Chapter VI: Part 6

While the performers were on the ferryboat, and when Blondie was making her celebrated remark, her Willie was up against a bar on Broadway with a couple of men he had met some time before. They were talking about women, and one, a commercial traveler, remarked:

“I’ll put you up against a warm bunch if you want to get on the job this week. We didn’t do a thing to them in Minneapolis when I was there on my last trip. I had a big blonde on my staff, and the first night I met her I loaded her up so that she had to be carried upstairs to her room by three waiters. Here’s a letter I got from her last week, and while she’s no ten thousand dollar beauty yet she’s a good fellow and a thoroughbred sport. Read it, Willie. When she hits this burg I’ll put you next and bet 20 to 1 that she’ll drink you to a standstill, for she’s the biggest tank I ever ran across.”

And when Willie read the letter which bore his wife’s signature and which put him wise to a few things he had never before dreamed of, he did what many another man would do under the same circumstances--that is, many another wise man. He ordered a round of drinks, and then he kept on ordering and saying nothing, letting the other fellows tell all they knew, and the first chance he got he blew out and went home, not to the place he had fixed up for Mrs. Willie, but to the home presided over by his mother. He simply abandoned the flat and all of his day dreams. They vanished like mist in the morning’s sun.

A few days later he got a letter from his wife and in it she reproached him for not meeting her, and furthermore she inquired what had become of the flat he had fixed up for her.

“I am broke, you know,” she wrote, “and I think the least you could do is to help me out.”

She signed it “Your loving (_sic_) and affectionate wife,” and it almost gagged him to read it.

He took a sheet of paper and wrote the answer. It contained but one line, but it told a whole chapter. In due course of time it was delivered to her. She opened the envelope and read the enclosure. What she said was unfit for publication, for what she saw was only two words and they were:

“Forget it.”

TOLD BY THE MANICURE GIRL

“How long have you been here?” asked the man with the black mustache; “I never noticed you before.”

“Just a week to-day,” said the manicure, as she soused one of his fat, pudgy paws in the scented water. She didn’t even take the trouble to look up at him as she talked, but applied herself at once to the almost impossible task of making his nails even presentable. It’s a hard job, you know, trying to improve on one of nature’s bum pieces of work.

The man leaned back in his chair contentedly, and with that air of assurance which money begets, and he looked her over as he would have looked over a new style of shirt in a haberdasher’s window. He noted that her hair was dark chestnut in color and luxuriant, also that it was undoubtedly all her own. The contour of her face was such as would have attracted any man with red blood in his veins and a heart to pump it. She had, besides, nice hands that were well kept, and a dainty manner that was rather charming.

“Don’t you ever get tired of doing this kind of work?” he asked, when he had finished his inspection and had sized her up to his apparent satisfaction.

“I am always tired of it,” she answered, briefly.

“How would you like to travel?” was his next question.

Then she paused a moment and glanced up. She was smiling, and the two dimples that came in her cheeks rather enhanced her beauty.

Then he saw that she also had teeth that were white and regular, that her lips were red and her eyelashes long.

You know a bargaining man takes in all these things, just the same as a buyer of beef on the hoof feels and prods the cattle in the search for blemishes.

“There is nothing in the world I would like better than to travel.”

She looked him squarely in the eyes, and her smile was accentuated. Then she resumed her work. As for him he leaned still farther back in the comfortable chair and sucked complacently on his big Havana.

“I knew you was a nice little girl as soon as I saw you.”

“Did you?”

The rapid, supple fingers never paused for a moment in their work, and were trimming, rubbing and polishing those awful nails into some kind of decent shape. The thick, heavy, hairy hand, with its spatulate extremities, showed physical strength and nothing else. It was made for work, and it had worked, too, in its day. It had been used to the most ordinary and menial kind of labor, as the hands of its ancestors had. It had lifted beams and handled picks and shovels. It had pulled at ropes and tugged at heavy burdens. It had had little to do with the gentler side of life, and even the big diamond ring on the fourth finger could not hide its early career.

But an accident happened--a money-making accident which some might call opportunity--and the hands had been withdrawn from their labors, and the callous spots had a chance to disappear--gradually, but none the less surely. The movement of the slim white fingers caused him to look down, and he was conscious of the fact that his heart was beating a bit faster than usual. The blue smoke from his cigar curled up through his mustache, it crept into his eyes and made them sting. Through the haze he noticed that the girl had a bow of black ribbon fastened to her hair.

“I’ll bet you’d be a good sport if you had the chance.”

“That depends upon what you mean by the chance,” she said.

He couldn’t quite analyze that, and so he blurted out:

“Go down the line with me and I’ll show you.”

She paid no attention to that.

“How about it?” he persisted.

“How about what?”

“I’d just like to take you out to a little lunch for two. What time do you break away from here? What time do you knock off?”

“To-night, do you mean?”

“Sure, yes, to-night.”

“Just time enough to go home, and I never go out at night.”

“Tush, tush, now. Be a good fellow, and if I like you I’ll take you on a long trip. You know you said you liked to travel, didn’t you? Well, I’m going to give you a chance, if you behave yourself and stick to me. I’ve been looking for a girl like you for a long while, and you just hit me right, so you’re on the job. I can make good, all right, you needn’t be afraid of that, for I’ve got all kinds of money, and when I meet anybody I like I spend it like a drunken sailor, see?”

“Yes, I see; I knew you had money all the time.”

“You did, did you; well, how?”

“Because it is only men with plenty of money who would talk to a girl the way you have been talking to me. It is only the men with money who think they can buy everything in sight, especially if that which they think they fancy happens to be the wearer of a skirt, and it’s the men with money who think their money is better than anybody else’s money, and their dollars are of more value than the dollars owned or controlled by some one who has less than they have. Are you married?”

“No,” he answered. He would have said more if he had known what to say.

“Then why don’t you go and pick out some woman whom you like and who likes you, and marry her and have it over with. Your time for being a gay sport has passed; leave that to the young fellows.”

Daintily she reddened his nails with rouge, doing them as carefully as if they were works of art, and tapping each one gently in order to get just the right amount of color.

“I don’t think,” she went on, “that you quite know what you’ve been up against. You may have heard the old saying, ‘a burnt child dreads the fire;’ well, I’m the child in this case, although I’m no child in years. As I told you before, I’ve been here a week, and it’s a great relief to me to be working, for I’ve been on one of those little trips you were just talking about, and there is nothing to it. You see,” then she glanced up quickly, “perhaps you don’t want to hear this.”

“That’s all right; go ahead, you can’t hurt my feelings.”

“I was told that I was a good fellow and a nice girl, and I was led to believe that I could have anything in the world that I wanted, and I want to tell you right here that it is a beautiful thing to believe and have faith in anyone. Some of the stories that men tell to women would make great reading if it was only written right, but they would be all fiction, because I don’t believe a man ever told a woman the truth in his life. I’m talking from personal experience, of course. This one man, who was really old enough to be my father, talked to me about my future, and said, among other things, he would always look after me, and I was serious enough about it to believe that he would, too. Then one day he asked me if I wanted to take a little trip, and his words were so much like yours when you spoke that you startled me. Isn’t it strange that the nails of your left hand take on so much higher polish than those of the right hand? I wonder why it is? There, _I’m_ through now. Fifty cents, please.”

“But how about the finish of that story? Did you take the trip?”

“Of course I took it.”

“Make the job a dollar and tell me the rest.”

“I never would have believed that I would be sitting here telling that story to a man whom I had only met once. You’re not offended at the way I criticised you, are you?”

“Not at all,” he answered, “go ahead and criticise me all you like. I rather like it, it’s so seldom that I am criticised.”

“You mean nowadays?” she asked, noting his hands.

“Yes, since I got money. Go on with the story.”

“The trip was to be to Europe--first London, then Paris, and after that Berlin. He was a banker and so prominent that you would know his name at once if I were to mention it, but there is where I draw the line. I’ll save him that much, anyhow. When we left he had a large bag in which he seemed to take an especial interest, for he would allow no one to touch it but himself, and it wasn’t until we were half way across that I found out that it was all full of money.”

“Money?” queried the man with the black mustache, sitting bolt upright in his chair.

“Yes, money. That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” she asked, petulantly. “Brand new greenbacks, pound notes, hundred and thousand-franc notes. Oh, they were beautiful to look at, and I counted over the packages because they were so pretty. You see, he said he was going over to put through a big banking deal, and he cautioned me to say nothing about all the money he had with him, for fear he would be robbed. When we arrived in London we went direct to the Cecil, where he registered under an assumed name, but I was down on the book as his wife, just the same, and he told me to go out and get some clothes and anything I wanted. He said he wanted to have some of the big bills changed and that was the easiest way in the world to have it done, but he asked me to bring all the change to him, and to pay for every separate article with one of the new bills. I thought it was rather queer at the time, but I did as he told me and I never in my life had such a good time buying things. I brought back to the hotel a dreadful amount of change, so much that it was a nuisance.

“Every day it was the same thing over again until I honestly grew tired of spending money. Think of that--tired spending. Before we left for Paris he put over $15,000 of the change in a safe deposit vault that only he and I knew about, because something had happened and he had to get to Paris quickly. When we got there we went to the Grand Hotel, where he registered under still another name. Again I went shopping, and the only hard part of it was that I had a new bill to change every time I bought anything, think of that, even if it was a little lunch in a cafe, and many a time I have had to wait while they sent out for the change of a thousand-franc note. We were there just four days when one afternoon two men came to our rooms with the proprietor or manager of the hotel, and the first thing I knew he was arrested on the charge of making or having counterfeit money or something like that. Before they got him out of the room he whispered to me that he had put $15,000 more in a safe deposit vault in Paris, and he told me the name of the place. He said it was in my name, too.

“I wasn’t arrested, but I was put out of the hotel as if I had been a swindler. I had enough money to get home, and so I came. I don’t want any more excitement in mine, and I’m content to get along the best way I can, without any fireworks or trips of any kind, unless, of course, _I’m_ sure that everything is absolutely correct and all right. Suppose I had been broke, what would I have done alone in Paris?”

“What happened to the man?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“He was tried and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment, and if he had only married me, and I had my marriage certificate, I could go over there and get $30,000 as easy as nothing. I don’t care so very much for it, but still it would come in very handy and I wouldn’t mind dividing it up with anyone who could help me out.”

The man fidgeted in his chair, glanced out of the window, and then took a long pull at his cigar.

“Bored you, didn’t it?” asked the girl. “I knew it would, but you insisted on my telling it, and you’re the only one that knows it. I’m really getting garrulous.”

“Do you think $5,000 would be enough to get the papers fixed up?”

“Oh, yes, that would be quite enough, for I inquired about it. It would take me there and back again and pay all expenses.”

“And you’d give me half?”

“Why, of course I would. Who wouldn’t?”

You know the old saying about a sucker being born every minute. I could go on and make the usual hot finish to this story, but what’s the use when two lines will suffice. She got the money, of course, and he got what is known in the language of The Line as the lemon. Very sour it was for this hard, wise fellow, and they say that now every time he passes a manicure parlor he turns his head the other way and says things which wouldn’t look well in print.

INVESTING IN A HUSBAND

Money makes the mare go.

Sure.

That is, sometimes, if it’s the right kind of a mare and there is enough money.

Take out all the “ifs” and “buts” and it will be all right.

The world began with a man, Adam, and the woman came later, but the finish will be different, for there will be a woman in the last ditch giving or ready to give the avenging angel the stiffest kind of an argument.

This story differs from the Creation in that it begins with a woman, as all stories of to-day should. And why not? for take the lady out of the case and there’s no story and never will be. The slim finger of a woman, you know, is in every pie. Sometimes it improves the flavor and sometimes it spoils it--that’s a matter of luck--and there are men who have tried pies or many fingers, whichever simile you prefer, and the result in their cases is always the same.

The girl in this story had birth, and blood, and breeding behind her. She also had good looks and a little money, and that is about all that anyone wants. Add to that a fairly nice disposition and you have reached the limit.

Of course, she wasn’t perfect by any means. She was a bit whimsical and peculiar, and her moods were as apparent as the moving pictures thrown on a sheet in the theatre. She was unusual in that her moods were reflected in her face with all the truthfulness of a mirror. That was the reason that some said she was good-looking, while others contended that she was most ordinary. Take her as I’ve often seen her, when she was cheerful and happy-go-lucky, and while there was nothing about her features that was regular she was attractive enough for anyone, and she could make a good many young fellows turn their heads to look after her as she passed down the street.

Then again something would happen, and she would seem to age ten years in as many hours, and a crop of deep lines and wrinkles would spring out like magic. But she had magnetism, and she was forever standing at the fork of two roads, one of which led to good and the other to bad. To her it was the toss of a coin which one she would take.

It was while she was in a thoughtful mood, debating with herself, that the man came along. There’s an apology goes with that, for he hadn’t a vote yet, and he was very youthful in his ways and of that age where a youngster is apt to tell more than is good for him, and to stray from the field of fact. Of course, it’s not a crime--it’s only a period. With his red cheeks and baby complexion he looked like a cross between a stick of peppermint candy and one of Raphael’s cherubs. He was as pretty a piece of embroidery as ever asked his mother for spending money, and when the girl saw him she immediately threw out a line and took him in tow. Inside of twenty-four hours she had her monogram indelibly stamped on him, and he was hers. Hand in hand they went out to see the world and become real sports, and it wasn’t long before wine was the limit and it wasn’t half good enough at that. They left a lurid streak up and down the line, but it soon faded out, for they weren’t financially strong enough to make a splash that would attract any more attention than a pair of tiny gold fish in a two-dollar aquarium.

After all, it amounts to nothing more or less than a question of capacity--stomach as well as purse, and it is rarely that the two harmonize. The man with the yard-wide thirst is often handicapped by a purse with complete or partial paralysis.

And then these two fell in with other company in the shape of a man and woman whose nuptials had been attended by incidents of a more or less exciting character, the star part of which was an elopement which savored more of desire than genius in its arrangements. They had succeeded so well in their new venture that they owned the entire contents of a flat across the river in Jersey, and being still in the throes of love themselves--or thinking they were--they were headquarters for everything that seemed like an affair of the heart. Some who were not their friends were unkind enough to say that it was nothing more nor less than a case of misery loving company, and that being on the coals themselves this couple enjoyed leading others to the broiler. But that’s unkind and really ought not to be believed.

However, many a racket came off in the flat, and they all went as hot a pace as wind and weather permitted, until even a rank outsider would have said it was time for a minister to get on the job and do what he could to make things legal.

The cork popped from a bottle of wine and the juice of the grape sizzled out.

“What do you say, Kid, let’s get married?”

“All right, I’m game if you are; you can’t phaze me,” she said.

“Well, how about to-night?”

“The sooner the better.”

Talk about quick action, it was here with a vengeance.

Four people on a ferryboat, then an elevated railroad and the ringing of a minister’s door bell.

It’s all very simple.

The dinner afterward in a cafe, very informal, you know, to harmonize with the ceremony, with a couple of quarts for luck sandwiched in by cocktails and highballs; then a few brief telegrams:

“Married to-night; wish us luck;” you know the rest.

It was all right, after all, apparently, and everybody did wish them luck, even if there were a few bad spots in the job. But, you see, they suited themselves and there was no one else to be taken into consideration, not even the relatives. This going around and holding consultations in advance is no good, and people who are in love or who think they are in love don’t want advice of any kind, except the kind that rings the door bell of a minister’s hut or buys a wedding ring and sends it with the words:

“Get busy before it is too late.”

I’m no critic, and I don’t pretend to criticise here. I’m simply telling a story which may or may not be true, but I’m not going to be responsible for it any more than the man who rents a place and plants flowers in the garden is responsible for the architecture of the house on the premises.

It is said that the bride in this case was kind enough to supply the funds for the honeymoon, while the nice boy supplied the beauty and called it even. In the eyes of the lady it seems a fair enough proposition, but harsh things are liable to be said of such a combination, even though it is no one’s business.

When they returned from the fields of fruits and flowers the boy had made up his mind, like the Count Boni de Castellane, that being a husband was much better than holding down a job in an office, and so they settled in New York like a pair of pigeons after a long flight. He had no more idea of the responsibilities of married life than a six-months’-old infant has of playing the races. With a place to sleep and a feed bag always ready for his face he was satisfied, but that was because of his youth. You see, marrying from the cradle has both its advantages and its drawbacks, according to the way you look at it.

For him every morning was Christmas, and the tree was always fixed up with something nice with his name on it. Do you blame him for looking pleasant? Press the button for a dollar, press it twice and you get five. Just as easy as drawing money out of the bank when you have a check book.

But with all going out and nothing coming in it doesn’t last long, and when he had swept up all the spare change in sight he began to cast his covetous eye upon the big bundle that was tied up with a woolen string.

He knew something about the racing game--just enough to get stung when the time came--and he knew a man who was good enough to offer him a half interest in a racing mare that had been kept under cover for a year or so, but who could, if she was let out, beat anything that ever wore pigskin. To that infantile mind of his this was the one great chance of a lifetime and the thousand-dollar bill was the key which would unlock the door to wealth.

Money without working for it.

Why it was a pipe. Besides, it made a beautiful and alluring tale for the bride, who had reached that stage where she didn’t want her boy away from her, not even for a minute. With the thousand he would make the initial investment, and with the rest of the bank roll he would bet. With paper and pencils they sat at the table one night and rolled up two thousand to the fortune of a Rockefeller.

How easy it is to make money that way. All you have to do is to begin with any amount, even a penny, and if your pencil holds out you’ll have a million in less than no time, but you can’t buy anything with it--there’s the trouble. The man in the insane asylum who imagined that every stone in the construction of the building was of pure gold and that it belonged to him was just as rich in his own mind as the wealthiest human being in the world--and happier, too, I’ll bet you.

They planned it all out, even to the trip to Europe on the winnings of the first big race, for she would carry odds of not less than 20 to 1, because she was unknown.

A little trip down to the bank and out came the money in brand new bills that were very good to look at.

So the first step was taken, and the boy made up his mind that he had turned his back forever upon such things as ten-dollar-a-week jobs.

It doesn’t require any ingenuity or brains for a man to separate himself from such things as thousand-dollar bills--in fact it’s quite easy. Consequently it didn’t require any brain work on the part of the boy to deplete the account by just that amount within a very short time. For his new bill he received in return a slip of paper which stated that he was the half owner of the racing mare known as Blue Monday, and that in consideration of his paying one-half of the training expenses of the said mare he was to be entitled to one-half of the winnings, less jockey fees and other incidentals.

To him it sounded beautiful and it took not less than one quart to celebrate this new business venture--paid for by the lady, of course, but still, in view of the fact that they were one, it was all right.

Then there began to come to him via the U. S. Mail, certain sundry statements concerning the expenses of putting this fine bit of horse flesh into the proper condition to bring home the money, and the request for immediate remittance. There was variety enough about these statements, too, to satisfy the most fastidious, and the amounts ranged all the way from six dollars and fifty cents to an even hundred. The clever mind of the bride took in the situation at a glance, but the faith of the optimistic kid held as fast as a ship’s anchor to a rock ledge, and he could see nothing but success in the near future.

You know there is never a day so far away that it doesn’t come at last. So it was that the day of the long expected race arrived and down deep in the trousers pockets of the Pink Cheeked One was $150, the last shot in the locker.

“It’s all right, Kid,” he said to her. “It’s just as I thought, she’s a twenty-five to one shot, and I’m going to plank every cent down. At those odds we’ll take home with us $3,750, and I guess that’ll hold us for awhile. How about it?”

“But suppose she doesn’t win?”

“Doesn’t win? What’s the matter with you--are you getting cold feet? How can she lose? Didn’t we clock her this morning on the try-out and didn’t she beat the track time? Wait till you know more about this game and you’ll see where _I’m_ right.”

I don’t know much more about it than that, but the files of papers of that date show me that Blue Monday, mare, 3-year-old, was entered for the Seaside stakes of $1,500, at odds of 25 to 1; there was a good start, with her in the lead. At the quarter she had fallen back to fourth, at the half she had crept up until she lapped the second horse.

She finished seventh.

I should say that blue-eyed boy was looking for a job the next day, but I’m not fortune teller enough to know whether he connected or not.

TRAINING AN OLD SPORT

Come and listen to the siren song of the New York girl, and perhaps it may interest you for awhile. There is no question about it unless you are a bronze statue standing on a gray stone pedestal in some park, or a cigar store Indian with an Hebraic nose and a wooden tomahawk. In the first place the New York girl has been conceded to be a wonder and about the best in the world in looks as well as in figure. She has a fine complexion when she gives it a chance to show itself, and, like the little girl in the story book, when she’s good she’s very, very good, and when she’s bad she’s a peach. The thing is to pick out the right one, and your chances for that are just as good as drawing to a pair in poker. Some say it’s luck, while others favor the science idea.

With that for an overture, let’s ring the bell for the curtain to go up on the charming little two-act play, entitled “The Redemption of a Sport.”

The Old Sport has been up against every proposition the sun ever shone on, and there was nothing he wasn’t fly to. He had paid board for blondes and brunettes as well as a few Leslie Carters, to say nothing of an Albino he once took a fancy to. He was an early and late bird, and he was known up and down the line by his first name, which is a distinction that it usually takes a lot of money or a number of years, and sometimes both, to acquire, and even then it’s not a lead pipe cinch that you’ll land it right.

This fellow was good to the girls, and could be relied on for a five-case note on a hurry touch at any time, for he had no buttons on his pockets, and he knew that safe deposit vaults in heaven are only used for the storing of golden crowns in hot weather.

“If I can’t take my money with me,” he said once, “then I’ll spend it here, for if there’s anything in the world that I hate it is to think that there’s going to be a lot of hungry relatives picking over the bones of my estate before I get comfortably settled in the six feet of real estate that no one can beat me out of. The money’s got to be spent some time, and I’m going to be the one to get the credit for it because it’s mine.”

But there came a time in his life when he felt that he wanted to get away from the mob. He had been stung by the bee of domesticity and didn’t know it. What he did know was that he wanted a place with a real woman in it, where he could hang his hat and that he could call his own. If he had wanted to put his brains at work he would have known that it was nothing more nor less than the law of nature which had him fast--that same law which makes a bird build a nest in a tree, or a wild animal pre-empt a bed of moss under the roots of a certain tree.

It was the home instinct.

So he began to cast his eye around for a side partner whom he could have and hold, even if he had to coax her up to the altar with a marriage license printed in red and gold and lasso her with a wedding ring. From that time on he was always on the alert for the right one to come along, and every time he heard a sound like a skirt he made an investigation. In about ten days he turned down all the Dollies and Mauds of the Line, for he couldn’t see where they would have a look-in if the cook happened to leave in a hurry and he arrived home with a backwoods appetite. You see he wanted a gas-stove performer who could in an emergency tell the difference between a roast and a ragout in the raw state, and who could juggle with a lot of cold grub in the ice box, and turn out a square meal that was not only hot but nourishing. He was tired of restaurant hash, anyhow, and he was longing for the kind of biscuits that mother used to make.

He figured for awhile on a girl named Elsie, who could make a cocktail to beat the band, and who could also drink more and get away with it than any of the rest. She was a good looker, too, and she had trotted in double harness before, but he found out that she was a bit promiscuous in her tastes, and he didn’t care to feel that he had to stay at home all the time in order to keep her from entertaining any stranger in a pair of trousers who happened along. So he put a red cross, which means “Danger, Keep Off,” opposite her name, and began looking in another direction.

He changed his tactics completely.

“I’m on now,” he said to himself. “I’ll hunt up some nice little innocent girl who doesn’t know anything of the world, and who has taken a course in a cooking school. I want the kind whose ambition in life is to be boss of a nice three-story house, and who doesn’t care any more for Broadway than a hobo does for a hot bath. I’ll just hunt up some mother’s girl who has her hair hanging down her back in a big, thick braid, and I’ll sing her a song that’ll make her think I’m the real thing on wheels.”

So with that very laudable and commendable idea he started out. He didn’t figure that a tough old nut like he was had any right to go up against a game like that, and that his play was to mix with people of his own class. But you’ll find in nine cases out of ten that the worse a man is or has been the more innocence and purity he wants when he is figuring on giving a sky pilot a chance to make a dollar or two.

But having made up his mind the kind of a field he was going to hunt, the next question was how to break in. All the girls he knew were, without exception, of the brand which are at their best when the lights are turned on, who rent flats for business purposes, and who change quarters when an intimation is made by the captain of a police precinct that the change will do them good. To save his life he couldn’t figure out this new proposition, and he was like the man who bought a new double-barreled shotgun and then found out he couldn’t get a permit to hunt the birds the old farmer owned.

And now right here, at the critical moment, in steps fate, luck, or destiny, it doesn’t matter which, for they are all the same, and shuffles the cards for a new deal.

An automobile on Broadway bumped hard enough into the rear end of a hansom cab to almost throw the driver from his seat and to make him swear a blue streak of profane eloquence. The usual crowd collected, and in the bunch caught there by the sudden rush of curious and morbid humanity was the Old Sport. He pushed with both elbows to free himself and then stepped back testily. A girl behind him cried out with pain, and he turned suddenly around to find himself face to face with as choice a little blonde as ever carried books home from school, and, furthermore, she had a braid down her back.

“I beg your pardon, did I hurt you?” he asked.

“I’m afraid you did; you stepped on my foot.”

“Well, just take my arm and let me help you out of this crowd.”

Easy if you only know how and the chance comes your way.

The Old Sport wasn’t really old--not over forty--and he was there with the looks, and the little lady rather liked the way he framed up, as anyone could see by the way she cuddled up to him as she limped along. His heart was beating it like a yeggman coming East on a brake beam, and already he was figuring on how to handle this new proposition.

If it had been one of those other girls he would have said:

“You just send your trunk up to my place, and we’ll go around and have a talk to a minister; how about it?”

But he couldn’t say that to this girl with the pink in her cheeks and the fluffy hair that had never been up against the peroxide.

“Foot pretty bad, Kid?” was the way he broke the ice.

“Oh, no, thank you, it’s all right now, but it hurt me a lot at first.”

“Live far from here?” he came back again.

“No, not very far; only Fifty-third street.”

There was only ten blocks to go, and when they got to the last one he knew all about her. He knew that she was living with her aunt, and that she was taking music lessons because some day she hoped to be able to teach. As they paused for a moment on the corner, he said:

“If you should happen along on Forty-second street to-morrow about 2, I’ll be glad to see you.”

It was a bit crude, but it went all right and the date was made. When she walked away he stood looking after her, and he noticed that she had a nice trim figure, a dainty little foot and that she stepped out like a thoroughbred.

“You for me,” he remarked, and then he hustled back to find some one he could treat, so great was his joy.

So there’s the picture, to use a theatrical term, and the curtain goes down on it for the end of the first act.

Now, you and I and some of the rest of the thirsty crowd will go out and have a drink between acts, but it’s a warm night and instead of one drink there’s half a dozen. Time flies when you’re in good company and the Old Sport was taking no chances. Ten interviews with the girl--ten good, square, honest talks at the rate of a talk a day--and she consented to take a chance with him and tell the folks afterward. He was on the level, though, and when she went home a couple of days later she had the little certificate with her, and after a few tears Auntie was invited around to visit her new nephew and look over the new house.

As for the Sport, he settled down as comfortably as an old buff Cochin-China hen on a dozen eggs, and he made up his mind that he had been missing a good many years of real dyed-in-the-wool happiness while he was traveling The Line with the bunch and throwing all kinds of booze under his belt.

But when the weeks began to add themselves into months he grew a bit restless of nights and it came pretty hard when any of the boys asked him to come along and help them crack a bottle. He took the Mrs. to the show once in a while, but it was always a case of hurry home as soon as the orchestra began to play “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” He didn’t want to take a chance of being caught by any of the Merry-Merrys who were out for the rent and guyed for “marrying decent.” Once or twice he thought he had made a mistake and that the change was too great or too sudden for him, but an hour later when he had his slippers on and was planted in the big armchair in the corner, he knew he wouldn’t make any kind of a change for the world, and he felt that he had lost a good many years out of his life in not getting into this kind of a game sooner. Like an old fire horse, he was all right as long as he didn’t smell fire. But the time was coming, and it was as sure as rent, taxes or death.

It came when he went out one night to be gone not more than a half hour, and when he tried his key in the lock it was 2 A. M., and the girl, her eyes red from crying with the desertion and the loneliness of it all, had fallen asleep, fully dressed, across the foot of the bed. He was very sorry and penitent, but for all that he went out the next night just the same, and after that he was never in. He was back on the old trail, mixing once more, to the great delight of the crowd. The novelty of home had worn off, and when his wife waited up for him she usually found him too drunk to understand what she was saying to him. From one step it is easy to take another, or, as the Chinese say, the creeper always walks in the end. He took to bringing friends home with him at all hours, especially between three and six in the morning, and their arrival was always made apparent by the wild time they had scrambling up the stairs.

Now, in this story--as in real life--always keep your eye on the lady. It doesn’t make any difference where she comes from, whether it’s New York City or Lower Squankum, New Jersey, she is either one of two things, very clever or very dull. There is no medium, for what may seem to you like a medium is only a counterfeit and not the real article. For every ninety-nine dull women there is one clever woman; for every ninety-nine clever women there is one ace who tops the rest as easily as Mont Blanc tops an ant hill. The wife in this case was not one of the dullards, that’s a cinch. If she had been she would have made an idiot of herself and acted the way the rest of them do--which is a great nuisance and annoying to any man. She was a genius, and I ask you to take off your hat to her--as I do.

“I notice,” she remarked to Old Sport one morning, “that you never bring more than one friend home with you when you arrive. Why don’t you bring half a dozen, or three, anyhow? It would be much more companionable.”

He was a bit on his guard at first, but she convinced him that she was serious about it, and then he began to congratulate himself that he had his wife well in hand.

Two nights later he arrived with half a dozen of the hottest hooters that ever held an all-night session in a furnished flat. He let them in with his key, and as they paused at the foot of the stairs, a clock from somewhere chimed out a silvery “three.”

“Come on, boys; open house here; everything goes,” said Old Sport. “My wife says my friends are good enough for her if they’re good enough for me. Come on.”

He, with another, made the start up the stairs, but they hadn’t gone more than a few steps when a brilliant light from the landing somewhere fairly dazzled them.

Directly in front of them, apparently in the act of stepping out of a huge picture frame, was the symmetrical figure of an almost nude woman. The light struck her just right and brought out every detail.

“Great,” shouted someone from the foot of the stairs.

“Shut up, you fool, it’s my wife,” answered the Sport. “Put out that light up there, do you hear? Put it out.”

But it blazed away as steadily as ever, and there was no movement on the part of the figure, except that the full bosom rose and fell with the regularity of her breathing.

The Sport turned around on the stairs.

“Come out of here, you fellows; this is going too far. Come on, skiddoo, all of you.”

And when the last one had gone out he slammed the door behind them. What happened inside is none of your business, nor mine, either, because I don’t believe in scandal, but any evening the Old Sport is wanted he will be found at his home address with his wife and a kid who looks like him.

As for the lady; she has a genius that she is just beginning to appreciate.

CONCERNING A SYRIAN BEAUTY

Transplant the Oriental to the Occident, or in plain words bring a nice-looking girl from the East to New York, for instance, and nine times out of ten there is sure to be something doing. Most of the doings, to be sure, are under the rose, but every once in a while some hint bobs to the surface and the news is wafted about by every breeze of a whisper.

In his very handsomely appointed suite of apartments on the upper West Side is a young fellow who has good enough blood in his veins to be game and take his medicine, and with sense enough to keep his mouth shut. Across the bridge of his nose are three knife cuts made by a blade that was very keen, which was held by a hand that knew its business. His doctor tells him that it is not at all serious, even though inconvenient--you know how doctors talk when there is a good fat fee at the other end of the line. He also says that there is nothing in the world that will prevent and eradicate those three disfiguring scars, even after the wound has been thoroughly healed and every possible surgical precaution taken.

And there’s the rub.

Through all the rest of his life this man, upon whom the world has been smiling since his birth, will be marked with the signs of his folly.

So much for the present.

Now for the recent past.

The woman was a Syrian beauty with sloe eyes and an olive skin that was like a piece of copper-hued satin, so soft and smooth and free from blemish was it. There was a faint flush of red in her cheeks, too, as if the hot blood was trying to break through the tender skin. Her lips were red and full, and because of all that riot of color her teeth showed whiter than they really were. She had, besides, small feet and slim, trim ankles.

Any wise man will appreciate that and understand why they are brought into this story. Up to the age of twenty-five the male animal looks at the female face and is satisfied. After that no such casual scrutiny satisfies him. First face, hair and general contour, then ankles, and often it is the last view which does the work or turns the trick, which is the same thing, only it is expressed differently. This is with the assumption, of course, that the man has enough discrimination to want quality, not quantity. Quantity is unwieldy and unsatisfactory from every viewpoint except from that of the gentleman who is in the butcher business, and who wants a standing advertisement for his shop. _Embonpoint_ is all right in sausages but not in women, excepting--and that is understood--those on dime museum platforms.

The first name of the lady was Dekka, the rest was unpronounceable and we’ll let it go at that. She was a seller of Oriental goods, not from a Tenderloin standpoint, but real merchandise such as is recognized by the law--laces, draperies, bits of cunningly embroidered silks, and even rugs, which she called carpets, with the accent on the first syllable. Her stock was carried in a dress suit case which was handled by her “brother,” who was also a Syrian, and he only resembled her because he, too, had black eyes, an olive skin and dark crispy hair, to say nothing of his small feet.

Day after day they went in and out of houses, flats and apartments, visiting none but the best, and calling an express wagon into service when a rug display was necessary. She was the brains of the combination and did all the selling. His job was done when he put the satchel down by her side. Then he effaced himself and was invisible until she was ready to exit, when he made a mysterious reappearance from somewhere.

And that’s the soup of the story; the roast follows.

The Jap valet to the young man of means and leisure announced to him one afternoon that a dark lady--makes you think of the queen of spades, doesn’t it?--wanted to see him and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Bring her in,” said Jimmy, who was feeling in just the right kind of a humor to see anyone, even a man to whom he owed money, and in a moment she had slipped into the room as lightly as a cat walking on wet grass. There was the sound of her French heels hitting the bare spots on the polished floor that was music to him, and he wondered what there was in the meeting of leather and wood that was so attractive and just a bit different from anything he had ever heard before.

She courtesied in a friendly, intimate sort of a way, and then spoke:

“Good day; the lady? Can I show her some laces? Very fine.”

There was just the faintest touch of an accent in her voice, but it was rather pleasant than otherwise, and it seemed to have a very soothing effect on him.

“There is no lady here,” he laughed, “that is, not yet.”

“Ah, too bad, and such a nice place, too. It is so beautiful.”

She half turned as if to go, and he stepped toward her.

“What have you got to sell? I might buy something.”

“You are so kind; I have them here,” and she motioned to the next room. “My brother bring them, then he go ’way. It is very heavy to carry all the time.”

“Yama,” called he, “bring it in, whatever it is,” and in a moment the Jap came lugging the leather case.

Jimmy noted how deftly the shapely brown fingers unfastened the brass catches, and as she leaned over he found himself studying her with the eye of a man who has seen and known a great many women of all kinds and all nationalities with one or two exceptions, and one of the exceptions was Syrian. A faint perfume, the odor of which he failed to recognize, seemed to fill the room, and he knew it came from her, and he became suddenly aware that he was taking more interest in the saleswoman than he was in the goods she was about to offer him.

When the bag had been opened and the contents tumbled out promiscuously, without any attempt at order or display, she sat down on the rug beside them. She picked out a lace scarf and carefully smoothing out its folds held it before him.

“Very fine,” she said; “all made by hand, see?” and she pointed to the heavy embroidery.

“It’s all right,” he answered, but he wasn’t looking at the silk, he was looking straight in her eyes and wondering why it was he had never met a woman with eyes as black as those before.

“You are not looking,” she said.

“I am,” he replied.

“At the scarf, I mean.”

“No, there is something better.”