was about as proud a fellow as it was possible to be and walk straight.

As in a play so in a story--the finish is everything.

It must be good and it must be quick.

The earlier parts of the story or the scenes may lag, but nothing like that will do at the end.

Blanche had been on the stage, and consequently she knew the value of “finis.”

He was to go on a hunting trip for a week, and in her opinion the critical moment had about arrived. She intuitively divined the end of the string. One night at a little dinner in the flat she talked to him about money matters, and such was the charm of her manner that presently he was telling her all about himself, and the romance of the ten thousand dollar bill.

“And how much have you left of all this?” she asked softly.

“Oh, I don’t know, about seven or eight hundred.”

“Well, I think you’ve been very, very foolish. You’re going away on a week’s trip and a hundred really ought to do you. Just give the rest to me and I will take good care of it until you come back, and then you will have it. You want to be careful of what you have now; you are altogether too liberal, and you do too much for people.”

That was the reason when he went away on that trip that he was a trifle shy financially, and so far to the bad that he had to borrow to get back in good shape.

From the Grand Central station he took a cab to the flat. It seemed as though he couldn’t get there quick enough. He went up the stairs two at a time. He came to the door.

There was a light, dim, but still a light, shining feebly over the transom. He put the key in the lock, turned it, opened the door and went in. He took four steps in the private hall. Then a man’s arm went around his neck and a voice asked:

“What are you doing here?”

He had nerve and he wasn’t the least bit flustered.

“If you’ll let go that strangle I’ll tell you,” he said. “Where’s Blanche?”

That was the opening for the story, which he told very well under the circumstances.

“She never owned this furniture,” spoke up the man, when the tale had been concluded. “This flat is rented furnished. She left here about a week ago, and I live here now.”

Now we get the curtain.

He has finished his dinner, and he’s going home. That’s the best place anyhow. What right has a boy like that to be on Broadway with ten thousand dollars?

AN ORIENTAL NOCTURNE

It’s just one little step--in New York, anyhow--from the Caucasian to the Oriental. As a matter of fact it’s only across the street, and that doesn’t count for any distance at all. The Chinese have settled down on that little part of the city which is split into wedge-shaped blocks by Mott, Pell and Doyers streets, very much like a flock of birds alight on some tree, and with apparently as little reason. They have brought with them their manners, their customs, their habits and their traditions. They have imported their own gods, and even the furniture for the joss houses. They have introduced to American men and women the choices of their Oriental vices, that of opium smoking, and they have provided places where their patrons may enjoy the drug. They wash your shirts and iron your collars; they take your money and smile at you; they go to your Sunday schools and sing hymns in queer cracked voices that would be worth big money to a comedian, and they profess to be converted to your way of thinking, but they are smooth and wise.

They are never weaned from the worship of Confucius or Tao, or Buddha, as the case may be, but don’t you see when a Chinese wants to learn the language of the people with whom he lives, it is very nice to have as a teacher a nice looking girl, and the English of the Bible is no different than any other English. So, by saying he has foresworn the gods and the faith of his fathers, he gets his education directly from the red lips of a daughter of the white devils, and sometimes he puts on the finishing touches by marrying her.

Can you beat it?

Much he thinks of women, for in that Empire from whence he comes a woman is a chattel, a bit of merchandise, worth so much in money or goods, as the case may be, and he buys her as a white man buys a horse. She is his wife, his mistress, or his servant, and the price fluctuates accordingly.

When Yen Gow, the slickest Oriental that ever cooked a pill, hit Mott street for the first time, he noticed that there were very few women of his race in the colony, and being a man who made money, no matter by what means, he considered it was an evil that he was in duty bound to remedy. He had a varied career, and among other things being an expert, he had taught American women how to smoke “hop.”

Incidentally, it is pat to say here that Yen Gow represents a man and not a dummy, and that this story is absolutely true in every detail and is very far removed from fiction.

If you haven’t what you want, get it, is a maxim practiced by a certain class of people in all countries in the world whose methods, both from a moral as well as a legal standpoint, are not considered to be exactly right. So being shy one female of his own blood and color, Yen took a 3,000 mile ride to ’Frisco to remedy the defect. No one knows just how deep he had to dig for that slant-eyed lady, dressed in the clothes of a boy, whom he smuggled into the top floor of a Mott street tenement one night. But it was his investment, and he spent his money like another man would buy ground or buildings.

He fitted the room up with couches and curtains and furniture, but first of all he fitted a good, strong lock to the door that couldn’t be tampered with either from the inside or outside unless one had the key. There was only one key and he had it. When you buy property that has feet you are not inclined to take chances.

Having attended to all of the details that he considered necessary, and frightened the lady by telling her that the people of New York were cannibals who liked nothing better than Mongolian flesh, he began to do business.

He first lounged into the fan-tan joint of Hop Lee on Pell street.

“Have you ever heard of Moy Sen?” he asked.

“Moy Sen; who is she?”

“Who is she? Were you born yesterday? There are three hundred and twenty girls in ’Frisco, and they are as little like Moy Sen as the earth is like the sun. Why, the viceroy of the Shang-tuan province heard of her and sent an envoy with nothing to do but look at her and if she was what they said she was, to bring her back even if it cost him ten thousand taels.”

“Did he get her?”

“Can a child get a rainbow? She heard he was coming, so she dressed in the clothes of a working boy and ran away to New York.” He stepped a little closer and whispered: “She is here now.”

Then he cunningly told his story, and when he had finished he had made it clearly understood for what purpose she was here, and added further that being an utter stranger she had placed herself under his care.

“Now, if you care to see her I will take you.”

Nothing could be simpler--nor plainer.

In figuring up his profits--which were large--Yen Gow got into the habit of multiplying them by two, and then mentally cursing himself because he had not bought two slaves instead of one. With no conscience and no morals, he was a thing of stone whose only thought was the easy acquirement of money. If, by cutting off a finger or an ear from his chattel he could have increased her value, he would have done it with as little compunction as lopping off a chicken’s head.

When the money didn’t come in fast enough he took to beating her, and it wasn’t long before the slim, brown body of the girl began to take on bluish spots where the knots in the rope had struck and left their imprint. She had never known there was such a thing in the world as love, but she began to hate with a fierceness and vindictiveness that any woman is capable of when she has been wronged, no matter of what race or nationality she may be.

Revenge follows closely on the heels of a woman’s hate, and it is always deadly. One woman can hate another woman and still smile on her as if she was the dearest and best friend in the world, while she is waiting to let go her poisoned shaft. But she has no smiles for the man she hates any more than a cat will purr when it has just had an encounter with a dog.

Many a night when the sightseeing crowds were going through Chinatown’s streets the girl looked at her captor, and let her tapering hand slip inside the loose fold of her silk blouse until it caressed the jade handle of a long, thin and keen-edged blade. If he had known how near death he was he would have put his back against the wall and pulled out that big American revolver he always carried in his sash. But not knowing he went along with his head up in the clouds.

Because her heart was the heart of a woman she stopped feeling for the knife and set her mind on other things, such as any caged animal would under the circumstances. It was finally concentrated on the key--that slim piece of metal which he never let out of his keeping day or night. It gave her courage to live the life she was leading, and the thought spurred her on, for at last she had an object.

The long, lean, gray wolf of the prairies will follow its prey for days. Hungry and thirsty and tired it will trail like a shadow, never once deviating from the heels of its victim. Through snow, and rain, and sleet, and wind, surmounting all obstacles it will stay until the end, and the end to the wolf always means the feast.

Somewhere in the veins of this Chinese girl there must have been one drop of wolf blood, for once she set her mind upon the possession of that key she never wavered. It was before her night and day. She planned a thousand ways to get it, but never one was right. She watched him with furtive eyes, but for all the good it did, she might just as well have been looking out of the window of the dreary brick wall of the other building.

Once when he was sleeping she crept silently to his side and felt for the inner pocket of his blouse. Slight as was her touch he must have felt it, for he moved uneasily and she fluttered to the floor like a leaf from a falling tree. She tried again, but with the same result.

But out of what seems certain failure often comes success.

“I am hungry; get me something to eat quick,” he demanded when he awoke in the morning.

She started up and set about her work while he walked over to the table to get his water pipe. As she passed back and forth from cupboard to stove her glance fell upon the couch where he had slept, and for one brief moment it seemed as though she was going to fall. A sudden weakness came into her knees and it was with a great effort that she kept from crying out, for there in plain view was the key. In an instant she had it, and she had taken the first and easiest step to freedom.

He smoked, then ate, then smoked again, but this last time it wasn’t tobacco that soothed him--it was opium, and when at last his drowsy eyes closed she was by the door pushing the key into the socket. It turned the lock. Then she opened the door, passed out and locked it on the outside. She ran down the steps as if she was pursued; out on the street, when the thought of those white devils--those eaters of human flesh--halted her in terror. But no one spoke to her and she was reassured. Across the way she saw the sign of a temple, and she made for it as a shipwrecked sailor makes for land. She went up one flight of very dark and very dirty stairs and then saw a half-opened door. She peeped in. The room was empty, but at the back were the images of the gods she knew in China; before them was the shrine, and back of them was the sacred place where no one dared go.

But nothing is sacred where terror is, and before ten seconds of time had been ticked off by the clock on the wall she was nestling at the heels of Kwon Guet, the God of Might, the safest spot in all the quarter.

If you will notice when you visit a Chinese joss house you will observe that there is nothing thin nor weak about the keeper. He looks like a man who loves the good things of life and gets them, too. His life is one of ease and he feasts like a nabob. When a Chinese wants a favor from a joss he first sends offerings of food. These are put in fine dishes and placed on the altar. Then he prays, and begs that this feast be accepted in the same spirit in which it is sent. He may believe or he may not believe that that thing of wood eats what he has left, but the keeper knows and waxes fat. Many a time has he smacked his lips over a sucking pig, roasted to a turn, and chickens are on his daily bill of fare.

Two hours after the girl had gone through the open door the keeper awoke. He yawned and then stretched himself, leisurely. He was in no hurry, for he knew there was a breakfast awaiting for him on the altar, and it was such a breakfast as a man of his distinction was entitled to. He knew to a grain of rice what had been put there the night before just as he had known it for years.

Presently he was ready and he sauntered out of his little room with no unseemly haste. The wick in the vessel of olive oil was burning with a steady glow and the faces of the gods were as placid and emotionless as the day they left the carver’s shop in Pekin.

“Ai yei.”

He rubbed his eyes and stepped back a pace in alarm.

One of the dishes was empty. It was as bare and clean as the palm of his hand. He ran back to the room in the rear and roughly woke his assistant.

“You have eaten before me, you swine,” he shouted.

“Eaten?” queried the other. “I have not eaten since yesterday.”

“Come and look then.” Together they both went, and when they arrived at the altar another dish had been taken.

The keeper looked up at the stolid countenance of Kwon Guet, saw a shred of the white meat of a chicken and a grain of rice on his lower lip, and then dropped face downward on the floor as if he had been shot.

He grovelled in abject terror while the assistant gazed at him with wondering eyes, until he, too, looked up, saw the same sight, and then he went down beside his master. There they both lay until combining their courage, they crept fearfully backward beyond the range of the vision of those green jade eyes.

“It is a curse,” whispered the keeper, and the other nodded his head, too frightened to speak.

That was only the beginning, for as fast as the offerings were brought they disappeared, and nothing was left but empty dishes. For eight days this continued, and then, on the night of that day, the keeper, grown bold, found the desire to see a god eat growing in his heart. So when the lights in the shops had gone out and the noises in the street had died down to whispers, he went out into the darkened temple and sat in a corner with his back against the wall. The flickering lamps burned dimly and cast long shadows across the bare floor and with solitude came fear. He looked at the heaped-up dishes hungrily and then at the joss, but the religion of his ancestors held him fast, and what might have been nothing more nor less than a block of wood to another man of another race was something to him that was endowed with the power to pardon and punish or even cause instant death.

Suddenly there came to him a noise like a sigh, long-drawn out and deep, and as he shrunk back still further in his corner he felt the blood in his veins run cold. A dish moved and his lower jaw dropped as though he had been stricken with death. Something seemed to wind itself about that bit of crockery and drag it slowly in until it disappeared, but there was no sound. His breath came in gasps and he felt as if he would choke. Then he saw the dish replaced with the food gone. Those same unseen hands took another one and still another, but he didn’t see, for he had sagged down in a lifeless heap and terror had numbed his senses. As he went over he groaned aloud, and there was a sudden movement back of the altar which almost caused Kwon Guet to topple over.

At three o’clock in the morning Chuck Connors, with his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, was walking along Mott street, homeward bound, when a Chinese girl came running out of the joss house door. So great was her speed that she almost collided with him.

“Ha, there, git onto yerself,” said Chuck, putting up his hands to fend off an imaginary blow: “wot are yer tryin’ ter do--shoot de shoots?”

“Velly much aflaid,” said the girl, looking behind her.

“Well, wot de yer t’ink uv dat,” said Chuck, “Who’s chasin’ yer, anyhow?” and he took a step toward the doorway.

But she wouldn’t have it that way, and taking hold of his arm she almost dragged him away from the place. Chuck knows a little Chinese and a lot of pidgin-English, and he managed to get some kind of a story out of the girl, and then he took her home and put her in the care of Mrs. Chuck until the morning. The next day she was taken to a mission house in Brooklyn, where she stayed until one night when a sporty laundryman smuggled her away to Savannah, Ga.

The joss-house keeper buys his grub now, and he’s looking a bit thin. Incidentally he pays more attention to the temple than ever before.

So, you see, good comes out of everything.

A COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION

The turn of a street corner, the going this way instead of that, the casual introduction to a certain woman, and a thousand other things often prove the turning point in life, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. To every man opportunity comes once at least. The successful ones are those who have recognized their chance and taken prompt advantage of it. But anyone can preach a sermon, and money doesn’t always follow in the footsteps of education.

That will do for a starter to this story of a woman, a dinner and two men. You will notice that the woman comes first, the dinner next, and the men last, which is as it should be. Women should always be in the lead, which fact will be more fully recognized when their ability and genius become more generally understood and appreciated.

The dinner in this story changed the current of three lives so abruptly that it almost became a tragedy, and if you like you can take this as a moral, and beware of dinners, unless, of course, you are looking for a change, in which event you can take this as a tip and dine with the crowd early and often and see what happens.

The son of a wealthy Eastern brewer, born with a gold spoon in his mouth, and taught to believe that the world was made for his especial benefit, after blazing his way along the White Light thoroughfare for a few years, and making a name for himself as a spender of rare ability, took it suddenly into his head to reform. A good many hard nights had brought out a crop of fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and high living had added several inches to his waist line. But he was still good looking and ruddy cheeked, and there were a number of charming ladies living on certain side streets who knew him well enough to call him by his first name, and who were always glad to see him whether he did the sucker trick of opening bad wine at $5 a throw or not. In his mind the first step toward reformation meant marriage with some nice respectable young woman who had been correctly brought up, and whose family tree would bear investigation, and as his income was somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 it wasn’t hard to find what he wanted, for ninety-nine women out of a hundred would cheerfully fasten themselves to a monstrosity if there was a bank book in the inside pocket.

He picked out the girl he proposed to turn from a Miss into a Mrs., paid attention to her for thirty days without a break, then he proposed and was accepted, and the date of the marriage was set for two months later. It was a case of thirty and sixty days, with no discounts off.

It is usual in a case of this kind to give a farewell dinner to the bunch, to have one last good drunk and then a laborious climb aboard the water wagon until after the honeymoon. So he hunted up one of his best friends and told him the glad news.

“Never again for me,” he said, “and all the Dotties and Lotties and Totties can strike my name off their lists, for I’m going to marry, old man, and settle down to business. But I’m going to have one big blaze before I go, and I want you to get it up, for you can lay out a dinner better than anyone I know, and besides, I’m going to have you for my best man when I get hitched. Now go as far as you like and damn the expense. Have a stag with all the good fellows there that we know, and we’ll set off a few fireworks that will give them something to talk about.”

The banquet room of a big hotel was engaged, and the French chef got an order to lay out a spread that would make an old Roman feast look like a Bowery beef stew. Then the enterprising best man, who was something of a high roller himself, set his wits to work to devise a novelty that would top anything in the banquet line ever seen in New York after the lights were turned on. About fifty invitations went out, and in response to them on one eventful Saturday night, half a hundred dyed-in-the-wool sports, of the kind who buy diamond rings for little ladies who dance well, settled themselves in very comfortable chairs, and prepared to have the time of their lives and wish good luck to the man who was going to become respectable. The dinner was only a side issue, for it was to be nothing more nor less than one great drunk, and that was understood from the start. So the wine flowed as freely as water in the spring when the melting snows flood the brooks and swell the rivers, and for every five men there was one waiter to see that no one went thirsty. From ten until twelve the black-jacketed servitors drew corks and filled glasses, and then the best man pulled himself to his feet, propped himself between the arm of his chair and the table and commanded order that he might be heard.

“There is a pudding coming,” he began, “and in view of the fact that I invented it myself I would like to have you fellows sit up and take notice.”

Then he motioned to the head waiter and sank back in his chair. Five men, each one holding up his end of a platform about four feet square on which was a monstrous concoction of pastry, staggered in. A vacant place had been cleared on the table, and when it was placed in position a yell went up from the crowd.

“I’ll take a slice off the top,” sang the bridegroom, as he waved a glass of wine aloft.

“Cut it, Bill,” said the best man, and one of the waiters, grinning, went at it with a huge carving knife. He slit it from top to bottom in two places, and as the crust crumbled away half a dozen birds fluttered out, and when the pastry cook’s creation was demolished there was disclosed a young woman rather scantily draped and with a figure worth missing a train for.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, smiling, and then she stepped out.

People who make a study of such things will tell you for every man in the world there is just one woman who belongs to him. They may be thousands of miles apart, and it may so happen that they will never meet, but the fact remains that they were intended for each other just the same. He may marry and she may marry, but there will be no real, true happiness until they live their lives together. When this girl, trim and slim but shapely, stood on the table, the man who was going to be married looked on her and knew then that there was no other woman in the world for him--not even the one whom he had promised to marry. The others stood up and cheered and applauded her, while he sat there staring almost stupidly. Her bronze hair tumbled down over her bare shoulders and her laughing eyes took in the scene.

“And who is the one who is going to be married?” she asked smilingly. “I want to drink with him.”

“Get on your pins, old man, and drink with the lady,” called one, and he obediently arose and held a glass of wine toward her.

“So you are the one?” she asked, looking him over critically. “Well, here is that the woman you marry is as good a fellow as you look to be.”

That was at midnight.

When the clock struck two every guest was still in his place, and seated in the lap of the man at the head of the table--the host, the man who was to marry, become straightened out, and shake the crowd--was the girl. He had one arm around her, and they were drinking out of the same glass. Of course it wasn’t at all proper, but you see everything goes at a bachelor’s dinner, and in view of the fact that this was a last wild fling, apparently, it was all right. It was nobody’s business, anyhow, for a man may do as he likes even if he is on the verge of his own wedding.

“You will surely call,” she was saying between sips.

“Surely,” was the answer, “if you will allow me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I will call anyhow.”

“Now you’re just the kind of a man I like,” she whispered. “But what are you going to do after you’re married?”

“I don’t think I will marry,” he said; “at least I’ll not marry the girl I intended. You and I are going to talk that over, because----”

“Why, I’ve only known you about two hours.”

“It wouldn’t make any difference if you’d only known me two minutes, it would be just the same.”

“I suppose so, but you see a good many men have talked to me like that, and promised me everything, but it’s always the same in the end. Men say things that they mean at the time, but it doesn’t last.”

He was really in earnest, though he was drunk, and the next afternoon, when he was sober enough to know what he was doing, he wrote a note to his _fiancee_, telling her that he was sorry, but it was all off. There were reasons, of course, but he couldn’t explain, and would she kindly release him from his engagement, which had been entered into too hastily, etc., etc. You know the old story.

In the end he got his freedom in a tear-stained letter, then he went and threw a high-ball under his belt and squared away for the pudding girl.

She was making about $40 a week and living at the rate of about $150, it didn’t take a wise man to see that, and so he was on the moment he looked over the ranch. But it cut no figure with him at all, for he was too well satisfied to be bothered about a trifle like that, especially at the start of the hunt, so he took things as they came and made the best of them.

One night he was there, and they had become confidential.

“Who did it all?” he asked, as he waved his hand to take in the elaborate furnishings of the room.

“So you have reached the curious stage?” she asked. “What do you want to know for?”

“Because I think so well of you that I want to do all this sort of thing myself. Who did it?”

She looked thoughtfully out of the window for a moment, and then, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she turned and said:

“Would it make any difference to you if you knew?”

“Not a bit.”

“Not even if it was someone whom you knew?”

“Not even then.”

When she told him the name it was that of his best friend, the one who was going to be his best man at the wedding.

Here was a complication.

Now you can see what an apparently harmless dinner did.

It wasn’t very long ago, so it’s only a step down to the present day.

The Hungarian gypsy band in a big cafe uptown was playing its head off, and every table was occupied. Over in one of the corners--a choice position, by the way--at a table on which were half a dozen empty wine bottles, sat two men and a woman. If you will look at them again you will notice that their faces are very familiar. Yes, that’s right, it is the pudding girl, the brewer’s son and the man who was going to be next to the real one at the big show when two were made one and the minister was paid double for working overtime. All three are a bit unsteady, naturally, for the soldiers on the table tell the story, consequently they are well primed for a scene of this kind.

The brewer’s son is talking to the other man, and the girl is playing a listening part, and playing it well.

“You only think you love,” he says, “but all you have done is to spend a few hundred dollars--or thousands, it makes no difference. You’d spend it anyhow in some other way. I’ve broken off my marriage for her, and that’s something. You’re a friend of mine and why don’t you let go?”

“That’s all right, and I agree to what you say. I haven’t the money I once had, and I don’t think I can keep the pace up much longer, but I don’t want to see Maud go up against it. She’s used to nice things. Suppose the Governor turns on you and cuts you off, what are you going to do then? You won’t have any more chance than I have. I know you’re all right now, but Maud’s got to be taken care of, and if I can do anything to put her on Easy Street I’ll do it.”

He reached for a half empty bottle and refilled his glass. He drank slowly and when he had finished he went on.

“Have you got as much as $10,000?” he asked, abruptly.

“Easy that.”

“I mean ready money?”

“Yes, ready money.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You put $10,000 in the bank in Maud’s name and I’ll quit, but you also got to promise me that you will look after her and do everything for her that she wants. How about that, Maudie, all right?”

As he spoke he patted her caressingly on the shoulder while the brewer’s son, flushed to the roots of his hair with the wine he had drank, dived into an inside pocket for his check book.

“Will you be the best man, Joe?”

“Best man for what?” the girl spoke for the first time.

“For our wedding, of course.”

“Not so you can pay any particular attention to it. You’ll have to chloroform me to get me in front of a minister. I’m no Sunday-school scholar, and no man can own me. I believe every woman should be independent, and when a woman marries she not only sacrifices her freedom, but herself. I like you both, and I’m glad to know that I’m worth $10,000 to you,” and she nodded toward the brewer’s son. “For that I’ll play fair with you, and if we ever agree to disagree we’ll do it like two good fellows. Joe, don’t forget to come around and take dinner with us once in a while, will you?”

P. S.--A story in a daily newspaper published later tells about the son of a wealthy brewer committing suicide by shooting, in his home in a town near New York. The cause for the rash act is not known. Strange that it should be the man who was going to reform, but didn’t, isn’t it?

THE END OF THE ROAD

They call them _demi mondaines_ and _nymphs du pave_ in Paris, and it doesn’t sound so bad, but here a spade is called a spade with coarse brutality and vice doesn’t receive even a very thin coating of veneer.

Take a walk any night along the streets where women congregate--you know the kind of women I mean--and study the faces. Look for weakness, and strength, and character. Look for good and evil. You don’t have to be a mind reader, just a plain, ordinary, everyday sort of a man with average intelligence.

If you look for the outward signs of degradation in the uptown districts you’ll be disappointed; you’ll have to turn your face and your steps Batteryward to find that. Vice has a degrading and demoralizing influence and its victim, in following that unwritten law of nature that governs the universe, is ever on the downward path. In some cases it is a gentle descent, while in others it is simply a series of steps each one lower than the other, and at the last there is nothing but pity for the poor devils of women to whom no man lifts his hat or bows his head, and who cease to live in merely existing.

And for eight out of every ten there are eight men somewhere whose hands gave the push that sent them on the downhill road.

But once in a while--once in a very great while--justice comes to a man as it did in this case, and that’s the story.

Locked up securely in the City Prison like a rat is locked in a trap, or a dangerous beast is fastened behind iron bars, is a pretty little black-eyed French girl.

Julie, her name is, and those who see and talk to her find in her a great charm; a charm, that had she been placed in a different atmosphere or had the lines of her life been cast in different places, would have been so far-reaching as to make her a power. She had such a charming figure that she once posed for a sculptor. Many a woman’s hand has shaped the course of destiny in this world of ours, and the power behind the throne usually wears petticoats.

This Julie takes her imprisonment calmly, because she is a philosopher by force of circumstances. She knows the metal bars can resist her, consequently she doesn’t throw herself against them and there are no tears in her eyes because she can never cry again. She doesn’t know what they will eventually do to her and she doesn’t care. If it is decreed that she shall go forth free, good; then she will go. If it is decreed that for the rest of her life she shall be doomed to wear that narrow blue prison stripe, she will at least be fed and housed and cared for, and on rainy, stormy days she will be under shelter and not compelled to walk the streets with dripping skirts until the gray morning comes over the roof tops.

You see, she has the comforting creed of a fatalist--that what is to be will be, and that one thought is to her like a narcotic--she sleeps at nights.

Because of that she doesn’t hear the moans and sobs of the woman in the next cell, who has the feathery crime of petit larceny hanging over her head instead of murder. A mere trifle which means nothing more than a few weeks--or months at the most--in jail. A rest like the going away from the hot city streets when July comes, as the rich people do, or to the South when winter winds blow. A place where the thermometer always registers about the same and the meals come regularly, which is not a thing to be despised by anyone, much less a woman of the lower half.

If the life of this Julie were to be told year by year it would take a book of many thousands of pages, and the pathos, comedy and tragedy would be about evenly divided. You would have the tale of how she once asked a man if he had change of a $50 bill. Then when he pulled out his money she grabbed the roll, cried out: “Here comes the police,” and dashed into a hallway in the twinkling of an eye. It was a good joke and she spent the proceeds for a new dress, for she was of the kind who make even jokes profitable.

That she was saved from arrest many times was due to the fact that she stood in with the police, and she was considered to be one of the most successful stool pigeons in the business. She was born with the instinct of the hunter, and hunter she was. In her own inner circle, however, she was known as The Slasher, and was feared accordingly.

It came about in this way.

She and another woman of the streets were rivals in many ways. When they first met they took an instinctive dislike to each other. The other one was a blonde, tall and stately--the kind you read about in cheap novels. She was an English girl, and when it came to a knockdown and drag-out argument she was able to deliver the goods in fine shape. Their first quarrel was over nothing, and before it was finished the lady with the golden tresses had taken her French sister by the shoulders and flung her down an area bruising her badly.

The Latin blood in the black-eyed one boiled, and she cried out for revenge, which she proceeded to work up in a truly Latin manner. She made friends with her former enemy, said that she was in the wrong and was sorry for what had happened, and that she wanted to be forgiven. The blonde fell like a farmer before Hungry Joe, and they both went off to celebrate. The celebration consisted in tucking away many cocktails and highballs, and inside of two hours the British lady was a sodden wreck, and so helpless that she had to be carried to her room on the second floor rear of a house of no reputation.

Julie stayed with her long enough to pull out a razor and cut three gashes from the bridge of her nose across one cheek. Then she slipped out and went on her way as though nothing had ever happened to give her a moment’s worry.

That little stunt put the blonde out of business, in that section of the city, at least. It is said she went further downtown, where there is less of a premium on beauty and style.

Like other women of her caste Julie found it necessary to have a protector, and when she first appeared in the role of hunter she cast about for one who would suit--one who would fight her battles and upon whom she could lavish the affection that was not bought, or that still remained unsold.

Being a good looking girl, educated up to a certain point, and with pleasant ways--the kind of ways a man would look for in a girl if he was selecting a wife--she had no trouble in attaching to herself a young fellow who was a good mate for her. She let it be understood at the start that he was to belong to her and that he was to be at her beck and call. She wanted to revel in the joys of complete ownership.

He was willing enough, and in fact it rather suited him, because he came into immediate possession of a wife, a home and income.

It is to be supposed there was some affection in the case, for it wasn’t a cold business proposition. It was bad enough, even from the best side, but she liked him in a way--you can put the word love in here if you like--but I am of the opinion that her feeling was that of a dog-like devotion, and his was one of knowing a good thing when he saw it.

But she was jealous, too.

“If I see you speaking to any of the other girls,” she said to him once, “I will leave you right away.”

That was in the early stages, and now notice how a woman’s affection shifts.

“If you flirt with any of those girls I will kill myself,” she said six months later.

First she would leave him and then she would kill herself.

That brings the tragedy to the last stage.

“I will kill you.”

There are no peaceful lives cast in such a groove as that.

He began to grow a bit tired of her, even though the money did come to him regularly. You see, he had no occupation, and he had to do something with his time, and that something wasn’t good.

Then it was that the quarrels began, a few words at first, but gradually increasing in bitterness until one night he came in half drunk and taking her by the throat almost strangled her. She said afterward that she thought she was gone, because red lights danced before her eyes.

But she was game and didn’t whimper, not even when he struck her in the face with his clinched fist and threw her to the floor. She took her medicine gamely, for she realized intuitively that it was her medicine, and it was a part of the life she was leading.

The strange part of it all was that she never shed a tear.

Her neck hurt her, and when she looked in the mirror she saw the marks of his strong fingers and in that instant she was a changed woman. The flickering flame of her affection turned to a steady glow of hate and from that moment she began to figure on revenge. She stood still and white and cold, and every tick of the clock on the mantel was a stroke of doom for him. There was nothing melodramatic about her at this stage of the game, for her street training served to make her calm at times.

Woman-like, she at once took up with another champion and this time she picked out a man who was peculiarly fitted by force of circumstances to help her. He was to be not so much a companion as stepping-stone, and in that she simply followed out the natural instinct of the average woman who purrs and strikes indiscriminately and who makes merchandise and capital of her favors.

“He beat me,” she told this new one in talking of the one who had been supplanted, “and I want you to help me get even.”

The promise was made on this tainted honeymoon and for one hour every night they went out together looking for their prey in all of the places where he had been known to go.

For two weeks it was a fruitless search, and then the news came to her in an indirect way that he had been seen in the old haunts.

The good pot-hunter never really hunts--he lures the game to the decoy--and because she had been years upon the trail she at once corrected her first mistake and sent a letter as bait--a tender missive full of regrets and endearing terms; such a letter as only a woman could write--a letter like a silken bandage to blind the eyes and shut out the real view of things.

It came to his hand as she had expected it would, and when the time arrived he hurried to the rendezvous to heal the breach and once more place himself on friendly terms with his income.

There are enough facts in this story to carry it, but it is not an absolutely correct recital. There are reasons why it should be changed and so I have changed it, but not enough to destroy its identity.

On that street at night, with people hurrying to and fro, they came face to face, but before he could speak to her, the other man stepped out and seized him.

“Come with me, I want you,” he said roughly, and he wheeled him around with a deft movement. There was no other word spoken and only for an instant was there a brief struggle.

All the while the woman had been fumbling at her bosom before she drew out a pistol.

Her time had arrived.

She levelled it at the retreating back of the held man and pulled the trigger. A child couldn’t have missed a shot like that, and the bullet bored into his back, throwing him forward slightly.

It had been her intention to shoot but once and make that one shot do the work, but when she saw that he was hit the lust of blood came on her and she pulled the trigger twice more, each bullet finding its mark, before a policeman ran up and threw one arm around her neck and with the free hand took hold of the still smoking weapon. It was the old trick of the force taught to probationers before they are considered fit to go forth and guard the public interests.

While her victim was slipping slowly downward to the pavement she screamed, with as clear an intonation as if she wanted to be sure it would be a matter of record:

“And now he will never beat me again.”

Half a dozen men carried the limp dead body into a store and she was taken there, too, and such was her ferocity that she tried to kick the corpse of her quarry.

“He beat me, he beat me,” she shouted, “and now he will never beat me again. If I had not killed him he would have killed me.”

THE THROWBACK

One of the greatest schools in the world is Little Old New York, where anyone can learn anything and anyone can do anything--or do anybody if they should happen to have but a modicum of brains and native shrewdness.

It is the haunt as well as the home of the crook; the respectable trickster; the lady who works and the lady who doesn’t. The amalgamation of many races and many creeds has tended to produce cleverness and wit to a high degree.

One of the greatest of financiers comes from Russian peasant blood on one side and poverty-stricken French on the other. In the blood of a Tenderloin queen there is Irish and Spanish, and it is hard to tell which side has contributed the most beauty. The combination of races is the chrysalis--the female product is the moth.

In the squalid tenements of the East Side there is beauty in embryo and the figures of Venus are barely hidden by cheap calico wrappers.

Where the Poles are settled, voluptuous women are wedded to weak, undersized men, and the result is either very good or very bad, according to the domination of the sex. Very beautiful flowers often grow and bloom in loathsome places, and many a handsome woman who rides in state along the avenue wouldn’t care to have her antecedents known to the world.

There is such a thing as pre-natal influence, and a throwback, taking on the good or bad characteristics of a previous generation, is an accepted fact.

And now we will introduce the lady as she sits in the courtroom, smiling as though she hadn’t a care or responsibility in the world. She has the innocent face of a child and the manner of a cherub, if you know what that is. If an artist were to paint her portrait in one of her moments of relaxation he might be justified if he called it “Innocence.”

“She’s a peach, all right,” remarks a court officer, and that means a lot when it comes from such a source.

She has the blonde hair and the fair complexion of the Teuton, and the black eyes of the Slav--a rare combination, if you’ll take my word for it. She’s coy, and winning and demure, but with a brain so active that nothing to her is impossible.

Two generations ago a dashing, handsome young lieutenant of the German army fell in love with a sloe-eyed girl who had been born of Slav blood.

He was brilliant but discreditable.

His romances and intrigues were many, and his expenses were about four times what his income warranted. One day he forged a check, and when he skipped over the border to escape arrest he left the woman and a baby girl in a cheap room with not enough money to keep them a week. He forgot them as utterly as if they had never existed, so in the course of time she who gave up honor added to that her life.

She died in the hospital of a disease that is not mentioned in the medical books, and the youngster was shipped to a charitable institution. At the age of nineteen this waif, orphaned, and stolid of character, with not even good looks to recommend her, had by dint of hard work and frugal living, saved up enough money to take a ship for America, the land of gold, where fortunes were made by simply wishing for them.

Half way across the sea she came to the notice of an Irish sailor, and by some strange turn in the inexorable wheel of fate, they fell in love with each other; he with his brogue, and she with knowledge of no language except that of the Fatherland.

Their courtship was over a rugged road, but it came to a happy conclusion, for before the ship sailed on her return voyage they were married with the aid of an obliging minister assisted by a Castle Garden interpreter, and Connell--that was the sailor’s name--was looking for a job alongshore.

Two scantily furnished rooms was the best they ever knew, and in those two rooms the wife who talked broken English with a Limerick accent died, but not until she had left a blonde baby girl with the fair complexion of that dashing lieutenant.