Chapter VIII: Part 8

Not one in a hundred of these men were to the manor born; their lives were cast in stony places and what they are they made themselves by sheer force of will, or else they accepted the golden wreath of opportunity and knew which road to take when they came to the forks.

At a table near the wall is a man who twenty years ago was a bootblack of the city’s streets.

From river to river there was no spot on which he could put his finger and say:

“This is my home.”

He grew up like a blade of grass sprouting between stones, and he fought tooth and nail for his life. He knew what kicks and cuffs were, and if his memory isn’t bad he knows yet.

He blacked the boots of a man with florid face, a heavy gold chain across his vest, and a mammoth stone blazing like a headlight in his scarf, and because this boy was bright of eye and keen of wit his customer, whose business was politics, took a fancy to him. Had this little nomad been born with a gold spoon in his mouth he could not have fared better, nor could his prospects have been more alluring, for a politician, you know, is a man who, when he goes to bed at night, hangs his trousers on the bedpost, and when he wakes up in the morning the pockets are full of money. At least, that is my idea, and if I am wrong just let some of the leading politicians of to-day contradict me, and tell me truly how they got theirs.

While this man is eating his lobster a la Newburg, and sipping the wine that cost him $5 a bottle, I’ll go on with the story.

For about two weeks he blacked his patron’s shoes, and then one fateful morning the man with the bull neck said sharply:

“Chuck that box away, son, and come along with me.”

He didn’t wait for the boy to take the cue and act on it, but he gave the box a kick with his square-toed boot that sent it to the middle of the street, and then he led the boy to a clothing shop where he had him fitted out with everything a fellow that size ought to have.

He saw possibilities in this youngster, and he figured that it would be a wise move to have some one as close to him as his shirt, and upon whom, in time of trouble, he could depend with absolute certainty.

A good bed, good food three times a day and money in the pocket serves often to make a marvelous transformation, and it was so in this case, and the erstwhile bootblack forgot in a moment that he had ever shined shoes or performed any menial services for any human being. He was swept along on the tide of prosperity with his patron and he scoffed at poor things and poor people, as might have been expected. He was aggressive to everyone except his source of income, whom he followed and fawned upon like a hound.

The work he did was criminal, but he did it cheerfully, even though a hundred could have sent him up the river with a word. His morals were as flat as a desert, and he grew into a selfish, egotistical, arrogant, blatant man whose friends were friends by force of circumstances, and not by reasons of any virtues that he possessed, or of any real liking they had for him.

In the course of time the big man with the neck of a gladiator died, and was buried in a manner fitting his life. A ton of flowers followed him to the six-foot hole which had been provided for him; a few bottles of wine were drunk by his cronies to drown their grief and to toast his successful debut into that new and unknown world to which he had gone, and that was all.

The bootblack, who had taken himself seriously, and was fond of calling himself a gentleman on all possible occasions, for no other reason apparently than that he wore the best clothes that money could buy, took possession of his patron’s effects, rifled his safe, his desk, and appropriated to himself everything that was of the slightest value, and then developed into a short card man.

So he sits there to-night, eating lobster and talking to a woman who, between you and me, is worth looking at more than once.

By an old and familiar, as well as extremely simple, process she had taken his name. It was a trifling matter, settled in a moment over a small bottle, and her only speculation was as to whether he could suitably provide for her.

It was a very good investment for him, for she has proven to be a very useful little lady in more ways than one. She knows a lot of real nice boys, and when they get very sporty she tells them about a good game where good fellows may be found. She is the kind of a woman who would make a sport out of a church deacon, consequently she fits very snugly into the life and trade of our friend the shoe-shiner.

When you get to know her passing well she will tell you how she was educated in a convent, which she left to visit a wealthy aunt in Pittsburg. While there she became engaged to marry a rich broker, and so on, and so on, you know, the same old story. The stage figures in it, too, because there is always a fascinating glamor about the other side of the footlights.

She has been in comic opera and she has a lot of expensive photographs of herself in theatrical poses, but no matter how well posted you may be you fail to recall her name, even though she was an understudy for Lillian Russell, “when Lillian was good.”

If you let your glance rove across the room to a table close by one of the central pillars, you will see another type of woman, and this one is worth studying.

She will never see her fortieth birthday again, although she looks about thirty-two. That may be art, or it may be an inherited physical characteristic, but the fact remains that she is still young enough and good looking enough to attract a man.

She is a veritable star and her singing and acting are flawless.

The fine old gentleman she is chatting with is the head of a very ancient and very distinguished family of New York, and she is under his protecting wing.

That is a remarkable feature of her career; she always selects with painstaking care, nice old men, with families.

And for that there may be a good and sufficient reason.

While you are watching her and noting her rather dainty ways, which are perhaps a bit too dainty for one of her age, listen to the little story I am going to tell you about her.

Not so many years ago, but just about the time when she was in the zenith of her career, she met just the same kind of a man she is talking with now. She had had a great deal of experience with old men and she took advantage of all she knew to make him like her.

She succeeded--hence this story.

The old fellow was all right, and he knew what was necessary under the circumstances, and he made good with characteristic rapidity. The first thing he did was to buy her a handsome brownstone house on a quiet side street, fill it full of handsome furniture, and then he blew himself in for a neat little brougham and pair for theatre use.

So far, so good, and the play went merrily on.

And now comes a spectacle, or a melodrama, or even a farce, if you like.

He wasn’t her constant companion, because he was clever enough to realize that if she saw too much of him it might be fatal to his chances, so he timed his visits with careful exactitude, and incidentally showered her with gifts--which, after all, is one of the direct roads to a woman’s heart.

But he made the fatal mistake one day of introducing to her one of his old friends, and from that moment there began a fierce rivalry between them for the smiles of the auburn-haired actress; it was a duel with a lock of hair as a reward; a combat with a smile for the victor, and they both went to work with a will and to the exclusion of every other object in life.

When one bought her a magnificent solitaire, she showed it to the other and he promptly laid a tiara at her feet, and it was unquestionably the greatest battle of senile old idiots that ever raged.

Separately they took to waylaying her on the street from her house to the theatre, and back again, and one even went so far as to buy a magnificent yacht, equip it for a long cruise, and attempt to kidnap her. But that plan failed, and it was just as well that it did, because the man who does eccentric stunts of that character is apt to find himself in hot water sooner or later, and in any event reap a whirlwind of scorn from the lady in the case.

Finally, the climax came, as it was bound to come, when they met at her house one Sunday afternoon.

All this may be new to you, but you must remember it was as common in club circles as the Spanish war, and the results of the affair were watched for by thousands of men whose names figure conspicuously in the public prints.

They met and they quarreled, and when my lady appeared on the scene these two beaux were on the verge of punching each other in good old Queensbury fashion.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, I beg that you will not quarrel in _my_ house.”

You will notice that she put the accent on the word “my.”

At once there were criminations and recriminations, but with that charm of manner which made her famous, not only on the stage, but in the drawing room, to say nothing of the cafe, she poured oil on the troubled waters.

“I do not really know what your differences are about, but if you will allow me, I would like to suggest that you settle them in some amicable way. Here are dice and a cup, why not play for it?”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then one said:

“Yes, we will do it, madame, just the thing. Here, I will make the first throw,” and out upon the shining surface of the golden table rolled the three ivory cubes.

They fought it out while she looked on languidly, and at last when it had been decided, the winner arose exultingly and shouted:

“I have won.”

“Won what?” she queried, curiously.

“Won what? Why, won you.”

“Won me?” and she placed her taper finger on her breast. “Why, how very charming that is. I ought to congratulate you, I suppose, and I shall certainly let you know when I come back--if you are still alive.”

“You’re not going away?” he faltered. “When?”

“I sail to-morrow morning at eight o’clock; I go aboard this afternoon. I am going to Europe for a good long rest; mother says I need it, and so we are going together. Good afternoon. Let me congratulate you on being so lucky, and to win me, too. Why, it’s like a romance. How splendidly that would stage.”

Down the street the two old fellows walked, one slightly in advance of the other. At the corner the one who was ahead, hesitated a moment, then turned and waited for the other to come up.

“Tom,” he said. “I don’t know what you think, but I am of the opinion that we are a pair of damned old fools who ought to know better. Let’s go and have a drink.”

The old gentleman who is pouring out that wine for her now would perhaps like to hear that story in all its wealth of detail, but even if he knew it might make no difference.

Of all the thousands of people who go to restaurants there are only a few who do not go for the sole purpose of eating. We have been here an hour and have looked over but two tables, and the story is not half told.

A VOICE IN THE SLUMS

This is one of the “places” of New York.

It is not worth looking at in the daylight, because there is nothing to see.

It is gray, dull, dreary and desolate--too dismal to be considered for even a moment.

About it all there is not one thing that is attractive.

It is downtown and on the East Side, and that is enough to tell the story.

If you have never been downtown on the East Side of this big city, go and take a look some time, it is worth it, and you may see some things there--as I have--that will interest you.

At night you wouldn’t recognize this place because of the softening and concealing effect of the electric lights.

Besides the lights there is music, and in addition to that there are women--what kind of women you can guess, but the fact remains that they are still women, and even their presence helps to brighten up this spot of the slums.

Toughs of the street straggle in singly and by twos, glancing warily about for prey, or in search of girls to whom they are attached. The type is familiar enough in every city. Square-jawed, low-browed, with shifting eyes and an aggressive manner; dressing well when the money comes easy, and not so well when hard times arrive; living by their wits, which at the best is precarious, relying for the necessities of life upon a girl; spending a certain portion of time in jail, unless, as it often happens, they are too cowardly to rob a man, but not too cowardly to take from a woman.

Sightseers drift in, too, from everywhere, look curiously about, as if expecting some remarkable and extraordinary occurrence at any moment, and failing in that, they take chairs at the nearest table, and give meek orders to the aggressive waiter for liquors which they seem afraid to drink.

At stated intervals someone sings a song, and between times the music plays a waltz for those who care to dance on the bit of polished floor reserved for that purpose.

The very dregs of high life.

It is the lees of the wine.

Just a few years ago--so short a time that it seems almost like yesterday--a young woman was singing in light operas and doing occasional turns in vaudeville. If I were to tell you her name now it would have as familiar a sound to you as the name of any other popular performer.

One of her distinguishing characteristics was her voice, which had a remarkable and extraordinary range.

And how she could use it.

She was absolute master of it, and there was no doubt about her success, nor her future, either, barring accidents, of course.

Besides that she was good to look at. She was of a distinctive style of beauty, and she had a fetching way with her which spelled magnetism.

Magnetism, between you and me, means success on the stage--or anywhere else, for that matter. Take the best actor or actress in the world, one who is perfect in lines, diction and stage business; who is absolute master of the art of stage craft, and rob them of magnetism, and I will show you a failure.

So, you see, this young woman was well equipped for the business she was in, and there is the picture.

Nicely gowned, looking and acting like a thoroughbred, she had a big following of admirers, and there didn’t seem to be anything on earth within reason that she wanted she couldn’t have.

The limit of her vices was a few mild drinking bouts with the boys and the occasional smoking of a cigarette, even though there was a possibility that in the years to come the tobacco would destroy the finer tones of her voice.

The moral end of the business was her own affair, and consequently will not be touched on.

Now look.

See that pallid woman?

The one who has just come in. She is talking to a waiter now. Her thin face is seamed with lines, and the light of youth, of life and of enthusiasm has gone out of her eyes.

You wouldn’t think she was once a beautiful girl with a wonderful voice, would you?

“I had the yin-yin so bad,” she is saying, “that I had to go in and hit two pills before I came out. Now I’m good till the lights go out.”

One night, after the show, she went with a party on a slumming tour through Chinatown. They were out to have a good time and nothing more.

In one of the resorts in which they stopped was a good-looking young bartender who caught her fancy. He was all right in a way, but she outclassed him about twenty to one, but there is no telling what a woman is going to do, or upon whom she is going to bestow her favors, any more than one can tell what the state of the weather will be a month or two months from now.

She thought she was in love with him--but she wasn’t. She had only taken a fancy to him, which was a different sort of a proposition, but she didn’t know it at that time.

She went on singing just the same, but the time she was out of the theatre she spent with him, and the more money she earned the better he dressed.

She dipped a little deeper into the different vices, until at last she went up against the king of them all--opium.

With all of her drinking and cigarette smoking she was still able to hold her own and keep her voice in some kind of shape, and many a rare old song has she trilled in some cheap dive, and made the old-timers straighten up in their seats and tell her she was all right. Previous to that she had figured in only one escapade and that was when she was caught in a raid at a masked ball which was so off-color and made up of many desperate characters--men and women--that it took a platoon of police with drawn clubs to bring the affair to a sudden end.

They will never forget the night when she went down to the “Drum” in James street, and after setting up the drinks for the crowd, stood in the centre of the grimy floor and without a note of accompanying music sang Annie Laurie.

At the end of the first verse, a drunk crept on his hands and knees from a dark corner where he had been lying, and staggering to his feet, looked at her dully with bloodshot eyes, and then cursed her so violently that she instinctively shrank back for a moment.

But she had been drinking, too, and was equal to the emergency.

“Shut up,” she retorted. “I’m going to sing the whole damned song or break a rib trying,” and with that she started on the second verse.

Sitting on a chair, holding his head in his hands, the man began to sob and cry as only a man whose heart is aching can, and then, as if he could stand it no longer, he rushed madly from the place while she laughed.

“I can make them all quit if they will stay long enough.”

Almost a year later that same man, but dressed and washed and respectable, came downtown one night, and went through all the places upon whose floors he had fallen and slept many a night, looking for the girl who had sung that song.

He found her at three o’clock in the morning on the Bowery.

She was sitting at a table in McGurk’s with two men with whom she had been drinking cheap whiskey for hours.

“I beg your pardon,” said the man, “but are you the young woman who sang a song in a place on James street about a year ago--Annie Laurie it was?”

“I may have, old pal, I’ve sung a lot of songs in my day.”

“Well, you will probably be glad to know that that song was the turning point in my life, and I am now a reformed man. I feel that I owe it to you, and I want to give you some little memento that you can keep.”

As he spoke he pulled a package out of his pocket and handed it to her. With unsteady fingers she unwrapped it and when she had opened the case she saw a gold watch upon which was engraved:

_To the singer who saved my life._

“You’re a good old sport, all right, let’s have a drink on it.”

“No, thank you,” he said, hurriedly. “I must be going now, but I want to tell you that you have a great gift which you are throwing away.”

“So long, old pal, live while you can, for you’ll be a long time dead,” she said, and he was gone.

She looked at the watch curiously for a moment, and then called one of the waiters.

“Ha, Jimmy, here’s a swell watch. Ask the old man how much he will give me for it--it looks to be worth about fifty.”

The waiter returned in a few minutes and said:

“He says he’ll give you ten.”

“All right, he’s on, get the coin.”

She stayed until she had spent the money, and then she went reeling home.

True? Of course it’s true, every word of it.

But she’s not drinking so hard now, opium is her god, and she spends most of her time with her pipe and her lamp. Her downward course has been a very rapid one, and her name has almost been forgotten.

The man at the next table is whispering to his friends:

“She was the greatest singer I ever heard, and many a time I’ve gone to the same show three times in one week just to hear her, and when a woman’s voice gets me like that you can bet it’s got to be good.”

“Get her to sing now; I’d like to hear her.”

“Sing now? Why, she couldn’t sound a note if her life depended on it. She’s got all she can do to talk plain. She looks like a piece of leather, doesn’t she? Yet she made the prettiest picture on the stage I ever saw.”

Her voice interrupted here.

It was harsh and strident in tone--there was little of the woman in it.

“Well, if you won’t buy me a drink I’ll buy one for myself; give me a whiskey, Jack, and don’t be all night about it, either.”

“Why don’t you get that Chinky of yours to buy you a drink?” remarks some one from the other side of the room.

“Why don’t you mind your own business? He’d buy me all the drinks I wanted if I would ask him, and that’s more than you would do. If anybody asks you just tell them that the Chinks are all right, see, and don’t be so new.”

“Cut that out, you fresh guy over there, cut it out.”

Here’s a champion for her; there are a few left who are still under her spell, or who, remembering what she once was and knowing her in her palmy days, stick for old time’s sake.

“Have a drink on me, old pal, and go as far as you like.”

She comes back with a laugh; and if you look closely--if you have those kind of eyes that can see things below the surface, so to speak--you will see that she doesn’t really belong here, and never did. That she is here because of some unfortunate series of circumstances over which, perhaps, she had no control. You will see something in her manner that distinguishes her from the rest of the women, even those who are better looking and better dressed. It is that intangible, indefinite something which means blood, or previous environment. It cannot be put on and taken off like a garment, and when once there it is there to stay.

That makes the wreck all the more pitiable, and with the same eyes through which you have just looked you will see the finish.

It isn’t pleasant to look at, and now, while the music is playing for the waltz, and the couples are getting on the floor to go through that interminable routine of steps called dancing, while the painted women are laughing, and the men are calling them pet--or other--names, we will go out of this room to where we can breathe a fresher air and see the stars.

I’m not sentimental, but there are some things I don’t like to see, besides, I knew the girl when she was at her best, and I have heard her sing when she brought the house down with applause.

A GIRL OF THE NIGHT

The band on the platform at the end of the big hall was booming out the popular melodies of the day for dear life and the piercing notes produced by the leather-lunged piccolo player were heard as far as the street.

“That guy up there has me deaf with that flute he’s blowing,” remarked Big Lizzie, “and while I don’t wish him any harm yet I hope he chokes.”

“That knocks this place,” remarked her pal. “Why, I had a John in here the other day and he was wanting to buy me a new dress, and I thought he was wanting to know where I lived, and I was writing my name and number down on a piece of paper and he got disgusted and went away. It drives ’em out, if you want to know what I think.”

But it was once a famous old place when Fourteenth street was really good, and the casual visitor to New York who didn’t drop in for an hour or so missed something.

It was one of the sights, and the great mechanical organ invented and built by a straight-laced Methodist is there still, although he has long ago ceased calling the attention of his friends to the fact. Its tunes to-day are sandwiched in with those of the band, and in the interval the trombone player gets a chance to recover his breath.

Morning, noon and night men and women wander in, sit at the little round tables, drink queer decoctions made of liquor strong enough to eat into Harveyized steel, and then go forth to tear up the town. The police pass it by as though it were nothing more serious than an ice cream parlor or a peanut emporium, while the tide of upholstered and hand-painted mademoiselles sweep in on the flood and drift out on the ebb with business written in every line of their faces.

Their paths radiate like the sticks of a fan from this rendezvous of the social evil, and in their movements they show nearly all the characteristics of the honey-gathering bee.

The engaging and winsome smile of a girl not yet out of her teens had caught the eye of the man in this story, and against his will he had allowed her to lead him into this place where mirth was nothing more nor less than a mask behind which a skeleton face grinned, and where neither laughter nor anything else was sincere. Her black eyes had not yet taken on that hardness which the years to come would surely add to them, and her ways were to a certain extent ingenuous. Besides, she was distinctly pretty with her Yiddish style of beauty, which was unfortunately of the kind which matures at sixteen and is old at twenty-five. Either teaching or a subtle instinct had caused her to discard the gorgeous plumes and brilliant colors which had marked her debut on the street less than a year before, and in consequence she might have passed for anything but what she was.

She had been on the stage once on a tour, but got a rough deal and quit.

He outclassed her by a hundred to one, and his source was as high as hers was low. There was no tinge of peasantry in his veins, but good successful American stock traceable back for five or six generations without a blot upon escutcheon--which, by the way, is rather rare in these days, consequently it’s worth boasting about. Lured into the maelstrom of music, he found himself at one of the tables with the girl beside him, still smiling.

Liquor has different effects on different men; it turns the mild man into a savage and makes a careful one reckless in the extreme. In this particular case caution went to the four winds and sympathy--which is apt to be dangerous at times--took its place. But let youth and inexperience excuse him.

“You haven’t told me your name,” he said. “What is it?”

“Brown,” she answered, “Jennie Brown.”

“I mean your right name.”

“Well, Jennie is my right name--I took the other one after I came out of the hospital. Some day, maybe, I’ll get married and then I’ll change it again, but not before.”

“What did you go to the hospital for--were you ill and did you have no one to take care of you?”

“Ill? You mean sick? No, I wasn’t sick; I was stabbed, and I got it good, too. I was cut from here to here,” and her right forefinger described across the front of her dress a line that went from her shoulder to the center of her breast bone. “At first I thought I was going to croak because I lost a lot of blood, but I’m pretty strong and I came out all right. You see, it was this way: A guy I knew got stuck on me and I couldn’t shake him, and he followed me around like a shadow. I didn’t like him because he wasn’t in my class, and besides he had another girl and I never took a girl’s fellow away in my life. If they split up then that’s different, but as long as they’re together I keep out of it. Every time I’d talk to anybody or go anywhere he’d be there. One night he followed me and a fellow I had that wanted to buy wine into Sharkey’s and when he tried to start a fight with my friend one of the waiters threw him out. Of course that made him sore, and he said that he’d get even. He did, all right, for one night as I was going upstairs he was in the top hall waiting for me, and the first thing I knew he had the knife into me.

“‘If you won’t have me, take this,’ he said, and then I felt an awful pain and when I put my hand up the blood was coming through my dress.

“‘You killed me, Jimmy,’ I said, ‘and I never done anything to you.’ But there wasn’t any answer to that, for he was running down the stairs as fast as he could.

“I was afraid to go up to my room all alone with the blood running out all over me so I went down to the street to look for my pal, Annie. You don’t know her but she’s all right. It was two o’clock in the morning and there was no one around so I thought I’d walk over to Third avenue and see if I could find any of the girls there and get help. There was an electric light up on the corner and I hadn’t taken more than a few steps before it began to move up and down and I got afraid and began to run. When I got up to the avenue all the lights were going up and down as if they were crazy and a man on the other side of the street looked as if he was upside down.

“Then I began to get frightened and I thought to myself that I’d sit down on a doorstep for a minute till I got over that queer feeling and that maybe Annie would come along. So I picked the first one I saw and flopped down. When I looked up it made me dizzy and so I looked down at the stone, and as I leaned over I watched the little red drops falling, one after the other, and always hitting the same spot, and then they began to spread out and the pool almost reached the sole of my shoe. I was wondering how long it would take before my foot got wet from it, and where it all came from, anyhow. It all seemed very funny to me; then I felt tired and shut my eyes.

“The next thing I knew I was in bed and there was a nurse there. A cop was there, too, and when I looked at him he says, ‘Ha, nurse, she’s out of it.’

“‘What place is this?’ I asked.

“‘You’re in Bellevue Hospital,’ he said, and he was right. I had been there two days before I knew it. What do you think of that?”

“You were unconscious,” remarked the young man.

“Sure I was unconscious,” she responded, “and they asked me all kinds of questions, who did it and all that, and----”

“And did you tell them who it was that stabbed you?”

“Did I tell them? Nix; not on your life. I never rapped on anybody and I wasn’t going to rap on him, for it wouldn’t do me any good and it wouldn’t take that stab away, would it? I thought I’d get square myself some day when I got out of the hospital and was strong again. That’s the only way. Him going up the river for a couple of years wouldn’t have done me any good, and maybe he’d have croaked me when he came out. What’s the good of taking chances? So I hocked all my rings and other stuff, and got togged up when I came out. I’ll get them all out in a month, maybe before. I got one now; see,” and she held up a finger on which was a very big turquoise, surrounded by very small diamonds. “I’ll get them one at a time, and then if I ever get up against it again I’ve got them to fall back on. It’s just as good as money, only the interest is awful. Now if I only had a good friend who would----”

“Want the waiter?” broke in a hoarse voice like the croak of a mammoth raven.

“Give me a claret lemonade, Harry.”

“And what’ll the gent have?”

“A Martini cocktail.”

“Right you are.”

“As I was saying, if I only had a friend who would be on the level I’d be square with him, too. I ain’t got no pals, only Annie, and she’s been pretty good to me. Say, you ain’t married, are you?”

“No, not yet”; he laughed nervously as he said it. “I don’t believe in fellows getting married until they’re twenty-five, anyhow.”

“Neither do I.”

He noticed that her teeth were very white and even, and that her eyebrows and hair were jet black. The color on her cheeks had been put there with a skilled hand, and so deftly done that it passed for the real thing--in nature, not in art. Her hands were shapely, her nails manicured carefully and she had a trim figure. It was all stock in trade, but he wasn’t figuring it that way. Half a dozen of the kind of drinks they had given him had torn down the barrier, so far as he was concerned, that had been raised by society between it and the Scarlet Woman, and the pathos of her story had set him thinking and had roused all of his sympathies. She had played her part with all of the subtleness of the finished actress and had told her story with such simplicity and naivette that many an older man would have been deceived by the recital. She was working up to the climax as carefully and cautiously as the hunter works up into the wind after the unsuspecting deer, or the soft-footed cat ambushes the bird singing in the hedge. The emotional breed of her race helped to make her realistic, and her vivacity was contagious. Put her on the stage and she would be a success with proper training.

“If,” she laid her hand caressingly on the sleeve of his coat, “if I could find someone who would get my rings out and give me a chance I would be willing to do anything for him. I don’t like this life, always hustling, chased by the police and treated like a thief. But once in it’s hard to get out, for no one wants to give you a chance.”

He was looking over her head and watching the man with the cornet rubbing up the brass with his handkerchief.

“You are not listening to me.”

“Yes, I am; I heard every word you said. How much would it cost to get your jewels out?”

“Only $125. It might not be much for you, but it’s a lot for me.”

Here was the climax, so far as her story was concerned. She could have repeated those three figures long before, but she wasn’t ready. She was waiting for the psychological moment and it had arrived. The picture was made and the hand was ready.

And now your attention is respectfully called to Fate, the intruder; the upsetter of carefully laid plans; the wrecker; sometimes the promoter, because it does as many things for good as it does for bad. In this case, however, it was good and bad, according to the viewpoint.

“If you wouldn’t mind I’ll get them out for you. Let’s go now,” he said.

She leaned back in her chair and smiled at him--a smile of happiness and success; the smile of a child when it gets its first Christmas doll; and then she drew a deep breath. Still smiling, her eyes half closed, she looked at him through the narrow slits and contemplated the possibilities of the future. There was no hurry and she could afford to wait, for she had won out.

A woman, coarse of feature and with fright depicted on her face, came hurrying in. She saw the girl at one end of the room and ran to her.

“Jennie, for God’s sake, come quick; your Billy’s just been pinched on the corner.”

“Billy pinched; what for?” The jubilation in her black eyes turned to terror.

“For swiping a bloke’s leather. They got it on him; hurry up.”

The boy stared wide-eyed at them for a moment, then pushing his chair back he arose unsteadily to his feet.

“Seventy-five cents for the drinks.”

It was the waiter’s voice.

He fumbled in his pocket, brought forth a handful of change, deposited it in the outstretched palm, and began to weave his way among the tables toward the door in the wake of the hurrying women.

“He’s a swell kid, all right,” remarked the waiter, as he counted the $3.25 in change, “and I hope he comes back.”

AFTER THE WEDDING BELLS

There was a big crowd on the ferryboat from Jersey when she bumped her nose into the pier at New York that morning, but when the gates were thrown open there wasn’t the usual scurry and rush to land that marked the morning arrival. At the front, hugging the rail on the woman’s side was a nice little blonde dressed all in white, even down to her shoes and stockings, and with a complexion of the kind known as peachy, if you have any idea what that is. Fastened to her with a strong arm hold was a fellow of about twenty-three--years, not skiddoo, you understand--and he was togged out like a hot sport after a winning fight, or one who had picked the 20 to 1 shot at Sheepshead for the first time in his life. Top hat, frock coat, white vest, patent leather shoes, pearl tie and gray gloves completed the picture, and it was the surest case of orange blossoms and wedding cake that ever happened.

That was what held the crowd and made a few of them whistle what sounded very much like that old familiar tune of “Here Comes the Bride.”

Arm in arm, entirely oblivious of anything in the world except themselves and their own happiness, the couple marched off the boat, heads up in the air and trailed by the grinning bunch, and if ever a case of love’s young dream went around on legs this was surely it.

They knew as much about New York as a Shrewsbury River clam knows about cigarettes, and it didn’t require the services of a head-grabber or a hand-holder to know that they were hunting a honeymoon hostelry.

They had come from the fertile fields of Freehold to the land where there are real bathtubs with hot and cold water, and where a chunk of plain calf is soused with gravy, called fricandeau of veal, and charged for at the rate of a dollar a portion.

What was money made for except to spend, especially on occasions of this kind? You’re young but once, and then a little makes you feel like a millionaire and you get value received and five times over for every dollar you peel off the roll. But when Time, who is the most wonderful artist in the world, does a few stunts, makes brown hair turn gray and deftly paints in the wrinkles, then the joy of spending goes and pleasure becomes as soggy as a wet sponge. Years are the frosts which kill the flowers of hope and ambition, and there are thousands of men who would give millions of dollars if they could but stand off, if only for a brief while, the gray-haired patriarch with the scythe.

Just think of the sight of a young bride and groom holding in leash, as it were, a couple of hundred business men who were as anxious to get on the job of making money as a dog is to get a bone, and all of these hard-headed fellows smiling as if each one of them were in the same position as the young fellow who was fast to her arm.

Up the street to Broadway, where they turned north, and then they were lost to all but two men, and these two were trailing.

Begins to sound like one of Old Sleuth’s detective stories, doesn’t it? Where the villains are always on the job and always being foiled. Where it is either a case of murder the child and get the papers or kidnap the girl and marry her so as to get the old man’s fortune. Doesn’t that take you back a few years when you used to have those yellow-covered books in your inside pocket and believe every word you read, or are you so unfortunate as to have never lived the life of a real boy, with all its castle building and romancing? You know there are men in this world who still dream of those days, and it doesn’t do them any harm, either.

The two men who were brought into this story a moment ago are still in the game, but they are neither burglars nor kidnappers. They are simply a pair of good fellows with enough money on the side to get anything within reason, and a belief that there are happy days and good people in this world if you only take the trouble to look for them.

“I’ll bet,” said one, “that that kid hasn’t more than a hundred in his clothes, and that he feels as if the world was his to do with as he likes.”

“The world is his if he has as much as a hundred,” returned the other. “That will give him the time of his life for three weeks, and he wouldn’t go back broke, either, unless his home is in London, which it isn’t.”

“She’s a nice-looking girl all right, and from the way they’re heading I should say it would be Niagara for theirs.”

“Niagara nothing,” retorted his friend, “that is a spot that belongs to the past. Our mothers and fathers made it fashionable, but the present generation takes to big cities as naturally as a duck takes to water, for they want the busy life and the theatres. The billing and cooing of the newly wed is all done under cover now and they mix with the crowd. You’ll find them taking in the big cafes along The Line getting a good look at things they never expect to see again, and these are the things they will be talking about twenty or thirty years from now. Make a picture of that couple ahead there in 1926, for instance. He’ll be telling his friends about this day, and the night they went to see Joe Weber, and he’ll tell how the buildings first impressed him, and then she’ll butt in with:

“‘Say, Henry, what was the name of the restaurant in New York we went to after we saw that funny show--you know, the place where we had that lobster a la Newburg?’

“As long as she lives she’ll talk about lobster a la Newburg because it sounds different, you see, and that’s the woman of it.

“Then Henry will stroke his whiskers and take his corncob pipe out of his mouth and say, as if he had known the place all his life, ‘Why, that was Shanley’s.’”

“Cut it out, for you’re talking like one of Denman Thompson’s home-made rural drammers,” put in his friend, as he pulled out his cigar case. “You’re always looking for the unusual and the sentimental, so I’ll make you a proposition. Let’s get next to this pair of turtle doves and give them the send-off of their lives. We’ll start off with a lunch, then a matinee, after that dinner, from there to a show and then a windup in a blaze of glory with wine and all the trimmings of a wedding feast. You’ve nothing to do, neither have I, and maybe if we do the thing up right she’ll name it--if it is a boy--after one of us or both of us, just think of that. There’s fame for you.”

That is how it happened that an hour later a newly-married young couple, under the escort of two young men who were pretty well known around town, were lunching at the Waldorf just as if they had known each other for years.

“You see,” one of the hosts was explaining, “we had an invitation to a wedding out of town to-day and we missed the train. We felt as if we wanted to entertain some one in honor of the event and we thought we would ask you. We want you to be our guests from now until 1 o’clock to-morrow morning----”

The young husband glanced uneasily at his wife and she smiled back reassuringly.

The woman, with that unerring female instinct which is born with all females of the human tribe, understood the situation at a glance and was ready for the lark. Besides, both hosts were good looking and well dressed and her vanity was touched. She was young enough to be natural and old enough to be appreciative. Besides, there were a few healthy drops of sporting blood in her veins, and that tells a good part of the story.

There are cases where details are uninteresting, and while the time from luncheon to near the hour of midnight seemed to the honeymooners one wild carouse yet it was really nothing to those who are familiar with the ways of the world. They had sampled everything within reason from soda to hock, and the happy Freehold boy with the silk lid was willing to walk on his hands if anyone had dared him. He had told everyone he met all he knew and all he ever expected to know. As for the little lady who had been toasted many times as the “blushing bride,” she had suddenly developed sporting proclivities of a rare character, and she squeezed the hands of both of her hosts with equal impartiality.

Confidentially it was rather a dangerous situation, for if the bridegroom had been helped to a few more drinks he wouldn’t have cared whether the place where he was laid away was a bridal couch or the soft side of a board. That was the state of affairs when, calling each other by their first names, so friendly had they become, that they all went up to the apartment of one of the hosts for the wind-up banquet.

“How are you feeling, little sport, getting a head yet?”

“I’m just right, and I’d like to have you for a brother,” she retorted.

“Only a brother?”

“Perhaps I should have said father.”

Which showed that she had a pretty wit, too, as well as a head.

At the table the hosts had multiplied by two and so there were six. The first flash of cocktails set the groom’s head to buzzing a bit and his speech began to be a trifle thick. At the sauterne he had a job to keep his head up straight, and he had no sooner finished his first glass of wine than he excused himself to get a handkerchief. He dropped on a friendly couch in the next room and promptly forgot that he was alive. His wife was no such miserable failure, for she clinked glasses with the rest of them and was entertained so well that it seemed as if she forgot she had ever been married.

As the clock on the mantel struck two she was dancing a hornpipe on that end of the table which had been cleared by the soft-footed Japanese butler, and what was more she was dancing it well, too. The four hosts were applauding and drinking her health as the best little thoroughbred they had ever met, and in each brain there was a wish that she was anything but a bride, for each of these men, from the oldest to the youngest, was in love.

It was a most curious and remarkable state of affairs, and there was a chance here for a break that might spell ruin to someone. Then the patter of the little feet on the tablecloth ceased and she stepped daintily down to chair and floor. The man nearest helped her, and as she alighted he leaned over and kissed her squarely on the lips. The color in her cheeks was accentuated just a trifle as he glanced suddenly around.

“Where’s my husband?” she asked.

“With his toes turned up on the couch in the next room and dead to the world. If he was half the sport and good fellow you are he’d be an ace. You ought to have been born in New York, Chappie, for you belong there.”

“I think I will go and see him, if you will excuse me,” she said very demurely, and then she went out.

The four hosts drank and talked and smoked and all the talk was of the bride, and it was all complimentary, too. When an hour had passed the butler was sent to see if she would return.

She came back all right, smiling, but there was a change.

“I think we ought to go now, but I can’t get him up. He’s not used to this sort of thing, you see, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Why, stay right here, of course. We’re all going now and Jim, the gorilla who owns the place, is going, too. The shack is yours until you get ready to leave, for you’re all right. How about that, Jim?”

“Just as you say--she owns it and us, too. Give your orders to Saki there, and we’ll call and take dinner with you every evening. We hope the boy will be all right in the morning. Good-night.”

That’s all.

It seems as if there ought to be more, but there really isn’t.

With one large high absinthe I could make a hair-raising finish, but I have made up my mind to tell only the truth for a change and give my imagination a much needed rest, and this is a truthful story and it happened just as it is put down here.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.