Chapter XXIV

Barbara paid Blizzard the compliment of inviting only people who were really fond of music to hear him play. The Braces, Adrian Savage, Blythe the architect, young Morton Haddon, and Barbara herself, composed the party. They dined on a roof, and then, occupying two taxicabs, started for Marrow Lane in the highest spirits. But the East Side had its way with them, and they reached their destination in a serious mood, ashamed, perhaps, of being rich and fortunate, unhappy at feeling themselves envied and hated. Bruce, Adrian Savage, and Barbara were in the leading cab, a brand-new one smelling of leather, and of the gardenia which Barbara was wearing. The filth of the East Side came no nearer to them than the tires of the cab. They were, you may say, insulated, enfortressed against squalor, poverty, crime, and discontent. They were almost free to do as they pleased, as indeed their expedition proved, and yet, such is the natural charity of the human heart, they could not look from the windows of the cab and remain untroubled, or fail to understand a little of those motives which turn the minds of the unfortunate to thoughts of anarchy. There was no whole tragedy unrolled before their eyes, not even a completed episode in one. It so happened that they saw no one in tears or in liquor; on the contrary, they saw many who laughed, many children playing games with and tricks upon one another. Yet in its mirth the region was mirthless; its energy was not physical, but nervous. It had an air of living intensely in the present, for fear of remembering, for fear of looking ahead. And it needed but a misunderstanding or a catchword to turn in a moment from recreation to violence. Indeed, the mere fact of their own passing in the highly polished cab with its wake of burned gas and Havana tobacco turned many a smile into a scowl or a jeer.

Often the driver throttled his car to a snail's pace or brought it to a full stop to avoid running over one of those children who, so far as self-preservation goes, appear to be deaf, dumb, blind, and without powers of locomotion; and during one of these halts a little girl, walking slowly backward, her eyes upon another little girl who for no apparent cause was making a series of malevolent faces at her, collided with one of the tires and fell on her back directly in front of the stationary car. Instantly she began to screech, and the street, hitherto but scatteringly occupied, filled with raging people.

The driver from his seat, Bruce from one window, Savage from the other, attempted to explain to deaf ears. Their voices were drowned in a torrent of abuse.

Barbara, at first only exasperated by the stupidity of the crowd, sitting very still and erect, had upon her face that expression of bored contempt with which aristocrats in the French Revolution are said to have gone to the guillotine. Then that was shouted in her ear which, though but half, understood, turned her scarlet with anger. Unfortunately Savage, hitherto patiently self-controlled, had heard the compounded epithet hurled at Barbara, and in a moment his fighting blood was beyond control, and he was out of the cab raining heavy blows upon a bloated chalky-white face, and receiving worse than he gave from a dozen fists and feet. Strong as a bull, always in training, his strength was beaten and kicked from him in twenty seconds, and with Bruce and the driver--who, bravely enough, if reluctantly, had leaped to his assistance--things were no better.

A whistling, shrill and metallic, brought the fight to a sudden end. The crowd drew back sullen and reluctant, no longer shouting and cursing, but muttering, explaining, and discreet.

Barbara took from her lips the whistle which Kid Shannon had given her. She was very white, but her eyes blazed with the light of success and power. The bringing of the whistle had been an accident, the blowing it an act of desperation: but perceiving the sudden effect of that blowing she could not but feel that she had done something strategically good and in the nick of time. Savage began to straighten his collar and necktie, Bruce to nurse a sprained thumb. The second cab came up. Ely the and Morton Haddon got out and, full of perplexity but not unamused, fell to asking questions of their dishevelled friends. These, winded and bruised, could give but an ejaculatory explanation, mostly of what they would do to such and such a one if they could isolate him from his fellow cutthroats for five minutes; and Blythe and Haddon, not bruised and winded, told them to pull themselves together. Meanwhile the crowd had disintegrated before the possible arrival of Kid Shannon; had vanished like a lump of sugar in a cup of tea. Even the little child who had been the cause of the uproar had disappeared. So a colony of prairie-dogs vanishes into its burrows at the shadow of a hawk.

The short street was deserted save for the figure of a rapidly approaching policeman. Why this guardian of the peace had not been upon his beat during the fracas could have been best explained perhaps by the proprietor of a disorderly house, from whom at the time he had been levying a weekly stipend of lust money and a glass of beer. For his lapse of duty, however, he made such amends as were possible. In short, he took the numbers of both taxicabs, the names of their occupants, and told them, with stern condescension, that they were now at liberty to pursue their interrupted way.

But first Barbara received praise for having blown the whistle, and Bruce and Savage were made to say repeatedly that they insisted on going on with the evening's entertainment; that they were not really hurt, and that they wouldn't think of being driven to a doctor. Everybody wanted to know more about Kid Shannon, and in just what consisted the terror and efficacy of his name. But Barbara could only say that he was a friend of hers, and a sort of henchman of their host for the evening. Then she said, smiling:

"I'm sorry he didn't come himself, but anyway his whistle is a perfectly good whistle, and another time I'll know enough to blow it before anybody gets hurt."

Mrs. Bruce insisted on having her husband ride with her, so Blythe took his place in Barbara's cab, and they reached Marrow Lane without further molestation. Indeed, it seemed as if rumor had gone ahead of them, saying that they were not as other swells, but East-Siders in disguise, integral parts of the master's organization, armed with the whistle of his lieutenant. They were stared at, it is true, and commented upon, but with awe now and childish admiration.

The door of Blizzard's house was opened for them by Kid Shannon.

"Why, Mr. Shannon," exclaimed Barbara, "I blew your whistle, and you never came."

"And wasn't the whistling enough?"

"Why, yes."

He smiled the smile of a general who knows that his troops are in a state of perfect discipline. "The boss is expecting you," he said. "Please step right in."

A faint odor of roses greeted them.